Several top Republicans in Congress signaled they will work to stop the passage of a House-backed bill that would authorize special offices within several government agencies to investigate alleged domestic terrorism, warning that such measures could be weaponized against the public.
“It sounds terrible,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told The Hill of the bill, comparing it to the PATRIOT Act or the now-defunct Disinformation Governance Board that was set up under the Biden administration before it was scrapped last week.
“It’s like the disinformation board on steroids. Another way to look at is the PATRIOT Act for American citizens,” the Missouri senator said in reference to the Bush-era bill that was passed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. The PATRIOT Act has long been flagged as a law that expanded the government’s surveillance capacities, allowing it to track email and phone conversions as well as collet bank records—although it was initially used to target Islamist terrorists….