Republicans push FISA overhaul to CPAC faithful

Collins says he will be against ‘easy extensions’ without an overhaul

FORT WASHINGTON, MD — Conservative lawmakers pledged to their base Thursday morning that they would seek to avoid another clean extension of expiring government surveillance powers.

Rep. Doug Collins, the outgoing ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, was on the stage for a previously scheduled appearance at the 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference. He spoke just a day after Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York abruptly postponed a committee markup of draft legislation to reauthorize and update key surveillance authorities that are scheduled to sunset March 15.

Collins and like-minded Republicans argue that a broader overhaul of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act powers is needed, including the operation of the secretive FISA Court to prevent a recurrence of the issues that arose in surveillance of Carter Page, a former adviser to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. Continue reading.

Trump’s ‘ping-pong’ on surveillance law sets off a 101-minute scramble

The following article by Ashley Parker, Philip Rucker and Josh Dawsey was posted on the Washington Post website January 11, 2018:

President Trump listens before signing a law to curtail opioids trafficking in the Oval Office at the White House on Jan. 10, 2018. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

At 6:46 Thursday morning, Andrew Napolitano — a Fox News Channel personality and supporter of President Trump — opined about a critical government surveillance program on “Fox & Friends,” the show that is part alarm clock, part unofficial briefing for the commander in chief.

“I’m scratching my head,” Napolitano said, referring to Thursday’s House vote to reauthorize a key part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. “I don’t understand why Donald Trump is in favor of this.”

And then, just 47 minutes later, Trump was no longer in favor of the bill that his own White House had been championing. In a tweet, the president quoted verbatim the Fox headline from Napolitano’s appearance and suggested that the FISA law had been used by the Obama administration to “so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign.” Continue reading “Trump’s ‘ping-pong’ on surveillance law sets off a 101-minute scramble”