All money depends on trust. When we accept dollars in exchange for our labor, property, or services, we surrender something of immediate value in return for tokens—or electronic account entries—that we expect others will accept later. Money is, in that sense, a social promise.

But not all monetary promises are equally well supported.

A dollar has little intrinsic value as paper, and a bank balance is only an electronic record. Yet the dollar is embedded in a large and accountable economic system. Employers pay wages in dollars. Merchants state prices in dollars. Taxes must be paid in dollars. Banks clear dollar payments, courts enforce dollar-denominated contracts, and government institutions act to preserve the payment system. Deposit insurance, banking regulation, fraud laws, and established procedures provide at least some recourse when things go wrong.

Cryptocurrency attempts to create monetary confidence without that institutional foundation.

Its supporters often say that cryptocurrency does not require trust because transactions are controlled by mathematics and recorded on a distributed blockchain. That is only partly true. The technology may allow participants to verify that tokens have been transferred according to the software’s rules. It does not establish what those tokens are worth. Nor does it guarantee that anyone will accept them tomorrow.

The value of most cryptocurrencies is almost entirely a market phenomenon. A token is valuable because people are willing to exchange ordinary money, goods, or services for it. Its price depends on scarcity combined with demand.

Scarcity alone, however, does not create value. Many things are scarce and valueless because nobody wants them. Moreover, although the supply of one cryptocurrency may be limited, there is no practical limit on the number of new cryptocurrencies that can be created. Promoters can introduce another coin, give it an impressive name, describe it as technologically revolutionary, and attempt to manufacture demand.

Unlike commodities, most cryptocurrencies have little or no intrinsic utility. Wheat can be eaten. Oil can produce energy. Gold has industrial and decorative uses. Land can support housing or agriculture. A share of stock represents an interest in a business that may own assets and earn profits. A bond represents a legally enforceable promise of repayment.

A cryptocurrency token ordinarily represents none of these things. It may permit access to a payment network or some other digital service, but ownership usually provides no claim on productive assets, earnings, interest, or physical property.

The purchaser is therefore making a wager: that future buyers will place as much or more value on the token than the current buyer does.

There may be situations in which cryptocurrency provides a practical advantage. It can transfer value across borders, operate outside ordinary banking channels, or permit transactions when governments or financial institutions are unreliable or restrictive. In such cases, a user may be purchasing access to a useful transfer mechanism.

But for someone who has no practical reason to bypass the banking system, buying cryptocurrency is primarily speculation on its future price. The buyer is not purchasing a productive asset. The buyer is betting on continued confidence.

That confidence is especially fragile because the network is amorphous. The software and transaction records may be distributed among thousands of computers, but there is no central institution responsible for maintaining the token’s value. No board of directors owes a fiduciary duty to holders. No central bank stands ready to support the market. No insurer guarantees that the assets will be restored after theft. No customer-service department can reverse a mistaken payment.

The technology offers a narrow promise: if the network continues functioning, it will maintain a record of transactions according to its rules.

That is not a promise that the currency will remain valuable.

Cryptocurrency also depends heavily on the conventional economy it is sometimes said to replace. Exchanges need bank accounts. Computers require electricity and internet service. Miners and software developers generally pay their expenses in national currencies. Owners usually measure their gains and losses in dollars. Most buyers enter and leave the cryptocurrency market through commercial exchanges connected to regulated financial institutions.

Thus, cryptocurrency borrows stability from the very legal, banking, communications, and energy systems it claims to bypass.

The exchange mechanism itself can fail in several ways. A cryptocurrency exchange may collapse through theft, fraud, insolvency, or mismanagement. Customers may discover that the exchange did not possess the assets it claimed to hold. A token may continue to exist on its blockchain but disappear from major markets, leaving holders unable to sell it at any meaningful price. Software defects may permit theft or permanently lock up funds. Governments may restrict the gateways through which cryptocurrency is converted to ordinary money.

A technically functioning blockchain can therefore record ownership of economically worthless tokens.

