May 2017

President Ronald Reagan once famously quipped the nine most terrifying words a U.S. citizen can hear are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” One can only imagine what folksy wisdom the Gipper would have for us today, when facing a massive surveillance Panopticon operating without accountability and on the premise that we trust it do what is right. Probably a wistful chuckle, followed by, “I wish you good luck with that.”

Since the Clinton Administration, privacy watchdogs have warned that the government’s appetite for information is insatiable, and without proper oversight, the personal privacy of citizens would be in jeopardy. These warning calls increased following the 9/11 terror attacks, when sweeping legislation such as the USA PATRIOT Act was rushed through Congress with few specifics as to what data could be collected, and who is ultimately responsible for holding these agencies accountable. Now, after more than a decade-and-a-half of secret court orders, vague legislative direction, and virtually no oversight by Congress or the Courts, we are seeing the true extent of the damage.

According to a report last week from Circa, which reviewed previously classified court documents related to the National Security Agency’s secret spy program, the NSA routinely conducted illegal surveillance on US persons. The violations, which used prohibited “U.S.-person identifiers,” occurred in a staggering five percent of all such searches, illustrating an intentional pattern of abuse rather than the occasional accident. Moreover, Circa also reports “there was a three-fold increase in NSA data searches about Americans and a rise in the unmasking of U.S. person’s identities in intelligence reports after Obama loosened the privacy rules in 2011.”

Yet, as disturbing as these violations of the Fourth Amendment are, an even greater problem is that it took until October of last year for these issues to be reported to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. In response to what can only be a deliberate attempt by the government to obfuscate illegal misconduct, the FISA Court condemned the NSA, describing their actions as an “institutional lack of candor.” A better term for it would be, “bald-faced lying.”

From the outset of these spy programs, intelligence officials and their cronies in Congress spurned any attempt at greater oversight by the Congress; citing “national security” as their excuse, and promising that everything they do is legal and aboveboard. Even when officials are caught outright lying, such as when former Director of Intelligence James Clapper told Congress the NSA does not “wittingly” collect information on innocent American citizens though knowing full-well it did, they somehow are given a free pass by Congress out of some post-9/11 “need to protect America” mentality. This has to stop.

The leaks of illegal NSA activity by Edward Snowden should have been the red flag that serious reforms were needed. Unfortunately, other than Sen. Rand Paul’s 2015 filibuster to force expiration of Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, no other meaningful attempts to rein in the NSA have been taken; despite much rhetoric to the contrary.

Evidence presented in the Circa report cannot continue to be ignored by a Congress that refuses to recognize gross constitutional problems within America’s national security apparatus, as well as its duty to investigate and fix such problems. The NSA cannot be trusted to police itself; not that should it ever have been given such autonomy to begin with. Congress must, for the good of the Constitution, reassert control over the agency and its programs.

Of course, NSA supporters who seem fit to let the agency do as it pleases without regard to the legality of its actions, will point to recent terror attacks as reason not to rock the boat; but it is not as if the federal government does not have, and would continue to have, a full arsenal of tools at its disposal to identify, monitor and thwart real terrorist threats. Let us not also forget that several of these recent attacks, including the tragic Manchester bombing this month, were perpetrated by individuals already “known” to intelligence agencies.

Republicans in Congress should seize this opportunity to propose and pass legislation that places clear limits on spy agencies, including what information they can collect and how long they can store this information, to bring the USA Patriot Act and related laws more in line with the law and the Fourth Amendment. A “Privacy Constitution” of sorts for domestic spying would be a homerun for the GOP and President Trump, and would go a long way in making up for numerous recent opportunities the GOP has missed to demonstrate its traditional deference to individual privacy and the Constitution.

Originally published here via townhall.com

In just a few minutes of browsing the internet, advertisers can build a frighteningly accurate demographic and behavioral profile of you; where you live, how much money you make, and even what you might be planning for dinner. In a relatively short time, these data points are collected, analyzed, and put through numerous algorithms, allowing anonymous “third parties” to potentially know more about you than your friends, spouse, or perhaps even yourself.

While most of this information is collected with the intent to more accurately target you with commercial messages, government officials are similarly processing and analyzing data it collects on citizens — but its intentions are far less benign. And, thanks to a bill by Rep. John Katko (R-NY) that passed the U.S. House last week, its secret surveillance powers are about to get a big boost.

