FISA Extended Despite Rand Paul Voicing MAJOR Concerns

The Patriot Act was anything but...

Over the weekend, moments after it had expired, the Senate reauthorized the government’s warrantless surveillance program, through H.R. 7888, Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA). As his conscience dictated, Kentucky’s junior senator attempted to look out for the individual rights of Americans, while balancing those needs with national security and not sell out.

President Biden quickly signed the wiretapping bill into law.

RISAA, according to Sen. Paul, will give government agencies unusual authority to force private parties to disclose sensitive communication data. In addition, RISAA is unconstitutional, according to Sen. Paul, since it could undermine vital oversight mechanisms, despite congressional appeals for more airtight safeguards. Sen. Paul is trying to walk the precarious tightrope of both protecting national security and protecting individual freedom.

Sen. Rand Paul (R.-Ky.) urged his colleagues to consider two amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), since the spying tool legislation that was born after the Watergate scandal, as it stood, failed to correct government overreach to the legislation in its reauthorization. His interventions occurred after the House of Representatives added an unusual provision to their version of the bill, which added data centers for cloud computing to the service providers who would be compelled to comply with RISAA.

Sen. Paul fought a good battle for all of us, even as he sometimes seems lonely in the battle he is fighting on Capitol Hill. The best his colleagues could do, it seems, was to reduce the period of reauthorization from five years to two.