Dakota Beacon

Friday, April 12, 2024, The Washington Times reported the following, “The House voted Friday to renew the government’s most important spying tool without any major change, giving the country’s intelligence community the powers it wanted.

Lawmakers shot down an attempt to add a new warrant requirement before the FBI can scour the data looking for American citizens’ identities, with a majority of the House agreeing with intelligence officials that it would be too dangerous to make the government have to take that step.”

Whatever happened to the Fourth Amendment? “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…”

Americans again saw the same administrative state’s ploy taken from the same old playbook -- use scare tactics and purported threats to American safety and security to leverage requests for money, legislation, and power.

We have seen it all before. There is nothing new under the sun. Twenty-six-hundred years ago a Greek storyteller named Aesop (620 BC) used fables to emphasize rules of right conduct. Once upon a time a young lad repeatedly fools villagers by crying “Wolf!” Getting a rise out of the villagers gave the lad a sense of power and control. Eventually real danger struck, but his cries fell on deaf ears. The moral? Deceivers are not to be believed – even when they speak the truth.

Where have we seen scare tactics used in the name of American safety and security? Recall the following for starters.

--Gun control. Guns kill people, or so the argument goes. What a scary thought! Therefore, in the name of safety, the government should ban “assault rifles” or for that matter ban all firearms. Actually, people kill people. They do so for a variety of reasons and in a variety of ways. But, quick! Act now and go after the guns! More laws and tax dollars are needed. While we are at it, add another federal agency to the government to enforce those laws and distribute the tax dollars. In the process we give politicians the power to impose behavior modification. First and Second Amendments be damned!

--Climate change. There is climate change; then there is human-caused climate change. Climate change has always occurred. But evil mankind using wicked fossil fuels continues to destroy Mother Earth. This is a scary --but flawed -- assertion! Quick! Allocate more money and enact more laws! Even researchers are willing to throw mud at the wall to see what sticks when it comes to investigating ways to cool the earth. Sixty scientists recently wrote an open letter advocating that solar geoengineering (blocking the sun’s rays from space) is worth investigating to “save the planet.” Although injecting atomizers into the stratosphere would reflect the sun’s rays, it also comes with disturbing side effects. (“60 Scientists Are Trying to Block the Sun - Popular Mechanics”) Interestingly, Bill Gates’ money, together with federal tax dollars, fund this exact research.

Which brings us back to FISA legislation and the same old fear tactic of “scare the people – plead their safety.” Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act gives the government the authority to scoop up vast amounts of electronic data from foreigners living abroad. Problems arise when the FBI wants to search an American’s identity and activity against the data.

The bill’s backers said adding a warrant would blind the government at a time when worldwide threats are increasing. “What they want is a warrant to search the inbox and outbox of Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, and the Communist Chinese Party when they are communicating with people in the United States,” said the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

But opponents pointed to a history of abuses, including searches run on American protesters, political campaign donors, and one candidate in particular. “It was illegally used against me, and many others. They spied on my campaign!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

FBI Director Christopher Wray entreated lawmakers on Capitol Hill to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act before it expires on April 19, 2024. “Section 702 is indispensable in keeping Americans safe from a whole barrage of fast-moving foreign threats,” Wray testified before the House Appropriations Committee.

Question? Would it not be “safer” and cheaper to simply exercise existing laws and close the border to terrorist infiltrators and other illegals? Had anyone thought of that?

In a very real sense, we have forsaken our maxim of “a nation of laws.” Instead, we have become a nation of legalisms. More laws did not prevent Hillary Clinton shenanigans or the Biden family’s highly questionable financial dealings with Ukraine and Red China. Whoever is in charge gets to decide which laws to enforce, which laws to ignore, and which laws to use as weapons in lawfare.

I worked in the swamp years ago. As an action officer preparing my boss to testify before Congress on “the Hill,” (Capitol Hill in Washington, DC) there was a catchphrase we often employed. “If you cannot dazzle them with brilliance, then drizzle them with BS.” Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn’t. In the case of Christopher Wray’s support of FISA, it worked.

Nothing has changed.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).