rationalskepticism.org

Pelosi has reprised her role as key protecter of domestic warrantless eavesdropping — but this time with the benevolent, magnanimous, noble Democratic president long gone, and with those agencies instead under the leadership of a president who Pelosi and her supporters have long been maligning as an enemy of democracy, a criminal, a despot, and a racist cretin. For anyone (including Pelosi, Schiff, and Swalwell) who genuinely believes anything they’ve been saying about Trump over the last year, what conceivable justification can be offered now for Pelosi and her key allies blocking reasonable safeguards and limits on Trump’s warrantless domestic spying powers?

That leading House Democrats (their minority leader and top Intelligence Committee member) united with Trump to support this bill and oppose reform amendments, was sufficient to cause enough Democrats to side with Trump and ensure passage of the bill. The Trump-favored bill ended up passing by a vote of 256-164.

As the American Civil Liberties Union put it bluntly about the bill supported by Pelosi and Schiff: “The House just passed a bill to give the Trump administration greater authority to spy on Americans, immigrants, journalists, dissidents, and everyone else.” The privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation echoed that sentiment: “The House just approved the disastrous NSA surveillance extension bill that will allow for continued, unconstitutional surveillance that hurts the American people and violates our Fourth Amendment rights.”

While Trump, as president, is the head of the executive branch, the official with the greatest control over the FBI they just empowered is his attorney general, Jeff Sessions. In other words, Pelosi, Schiff, and their allies just voted to vest great, unchecked power in an official the Democrats have (with good reason) long denounced as corrupt and deeply racist. As Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden (who has vowed with Rand Paul to filibuster the bill when it reaches the Senate) put it yesterday: “This Section 702 bill would give AG Jeff Sessions unchecked power to use this information against Americans. This bill prevents his decisions from EVER being challenged in court.”

https://theintercept.com/2018/01/12/the ... ng-powers/