Hello! And welcome to the inaugural post for #SwampTakes!

In the wake of the stunning assault on the U.S. Capitol building on January 6th, it is inevitable that emotionally-charged reactions by Congress will ensue, as after any major crisis. In particular, there is concern that legislation may move early in this new Congress to try to expand the treatment of “domestic terrorism.” A justified desire to punish those who committed an unprecedented act of violence and vandalism must not lead to a contraction of the civil liberties of peaceful protestors or their right to political dissent.

FreedomWorks is proud to honor Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) as our member of the month for September 2020. Senator Paul’s voting record has been 98 percent in alignment with FreedomWorks’ Congressional Scorecard over the ten years he has served as Kentucky’s junior U.S. Senator. During that time, he has consistently been a source and fearless champion of some of the best, limited-government legislation across a wide spectrum of issues.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to mark up a bill that is a classic piece of Washington, D.C. misdirection. The Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (EARN IT) Act, S. 3398, presents itself as a bill targeted at fighting the spread of child pornography (rebranded as “child sexual abuse material,” or “CSAM”), which obviously no decent person would oppose. However, the actual impact of the bill reaches far beyond this purpose, simultaneously threatening both tech platforms’ liability protections and their ability to deploy strong encryption for their users, endangering innocent Americans’ security in the process.

On March 15, the authority for Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act formally expired. This is one of the provisions that spawned the Edward Snowden leaks back in 2013 and drew the American people’s attention to the scope of abuses perpetrated by the intelligence community. Though some reforms have been made, many in Congress still stand by the program despite the revelations.