In the present context where global terror attacks are happening almost on a weekly basis, the need for intelligence agencies to step up their game is critical.
And that reality only serves to highlight the damage Obama’s domestic surveillance did to U.S. wiretap regulations.
Because of the ‘incidental’ tapping by Obama’s FBI of private individuals along with the resultant ‘unmasking’ of their information, there’s serious threat of the whole thing getting scrapped, which could come at the cost intelligence operations being barred from conducting any legitimate surveillance of suspected terrorists at all.
But hey, Obama promised to ‘fundamentally transform’ the country.
Here’s more from Redstate…
Thanks to leaks targeting Michael Flynn and other members of the Trump administration, the reauthorization of
A small revolt in corners of the Republican Party bedevils plans for reauthorization this year of surveillance capabilities considered the “crown jewels” of the U.S. intelligence community.
Those capabilities, subject of a Senate intelligence committee hearing Wednesday, has some Republicans worried that they could get caught up in the same secret government intercepts of communications that helped to land President Donald Trump’s short-lived national security adviser in legal jeopardy.
Indeed, some conservatives on Capitol Hill think intelligence sources could leak information on them too, as they did on former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and routinely flout laws sharply limiting surveillance on Americans.
While the resistance to reauthorization is still forming, it seems to be large enough to force reforms to the law:
Arthur Rizer, a national security director at the R Street Institute, a libertarian-leaning conservative think tank, said the mood on Capitol Hill “has shifted dramatically,” especially among emboldened members of the rebellious Freedom Caucus—a congressional bloc of conservative and libertarian Republicans allied with the Tea Party movement who stormed back to relevance in the debate on a proposed overhaul of Obamacare.
“It’s like a perfect storm,” he said “There are enough Republicans who are Trumpites, and they see the intelligence community as the enemy.”
“They are trying to strategize how best to attack this issue,” Rizer said, noting that he had met with several Freedom Caucus members and said that one spoke of his deep dissatisfaction with existing surveillance powers granted to intelligence agencies under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
“He said, ‘I will vote for sunset over re-authorization.’ I had never heard a Republican say that,” Rizer said, declining to identify the lawmaker.
Some lawmakers think re-authorization is in trouble without significant reforms.
“They don’t have the votes to pass it. It is that bad,” the Republican aide said.