Cryptocurrency markets are also vulnerable to manipulation. In a pump-and-dump scheme, organizers acquire a little-known coin, promote it aggressively, and create the appearance of rising public interest. Social-media posts, fabricated news, celebrity endorsements, or claims of secret information attract new buyers. As the price rises, the organizers sell their holdings. The collapse comes after they have taken their profits, leaving later buyers with the losses.

The lack of recourse compounds the danger. Cryptocurrency transactions are generally irreversible. A person persuaded to send funds to a scammer cannot call a bank and stop payment. Although public blockchain transactions can often be traced from one digital address to another, tracing an address is not the same as identifying its owner or recovering the money.

Cryptocurrency may prove durable as a specialized transfer technology, a speculative collectible, or a niche financial instrument. But those possibilities should not be confused with a dependable currency or a prudent store of household savings.

All money is based on confidence. The important question is what supports that confidence. National currencies rest on broad systems of law, taxation, commerce, banking, and public accountability. Cryptocurrency rests largely on software, market liquidity, and the expectation that other people will continue to want the tokens.

A person buying cryptocurrency should therefore understand exactly what is being purchased. Unless the buyer needs its particular transactional capabilities, the purchase is not an investment in productive value. It is a bet that confidence will persist, the network and exchanges will remain accessible, and someone else will later pay as much or more for the token.

That bet may succeed. It may also fail without warning—and without anyone being responsible for making the holder whole.

Certain deaths linger in public memory not only because they are tragic, but because they expose something broken in the relationship between authority and the people it serves. The shootings at Kent State University in 1970 became one such moment. Four students were killed by National Guard troops during a protest. Some of the students were demonstrators, others were simply walking to class. In the aftermath, investigations showed confusion, fear, poor command judgment, and—most importantly—a mindset in which armed force was deemed appropriate against civilians who were perceived as disorderly, threatening, or insufficiently compliant.

Kent State was not only about a single bad decision. It revealed the danger of militarized thinking applied to civilian situations: when troops trained for combat are deployed to manage protest, dissent, or ambiguity, the threshold for lethal force drops, and tragedy becomes more likely.

The death of Ms. Good should give us pause in a similar way.

Whatever the ultimate findings of investigations, what is already clear is that a routine encounter escalated to lethal violence within seconds. A civilian—by all accounts not posing an imminent deadly threat—lost her life during an enforcement action. The justification offered relies on a familiar framework: noncompliance equals danger; danger justifies overwhelming force. This is the same logic that haunted Kent State.

Militarized law enforcement is not defined solely by equipment—armored vehicles, tactical gear, or assault-style weapons. It is defined by mindset. A militarized mindset treats uncertainty as hostility, resistance as aggression, and civilians as potential enemies. It emphasizes domination over engagement, control over communication, and force over patience. In such a framework, the goal is not to resolve a situation safely, but to “neutralize” it.

History shows that this mindset is especially dangerous in civilian contexts. Ordinary people do not behave like trained soldiers. They freeze, panic, misunderstand instructions, argue, hesitate, or comply imperfectly. When law enforcement is trained to interpret those human responses as tactical threats, the margin for error collapses—and the cost of error is paid in blood.

Kent State shocked the nation because it shattered a comforting assumption: that authority, even when armed, would exercise restraint when dealing with its own citizens. The students were not foreign combatants. They were not insurgents. They were young people in a public space. The realization that lethal force could be used so indiscriminately forced a reckoning about how power was being deployed.

We should resist the temptation to see Ms. Good’s death as an isolated incident, or to wait for legal proceedings alone to settle its meaning. A Kent State moment is not defined by a verdict; it is defined by recognition. Recognition that something larger than one individual decision is at work. Recognition that narratives of threat, cultivated over years, can prime institutions to respond with violence first and reflection later.

This recognition matters now because militarization has expanded far beyond crowd control. Federal, state, and local agencies increasingly operate as if they are entering hostile territory when engaging with the public. This posture is reinforced by political rhetoric, by entertainment that glorifies decisive violence, and by internal cultures that reward dominance rather than de-escalation.

