The Surveillance State Is Here — Congress Must Fight Back

Interesting artificial intelligence, central bank digital currency, foreign intelligence surveillance act, keith self admin June 3, 2026 0 Comments

The Surveillance State Is Here — Congress Must Fight Back

It should shock every American that the United States now ranks among the world’s most heavily surveilled nations — keeping dangerous company with authoritarian regimes like China, Russia, and Iran. How did the land of the free become one of the most watched societies on Earth?

Our Founders designed the Bill of Rights as a fortress against government intrusion. Free speech, freedom of assembly, and protection from warrantless searches were meant to prevent exactly what is now unfolding in the United States: a government that is constantly watching its citizens.

Since 9/11, mass surveillance has been normalized. Cameras are everywhere. Data collection is constant. And few people stop to ask who’s watching, why, and for how long.

There are currently four main pillars of the surveillance state, and Congress has a duty to act to dismantle each of them.

FISA: From Foreign Spying to Domestic Abuse

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was originally created to track foreign threats abroad. Today, it has been twisted into a tool for spying on Americans.

Under the Biden administration, the FBI conducted over 3 million queries into a database of information gathered without a warrant in 2021. In 2023, around 278,000 queries spanning multiple years were found to have violated database use rules, according to FISA Court records. Agents batch-searched 19,000 political donors. A National Security Agency (NSA) analyst allegedly spied on people he or she knew from an online dating service. Senators, state judges, protesters, and journalists have all been swept up in this spying dragnet. This is not foreign intelligence. This is warrantless domestic surveillance that violates the Fourth Amendment. (RELATED: Republicans Poised To Allow Continued Unfettered Government Spying On American Citizens)

While Congress has attempted to reform FISA several times, including in 2024, those reforms have clearly fallen short. Real FISA reform, such as an actual warrant requirement and banning the government from skirting the Constitution by purchasing Americans’ data from data brokers, is long overdue. Congress must get it done—it is our responsibility to uphold the Constitution and protect our constituents’ rights.

But FISA is only one piece of the puzzle. The surveillance state is also reaching into our everyday lives through our vehicles.

The “Kill Switch” in Your Car

Quietly buried in a Biden-era infrastructure bill, the so-called HALT Drunk Driving Act sounds reasonable on the surface. In reality, it is far more sinister. Starting as early as 2027, new vehicles are required to include “advanced impaired driving prevention technology” — AI cameras and sensors that automatically disable the vehicle if they detect “impairment,” with no driver override.

The problem? According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), these systems currently have “an error rate that would be unacceptably high.” This raises serious doubts about their ability to reliably distinguish drunk driving from other common factors — such as stress, a medical episode, glare from oncoming headlights, or even something as routine as hitting a pothole.

What starts as a safety feature risks turning every American’s car into a government-monitored judge, jury, and executioner — feeding data straight to law enforcement. Your car, your freedom of movement, would no longer be fully yours. Congress must repeal this mandate immediately. (RELATED: The Orwellian ‘Kill Switch’ Some Republicans Want In Your Car)

This erosion of mobility is matched by an explosion of surveillance cameras on our streets and neighborhoods.

Flock: Eyes Everywhere

Flock Safety’s automated license plate reader cameras now blanket communities in 49 states, scanning license plates billions of times per month. In my own Texas Third Congressional District, more than 500 of these cameras are already deployed, with cities planning to add more.

Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs) can incorporate AI and facial recognition, capturing not just vehicles but surrounding activity. There is minimal oversight of this technology, and some feeds have reportedly been left exposed online.

This isn’t neighborhood watch — it’s a privatized surveillance network operating with public authority. Congress must act to prevent the federal government from weaponizing these databases against American citizens.

Even more dangerous is what’s coming for our money.

Central Bank Digital Currency: Programmable Money

A Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) would represent the final leg of the surveillance state. While the Federal Reserve already tracks major money flows, a CBDC would go much further: every transaction monitored in real time. The government could restrict what you buy, where you spend, or freeze your account entirely — whether for political donations, gun purchases, or expressing the wrong opinions.

Think of what happened with the Canadian truckers who protested their government’s draconian COVID mandates — a CBDC would be that on steroids. Your money would become permissioned. It would no longer be yours, although you earned it! Your economic liberty would simply vanish. (RELATED: Trump Puts Kibosh On Idea For Fed Digital Currency With One Stroke Of His Pen)

We know where this road leads. In China, Russia, and Iran, total surveillance enables persecution of dissidents, economic control, and social engineering. Americans must reject that path.

The surveillance state is not science fiction — it’s infrastructure is already built. If we fail to impose real warrant requirements, strict data limits, and constitutional guardrails, our children will never know true privacy.

We must act now: Reform FISA with a warrant requirement. Repeal the car kill switch mandate. Ban CBDC forever. Dismantle the surveillance grid.

Protect the Fourth Amendment. Do it now — before freedom is lost forever.

Republican Congressman Keith Self represents Texas’ Third Congressional District.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.