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John Seiler: Congressman Lou Correa talks sense on privacy, AI and war

May 5, 2026

It was a pleasure talking to Rep. Lou Correa, whom I’ve known for 30 years. I often have disagreed with his actions on tax increases and other matters, and still do.

But he took a break from the action on the House floor to chat just before he voted against extending Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act because it lacked a ban on warrantless searches. Unfortunately, a short-term extension passed anyway in the Republican-controlled House and Senate on bipartisan votes and President Trump signed it.

But Trump and Republicans in Congress won by opposing FISA. On April 9, 2024, he exclaimed in all caps on Truth Social: “KILL FISA, IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME, AND MANY OTHERS. THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN!!! DJT.”

That’s a major reason I voted for him and for Republican majorities in Congress.

But on April 15, 2026, the president wrote, “I am willing to risk the giving up of my Rights and Privileges as a Citizen for our Great Military and Country! Our Military Patriots desperately need FISA 702, and it is one of the reasons we have had such tremendous SUCCESS on the battlefield.”

But what about the “Rights and Privileges” of the 340 million Americans he’s supposed to serve? And our Fourth Amendment “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures”?

“With everything that ICE is doing, everything Homeland Security is doing, everything FISA is doing, this data is being interconnected and harvested, in ways that I cannot even begin to understand,” Correa warned. “And if Americans don’t understand the danger of this, you’re heading to a China model.”

That’s China’s “social credit” system that surveils everything about everyone.

Mass surveillance isn’t the only area where Correa sees a looming “China model.” I asked how Correa was grappling with the need to win the artificial intelligence race. He said he had just attended an intense, four-day seminar on AI with 25 other representatives. The U.S. and Northern Europe still lead in chips design, chip making and coding. But concerns include the lack of energy to keep up with demand. In the meantime, that risks higher electricity rates to consumers as data centers hog electrons.

“The Chinese are building a power plant every day,” he said. “And the big one: about 60% of Main Street China is now implementing AI on a daily basis to increase their productivity.” The solution, he said, is “to approach this as a win-win” through such policies as micro-nuclear power stations dedicated to the centers.

Also on the energy front, I brought up the spike in gas prices from the war, now averaging over $6 a gallon in California, according to the Auto Club. Correa said the price spike especially hits the constituents in his 46th District, which centers on Anaheim and Santa Ana. “What are they going to do? Stop driving to work? Are you going to drop a Tesla in their front yard overnight? Of course not. That’s what people lose sight of: You’re talking about working men and women who have to get to work.”

He pushed for more electric-car infrastructure as one way to handle the problem. And he broke ranks with many Democrats in pushing for fracking to produce more oil and for more California refineries. But he also blamed Trump for the Iran War, which caused the price spike now ravaging the country.

“We don’t want a nuclear Iran,” he said. “We don’t want a nuclear armed Saudi Arabia or United Arab Emirates. But this attack was very ill timed and not well planned.”

He added the war has shown there’s not only “a limit to America’s military power, but to America’s soft power, which is now non-existent.” Soft power is such things as international prestige from American freedom and democracy.

Correa holds a safe seat and easily won with 63% in the slightly redrawn 46th District in 2024. For the June 2 primary, he faces three fellow Democrats and Republican David Pan, a professor of German at UC Irvine. In a March 1 X post, Pan strongly backed Trump’s attack on Iran the previous day.

As someone who voted for Trump each time, I have to say that Correa — critical of mass surveillance, promoting energy abundance and pushing for peace — talks a lot more sense than Trump in 2026.

John Seiler is on the SCNG Editorial Board

Orange County Register

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John Seiler: Congressman Lou Correa talks sense on privacy, AI and war

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