Since the 9/11 Commission’s final report criticizing the lack of cooperation and information-sharing among law enforcement agencies, state and urban area “fusion centers” are sold as a solution to this problem. Designed as localized clearinghouses for the “receipt, analysis, gathering, and sharing of threat-related information” from partners within law enforcement, public safety, and even the private sector, in theory, the national network of fusion centers allows law enforcement to more quickly identify and respond to national security threats. In practice, however, the result looks more like a case of “Government Snoops Gone Wild.”

Fueled by hundreds of millions of federal dollars, and with little oversight or accountability from the Department of Homeland Security, wasteful spending, poor intelligence, and partisan politics have become commonplace among fusion centers. Rather than enhance the ability of law enforcement to identify truly suspicious activity, for example, a 2012 report from the Senate Homeland Security Committee on fusion centers found just the opposite; that intelligence reports produced by these centers were “uneven quality – oftentimes shoddy, rarely timely…and more often than not unrelated to terrorism.” Furthermore, the report noted that the processes by which this information is gathered often violates Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful data collection from citizens with no ties to terrorism, or any criminal activity.

Despite the overwhelming evidence of corruption, ineffectiveness, and constitutional malfeasance of these fusion centers, Congress still seems intent on giving them even more access to information on citizens. Katko’s bill would instruct the Department of Homeland Security to “identify Federal databases and datasets” from other federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Treasury Department, which would then be given to fusion centers to add to their ever-growing databases.

By themselves, these new data sets are likely to be of little value, which is perhaps why the bill easily sailed through the House on a simple voice vote. Yet, just as with online advertising, the true power of this new data lies in adding the information to other data sets collected and maintained by fusion centers. Together, they help expand the broad, but increasingly intimate, profiles of citizens that can be run through algorithms and calculations to elicit suspicious trends or anomalies that are either flagged for future examination, or passed along to law enforcement, regardless of whether any actual criminal activity exists.

Proponents of fusion centers who continue to promote their efficacy as an “anti-terror” tool, no doubt see this type of “pre-crime” intelligence to be a good thing, but as Cato Institute’s Patrick Eddington notes here, “giving [fusion centers] access to even more information on innocent Americans will only increase the risks that people with no connections to terrorism will become victims of state and local law enforcement ‘counterterrorism’ witch hunts.”

One need only look to the 2009 “Strategic Report” produced by the Missouri Information Analysis Center, which described support for Ron Paul (and myself) as evidence of criminal “militia” activity, to see how easily such witch hunts can begin, and escalate. Incorporating such nonsense in fusion centers may seem absurd to the point of lacking any degree of credibility, but recklessly publishing poorly contrived “intelligence” to law enforcement needlessly places thousands of innocent Americans at risk of being involved in confrontations with the police who were acting on information they thought they could trust.

What other groups may soon find themselves targeted by law enforcement for completely innocent, constitutionally protected activities or speech, simply because fusion center “analysts” deem it “suspicious”?

Once again, House Republicans have failed to seize an opportunity to stand up for the Fourth Amendment and personal privacy. Hopefully Republicans in the Senate, perhaps led by Ted Cruz, who does appear to understand the dangers to individual privacy inherent in such unaccountable entities as fusion centers, will stop Katko’s ill-conceived bill. Unfortunately, these days neither congressional Democrats nor Republicans can be relied on to support efforts to rein in unnecessary government snooping.

Originally published here on Townhall.com

The necessity for the federal government to know what items were being brought into the country from outside our borders, in order to ensure payment of customs duties, was deemed of such importance that the very first Congress in 1789 passed a law providing plenary authority for Customs officials to conduct searches of any vessel in order to discover contraband (several years later, in 1815, the authority was extended to “any person . . . or beast of burden” crossing the border into the United States). This power occupies the constitutionally dubious distinction of being one of the very first exceptions to the warrant requirement guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment to our Constitution.

Now, two centuries later as foreign visitors to the United States are discovering, the power to search a suitcase or a saddlebag for contraband hidden among one’s packed underwear, has morphed into a broad – almost limitless – assertion of power by Uncle Sam to electronically scroll through a person’s laptop or smart phone; searching not for evidence of contraband, but for evidence of well, . . . whatever government agents want to look for.

While U.S. citizens may take solace in the fact that Customs agents are asserting this broad authority generally as to foreign travelers entering the United States, the power is bleeding over into searches of American citizens returning to their home country. And, despite a 2013 opinion by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that a forensic search of a laptop computer belonging to a U.S. citizen reentering the United States after a trip to Mexico, required a showing of reasonable suspicion that the owner had committed a crime, the slippery slope of border searches based on little more than whim, appears already in front of us.

