If you had told people in 2001 that the Left and The New York Times would be the most avid proponents of warrantless spying on Americans, and that conservative Republicans would be the strongest opponents nobody would have believed you.

Sure, the libertarian Right was always against giving the government wide powers to spy on people–they have always had the appropriately cynical attitude when it comes to government power–but national security Republicans were all about expanding government surveillance, and the Left was usually skeptical.

The tables have turned, partly due to who is in control of the federal apparatus, and partly due to experience of the consequences.

Yeah this article is a good example of how negative polarizaiton affects journalism, too. The fact that certain right-wing Republicans (among others) oppose warrantless spying leads the NYT to treat warrantless spying as self-evidently good! https://t.co/l6KVe59vGi pic.twitter.com/gihGqznwMg

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 4, 2023

The New York Times hasn’t moved as much in favor of government spying as the Left in general, but that is only because it has always been at the very least lukewarm to government intrusions into our privacy, and is now as downright enthusiastic as every other Leftist is.

In the past the Left rightly feared that the power of the government could be used against them, but rather than taking from this the obvious lesson that government power should be strictly limited, they instead discovered that they could over time build a bureaucracy that is so partisan that they can control the apparatus no matter which party is nominally in power.

The result? The censorship industrial complex and the unleashed security state.

Now any opposition to the unchecked use of government power is “hard-Right,” and we live in a country where our Left believes that if you have nothing to hide you should simply embrace Big Brother. And by nothing to hide they mean no inclination to dissent from the Leftist perspective.

Opposing warrantless searches–and that is what we are talking about here, however you spin it–shouldn’t be a partisan issue. It is a bedrock principle of American constitutionalism. Given how often government spying powers have been abused over time, imposing limits simply makes sense.

But since Republicans are now leery of unchecked spying, it must be good.

An intensive drive by right-wing Republicans in Congress to vilify the F.B.I. with charges of political bias has imperiled a program allowing spy agencies to conduct warrantless surveillance on foreign targets, sapping support for a premier intelligence tool and amplifying demands for stricter limits.

The once-secret program — created after the 9/11 attacks and described by intelligence officials as crucial to stopping overseas hackers, spy services and terrorists — has long faced resistance by Democrats concerned that it could trample on Americans’ civil liberties. But the law authorizing it is set to expire in December, and opposition among Republicans, who have historically championed it, has grown as the G.O.P. has stepped up its attacks on the F.B.I., taking a page from former President Donald J. Trump and his supporters.

“There’s no way we’re going to be for reauthorizing that in its current form — no possible way,” said Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, a key ally of Mr. Trump’s who is leading a special House investigation into the “weaponization” of government against conservatives. “We’re concerned about surveillance, period.”

Note the language and tone here: Democrats used to oppose it, but now that Republicans do any attempt to reform the process is suddenly a threat to America.

If The New York Times had any integrity, they too would at least wonder about the partisan slant of the FBI. If Donald Trump Jr. had gotten any breaks similar to Hunter Biden’s the third, fourth, and fifth impeachments of Trump would be lined up and cheered on by the Times and every other newspaper.

The fact that there are so many Biden shell companies, the purpose of which the Times is so incurious, makes you wonder about how much time the paper and others spent about every random guest at a Trump hotel and what that might mean for national security. You would think that both the FBI and every enterprising reporter would be digging into these issues, and also wonder whether Hunter Biden was ever in any of those wiretaps of foreigners.

No curiosity, of course.

At issue is a program that allows the government to collect — on domestic soil and without a warrant — the communications of targeted foreigners abroad, including when those people are interacting with Americans. Leaders of both parties have warned the Biden administration that Congress will not renew the law that legalized it, known as Section 702, without changes to prevent federal agents from freely searching the email, phone and other electronic records of Americans in touch with surveilled foreigners.

Soo… Both Democrats and Republicans have worries about this program, but if a terrorist attack comes it will be “hard right” Republicans’ fault or something?

That is a weird take.

Since the program was last extended in 2018, the G.O.P.’s approach to law enforcement and data collection has undergone a dramatic transformation. Disdain for the agencies that benefit from the warrantless surveillance program has moved into the party mainstream, particularly in the House, where Republicans assert that the F.B.I.’s investigations of Mr. Trump were biased and complain of a broader plot by the government to persecute conservatives — including some of those charged for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — for their political beliefs. They argue that federal law enforcement agencies cannot be trusted with Americans’ records, and should be prevented from accessing them.

Yep, that is what they are going with. This program is vital, people from both parties have worries about it being abused, but since Republicans have been burned recently and in a way that the Times likes, it is clearly a bad idea to reform the program to make it less sweeping.

Because Republicans are conspiracy theorists or something. The Democrats who think the program needs reform are doing so for the right reasons, while Republicans are always evil or something.

“You couldn’t waterboard me into voting to reauthorize 702,” said Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, who backed the program in 2018. “These 702 authorities were abused against people in Washington on January 6 and they were abused against people who were affiliated with the B.L.M. movement, and I’m equally aggrieved by both of those things.”

I think what is going on here is pretty simple: the Times has begun every story since the election of Donald Trump with the conclusion that Republicans are doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons because they are bad people, and every story must be framed as such. And when Republicans and Democrats actually agree on something then the Republicans are agreeing with Democrats for a nefarious reason. And are probably wrong anyway.

There isn’t any question about whether these authorities have been abused–they have been. As have others. Less than two months ago I wrote about the FBI illegally tapping into the records of Americans more than 280,000 times, and their response was “My bad, won’t do it again.”

It’s outrageous and utterly unpunished. The number of abuses is staggering–and that doesn’t count the number of times the FBI has lied to the FISA Court in recent years. They simply cannot be trusted and need to be reined in.

But that isn’t how the Times sees it, and in this they are simply echoing the Biden Administration, and hence feel the need to claim that the only reason to oppose the program is because one is “far right” and a conspiracy theorist. The government, at least when led by Democrats, is always right.

But far-right lawmakers have embarked on a louder and more politically loaded effort to fight the measure. They have seized on official determinations that federal agents botched a wiretap on a Trump campaign adviser and more recent disclosures that F.B.I. analysts improperly used Section 702 to search for information about hundreds of Americans who came under scrutiny in connection with the Jan. 6 attack and the Black Lives Matter protests after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a police officer.

Justice Department and F.B.I. officials have attempted to defend themselves from lawmakers’ outrage over those revelations, pointing to steps they have taken to restrain the opportunities agents are permitted to examine the communications of Americans collected under Section 702. They credit those changes with reducing the number of such queries from about 3 million in 2021 to about 120,000 last year.

3 million queries about Americans? In a year?! From warrantless wiretaps?

The Times sees no problem, and anybody who does must be a nut.

Nobody is naive enough to believe that the government won’t engage in spying to seek out terrorists, but we are now living in a country where a parent who shouts at a school board is considered a terrorist. And the Times is just fine with that, apparently.

What is striking, if not surprising, is how easily a “news” story weaves a narrative, throws around loaded terms like “far right,” and completely ignores the fact that Republicans (or even dissenting Democrats) might have legitimate concerns about abuse.

It’s as if the Times simply parrots the Biden Administration, becoming stenographers.

3 million requests about Americans from warrantless wiretaps and the Times just shrugs? Warrantless spying on purely domestic cases?

I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess. The Times no longer even sees the constitution as a list of suggestions for how government should behave; they use the term “constitutional” as a label to approve whatever appeals to them and not as a guiding document setting down rules.

Still, I found this entire article striking in how absurd their spin is: there is bipartisan opposition to simply renewing this program, and it’s the Republicans’ fault that there is.

Weird take.