Posted on 11/18/2014 6:18:56 PM PST by thetallguy24
The US Senate has just voted down the USA Freedom Act by a vote of 58-42, leaving it just two votes shy of the 60 it needed. The bill would have ended the controversial phone record metadata collection by the NSA, but the Senate was not in favor of rolling back any of the NSA's broad surveillance powers.
While telephone companies would have still collected the data in question, the records would have stayed in the hands of the phone companies and a new type of court order would have been needed by the government to access these records. Additionally, companies would no longer have been required to hold onto their records longer than they ordinarily would have for normal business purposes.
However, new legislation around this program will still be required despite the Senate's vote today. Next June, the legal basis for the phone record collection program as part of the Patriot Act will expire — so new legislation will be required if the NSA wants to have continued easy access to these records.
Originally, the USA Freedom Act was meant to be not just a way to ban bulk collection under Section 215 but a multi-pronged reform bill, incorporating changes to how the government managed national security letters and internet surveillance. But a series of amendments to the House version weakened it, until a last-minute change watered it down to the point that some privacy advocates withdrew support. The bill passed, but Leahy promised to roll back the biggest changes with his own Senate version, which was introduced this summer.
Leahy's bill, to many, is a major and welcome improvement. One of the most important differences is its definition of the "specific selection terms" that NSA agents use to look for call records:
(Excerpt) Read more at theverge.com ...
So the RATS were in favor of this all along, Squirming turds that they be
Bring it back during the New and vastly improved Senate next year.
/johnny
“USA Freedom Act for NSA reform is voted down in the Senate..”
Well, there you go. The Nazi rats are in favor of tracking everyone.
Let’s roll out the ads that the democrat pigs are Nazis.
Rand Paul voted No to it
| YEAs ---58 | ||
| Baldwin (D-WI) Begich (D-AK) Bennet (D-CO) Blumenthal (D-CT) Booker (D-NJ) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Coons (D-DE) Cruz (R-TX) Donnelly (D-IN) Durbin (D-IL) Feinstein (D-CA) Franken (D-MN) Gillibrand (D-NY) Hagan (D-NC) Harkin (D-IA) |
Heinrich (D-NM) Heitkamp (D-ND) Heller (R-NV) Hirono (D-HI) Johnson (D-SD) Kaine (D-VA) King (I-ME) Klobuchar (D-MN) Landrieu (D-LA) Leahy (D-VT) Lee (R-UT) Levin (D-MI) Manchin (D-WV) Markey (D-MA) McCaskill (D-MO) Menendez (D-NJ) Merkley (D-OR) Mikulski (D-MD) Murkowski (R-AK) Murphy (D-CT) |
Murray (D-WA) Pryor (D-AR) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Rockefeller (D-WV) Sanders (I-VT) Schatz (D-HI) Schumer (D-NY) Shaheen (D-NH) Stabenow (D-MI) Tester (D-MT) Udall (D-CO) Udall (D-NM) Walsh (D-MT) Warner (D-VA) Warren (D-MA) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR) |
| NAYs ---42 | ||
| Alexander (R-TN) Ayotte (R-NH) Barrasso (R-WY) Blunt (R-MO) Boozman (R-AR) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA) Coats (R-IN) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Collins (R-ME) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID) |
Enzi (R-WY) Fischer (R-NE) Flake (R-AZ) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Hatch (R-UT) Hoeven (R-ND) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE) Johnson (R-WI) Kirk (R-IL) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) |
Moran (R-KS) Nelson (D-FL) Paul (R-KY) Portman (R-OH) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Rubio (R-FL) Scott (R-SC) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Thune (R-SD) Toomey (R-PA) Vitter (R-LA) Wicker (R-MS) |
What were the vote totals by party. That data is strangely missing from this article.
Look up lol
Cruz (R-TX) ? a yea vote? what was ted thinking?
Well, that sucks.
Cruz is wanting to roll back the NSA’s overly expansive powers from what I can tell.
If the pubis are smart they will take this matter seriously. The status quo ain’t getting it.
LOL, pubis. Pubbies!
January 2015 I how I long for the slime to be rolled back..
He’ll be in a signifocantly better position to take care of business come January !
We were talking about it in this thread over here http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3228500/posts
Basically it was a flawed bill. I agree with Senators Cruz and Lee (who voted “yes”) as it would have been a good first step in beginning to scale back the surveillance state... but I also agree with Senator Paul (who voted “no”) that the provisions extending portions of the Patriot Act through 2017 needed to be defeated.
I believe in the constitution. These documents were inspired by the Almighty. It is abundantly obvious that the founding fathers trusted in God and his faithfulness and goodness.
The constitution will prevail.
OdumBO needs to keep track of Hitlery.
“The bill would have ended the controversial phone record metadata collection by the NSA”
Yeah. An act of Congress is going to stop the NSA from bypassing our Constitution. Sure, that’s the ticket.
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