Quote (Goomshill @ Jan 19 2018 08:52am)
Its not a coincidence, the republicans are very supportive of the unconstitutional spying programs, even when its been abused against them. Trump is no civil libertarian crusader. So Nunes intentionally kept quiet any complaints against the FISA process until after it was reapproved, so that their memogate strategy wouldn't create political pressure to scuttle the FISA reapproval. This is one of the quirks of establishment authoritarianism run amok, big brother could have his home raided by secret police one day and then the next day rationalize the continued orwellian state as an overall pragmatic good.
Judging on the verbal sparing Rand Paul and Chris Chistie did in debate #1 on that issue I disagree. I think the Paul/Cruz wing of the GOP are staunchly against it, and the more authoritarian east coast GOP members are very in support of it. I think it could be argued that the libertarian wing of the GOP has almost no power and very little influence on the GOP leadership compared to the more authoritarian wing however. My point is that the GOP politicians and base seems deeply split on the issue, but leadership may be locked in on it.