The current attitude regarding border searches prevalent throughout much of the federal bureaucracy today, is illustrated by a statement earlier this year by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. When testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee regarding the Administration’s proposed immigration ban, Kelly blithely opined that “If [foreign visitors] don’t want to give us that information, then they don’t come.” He was referring to demands by Customs agents that foreign visitors divulge their social media accounts and passwords before they are allowed to pass through Customs.

In addition to asserting its long-standing power to search any item carried by individuals entering the United States at a port of entry, many people likely would be surprised to learn that this power exercised by agents of the Customs and Border Protection (CPB), extends to 100 miles inland from any deemed “external boundary” – incorporating almost two-thirds of the country’s population. Thus are federal agents able to circumvent the protections against “unreasonable searches and seizures” to which they would be otherwise subject.

The Ninth Circuit’s opinion in the 2013 case (United States v. Cotterman), which placed at least some limit on the government’s power to forensically search a person’s laptop at a port of entry, provides powerful language that reflects just how invasive these searches truly are. The majority opinion in the case accurately described how the forensic examination of such electronic devices is akin to searching a traveler’s suitcase and determining “not only what the bag contained on the current trip, but everything it had ever carried.” This holding, while a welcome addition to privacy and Fourth Amendment law, has not yet been presented to – much less adopted by — the Supreme Court; it is high time it do so.

The federal government is flexing its muscles in other ways, as well. Earlier this year, for example, CBP agents boarded a Delta Airlines flight when it landed in New York. The plane had not completed a flight from Europe, South America, or other non-U.S. city, but from San Francisco – a purely domestic flight. The uniformed agents apparently were looking for a particular individual subject to removal by CBP’s sister agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and requested that all passengers respond to at least verbally identify themselves. While the government issued a statement stressing that its request for all passengers to identify themselves was not mandatory, the incident further acclimates airline passengers to being subject to customs enforcement regardless of whether they are flying domestically or internationally.
Rather than relying on a two-century old principle that the federal government can physically search suitcases for contraband, as the basis for forensic searches of electronic devices, the Congress needs to modernize this body of law. Uncle Sam might have to work a bit harder at identifying likely criminals at our borders before it can search electronic devices, but the gain to individual privacy interests and respect for the true meaning of the Bill of Rights, would make such a move far more worthwhile.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s 7th congressional district from 1995 to 2003.

Originally published here via Merionwest.com

Watching U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos stand at the podium during Bethune-Cookman University’s commencement ceremony last week, struggling to deliver her remarks over the noise of boos and hisses emanating from its graduating class was a sad, but all-too-familiar commentary on the state of higher education in 21st Century America.

The unwillingness of educated adults to respectfully listen to a speaker without demonstrating like spoiled children reflects the cultural shift occurring on college campuses across the nation; one in which shouting down an invited speaker, even a member of the president’s Cabinet, is now viewed as an acceptable – if not noble – means of political protest.

In fact, DeVos may consider herself lucky hostilities escalated only to students turning their backs on her. Other speakers deemed unfit for campus by these self-appointed speech police have endured far worse, as recent events at University of California Berkeley illustrate.

There was nothing controversial about DeVos’ commencement speech. She emphasized the Administration’s support of students from low income families, encouraged the students to continue serving their communities after they graduated, and called on students to counter dissent with the grace and tact of the university’s founder, Mary Jane McLeod Bethune. It was a speech that easily could have been delivered by anybody; but, because it was DeVos delivering it, and not a liberal figurehead who would parrot back to the students their myopic worldview, it was reason enough for their disruptive behavior.

The kneejerk intolerance shown to DeVos, without any provocation or justification, is a hallmark trait of liberal students who protest first, and ask questions later — if at all. However, what makes the incident at Bethune-Cookman so ironic was that if students had taken even a moment to think for themselves, they may have realized the significance of DeVos’ speaking at a historically black college. Instead of booing, students should have been applauding her.

DeVos has dedicated her life to the school choice movement, helping to give parents more choices in where, and how, their children are educated. Though school choice is derided by Democrats as a way to undercut the public school system, evidence of school choice’s positive impact on minority and low-income communities is clear. Whereas in public school systems where location is the only determining factor in where a child is educated, public charter school systems, like those in Washington D.C., give low-income parents better options than the failing neighborhood school. Studies have shown students at charter schools learn more, have higher graduation rates, and make parents active participants in the education of their children. They also cost less than traditional public schools to educate children. Even the liberal Washington Post endorsed D.C.’s private school voucher program as a “lifeline to low-income and underserved families.”

In short, it is school choice, not the traditional public school system, giving poor and minority students the best shot at going to colleges like Bethune-Cookman.

