Constitution Not Needed: FISA Expanded

The government has just expanded its ability to unconstitutionally spy on you.

Happy Friday!

Yesterday, the House voted to renew the FISA surveillance program that collects American’s email, text messages, and photos without a warrant for another six years.

The bill was originally approved by Congress in 2008 under the promise of protecting America against big, bad terrorists.

But that’s a flawed platform to base legislation on. There will always be terrorists. We don’t need to violate American citizens rights in order to keep our country safe.

That’s why Justin Amash offered up an alternative bill, “The USA RIGHTS Act” which would have required federal agents to get warrants before searching through data that was secretly collected.

It failed.

Like Amash, Trump also seemed to be against the FISA extension, tweeting “House votes on controversial FISA ACT today. This is the act that may have been used, with the help of the discredited and phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by the previous administration and others.”

But that was at 7:33 AM.

He flipped his position literally two hours later by tweeting, “Today’s vote is about foreign surveillance of foreign bad guys on foreign land. We need it! Get smart!"

What leadership. Just like a politician to be on both sides of the issue.

The bill will now go to the Senate where it is expected to pass.

Rand Paul is already talking about filibustering the vote.

Thank goodness Rand is standing up for the rights of the American people.

Look, either we choose the Fourth Amendment or we don’t.

Either we choose the Constitution or we don’t.

It’s one or the other.

Why do our representatives continue to make the wrong choice?

The Increasing Ideological Slant of Social Media

Two-hundred million Americans consume their news via social media. That’s almost 75% of the country. The gatekeepers of information have evolved from the local paper, to radio, TV, and now social media.

I’m going to go against the narrative for a second. We’ve heard a lot lately about the power the internet has given to those trying to spread fake news. Whether it’s the Russians, Nazis, or radical leftists. They all have the ability to push their narrative more easily to whomever they want.

Here’s the flip side to that coin. Never in the history of the planet has so much information been available to the common man. In this day and age there’s simply no excuse for people failing to be their own fact checkers and truth finders. A bot tweeted meme should not be able to pull the wool over the eyes of thousands. If this were a hundred years ago sure, but this is the age of information.

So, with all that being said, why are social media platforms looking to block certain points of view? Project Veritas released an undercover video yesterday that showed Twitter employees talking about plans to filter a certain quote, “way of talking.” A Twitter engineer explained how the algorithm works:

“Yeah you look for Trump, or America, and you have like five thousand keywords to describe a redneck. Then you look and parse all the messages, all the pictures, and then you look for stuff that matches that stuff.”

He continues “I would say the majority of it are for Republicans.”

Now, I get censoring violence, but ideas are absolutely off limits. The real question now is, who is telling Twitter what type of “talk” is acceptable? In a leaked Media Matters memo, called their “Strategic Plan of Action”, David Brock’s progressive hit-squad detailed how they were going to operate in this new era. It mentions very specifically how they’ve already begun working with Facebook, Google and Twitter. Under the heading “Collaborating with Social Media Platforms” it states:

“Social media platforms need help in identifying vulnerabilities and crafting solutions. To this end, Media Matters will serve as their partner, speaking to them in their language of big data and encouraging changes based on what we see happening in the landscape.”

So who are the modern-day gatekeepers for information? Social Media companies like Twitter and now apparently, liberal progressive smear artists like David Brock and Media Matters are telling them what is or isn’t acceptable. Do your own homework. Be your own fact checker. It’s never been more important than right now.

No Best Friend for You!

Having a best friend is not inclusive. And that’s a huge problem.

An emerging trend in some American schools is banning kids from having “best friends.” Because it’s not inclusive enough.

Here’s a question – do we ever reach a point where we’re too inclusive? Just asking for a friend. Because I still believe in those.

Does inclusiveness just keep going until kids in a classroom are chained together all day, that way no one will ever feel left out? Everyone goes everywhere together. Lunchtime chained together. Recess, the same. Playing red rover or going to the restroom will be tricky, but hey, at least it will be inclusive.

Dr. Barbara Greenberg, a child psychologist writes, “There is, in my opinion, merit to the movement to ban having best friends.” She says, “The phrase best friend is inherently exclusionary.” She says it implies a ranking system, which creates conflict.

She goes on to explain that kids throw the “best friend” label around so irresponsibly that many end up with their feelings hurt, when they lose “best friend” status to someone else.

In some sane cultures throughout history, that’s called part of growing up.

This trend is bizarre on so many levels. But one of the main problems with the Left’s attempt to change language in order to change reality is that it never changes anything. Did the Left not learn anything from Jurassic Park? “Life finds a way.” Kids will always find a way to have best friends. And yes, some will get their feelings hurt. And yes, they will still somehow survive.

Patrick Moore was one of the founders of Green Peace. He helped grow the organization for several years until he started to realize that, “Science and logic no longer held sway.” The final straw for Moore came when his fellow directors decided Green Peace had to try to ban the element Chlorine, which they started calling “the devil’s element”. Moore asked if they realize Chlorine is actually one of the elements of the periodic table, and that adding chlorine to drinking water was one of the greatest advances in the history of public health. Yes, and they had to ban it. He left Green Peace and never looked back.

Having best friends is on the periodic table of life. It’s not something you could ban, no matter how hard you try.

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