The danger is not merely to those who are targeted by enforcement actions. It is to everyone. Once lethal force becomes normalized as a response to ambiguity, no one can be certain where the line truly lies. Kent State taught us that even proximity—not participation—offers no protection when fear governs judgment.

If we fail to treat moments like this as warnings, history suggests what follows: hardened positions, defensive justifications, and gradual acceptance of what once would have been unthinkable. A society that does not pause after such deaths risks training itself to look away.

Calling this a “Kent State moment” is a caution. It is a reminder that the line between order and oppression is crossed not all at once, but incrementally—each time fear is allowed to override restraint, and each time violence is excused as unavoidable rather than examined as preventable.

The question before us is not only what happened to Ms. Good, but what we are willing to learn from it. History has already shown us the cost of failing to do so.

Trump wants to take the US to war to recover and dominate the world’s largest oil reserves.

Venezuela, which once welcomed American energy companies, has the world’s largest oil reserves. President Trump wants access to them again. He wrote on social media that U.S. operations there would continue until the country returned to the United States “all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”

That helps explain the last three months.

Venezuelan Navy Escorts Vessels After Trump’s Blockade Threat

The Venezuelan government was said to have ordered the escort, according to two people familiar with the matter. It was not immediately clear whether the vessels were subject to U.S. sanctions.

America’s current mad monk Rasputin, Stephen Miller, is driving this. The NY Times quotes him, “American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela,” he wrote. “Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property. These pillaged assets were then used to fund terrorism and flood our streets with killers, mercenaries and drugs.”

It’s not in anyone’s long-term interest to develop more cheap fossil energy sources. But It’s had to see that when big oil’s political and economic influence is at work.

As an aside, who believes that the drug cartels of South America need oil money to sell their products in US cities and towns? It is our addictive society that creates the demand, and our affluence that provides the money to buy them. Oil money subsidy? Nah. The free market works just fine for the cartels. They just need a little graft to move the product and recover the proceeds of the sale. There’s talk that presidents, and bitcoins are useful.

Live by the Sword, Die by the Sword

The murder of Charlie Kirk is tragic. Violence has no place in a democracy, and it should have no place in human relations at any scale. Full stop.

Yet we must also admit that this killing is not a bolt from the blue. It is the grim, predictable consequence of a culture that has allowed violent rhetoric to flourish and has winked at those who carry it into action. The sword that Kirk and his allies unsheathed — as a metaphor, as a political weapon — has now cut back.

Charlie Kirk was one of the loudest voices of the MAGA era. Through Turning Point USA, he amplified messages that vilified opponents, questioned elections, and stoked resentment. He portrayed politics not as a contest of ideas but as a war for the nation’s survival. For his followers, this was energizing. For his critics, it was destabilizing.

The alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, was no progressive. Early reports suggest he was influenced by a strain of extremism so far to the right that Kirk himself appeared too soft, too compromised. His rifle carried inscriptions, grim slogans, a private catechism of radicalization. This was not an act of the left striking the right — it was the fringe consuming its own.

Violence does not erupt in a vacuum. It is cultivated. In the years since January 6th, a Republican president pardoned those convicted of storming the Capitol. Some Republican leaders have called them “hostages” and “political prisoners.” Ashli Babbitt — shot while attempting to breach the Speaker’s Lobby — has been elevated to the status of a martyr and patriot.

These choices are not mere symbolism; they are signals. They tell followers that violence in service of the cause is not just forgivable but honorable. They transform criminality into heroism, and they dare the next zealot to go further.

Democratic leaders have not been perfect — property damage during protests was at times excused or underplayed — but the left has neither endorsed nor executed a systemic pattern of pardons or promises of immunity for violent actors. That is the asymmetry we face: one party increasingly normalizes force as a tool of politics, while the other still clings, however imperfectly, to peaceful government of, by, and for the people.

