Reaffirm the Principles of Liberty By Dismantling the Surveillance State
Floor Speech
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Mr. SELF. Mr. Speaker, America's founding generation did not take up arms merely over taxes. They rebelled against a tyrannical government that planted spies in their taverns, searched their homes, and read their private letters.
Benjamin Franklin understood this threat deeply. He popularized the rattlesnake as the symbol of America, first with his ``Join, or Die'' cartoon, and later by praising the defiant motto: ``Don't Tread On Me.''
He also delivered a timeless warning: Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
This year, 2026, marks the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence. There could be no more fitting time to reaffirm the principles of liberty than by dismantling the surveillance state that has quietly eroded them. That starts with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA, which has become the modern incarnation of the general warrants that ignited the revolution.
Created originally to track foreign enemies on foreign soil, section 702 has morphed into a sprawling domestic surveillance machine that sweeps up American's communications and treats the Fourth Amendment like a suggestion.
On June 12, Congress faces another deadline to renew section 702. The intelligence community wants a clean reauthorization, but we are not going to accept that, Congress should not accept that, and no American, if they were actually told the truth for once about what their own government is doing to them, would accept that.
This is not opposition to national security. It is a refusal to sacrifice essential liberty for temporary safety. If Congress is going to renew FISA, then we must enact meaningful changes.
First, repeal the dangerously broad expansion of the term ``electronic communication service provider.'' It now allows the government to compel churches, small businesses, and community organizations to hand over Americans' communications.
Second, strengthen the FISA Courts Amicus Curiae program so independent voices can actually defend Americans' rights in secret proceedings.
Third, close the data broker loophole that allows the FBI, IRS, and every other Federal agency to bypass the Constitution by simply buying Americans' geolocation, metadata, and browsing history off the market.
Most urgently, require a warrant for backdoor searches of Americans' communications.
At peak, the government conducted nearly 3 million warrantless searches of U.S. citizens' data, many of them illegal. Foreign threats must be watched, but Americans deserve probable cause and a real warrant on American soil.
In addition, we must ban the Central Bank Digital Currency permanently. The CBDC is the ultimate surveillance tool that allows the government to track, control, and potentially freeze every purchase you make.
The CBDC cannot ever be allowed to operate in the United States. It is the biggest threat to our privacy.
While we are at it, let's secure our elections by ensuring that only American citizens vote in American elections.
Mr. Speaker, our Founders never intended for us to trade liberty for supposed safety. Our Founders never imagined today where illegal aliens would be voting in our elections.
In this 250th anniversary year of American independence, Congress must draw a line in the sand. Let us stand with our forefathers, the Constitution, and the American people who want secure elections and for the government to stop spying on them.
Reject the rubber-stamped FISA renewal, pass these reforms, secure our elections, ban CBDC forever, restore the Fourth Amendment, and protect our Republic. The rattlesnake is, once again, rattling. It is time for Congress to listen.
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Mr. SELF. As far as I know, no one.
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Mr. SELF. Exactly.
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Mr. SELF. Please hang around.
I want to, first of all, say that this is about privacy. What we are advocating is privacy.
Mr. Speaker, 250 years ago, the Declaration of Independence had that most famous phrase: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Now, they debated happiness back in those days, and they started out with property. What is pursuit of property?
That is you own what is yours, and that included privacy, the ability of you to control what you own. What we are talking about is losing the ability to control what you own, what you buy, and where you go. That is what we are talking about, is privacy here.
Look, as the gentleman said, we support surveillance on foreign actors on foreign soil, and with a warrant, we support law enforcement to do what they need to do with a warrant.
I want to tell you a story about facial recognition. One of my staff members has a young boy. He is at camp right now, so when they dropped him off at camp, they said: Give us a photograph of your son.
They did so. What they are going to use that for is they have cameras everywhere at this camp to protect the young. What they are going to do is use AI to take one of the pictures that they take randomly, identify his son, chop out a picture with him in the middle of his campmates, and send it to the parents.
Now, that is an okay use. They agree to that, but that same capability will pick you out of a crowd with AI facial recognition. In the wrong hands--any technology in the wrong hands can be used for evil purposes.
Let's get back to cameras. The Ring doorbells, a lot of people have them. In fact, some communities have a lot of them. Law enforcement is now going and demanding--when they think there has been a crime that this camera might have seen, demanding that they be allowed to see what that Ring doorbell recorded. Again, technology can be used for good or for evil.
I want to point out that the United States--even without some of the things we are talking about here--today is one of the most surveilled nations in the world, right up there with China, Russia, some of the Middle Eastern countries. It is one of the most surveilled nations in the world, and that is before we get to CBDC.
I want to go back to Benjamin Franklin, because we are celebrating 250 years this year. Frankly, we don't need to be celebrating just the actual 250 years because we have made it 250 years. We need to be celebrating the wisdom of the Founders. Part of the wisdom is what we have talked about several times here, this statement that is so apropos to what we are discussing tonight: Those who would give up essential liberty and privacy written into the Declaration of Independence, codified in the Constitution--those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty, nor safety.
Why would the safety be temporary? It is because when people come along who will use it for evil purposes, it would not provide safety at all.
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Mr. SELF. Absolutely.
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Mr. SELF. To the gentleman's point, I want to end with China because a lot of people will say that this is all theory, you are overreacting, and that this is hyperbole. It will never happen here.
But China has something that they call the social credit score. They take your social credit score, and they measure you based on everything--what you buy, what you post on the internet, what you say to your fellow worker, what they see you do, how you drive, everything. Everything, the government takes into account for a social credit score, and then they will tell you how you can live your life based on your social credit score.
It is all on collected data. It is based on collected data.
Mr. Speaker, I would say to my fellow Americans that is what we are facing. We are facing a social credit score if all of this happens: the kill switch, CBDC, and warrantless surveillance on your electronic communications. That is what we are looking at if all of this happens and these cameras proliferate across America.
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Mr. SELF. Absolutely.
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Mr. SELF. Let me make this point: It can get worse. What you are saying is true, but it can get worse. That is what we are trying to stop. That is why we are sounding the alarm that the surveillance state must be stopped.
The red line in the sand right now is FISA reform. Any FISA reform that does not include a permanent ban on CBDC and securing our elections, I believe, does not cut the mustard.
Does the gentleman have any closing comments?
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Mr. SELF. I will say that I consider the CBDC, the central bank digital currency, the final leg in the surveillance state stool.
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