President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly called for more aggressive surveillance, particularly of Muslim communities. A look at Trump’s recently named choice to head the Central Intelligence Agency, Mike Pompeo, a Republican congressman from Kansas, suggests the incoming administration may try to fulfill those campaign pledges and expand mass surveillance programs that flourished under Pres. Barack Obama.
Pompeo introduced a bill in 2015 to restore wide spying powers to the National Security Agency that had been curbed by Congress after revelations by Edward Snowden. The legislation was too extreme both for liberals and for libertarian-leaning conservatives; it was called “Big Brother on steroids” by the Tea Party activist group FreedomWorks. It also failed to win much support from other Republicans and never made it out of committee........