MAGA candidate brutally fact-checked after trying to run from deeply unpopular stance

GOP Senate hopeful Mike Rogers raced to distance himself Thursday from Flock cameras — the surveillance tech that is now viewed unfavorably by a majority of Americans — but was immediately fact-checked using his own legislative record.

“Flock cameras shouldn't be used to track law-abiding citizens,” Rogers, a former House member, wrote in a statement published on social media. “As a former FBI guy, I know security and liberty aren’t enemies. Good government protects both.”

But Justin Amash, an attorney and former GOP congressman, was quick to point out that Rogers’ record in Congress clashed with his apparent newfound opposition to mass surveillance.

“Fact check: Mike Rogers is one of the chief architects of the modern surveillance state,” Amash wrote in a social media post on X to his more than 485,000 followers.

“In Congress, he opposed every substantive effort to protect Americans’ privacy and worked hand in hand with the NSA, FBI, and intelligence agencies to bypass and erode the Fourth Amendment.”

Indeed, Rogers’ congressional career is “dotted with support for government surveillance,” as reported by Wired. Rogers has been captured on video praising the 2001 Patriot Act, a bill that expanded the federal government’s ability to spy on Americans without a warrant. Rogers also introduced a bill in 2011 that would have permitted companies to share emails with the National Security Agency.

Rogers’ Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, has seized on Rogers’ record supporting mass surveillance with a new ad campaign using the slogan, “Mike Rogers is watching you.”

Other critics flagged a video of Rogers during a House Intelligence Committee hearing in 2013, where the then-congressman made the following remark: “You can’t have your privacy violated if you don’t know your privacy was violated.”