#Cornoavirus + #FISAreauthorization: A Toxic Legislative Mix

Earlier today, National Review reported that the alleged Coronavirus supplemental would not, in fact, contain language reauthorizing a handful of soon-to-expire PATRIOT Act provisions that are part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). We’ll likely know by Wednesday (March 4) at the latest whether that’s true, at least as far as the House bill is concerned.

And while roughly 40 House GOP members made noise about keeping the two major public policy issues separate with House Speaker Pelosi, we’ve thus far not seen the same kind of pressure applied to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) by a similar group of his GOP colleagues. Less than a week ago, McConnell’s Kentucky and Senate colleague, Senator Rand Paul, let it be known that President Trump would not sign a clean reauthorization of the expiring FISA provisions (which includes the never-used “lone wolf” provision, as well as the roving wiretap authority) in the wake of the FBI FISA scandal involving the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. I have it from a highly reliable source (not Paul’s office) that Paul’s account is accurate, and that Trump’s veto threat remains live.

In a recent podcast with the Cato Institute, perennial FISA reformer Senator Ron Wyden laid out the usual (and often successful) strategy of pro-FISA surveillance hawks, which simply stated is this: wait until the day before the authorities are about to expire, whip up a “24” style fear mongering campaign that says “Renew this or people will DIE!”and then call a vote on a bill that cannot be amended.

Or, if you’re a surveillance hawk like Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and you know you have a losing hand in the House Judiciary Committee, you have your staff or other allies anonymously accuse a fellow Democrat, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) of sabotaging a surveillance reform bill he supports that would not, in fact, meaningfully reform much of anything.

Given that prior examinations of other mass surveillance programs — illegal ones (like STELLAR WIND) and legal ones (the PATRIOT Act Sec. 215 telephone metadata program) — have shown how constitutionally violative, ineffective, and wasteful they are, it boggles the mind that Schiff and those like him want to continue programs that have either never been used or never stopped an attack on this country.

The question that will be answered before the Ides of March (the date the PATRIOT Act provisions in question are set to expire) is whether we’ll witness yet another act of legislative cowardice that reinforces the inside-the-Beltway culture of “failing upward” that so exemplifies the American #SurveillanceState.