Of course, this reality is lost on students who would rather ascribe to the rigid dogma of radical leftists, than rely upon their own critical thinking for determining truth. So, rather than acting like educated adults capable of considering an opposing viewpoint, or at the very least respectfully listening to it, “undesirables” like DeVos are summarily rejected when they fall on the wrong side of the partisan dichotomy; in this case, public schooling (good) versus school choice (bad).

Not even rational self-interest for themselves and members of their community was enough to break the spell of this new radical campus orthodoxy. The fact is, to these agitators, it is not really about helping students, but instead a power play for controlling the exchange of thoughts and ideas in order to impose an intellectual homogeneity on campuses. While radicals claim that “trigger warnings,” speech codes, and diversity training are designed to protect students, the hypocritical and childish reaction to DeVos at Bethune-Cookman shows this faux concern for the fraudulent facade it is.

The one bright spot of the day was the reaction of Bethune-Cookman’s administration to the embarrassing conduct of their students. With faculty and administrators standing behind DeVos in a show of support, Bethune-Cookman President Dr. Edison Jackson told graduating students they would be mailed diplomas if the ruckus did not stop. It was, as former Education Secretary Bill Bennett described, a rare display of courage not found among many other campus presidents, who have chosen instead to surrender their campuses to mob rule. Hopefully other administrators will take note of Dr. Jackson’s courage, and lead by example in showing students how to behave like the educated adults they believe themselves to be, but have a long way to go in proving.

Originally published here via townhall.com

Judging by all the smiling, smug faces gathered at the White House last week after House Republicans passed the much ballyhooed American Health Care Act (“AHCA”), one might be lead to believe they actually did what they promised to do – repeal ObamaCare. And, in the typical logic-twisting of Beltway politicians, perhaps some of the GOP members probably believe they did. After all, the Republicans did pass a bill; it was sold as a replacement of the Affordable Care Act; and, Democrats acted like the sick and infirmed were to be suddenly cast into the street. Nevertheless, after the last cork pops and the confetti stops falling at the GOP’s self-congratulations party, they will be forced to answer constituents demanding to know, “Where’s the beef?”

Not every Republican was rushing to the bowl of victory punch. Rep. Justin Amash, who is an all-too-rare voice of objectivity among his more delusional colleagues, took to Facebook to criticize the new health care legislation, explaining his vote for it only as support for a “marginal improvement” to ObamaCare, nothing more. “[ObamaCare] will continue to drive up the cost of health insurance…and the modifications contained in the AHCA cannot save it,” says Amash. “At best, it will make ObamaCare less bad.”

Actually, Amash is being optimistic.

Regardless of the made-for-fundraising outrage of the Left, the ACHA does little to change the law it purports to replace. In fact, Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon suggests if enacted, in some very real respects, it could be even worse than its predecessor.

As Cannon and others have noted, for example, the ACHA fails to eliminate ObamaCare’s onerous “community rating” price controls – which have sent insurance premiums skyrocketing for some, while reducing coverage for others. Cannon suggests the GOP’s half-hearted tinkering “will accelerate ObamaCare’s race to the bottom.” Apparently, this is what passes as “reform” to Republicans.

While House Republicans may consider their attempt at reforming ObamaCare a job well done, there is no excuse for how far short their “second draft” came to reaching anything that could remotely be considered genuine reform, much less a full “repeal.” As Amash noted, the new plan contains some good provisions, but, hailing the legislation as the “start of a new beginning,” as House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy called it, or pretending it to be some huge victory for the free market, is pure Establishment spin to cover the GOP’s lack of desire to fight the battles necessary to truly fix America’s healthcare system once and for all.

As I have written previously, Republicans had seven years to draft a replacement for ObamaCare, and then set the groundwork for passing it when the opportunity came. Yet, when the opportunity did come, we saw just how little Establishment Republicans had accomplished over those years. Instead of crafting a real free market approach to reform, convincing moderate Republicans and Democrats of its merits, and then patiently selling it to the American public as ObamaCare continued to spiral downward, Republican leaders did what they frequently do – propose a last-minute, watered-down version of reform, and promising to “get it right” later.

We saw this in March, when House Republicans first proposed a version of reform that was summarily rejected by conservatives both in Congress, and on the outside. And, we saw them do it again this month, barely getting the “revised” AHCA through the House, and only after buying-off Republicans on the fence with hollow promises that states down the road might be able to opt out of certain provisions. It is a tactic all too familiar to anyone who understands how Washington operates — trading one’s vote today for promises of future relief via some complicated formula, which rarely occurs.

