In an effort to show that his reelection effort is, officially, alive and perhaps even kicking, President Joe Biden delivered a speech in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, that swung hard at GOP front-runner Donald Trump.
It was the sort of thing one would expect from Team Biden at this juncture. Trump is a menace to democracy itself, a very bad person, unfit for office, a “loser” and so on.
Again, nothing unexpected, no new ground broken.
But Biden's speech, and its intent to paint Trump as an obvious danger to peace, freedom, and the republic, manages to highlight the profound problems with the presidency itself.
This is no longer an office in which the occupant is the nation's chief magistrate. It's one in which that magistrate could undermine our institutions and freedom with something as banal as an executive order.
All in the name of security.
As Cato's Patrick Eddington writes, the recent temporary renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is a prime example of how any president could turn individual civil rights on their collective head:
No matter the outcome of the FISA Section 702 battle in Congress, the reality is that the post‑9/11 surveillance wars are over and we, the people, lost. The PATRIOT Act is permanent law. If the FISA Section 702 program expires, it could be replaced and revived via executive order.
The American Surveillance State is, at present, a fixed reality–a tool that in the hands of a vengeful despot will make possible a veritable turnkey tyranny overnight. Avoiding that outcome should be the only thing any of us with a commitment to individual liberty should care about in the new year and in the years that follow.
For those who may have forgotten, FISA's Section 702 is basically a federal dragnet scooping up data from any and all persons, without so much as a warrant or a whisper:
Simply stated, FISA Section 702 allows the federal government to intercept communications passing through the global telecommunications infrastructure. While the program is ostensibly designed not to deliberately target Americans, in actual practice the text messages, emails, phone calls, and other digital data created or transmitted by Americans are routinely swept up in this electronic dragnet.
In prior years, it meant that millions of Americans had their digital communications captured, stored, and searched as a result of FISA Section 702 collection.
All in the name of security. And it might have expired without much notice at the end of 2023. But it's still around, for now, and as bad as ever.
But as Eddington notes, it could be even worse if a president decides it needs to be…for whatever reason. That is one of the real threats to democracy, to our institutions, to our basic freedoms. It's got nothing to do with Team Red or Team Blue.
Both, by and large, are united on the security front…at our expense.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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