I remain amazed at the restraint shown by the Capitol Police and other law enforcement officers on January 6th. Facing a mob intent on violence — some wielding weapons, many screaming threats — the officers mostly refrained from drawing or firing their weapons. They absorbed beatings, chemical sprays, and broken bones, buying time for lawmakers to escape and for order to be restored. That was discipline. That was courage. That was a commitment to life over death, even when threatened with death themselves.

Do we owe a similar discipline in our words as we react to Charlie Kirk’s death? It is tempting to say that he courted violence and met the fate his rhetoric invited — to make “live by the sword” a kind of cosmic justice.

But democracy requires us to reject vengeance as a political language. We can condemn Kirk’s divisive speech and the politics he championed without celebrating his death. To do otherwise mirrors the very logic we oppose: that political differences should be settled by force.

A Warning and a Plea

This killing is a warning: the flames that leaders stoke cannot be so easily controlled. The sword, once drawn, swings in all directions. Those who call their opponents traitors should not be surprised when someone decides to treat them as such.

We are approaching a breaking point. If we wish to save democracy — not just its machinery but its spirit — we must disarm our speech as well as our hands. We must demand of leaders that they model restraint, that they stop rewarding extremism, that they make clear that violence, whether from left, right, or fringe, is intolerable.

Charlie Kirk’s death should not become a rallying cry for revenge. It should become a moment of clarity: that no one, not even our fiercest opponents, should be gunned down for what they believe. The sword must be sheathed, for all of us.

Notes

1. Killing of Charlie Kirk – Wikipedia summary of events
2. Charlie Kirk shooting suspect captured after manhunt – Reuters report
3. Accused sniper charged in Utah – AP News coverage
4. Bullet casings carried political messages – Daily Beast investigation
5. Rhetoric around January 6th pardons and martyrdom – NPR analysis

My opinion piece was accepted and published by the Herald on May 8.

The hidden cost of DOGE

In pretending that all government services are wasteful, DOGE has undermined the very systems that sustain fairness, innovation and opportunity in America.

