After wailing for years about misuse of secret FISA surveillance against their own, House Republicans turtle, letting voters know exactly where they stand

How CNN described extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA:

A Republican rift is jeopardizing extension of a cornerstone of the US intelligence gathering by which the government hoovers up massive amounts of internet and cellphone data. The trove of data now in jeopardy has vital importance to the US. According to one assessment, it forms the basis of most of the intelligence the president views each morning, and it has helped the US keep tabs on Russia’s intentions in Ukraine, identify foreign efforts to access US infrastructure, uncover foreign terror networks and thwart terror attacks in the US.

How the National Security Agency wrote about FISA in press release:

The U.S. Intelligence Community relies on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in the constant hunt for information about foreign adversaries determined to harm the nation or our allies. The National Security Agency (NSA), for example, uses this law to target terrorists and thwart their plans… Under Section 702, NSA can target foreigners reasonably believed to be located outside the United States only if it has a basis to believe it will acquire certain types of foreign intelligence information that have been authorized for collection.

It’s bad enough we have news media indistinguishable from the comms departments of enforcement agencies, but why bother having political parties if you can’t count on their own self-interest? The Republicans’ own Judiciary Committee Chair, Jim Jordan, had to remind his own caucus that Presiding Judge Rudolph Contreras of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Abuses listed 278,000 misuses of his own court’s program! Thse were against “crime victims, January 6th riot suspects, people arrested at protest in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, and in one case… 19,000 donors to a congressional candidate,” among others. Yet:
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