President Biden has signed an expansion of Section 702 of FISA – a powerful tool that gives the government the ability to spy on digital communications without a warrant. FISA has been abused constantly over the years to spy on activists, journalists, and sometimes even members of Congress. 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: President Biden has signed an expansion of Section 702 of FISA. It’s a powerful tool that gives the government the ability to spy on digital communications without a warrant. FISA’s has been abused constantly over the years. We all know about it. It’s been used to spy on Americans. They’ve had hearing, after hearing, after hearing, where they’ve proven that it’s not just foreign agents they’re looking at. They’re looking at Americans. They’re looking at mom and pop with these mechanisms. Pick it up from there.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. So now we get this not just a reauthorization of 702, but the expansion of it. And that is what is so horrifying here, right? We’re more than 20 years past when we launched this war on Terror with the Patriot Act and the domestic spying operations. We’ve ended those conflicts and we’re still doing this. This doesn’t make any sense. And I think that’s what Americans need to understand is if we’ve ended our war on terror, if we’re the winners of that conflict, why are we still doing this today? Why are we still allowing the federal government to sit there spy on us? Labor unions, environmental activists, protestors of any kind on both sides of the isle.
Mike Papantonio: Journalists.
Farron Cousins: Journalists, members of Congress have been swept up in this.
Mike Papantonio: Yes, yes.
Farron Cousins: And what they do, and what this expansion allows them to do to a larger degree, is if they get this information about an American citizen, they hold it. They don’t use it.
Mike Papantonio: 50 years.
Farron Cousins: Years until they need it. Right. 50 years they can hold it now. And so when it does come out, oh, well this guy’s causing a lot of trouble for the corporations. He’s a union activist. Let’s see if his name is in the 702 database. They search for it and then they destroy the people.
Mike Papantonio: Farron, it’s even worse than that. Okay. That’s bad enough. But what this also does is it broadens the definition of what electronic service provider is. Okay. If you’re taking a look at what they mean by this, it’s virtually anybody who has anything having to do with storing information about you or about me. It could be virtually any entity that stores information. That’s how far this has expanded. They’re trying to say, well, it’s not just the tech companies that we’re gonna warlord over. It’s gonna be anybody. Could be your local cleaner that stores information on the folks that come in there and get their laundry taken care of. It could be anybody. And that’s the expansion where it’s called the ECSP. It’s the electronic service providers, basically in the country. And this opens the door to all of them. They’re all gonna be somebody, hey, when the NSA calls, you better give us that information. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And people, if you think well, oh no, it’s only for people that have contacts with outside foreign people that are targets. Go back and look at the hearings where innocent Americans have been swept up in this every single year. It can happen to you and it may have already happened to you.
Mike Papantonio: Well, you’re gonna get the comments, oh, well, I’m not worried about it. I’m not doing anything wrong. That is so childlike thinking. I mean, think of how childlike thinking that is. I’m not doing anything wrong, therefore, what am I worried about? Right.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: That is somebody who hasn’t taken a civics class, hasn’t taken a history class, and has really low information about what the government is capable of doing.
Suspicious Activity: That it had helped dirty money flow through its branches around the world, including at least 800. Plaintiffs allege that the defendants provided money and medical goods to terrorist groups, Hezbollah and Jaysh al-Adl. This is a well organized business for these individuals that carry out these attacks. Terrorism is a business and they run it like a business. They knew about what was going on for a decade. They absolutely, absolutely no question about it knew that HSBC was washing money. They had every reason to understand it was for terrorism and it was for drug cartels. Took no action whatsoever.
These banks are involved, their accounts are connected, and they’re using them to mask the transactions. The more complicated they can make the transactions, the more distance they could put between the bad guys and a seemingly legitimate purpose of these funds. They pay $1.9 billion, which is a drop in the bucket compared to what they’ve made. And nobody goes to prison. These CEOs, these bankers that made this decision, they’re safe at home. They know what they’ve done. They know it’s resulted in the death of Americans, contractors and soldiers, not just hundreds but thousands. And we look the other way because they don’t look like criminals. The die cast, the people that are responsible for it, are on Wall Street. And they don’t look like criminals. It’s almost a suspension of disbelief. Sometimes I’ll have people call me and say, is this, is this real? Do they really get away with this? Yeah, they do.
