Advocacy groups push for Congressional reforms to surveillance, war declaration policies

Advocacy groups across the political divide are joining to push Congress to change national security policy involving the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and decisions about how to wage war.

The American Civil Liberties Union is teaming with right-leaning FreedomWorks on a digital ad campaign urging FISA reform, and a coalition of 20 groups on the left and right are asking lawmakers to adopt a “statement of principles” about military intervention, arms sales and emergency declarations.

The ACLU pledged to spend at least $10,000 on the ad campaign, primarily focused on FISA legislation, in such states as California, Georgia, North Carolina and New York, through March 6.

The campaign is targeting lawmakers including House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, New York Democrat; Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the judiciary committee; Rep. Mark Meadows, North Carolina Republican; and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, according to Facebook’s Ad Library application programming interface.

The ads were timed to coincide with a scheduled House Judiciary Committee meeting on the FISA legislation, which was scrapped Wednesday.

“The government has for too long abused its surveillance powers to wrongly spy on Americans,” said Neema Singh Guliani, ACLU senior legislative counsel, in a statement. “All eyes are now on Congress, which must seize the coming opportunity to overhaul our nation’s broken surveillance regime.”
FreedomWorks said it has worked on FISA every time Congress has considered related legislation and it was not going to miss the chance to fight the battle again in 2020 with its anti-Trump ally, the ACLU.

“Transpartisan coalitions aren’t new to us,” said Peter Vicenzi, FreedomWorks spokesman, in an email. “We’ve worked with groups on the left on various issues of mutual concern, such as civil liberties and criminal justice, in the past and will continue to do so. Teaming up with the ACLU on this made sense.”

FreedomWorks also joined a coalition of 20 groups to advocate that Congress adhere to a new “statement of principles” regarding lawmakers’ authority over the United States’ war-making decisions. Included in the coalition are the libertarian-leaning R Street Institute think tank and several left-leaning groups such as the Center for American Progress and VoteVets.

The coalition says the system of checks and balances between President Trump and Congress is “broken” and urges Congress to “rise above partisanship and parochial interests” to fix it.

“Military interventions, emergency declarations, and arms sales are areas where the president may act only with authorization or approval from Congress,” the coalition’s statement declares. “In genuine emergencies where Congress has no time to act, the president may proceed without congressional approval — but only for a limited period of time. These national security powers must be used for clearly defined purposes, subject to regular review by Congress, and only as a last resort.”

The R Street Institute, which focuses on free market and limited government issues, joined the effort because it viewed the advocacy as policy-centric and not politics-focused.

“R Street has long argued that Congress has surrendered many of its constitutional responsibilities, and must take back power it has for too long ceded to the executive branch,” said Anthony Marcum, R Street Institute resident fellow. “The statement of principles shows that this is a bipartisan effort, not focused on politics, but rather rebalancing our separation of powers system.”