Senator Thune, national security matters — but so does election integrity. FISA §702 has delivered critical foreign intel, yet its history of FBI abuses (backdoor searches on Americans without warrants) is well-documented. Demanding a clean reauth while sidelining the SAVE America Act (voter ID, citizenship checks, secure elections) looks like misplaced priorities to many Americans. Both can — and should — advance. Secure the border, secure the vote, and fix surveillance with real reforms (warrant requirements for U.S. persons). The public supports all three. Leadership means delivering on the full mandate, not trading one for the other.
While we can’t know the consequences of Democrats’ decision to allow FISA to go dark, we do know it is almost certainly putting our nation at greater risk.
I hope that in the coming days, my Democrat colleagues will rethink their decision to take this program hostage and will restore this key safeguard of our country’s security.