And It Was Such a Nice Democracy. . . .

Moscow Mitch,, most likely at the behest of his Kremlin paymaster, is trying to turn the U.S. into an even worse surveillance state than it already is:

Days after the Justice Department controversially dropped charges against Mike Flynn, Senate GOP Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is set to expand a highly politicized Justice Department’s surveillance authority during a vote this week to renew the 2001 PATRIOT Act.

Under cover of redressing what President Donald Trump and his allies call the FBI’s “witch hunt” over collusion with the Kremlin, McConnell, via an amendment to the PATRIOT Act, will expressly permit the FBI to warrantlessly collect records on Americans’ web browsing and search histories. In a different amendment, McConnell also proposes giving the attorney general visibility into the “accuracy and completeness” of FBI surveillance submissions to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court.

McConnell's amendments are directed against all of us -- except, of course, Trump and his henchmen.

Taken together, privacy advocates consider McConnell’s moves an alarming expansion of Attorney General Bill Barr’s powers under FISA, a four-decade-old process that already places the attorney general at the center of national-security surveillance. It also doesn’t escape their notice that McConnell is increasing Barr’s oversight of surveillance on political candidates while expanding surveillance authorities on every other American. One privacy activist called McConnell’s efforts “two of the most cynical attempts to undermine surveillance reform I've ever seen."

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) said that Barr, who has been deeply involved in investigations of interest to Trump, could authorize an investigation into a political rival, which could then unlock the internet-spying powers McConnell wants to grant the FBI.

“Under the McConnell amendment, Barr gets to look through the web browsing history of any American—including journalists, politicians, and political rivals—without a warrant, just by saying it is relevant to an investigation,” said Wyden, who has been trying to ban warrantless surveillance on such records.

If you think this is starting to sound like the Soviet Union in Stalin's heyday -- well, you're not far off. And to put Barr at the head of this effort makes it blatantly obvious that it's all a political maneuver to use the government's already too broad surveillance powers to shore up the Republican regime. (I'm not calling it the "Trump regime" because the GOP leadership will dump him as soon as he's no longer useful.) This is something they've been working toward since the days of Saint Ronnie, and Trump's fantasies of a "witch hunt" by the FBI are just the excuse they need.

It's worth reading the whole thing -- it's pretty alarming. The upside is that McConnell has to get this past Nancy Pelosi and the House, so it's not a done deal.

Via Joe.My.God.