Unfortunately for the GOP and its control of Congress in the future, they may not get out from under this failure. By leaving in place or slightly modifying many of ObamaCare’s worst provisions, and hoping to avoid others on the false hope that states will not succumb to pressure from pro-ObamaCare lobbyists, all they have managed to do is make modest tweaks to a law, while assuming full responsibility for it down the road. The average voter will not remember, or care, it was Obama who passed the ball; only that Republicans were the last to get a fingertip on it before going out of bounds.

Perhaps the Senate will get it right. However, history suggests this will not be the case, and it is likely that the version of the AHCA emerging from the Senate will be essentially the same as the House version, or even worse after moderates in the Senate load it up with more ObamaCare–like provisions that voters have come to consider part of their “right to health care.” For Americans hoping for a true, market-based reform of the health care system to which we are all now subject, however, RepubliCare will make little difference.

Originally published here via townhall.com

When he addressed the National Rifle Association at its annual convention in Atlanta, Georgia last Friday, Donald Trump did not mince his words. The President declared to a rousing ovation that, “the eight-year assault on your Second Amendment freedoms has come to a crashing end.” This was welcome news to the thousands of firearms owners, manufacturers and retailers in the audience – many of whom had suffered first-hand as a result of the Obama Administration’s anti-Second Amendment policies during the last eight years.

However, as the saying goes, the “proof of the pudding is in the eating,” and the table has been set for Trump to show America’s 55 million gun owners, including some five million NRA members, that his pro-Second Amendment rhetoric will be backed up by concrete action.

As has been widely noted, Trump is the first sitting U.S. president to speak to the NRA since Ronald Reagan in 1983. While no one expected Bill Clinton or Barack Obama to follow in Reagan’s footsteps, many NRA members did hold out hope that at least one of the Bush presidents – both of whom expressed solidarity with the Association – would have spoken to its members during the 12 years of their combined presidencies.

As it turned out, while both George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush voiced support for the Second Amendment and the NRA, their “commitment” to the gun-rights movement amounted to little more than lip service.

The first Bush – angered by an NRA fund-raising letter that was highly critical of the manner in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms handled the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas — made much ado publicly about “resigning” from the NRA.

While his son did not split with the NRA during his tenure in office, his support of legislation backed by the NRA and other gun-rights advocates was less than enthusiastic. To his credit, President George W. Bush did sign into law two important firearms bills – the 2005 “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act,” which leveled the playing field for gun manufactures regarding liability for product misuse; and the “Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act of 2004,” which (in theory) allows qualified active and retired law enforcement officers to carry concealed weapons across state lines. However, bringing “W” to the table to actually sign these bills was a lengthy and laborious process, and resulted in concessions to moderates that weakened the protections the legislation were intended to provide.

As gun owners, manufacturers and retailers have learned from experience, the real test whether a president truly supports and will defend the right to keep and bear arms is not their words, but their actions. The early indications are that President Trump will act.

In his first 100 days, Trump signed a repeal of a particularly troublesome Obama-era regulation that would have used an immaterial Social Security rule as the basis for summarily barring tens of thousands of Americans from owning firearms. Additionally, immediately upon confirmation, Trump’s new Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke, signed an order rescinding a last-minute rule change under Obama that would have phased out the use of traditional, lead ammunition on federal lands. And, we now have a strong constitutionalist – Neil Gorsuch – on the Supreme Court.

But, the real test of a president’s commitment to the Second Amendment is revealed in whether he will actually – aggressively – support meaningful and substantive legislation. There are two pieces of legislation already teed up for the new Commander in Chief to demonstrate his true level of support for the Second Amendment.

The first is the “Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017,” already pending in both houses of Congress. This legislation would replace the patchwork of state laws and regulations regarding concealed carry — in which a person can go from law-abiding citizen to potential felon by doing nothing more than crossing a state line with a firearm fully lawful in their home state – with a single national standard. The legislation simply reflects the principle that the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right of citizenship that a person carries with him or her regardless of where they travel.

Another bill now awaiting action in the House of Representatives, is the “Hearing Protection Act of 2017,” which would expand access to sound suppressors that protect the hearing of hunters, competition shooters, and those who may find it necessary to use a firearm in the home for self-defense.

If Trump actually gets behind these and other pieces of pro-gun legislation – and if he refocuses the ATF to go after criminals with firearms, as opposed to playing a game of “Gotcha” with firearms retailers trying to comply with the record-keeping burdens of federal regulations – the NRA, and all 55 million gun owners will have more to cheer about than rousing speeches.

Originally published here via townhall.com