In late December, President Biden signed a new defense bill that included an extension of a controversial domestic spying program that allows the government to spy on US citizens without having to obtain a warrant. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: In late December, president Biden signed a new defense bill that included an extension of a controversial domestic spying program that allows the government to spy on US citizens without a warrant. Okay. This, there’s some good and bad to this. And you and I both have always agreed to that, I think, and that is that there has to be something in place to where we can capture information that’s going, that’s being used in foreign governments. Okay. It tells us something’s coming. The Hamas thing, I don’t know how they didn’t catch that, because there’s just so much activity there. But that’s what it’s supposed to be. Here though, they’ve taken it and they’re finding out that they’re using it against private citizens. And you and I have talked about the Church Hearings that took place. Frank Church, he has these hearings and he finds out the CIA, FBI, are not only spying on American citizens, they’re actually interfering with their lives. They’re following ’em. They’re causing all kinds of political pressure for ’em. This is kind of the same thing, isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: It really is. Except the difference now is that when people find out, oh, the government could be spying. Okay, well, I’m not doing anything wrong. What do I have to worry about?
Mike Papantonio: That is the average.
Farron Cousins: You know, we have come so far since the Church Hearings when this kind of news was shocking. Everybody couldn’t believe that the government was doing this. They wanted answers. But now, again, late December, president Biden signs this, we’re still in FISA over 20 years after the launch of this war on terror. And what are we even looking for anymore? Obviously we’re not doing a good job with it. It is not yielding results. It’s violating our civil liberties.
Mike Papantonio: Well, that was my point about the Hamas deal. If it had been working, we certainly would’ve caught that, right? But the point being, we’re living at a times where there’s so much volatility. I get that. But you kinda have to know what’s going on. But somebody’s gotta say, you may not under any circumstances use this warrant, use this FISA avenue without a warrant to spy on Americans. It’s pretty simple, isn’t it? But it’s been abused so many times. The record of abuse by the Feds on this is overwhelming.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. Two years ago, a million, there were a million Americans that got swept up in the FISA. And then the past year, oh, we did a little bit better. We only had tens of thousands instead of being up to the million number. But this is, the issue is not having a warrant. If you actually have any kind of probable cause, if you have reason to believe something exists, getting a warrant is not that difficult for these individuals.
Mike Papantonio: You know, Wray of course, he was called before Congress, and they kept asking him, well, what about these Catholics? What is this with your spying on Catholics, that you’re tapping their phones? I don’t know if that went through FISA or not, but I think it did. I think there was some element that even was used, went through FISA where they were tagging Catholics for, I suppose anti-government statements, anti-government conduct. What was it? Do you recall?
Farron Cousins: That to me, I’m not too familiar with that, but.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Wray was in front of Congress and they were talking to him about that. I never got a good answer. I don’t think he ever gave a good answer that supplied the reason why we would be spying on American Catholics because of what appeared to be terrorist conduct. I suppose it has to do with abortion bombings or something like that.
Farron Cousins: It’s possible. But look, we do know, obviously we have activists of all kinds all over the place, especially environmental activists. We saw it with Standing Rock in the Dakotas. We’ve seen it with the whole Keystone movement. These people get spied on and infiltrated. The labor movement, another huge one. And FISA just gives these people the green light, like, hey, we can get into this labor leader’s phone because they had a contact overseas. We don’t know. Maybe they’re bad. So let’s just look.
Mike Papantonio: One contact.
Farron Cousins: Exactly.
Mike Papantonio: That to me is ringing some bells about the Catholic story. It’s just crazy. And we just at some point have to say, hell no. But you’re right. I don’t think the American public gives a. I think you got two generations behind us, it’s a normal thing. It’s just absolutely normal. And we’re not worried about it because, A, we don’t understand the right to protection of privacy. B, we don’t understand the first amendment. C, we’ve never taken a civics course. I don’t know what the hell it is, but it is a sense that it’s not a big problem. Don’t you get that sense?
Farron Cousins: Oh, absolutely. Look, we did a story months ago about the Roomba that’s now owned by Amazon. And it’s mapping your house, and it’s learning what you have in your home to essentially spy on your house. And people are like, okay. Well, yeah, sure. But I’ve got a robot vacuum. I don’t have to vacuum anymore. Yes, I’ve got my Alexa sitting here listening to every word I say. It’s just, people are used to being spied on now that they welcome it.
Mike Papantonio: Farron, isn’t it a fundamental of democracy? I mean, really, the right to privacy, isn’t that one of the pillar fundamentals of democracy?
Farron Cousins: It’s supposed to be.
Mike Papantonio: And I wonder, how do people get to the point to where it just doesn’t matter anymore? When you were coming through school, you took civics classes, didn’t you?
Farron Cousins: Yep.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. I did too. And I suppose they’re still hopefully having some civics classes out there. But it’s almost like it’s a disconnect, isn’t it? They’re teaching to the test. That started happening, what, 30 years ago? We’re gonna teach to the test. In other words, you have to take these periodic tests, and we’re gonna teach you everything you need to know about the test. But we’re not gonna teach you anything about basic constitutional concepts or literature, basically, history of this. There’s tons of history about this being abused. Go figure.
