The mainstream media is stuck in the second phase The five stages of grief – namely anger – after the election of Donald Trump. Like a child irritably trying to kick the family dog after being sent to his room, the media continues to grasp at straws, seemingly convinced that if they just have one more election day, they can magically banish Election Day 2024 Spread the anti-Trump message. One such self-deceptive reassurance is Ronan Farrow’s attempt at thunderous scaremongering dated November 20, 2024, entitled “The technology the Trump administration could employ to hack your phone.”
Farrow bases his article on the assumption that #OrangeManBad will giggle with glee as he personally snoops into every non-MAGA citizen’s iPhone or Android device and tracks every whiny Bluesky social post, since there is advanced technology that can hack into people’s phones without their knowledge and watch cat videos. He tries to back this up with nebulous references to other countries – Greece! Poland! – allegedly engaging in such behavior as part of the completely nonsensical idea of national security. Curiously, based on the content of the article, Farrow found no evidence of such behavior by good, true advocates of human rights, let alone staunch defenders of freedom like Russia and China. Of course, they would never dare to even dream of such a betrayal. Farrow goes out of his way to point out that the best surveillance software comes from Israel, which is clear since everyone knows that Israel is unnecessarily paranoid about other countries and organizations that wish to harm them.
Of course, Farrow directs his slander solely at the recent Trump administration, as it is inconceivable that the Biden administration would have given even a moment’s thought to such egregious acts. The very idea that anyone associated with the current administration would consider Trump supporters or people whose lives bear witness to fidelity to the tenets of the faith or who have joined the military to defend their country would potentially pose a domestic terrorist threat worth spying on by any means available is, in extreme cases, outrageous. Well, except for the tiny detail of doing exactly that.
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Farrow also ignores how the House of Representatives voted against requiring a warrant to monitor American citizens’ personal devices in April 2024.
The House of Representatives rejected an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act renewal that would have required a warrant before information collected on Americans could be made available to law enforcement. The the changeProposed by Republican Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, prohibits warrantless searches of U.S. persons’ communications in the FISA 702 database, except for imminent threats to life or bodily harm, consent searches, or known signatures of cybersecurity threats. By a vote of 212-212the change failed. 128 Republicans voted for the amendment and 86 voted against it. On the Democratic side there were 84 yes votes and 126 no votes.
MORE: Speaker Johnson casts a crucial vote to allow the FBI to spy on Americans without a warrant
Farrow’s story is a good one for some unintentional humor.
Decisions by the White House and Republican lawmakers on spyware will have implications for a variety of policy areas that Trump and his aides are upending and that reach far beyond Washington. In recent years, a number of states, including Texas, Florida and California, have reportedly purchased spyware and other surveillance technologies; Lawmakers and regulators will decide whether this trend continues.
I suspect that California is not in cahoots with the previous or future Trump administration regarding the employ of spyware.
Seriously, Ronan Farrow, you’ve been called a genius so many times that you believed your own newspaper clippings. Their work is a inactive and sloppy repetition of well-worn lies. You publish the long-discredited lies about Trump demanding that Liz Cheney be court-martialed and wanting to “shoot through the fake news.” It tries to convince progressives that all their self-deluded fears about being herded into concentration camps or appearing as maid fairy tale outfits have some basis in reality. Put down your paranoid pen, no matter how well it pays the rent, while you scream into the echo chamber, and take a walk in the country air. It will be good for you to breathe reality for a change.
