Posted on 11/18/2014 5:31:17 PM PST by knak
Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked a sweeping overhaul of the once-secret National Security Agency program that collects records of Americans’ phone calls in bulk.
Democrats and a handful of Republicans who supported the measure fell two votes short of the 60 votes they needed to take up the legislation, which sponsors named the U.S.A. Freedom Act.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, worked hard to defeat the bill, which had the support of the Obama administration and a coalition of technology companies, including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.
“This is the worst possible time to be tying our hands behind our backs,” Mr. McConnell said before the vote, expressing the concerns of those who argued that the program was a vital tool in the fight against terrorism.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This is how I see it:
There were only a few good votes on bill:
Senators Cruz and Lee who voted “yes” because they saw it as a move in the right direction in terms of restoring some of our liberties and Senator Paul who voted “no” because it didn’t go far enough in doing so (the bill would have extended parts of the Patriot Act through 2017, which Paul thought was more important to stop than was voting for the good parts of the bill).
The Democrats voted “yes” not because they really care about the Constitution or our liberty... but because they wanted to make it appear like the were while actually providing them the cover to stealthily extend really bad parts of the Patriot Act... all the while blaming the bill’s defeat on those darn fascist Republicans.
Most of the Republicans voted “no” because either they’re not serious about the Constitution and restoring liberty or because they don’t want to look “weak” on terrorism.
If Harry Reid were a real American Patriot (which he is the exact opposite of) he would let Senator Paul add his amendment to the bill axing the provisions extending the Patriot Act and then vote on it again. Senators Cruz, Lee, and Paul would be able to vote “yes” without reservations... and then the Democrats would be scrambling to figure out how to justify voting with the GOPe to kill it.
In response to “Has anyone read it? If Obama wants it, it can’t be good.”
Well, aside from extending parts of the Patriot Act (the bad part of the bill) there were a couple of worthy provisions that would have been improvements to the current law... such as:
- some metadata records currently accessible to the NSA would instead remain in the possession of telecommunication companies, and the intelligence services would have to request that data from FISA
- would allow public advocates in FISA proceedings
- Fed-gov would have to disclose some FISA decisions and provide statistical data on the extent of their domestic spying
Not bad provisions by themselves... but I don’t consider them worth extending sections 206/215 of the Patriot Act for. As The Guardian article linked to above speculated... we’re better off just letting these parts of the Patriot Act die on their own without having to vote on them next year. The main thing we have to guard against going forward, IMO, are the Democrats and GOPe colluding to sneak Patriot Act extensions into future bills without us noticing until it’s too late to stop them.
Shameful.
It’s not even an American value.
Sure glad the Republicans won the Senate. </sarc>
Since they are on the wrong side (remember “we’re going to crush the Tea Party”?), they must have thought NSA spying on Americans is hunky-dory.
The GOPe is hoping to make good use of this stuff once they have power...
Dream on.
McConnell and Boner are horses’ @$$es.
http://www.paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1244
Sen. Paul Blocks the Renewal of Patriot Act
‘One step closer to restoring liberty’
Nov 18, 2014
Earlier this evening, Sen. Rand Paul voted against further consideration of the USA Freedom Act as it currently extends key provisions of the Patriot Act until 2017. Sen. Paul led the charge against the Patriot Act extension and offered the following statement:
“In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Americans were eager to catch and punish the terrorists who attacked us. I, like most Americans, demanded justice. But one common misconception is that the Patriot Act applies only to foreigners—when in reality, the Patriot Act was instituted precisely to widen the surveillance laws to include U.S. citizens,” Sen. Paul said, “As Benjamin Franklin put it, ‘those who trade their liberty for security may wind up with neither.’ Today’s vote to oppose further consideration of the Patriot Act extension proves that we are one step closer to restoring civil liberties in America.”
The trouble is, they've proven that they can't be trusted enough to be given the power. Disband the NSA.
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