HLS 24RS-2742 ENGROSSED
2024 Regular Session
HOUSE RESOLUTION NO. 111
BY REPRESENTATIVE OWEN
CONGRESS: Memorializes the United States Congress to reform the Foreign Intelligence
and Surveillance Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and to restore the
rights of privacy and unreasonable search and seizure
1 A RESOLUTION
2To memorialize the United States Congress to reform the Foreign Intelligence &
3 Surveillance Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and restore the
4 rights of privacy and unreasonable search and seizure that have been taken from the
5 American people by actions of congress.
6 WHEREAS, the United States Constitution was enacted as the foundational law of
7the land in 1787; and
8 WHEREAS, the first ten amendments of the United States Constitution contain the
9inviolate and irrevocable set of God-given and inalienable rights that all persons in the
10United States of America maintain; and
11 WHEREAS, foundational in these rights are speech, assembly, search and seizure
12with a valid warrant, to face one's accuser, religion, private property, and many others; and
13 WHEREAS, there have been many moments in the nation's history when the arms
14of government and tyrannical rules and congress have tried to curtail and subvert these
15liberties and withhold the rights of citizens to further governmental objectives; and
16 WHEREAS, the misdeeds of government include Woodrow Wilson's Sedition Act,
17which imprisoned Americans for speaking out against United States involvement in World
18War I, the Palmer Raids which ushered in an era of kickdown searches and harassment of
19political opponents, the imprisonment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry during
20World War II, repeated and incessant violation of the Fourth Amendment by the Federal
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HR NO. 111
1Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and elements of the American intelligence community, and
2the century long Jim Crow era, which saw tacit and active governmental measures to repress
3the rights of Americans of color; and
4 WHEREAS, the Church Hearings of the mid 1970s brought to light many misdeeds
5of the United States government and precipitated badly needed reform of federal law
6enforcement and intelligence community activities; and
7 WHEREAS, in 1978, the United States government took great steps and established
8clear procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and collection of foreign
9intelligence information and separated out protections for United States citizens by the
10Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA); and
11 WHEREAS, the FISA law established the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
12(FISC) which is a court that holds nonpublic sessions to consider issuing federal search
13warrants; and
14 WHEREAS, the FISC lacks many of the constitutionally provided precautions
15afforded to litigants in other federal courts of law, such as the right of a private party to be
16present at the proceedings; further, the FISC has been called out and cited as being the
17subject of misfeasance and malfeasance by less than scrupulous intelligence and law
18enforcement officers and agencies; and
19 WHEREAS, Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan each
20established needed restraints on the intelligence community and law enforcement directed
21guardrails for protection of private citizens, culminating with President Reagan's Executive
22Order 12333; and
23 WHEREAS, Executive Order 12333 underscored the needs and requirements to
24provide timely and accurate information about American enemies and underscored the
25protection of constitutional rights of American citizens; and
26 WHEREAS, for most of the decades of the 1980s and 1990s, the intelligence
27community and FBI appeared to be behaving and respecting the rights of citizens in the
28United States; and
29 WHEREAS, in 2001, after the attack on the United States by foreign Islamic
30terrorists from Southwest Asia, the United States Congress and the Bush Administration
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1moved with reckless haste by greatly empowering the American intelligence community,
2FBI, and other federal entities by broadly expanding surveillance powers under the broad
3guise of "protecting" the American citizens; and
4 WHEREAS, the outcome of the efforts to protect has resulted in nearly all
5semblances of privacy being taken away by the actions of the United States Congress. The
6outcome of the family of law passed in the aftermath of what is known as 9/11 is that no
7phone is guaranteed to be private, no email communication can be considered secure, and
8the emergence of a leviathan of a police state capable of chilling suppression of our
9God-given liberties; and
10 WHEREAS, as a result of the USA Patriot Act, a citizen can become the subject of
11a purported terror investigation and directed by law not to tell anyone of an invasive search
12on his home, under penalty of prison; and
13 WHEREAS, Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act violates the Fourth Amendment to
14the United States Constitution by ignoring the prohibition of warrantless searches against
15United States citizens; and
16 WHEREAS, Section 215 also violates the Fifth Amendment by prohibiting ex post
17facto notice of warrantless searches and thereby violating the basic tenets of due process
18guaranteed to citizens of the United States; and
19 WHEREAS, it is the American ethos to right wrongs and correct governmental errors
20such as the eradication of slavery, the end of the Jim Crow era, the awarding of voting rights
21to women, and many others.
22 THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the House of Representatives does hereby
23memorialize the United States Congress to fully repeal and rewrite every word of the USA
24Patriot Act and does hereby implore the Congress to turn its attention to the rights of the free
25people of the United States of America.
26 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the House of Representatives implores both the
27governor of the state of Louisiana and the attorney general to stand up for the citizens of our
28state and not participate in any violations of any of our rights guaranteed in our Bill of
29Rights, which are a product of the sacrifice of our ancestors and have been maintained by
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HR NO. 111
1two hundred fifty years of commitment to the rule of law and the supremacy of the
2individual over the government.
3 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this Resolution be transmitted to the
4presiding officers of the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States
5Congress and to each member of the Louisiana congressional delegation.
DIGEST
The digest printed below was prepared by House Legislative Services. It constitutes no part
of the legislative instrument. The keyword, one-liner, abstract, and digest do not constitute
part of the law or proof or indicia of legislative intent. [R.S. 1:13(B) and 24:177(E)]
HR 111 Engrossed 2024 Regular Session Owen
Memorializes the United States Congress to reform the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance
Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and to restore the rights of privacy and
unreasonable search and seizure.
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