Senator Elizabeth Warren published a list of corrupt acts

Subject: 100 reports of corruption in the first 100 days

Date: May 1, 2025 at 6:41:11 PM EDT

In order to mark Trump’s first 100 days in office, I took the liberty of sharing 100 reports of corruption he’s responsible for.Take a look below — one example of corruption for every single day he’s been in office.I refuse to accept this as our new normal. Americans deserve accountability. Period. We need to fight back — all of us. Count with me now: In just one hundred days, Donald Trump, his family, and his Administration have: 1. Turned the White House into a Tesla dealership. 2. Fired independent commissioners at the FTC. 3. Punished former officials who opposed his 2020 election lies. 4. Paid for the White House Easter Egg roll by soliciting corporate sponsors who have business pending with the government. 5. Helped Trump’s son set up a club — pay $500,000 for access to Trump’s cabinet. 6. Declared that there would be NO tariff exceptions. Then permitted Apple’s CEO “behind the scenes” access — and poof, iPhone tariffs were cut. 7. Created an opening for insider trading by reportedly giving Wall Street exclusive information about trade talks. 8. Hosted million-dollar dinners between Big Pharma CEOs and their regulator RFK Jr. 9. Launched crypto memecoin right before inauguration to make millions of dollars, then increased the value of those coins by signing executive orders making crypto a priority. 10. Launched a meme coin for Melania, too. 11. Promised his “rich-as-hell” donors a giant tax handout, and is working to deliver. 12. Weakened rules insulating government workers from politics. 13. Limited corporate foreign bribery investigations. 14. Halted enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act. 15. Offered a private dinner with Trump himself—and a special tour of the White House—for the top 220 holders of his memecoin, permitting Trump and his family to profit both from the run up in the value of the coin AND the increase in trading on the Trump platform. 16. Accepted $40 million for First Lady Melania’s documentary from Jeff Bezos – way above the market rate. 17. Pointed to Bezos’s multi-million-dollar documentary payment as a model, when Warner Bros. asked Trump’s team how to improve its own relationship with the White House. 18. Struck a deal with Amazon to stream Trump’s old show The Apprentice, which will mean more money for Trump as Amazon seeks tax breaks and other federal benefits. 19. Started undermining Medicare’s ability to negotiate drug prices after Big Pharma companies gave millions to Trump’s inauguration. 20. Filed a meritless lawsuit against 60 Minutes and launched a baseless FCC investigation. 21. Tried to get the AP to bend the knee and kicked them out of the White House briefing room when they refused. 22. Hired Defense Secretary Hegseth’s younger brother to serve in a key role. 23. Hired a longtime former partner of Don Jr. to serve as Ambassador to Greece. 24. Nominated Jared Kushner’s father to serve as Ambassador to France. 25. Selected Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law to serve as an adviser. 26. Appointed an oil and gas executive to lead the Department of Energy. 27. Selected a Chief of Staff who was a big-time lobbyist for clients like tobacco and mining companies. 28. Named officials who had recently lobbied for oil and chemical giants to help write E-P-A rules. 29. Appointed Mehmet Oz, who has close ties to Medicare Advantage insurers, to lead CMS to set payment rates and otherwise help out Medicare Advantage insurers. 30. Appointed John Phelan, a major donor with no military or government experience, to lead the Navy and hand out Navy construction contracts. 31. Appointed Pam Bondi, a former lobbyist for a federal detention contractor, to lead the DOJ. 32. Announced the DOJ would stop prioritizing enforcement of restrictions on foreign lobbyists, under the leadership of Bondi, who herself is a former foreign lobbyist for Qatar. 33. Appointed Howard Lutnick, who has billions invested in companies accused of illegally facilitating crypto money laundering, to lead the Commerce Department. 34. Appointed Marty Makary, the former executive of a company selling weight-loss drugs, to lead the FDA, which would regulate his company. 35. Appointed Sean Duffy, who lobbied for the airline industry, to Transportation Secretary. 36. Tapped Pete Hegseth, whose wife owns stock in large defense contractors, to lead the Defense Department. 37. Tapped Doug Burgum — who made money from leasing land to Big Oil — to lead the Interior Department. 38. Nominated a Big Oil lobbyist to run the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. 39. Nominated as IRS head Billy Long, an aggressive salesman for a fraud-riddled tax credit, who received donations after being nominated to clear old campaign debts. 40. Tapped Paul Atkins, a former crypto lobbyist, to lead the SEC. 41. Appointed a former tax lobbyist, to lead tax policy. 42. Appointed RFK Jr., who planned to get paid for anti-vax lawsuits while heading up HHS. 43. Appointed a top Pentagon official who led a firm investing in defense contractors and has directed D-O-D to outsource as much as it can. 44. Appointed someone who lobbied to privatize Medicare to lead OMB’s healthcare budget. 45. Installed Steve Davis to effectively lead DOGE while also leading a Musk company. 46. Installed another DOGE leader to control the Treasury’s payment system while still holding down his day job as a software CEO. 47. Handed power over crypto policy to a White House crypto czar who leads a venture capital firm that heavily invests in crypto. 48. Selected a border czar who led a firm that got tens of millions of dollars of federal contracts for homeland security companies. 