Comment by jandrewrogers
19 hours ago
That's Wyden as Wyden, not because he is a Democrat. Some of the strongest proponents of these intelligence authorities, and in many cases the literal authors of bills expanding these powers, have been leading Democrats e.g. Feinstein.
There is no credible version of history where Democrats as a party are not enthusiastic supporters of these surveillance powers. They've been actively complicit the entire time.
The cynical (wizened) part of me has to wonder how much of Feinstein's support for surveillance maps back to how many of her constituents see the intelligence community as an addressable market.
To that point, she was on the Committee for Intelligence, so of course she was going to lean the direction of giving Intelligence Community what they wanted. I'd expect someone on Government Oversight to be the one to try to reign it back in, but doubtful any in modern times have the moral fortitude to push back especially under Comer's leadership.
> she was on the Committee for Intelligence
So is Wyden.
There’s still a sizable portion of the party as of right now that is against surveillance powers in a way that doesn’t really exist on the other side.
The Republican Party doesn’t really have an equivalent to a progressive caucus. AOC and Bernie Sanders are highly influential Democratic caucus members on record against state surveillance, with one of those two being a top candidate for the 2028 presidential elections. There is no such dynamic in the Republican Party.
May I suggest tweaking your mental model. Mike Johnson was THE MOST vocal opponent of mass surveillance, he was supposed to be the one to whip a republican congress to finally end Section 702.
Then he was made Speaker and literally overnight, flipped. In his words "I went to the SCIF and got the confidential briefing from sort of the other perspective on that, to understand the necessity of Section 702 of FISA and how important it is for national security. And it gave me a different perspective."
What his "briefing" was we can only guess. But there is a pattern on BOTH sides of the aisle they people are against mass surveillance, until they are put into positions of power and access to compartmentalized, classified info - and then they aren't. (for the record please dont interpret this as defense of anyone aforementioned, if you think that you're misreading me)
> What his "briefing" was we can only guess. But there is a pattern on BOTH sides of the aisle they people are against mass surveillance, until they are put into positions of power and access to compartmentalized, classified info - and then they aren't.
It seems like there are two plausible explanations for this.
The first is that they have a list of atrocities allegedly prevented by the system and most politicians are too witless or spineless to ask the question of whether they could also have been prevented in a variety of other ways.
The second is that they're using the system to e.g. influence public opinion / elections and then once they feast their eyes on the one ring, most politicians aren't sufficiently inclined to throw it into the volcano.
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He finally got shown his personal blackmail folder, I assume.
If there is widespread illegal spying, any current or future public figure would have to be a priority.
The ones that speak up get the "if you don't have anything to hide" treatment. I rarely, if ever, hear that line come from the left.
Show me your nudes then.
Publish your bank accounts.
Publish your private messages to friends, family, partner.
These idiots who say "nothing to hide" usually have the most to hide, and lose. And they can't see how something yesterday was legal and today isn't, can still be used against you.
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They do. It's the entire Libertarian wing of the party.
I’ll concede that you are right, the libertarians are there. Rand Paul, Josh Hawley, they’re there.
Let’s look at the voting record.
The majority of house Democrats opposed being up debate on the FISA section 702 extension.
19 house Republicans joined the majority democrats in opposing the extension.
I’d say this still paints a picture of a Democratic Party being far less willing to extend FISA, and actually being majority opposed.
H. Res. 1175, 119th Congress
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"entire wing" makes it sound very meaningful for a group that has had no effective power for the last 10+ years.
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they have a libertarian caucus and a hard right MAGA caucus and those lines get blurred depending on who is winning and who is donating
Give data, please. Without it, this assertion is useless:
> There’s still a sizable portion of the [Democratic] party as of right now that is against surveillance powers in a way that doesn’t really exist on the [Republican] side.
H. Res. 1175, 119th Congress
Majority of Democrats voted not to extend FISA, only a small handful of Republicans joined them to block debate on the bill.
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