Oversight
Congress Is Alarmingly Close to Handing Trump Dangerous Spying Powers
And Adam Schiff, of all people, is the one giving it to him
For a few hours on Tuesday, it looked like the House of Representatives would finally vote to give Americans some much-needed online privacy protection against government abuse. The House seemed set to agree to a powerful reform of the Patriot Act: an amendment that would implement key privacy safeguards on our web browsing and search histories that would protect them from being accessed wholesale by the Trump administration.
But now, so-called #resistance hero Adam Schiff may have—once again—helped kill that reform.
Schiff, who saw his profile soar during the impeachment saga, has previously accused Trump of wanting to “make himself a monarch” and says that Trump thinks “presidents have a constitutional right to abuse their power.” In his viral speech during the impeachment hearings, Schiff said of the president, “You will not change him. You cannot constrain him. He is who he is.”
So it seems extra bizarre that Schiff — who is also chair of the powerful House Intelligence Committee — has continually moved to protect Trump’s ability to warrantlessly spy on Americans and even strengthen Trump’s surveillance…