49. Appointed Treasury Secretary Bessent who is gutting the IRS so that it can’t audit rich tax cheats — he’s a tax-dodging mega-millionaire. 50. Pardoned Rod Blagojevich, former Illinois governor convicted for corruption, after his vocal support for Trump. 51. Pardoned January 6 insurrectionists who tried to overturn an election he lost. 52. Pardoned a Trump loyalist found guilty of wire fraud. 53. Pardoned the son of a longtime Republican donor. 54. Pardoned a corporation that had been fined $100 million for money laundering. 55. Launched his own stablecoin while preparing to sign legislation that will help the stablecoin and let him oversee it. 56. Sold merch with presidential branding. 57. Disbanded DOJ’s crypto unit after business talks between Binance and a Trump-backed crypto company ramped up. 58. Halted SEC enforcement actions against crypto companies that enriched Trump. 59. Met with crypto executives who are asking Treasury to back off of oversight of their companies — all while exploring a deal to list a Trump-linked crypto company’s new stablecoin. 60. Maintained financial ties between Trump officials and Trump’s media company. That includes FBI Director Kash Patel, who was gifted a huge award of Trump media company stock. 61. Nominated Attorney General Bondi who owned $2 million in DJT shares. 62. Paid the Education Secretary almost $1 million in Trump Media company shares. 63. Intelligence Board nominees who have millions in Trump Media company shares. 64. Selected a Special Envoy to the Middle East who wants to develop real estate in Gaza while running his own real estate firm. 65. Appointed an FBI Director who consulted for the Qatari government. 66. Picked that FBI Director even though he also received millions from a Cayman Island holding company with ties to China. 67. Decided to cancel the Direct File program, which will help the bottom line of Intuit, which gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration. 68. Took its largest inauguration donation from a poultry company under DOJ scrutiny. After the donation, the SEC approved its parent company for the New York Stock Exchange. 69. Dropped a probe into sexual misconduct allegations against Trump’s Education Secretary’s husband. 70. Hosted dozens of foreign, federal, and state officials at Mar-a-Lago, helping enrich Trump. 71. Hosted a GOP retreat at another one of Trump’s resorts. 72. Circumvented the normal contracting process to pick a company with close ties to Trump’s former campaign manager. 73. Awarded a $30 million ICE contract to Trump insider Peter Thiel. 74. Continued developing new Trump properties overseas, including in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. 75. Hatched a plan for the State Department to pay Tesla $400 million dollars. 76. Accepted a $4 million inauguration donation from a GOP megadonor and nominated him as UK ambassador the same day.And Donald Trump took actions that could advance the personal interests of his co-president Elon Musk:77. Fired EEOC leaders investigating and suing Tesla. 78. Illegally fired the NLRB Chair, which filed a complaint against SpaceX. 79. Gutted CFPB staff and fired the Director after they investigated complaints against Musk’s companies. 80. Gutted the Department of Labor office investigating Tesla and Space X. 81. Fired the USAID Inspector General, who launched a probe into satellite terminals made by Musk’s Starlink. 82. Targeted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration staff who were reportedly, quote, a “thorn in Tesla’s side.” 83. Said Musk would self-police his conflicts of interest. Yeah, right… 84. Pressured the Administrator of the FAA, which fined Musk’s SpaceX, to resign. 85. Permitted Musk to keep his financial disclosure hidden. I’ve got a new bill to fix that! 86. Allowed Musk’s Starlink to start working with the FAA after Musk criticized the FAA’s air traffic telecom system. 87. Made Musk’s SpaceX the frontrunner for a new lucrative Golden Dome contract. 88. Stood by Musk when his X executives told an advertising firm to increase ad revenue — threatening that Musk could interfere with a pending merger. 89. Permitted Musk to join Trump’s interview with the Air Force secretary nominee while SpaceX held billions of dollars in contracts with the Air Force. 90. Permitted the National Transportation Safety Board to share news related to the airplane crashes in Washington and Philadelphia only on Musk-owned X. 91. Permitted the Social Security Administration to only share important public communication on X. 92. Dropped DOJ’s anti-discrimination complaint against Musk’s SpaceX. 93. Fired FDA staffers reviewing Elon Musk’s Neuralink clinical trial applications. 94. Coercing law firms to offer almost $1 billion in free legal work in an arrangement that experts say could run afoul of anti-bribery laws.And for our closing six moves that make every bit of this corruption even harder to root out, Trump got rid of cops on the beat:95. Fired 18 Inspectors General who make sure the federal agencies follow the law 96. Fired the head of the Office of Special Counsel who protects whistleblowers and makes sure that civil service laws are fired. 97. Fired the head of the Office of Government Ethics who watches to see that the President and his Administration follow the laws on conflicts of interest, bribery and other ethics issues. 98. Fired DOJ prosecutors who worked on January 6th investigations. 99. Sidelined DOJ’s office that reviews the legality of executive orders. 100. Gutted DOJ’s office that prosecutes misconduct by public officials. I’m going to do everything in my power and use every tool I’ve got to hold this administration accountable and root corruption out of our government.  Thanks for being a part of this, Elizabeth

