The latest National Defense Authorization Act, being herded through Congress months later than it is supposed to be, has a nasty little item buried in it.

It is not just a reauthorization of an expiring provision of FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) – Section 702. It is an expansion of a seriously-abused part of that post-Bloody Tuesday (9-11) legislation. Hundreds if not thousands of American citizens have been targets of surveillance by government agencies under that section. Now, the power of those agencies to spy on American citizens is to be vastly increased. Feebes and other government agencies will now be able to demand private, personal information (including apparently financial and medical data) from virtually any business, institution, or government agency about any American. Without such niceties and due process like warrants, subpoenas or such outdated and silly limits. After all, government agencies exist only to help us, right?

And except for congresscritturs, the various agencies won’t have to tell us they are gathering data about us.

This warrantless search power was one of the great evils of FISA, from 2001: 22 years of tyranny. Now, the police state is expanded.

So why did this pass through the House of Representatives with a 2/3+ majority? With only about 70 Republicans and 70 Democrats voting against it?

Propaganda. By being attached to NDAA, all kinds of pressure was put on legislators to pass the entire package and send to Uncle Joe: otherwise, we’d have Russian and Chinese troops occupying the States because all our military would walk off the job because they weren’t getting paid! And the arms merchants would sell all their weapons to North Korea and Iran because the US military wouldn’t be able to buy them because Congress didn’t give the Pentagon most of a trillion dollars for the budget (fiscal) year that started on 1 October of this year!

Pressure, propaganda, and of course, the promise of pork to their States and districts. And a lust for more and more power.

As Sean Ring mentioned in a conference call on Wednesday, lovers of liberty have vastly underestimated the strength and resolve of the state. And had over-confidence in the love of any liberty by most Americans.

Do we deserve the tightened chains around our ankles and wrist? Perhaps.

Ain’t government wonderful?