Patriot Act Repeal Allows Republican Party to Atone for the Sins of Its Neocon Past

It is time for the GOP to re-embrace the American traditions of decentralization, localized authority and respect for our core freedoms.

Last week, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida announced that she would be introducing the American Privacy Restoration Act in order to fully repeal the Patriot Act, end the surveillance state and restore the 4th Amendment in the U.S.

“For over two decades, rogue actors within our U.S. intelligence agencies have used the PATRIOT Act to create the most sophisticated, unaccountable surveillance apparatus in the Western world,” Luna told Breitbart News.

The Patriot Act was the reform passed in the immediate fervor of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that vastly expanded government surveillance powers. This allowed the NSA to peer into an individual's phone calls, text messages, emails and metadata without a warrant as long as they are considered “relevant” to a terror case.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald noted that the extreme overreaching powers of the Patriot Act were always sold as being a temporary solution to the problem of radical Islamic terrorism in the aftermath of Sept. 11. It became anything but temporary with the powers being automatically rubber stamped by Congress every four years or so.

The Sept. 11 official story has since unraveled. The idea that a ragtag group of evil Muslims who hate America because of the country’s freedom were able to circumvent the most sophisticated air defense systems the world has ever known does not hold up to serious scrutiny. Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth have pointed to many discrepancies in the supposed evidence backing the government’s story, including the smoking gun of WTC Building 7 collapsing into its own footprint.

The Patriot Act has become a staple of the federal bureaucracy since its inception and has been expanded upon immensely. It grew into the infamous indefinite detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012. These provisions allowed for Americans to be detained under virtually any pretense as long as a corrupt attorney or bureaucrat decided that person was an “associated force” of terrorism.

And thus, due process was eviscerated and civil liberties became a thing of the past - on the watch of the supposedly pro-freedom Republican Party. When Trump ran for President in 2016, the true agenda behind measures such as the Patriot Act came to light. Secret FISA courts authorized the illegal surveillance of the Trump campaign in order to frame Trump as a Russian agent to undermine his presidency, make a mockery of the democratic process and affirm the supremacy of the permanent shadow government.

Rep. Luna’s proposed legislation is important because the Republican Party needs to be all-in for its repudiation of Bush-ism. The Party must reconcile the sins of its recent past. The neocon stench is still all too palpable in Republican circles. Some of the Patriot Act’s most belligerent proponents, such as former Congressman Mike Rogers of Michigan, continue to linger in the GOP fold, attempting to repackage themselves as MAGA faithful, hoping to pay off the right consultant to get back into power and once again serve the deep state swamp.

Ending the Patriot Act sends a message that the Republican Party led by Donald Trump and fueled by the MAGA revolution will never tolerate the betrayals that made the GOP into a national disgrace. The bogeyman of foreign terror was mostly a devious ruse promulgated by bloodthirsty neocons to trick the people into surrendering their God-given rights so they could craft their ‘New American Century’ on the ashes of the U.S. Constitution and their globalist empire could reign over the world.

The federal bureaucracy itself is the preeminent threat to the American way of life, more so than any foreign power. Tinpot dictatorships in the Middle East cannot hold a candle to the federal deep state’s ability to destroy the lives of Americans. Even actual threats like China and Russia pale in comparison to the federal behemoth. Only after the enemy within is conquered can America be put back on the trajectory toward greatness.

Divesting power from the federal government and uprooting the laws that allowed it to grow into such a dangerous colossus is the path forward for the Republican Party to save America. Republicans almost destroyed the country by embracing centralization and big government, but the rise of Trump gives the Party another chance to turn the ship of state around.

It is time for the GOP to re-embrace the American traditions of decentralization, localized authority and respect for our core freedoms. Repealing the Patriot Act is a tremendous start in that direction.