Con artists and magicians seek to divert your attention in order to deceive you. Its a performative trick.

All the fuss of Immigration is such a distracton. The real agenda is happening right before our eyes. Her are some examples:

I was proud to serve at NSA sixty years ago. It was more secretive then, we joked that the initials stood for “no such agency” but we were serious about never revealing anything about our work outside of the highly protected confines of our particular departments. We didn’t talk about work with colleagues who didn’t have the need to know. We didn’t even disclose where we worked. And nobody talked shop on the outside.

It’s different today. There is a Cryptography Museum that’s open to the public, and a dedicated exit on the GW Expressway with a big sign that says NSA Employees Only. Retired civilian employees are the docents. On a recent visit, I recognized the collegial spirit in those retirees that I had remembered from my days there. Like my contemporaries, they were proud of their work. We were part of a vast network often called the “intelligence community” and our purpose was to keep America safe by being vigilant for threats. It was our job to see threats to America coming and warn those in a position to respond. The early 1960’s were the years of the cold war, and it was a battle of covert actors. Russian agents contacted people I knew, attempted to compromise them, failed, and were apprehended.

Next month Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is due for reauthorization. It is a critical and controversial part of U.S. intelligence law that authorizes the government to collect foreign intelligence information on non-U.S. persons located outside the United States, without obtaining a traditional warrant.

What It Does

• Targets foreigners abroad: Section 702 allows the NSA (National Security Agency) and other intelligence agencies to target non-U.S. citizens overseas for surveillance purposes.
• Collects communications: This includes emails, phone calls, and internet data—especially communications that travel through U.S.-based infrastructure.
• No warrant for foreigners: U.S. law does not require a warrant to surveil foreign nationals outside the country, though oversight is required.

Why It’s Important to U.S. Security

1. Prevents terrorism: Intelligence gathered under Section 702 has been credited with disrupting plots and identifying terrorists and other national security threats.
2. Tracks foreign adversaries: It helps monitor activities of foreign spies, hackers, and state actors like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.
3. Supports cyber defense: The provision plays a key role in identifying and countering cyber intrusions and ransomware attacks coming from abroad.
4. Informs policymakers: Section 702 intelligence is often used to brief the President, military, and diplomats on foreign threats and global developments.

Controversies and Criticisms

• Incidental collection: Sometimes, Americans’ communications get swept up (“incidentally”) when they are in contact with foreign targets.
• Backdoor searches: U.S. agencies (like the FBI) have used Section 702 databases to search for information about U.S. citizens without a warrant, raising civil liberties concerns.
• Calls for reform: Civil rights advocates and lawmakers across the political spectrum have called for tighter controls, more transparency, and warrant requirements for U.S.-person queries.

Current Status

The next deadline for reauthorization is April 2025 (it was last extended temporarily in 2024).

Section 702 is not a permanent law—it must be reauthorized periodically by Congress.

This renewal is coming up framed by SignalGate, the security scandal where our highest level of leadership in the Trump administration flagrantly violated basic security practices and divulged secret information to the editor of Atlantic Magazine.

It also coming when NSA is being forced by DOGE to reduce its personnel.

At the same time, the administration is defying and seeking to discredit and intimidate a former FISA judge, one who was cleared and trusted to hear cases about security matters, because he’s probing the unlawful deportation and imprisonment of alleged Venezuelan gang members — some of whom were evidently snatched only because they had tatoos.

The manifest lack of honor and the disregard of the law displayed by the current administration leaves me to wonder if they can be trusted with the powers granted by Section 702. Will they disregard the guardrails and order NSA to spy on political enemies here at home?