Audit the Head!
Posted on 05/20/2015 12:35:54 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Sen. Rand Paul took to the Senate floor to launch a “filibuster” of a bill to reauthorize a major government surveillance program. One problem: It’s not actually a filibuster.
With key parts of the PATRIOT Act set to expire at the end of the month — and the Senate set to skip town at the end of the week — Paul took to the floor at about 1:15 p.m. to expound on his staunch opposition to government surveillance. The 2016 Republican candidate has made government surveillance a key tenet of his quest for the White House and threatened last week to filibuster any effort from Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s bill to extend parts of the PATRIOT Act.
But Paul’s ongoing diatribe, however, isn’t a true filibuster, like the one he famously mounted over drone policy in 2013. The Senate is currently working through the 30 hours of debate on a trade bill and is scheduled to vote one hour after the chamber officially convenes Thursday. If Paul were to talk through the night, Senate procedure would cut him off at about 1 p.m. tomorrow. That gives the Kentucky junior senator hours to lash out against the National Security Agency, without actually gumming up the legislative works.
“If Sen. Paul delays the vote scheduled for one hour after we convene tomorrow, it’s a filibuster. If not, it’s not,” tweeted Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Sort of like tilting at windmills.
Lot of smoke, no fire!
Well at least it gives Paul hours to explain in a hundred ways why the Patriot Act is an unconstitutional theft of our personal freedoms. So its all good.
One of the few methods he has to bring attention to the issue of the federal government spying on Americans.
The ignorance and complacency of the public over issues like this and 'parallel construction' is disappointing.
Rand Paul On Shutdown: "Even Though It Appeared I Was Participating In It, It Was A Dumb Idea"I said throughout the whole battle that shutting down the government was a dumb idea. Even though it did appear as if I was participating in it, I said it was a dumb idea. And the reason I voted for it, though, is that it's a conundrum. Here's the conundrum. We have a $17 trillion debt and people at home tell me you can't give the president a blank check. We just can't keep raising the debt ceiling without conditions. So unconditionally raising the debt ceiling, nobody at home wants me to vote for that and I can't vote for that. But the conundrum is if I don't we do approach these deadlines. So there is an impasse. In 2011, though, we had this impasse and the president did negotiate. We got the sequester. If we were to extend the sequester from discretionary spending to all the entitlements we would actually fix our problem within a few years.[Posted on 11/19/2013 12:16:51 PM by Third Person]
Rand really is his daddy’s little boy LOL.
Listening to Paul followers is like listening to Scientologist explain L Ron Hubbard! Geeeeez
At least one senator has the guts to stand up against the Patriot Act, the most despicable abridgement and violation of the Constitution in the history of the republic. Without liberty, nothing else matters.
Can’t stand Paul but I’m with ya. There is NOTHING patriotic about the Patriot Act.
I’ve heard the Scientology comparison before and it does seem to fit.
I base my support of Cruz on his stand on issues and his character. We have some folks on here who are supporting candidates who have never uttered a word about what they would do as President.
So this is really the appearance of doing something that actually does nothing?
-PJ
In addition Cruz seems like a regular guy. Others do too but Im for Cruz. Im worried about the “numbers” game when it comes time for the Florida primary. If Bush is still in and the delegates are splitting between Bush Cruz Walker and Rubio, Id have to vote for Rubio just to get rid of Bush. Cruz wouldnt be hurt at this point because he would have other wins(if all goes right) and the race would continue without Bush. Its the same game the GOPe runs on conservatives.
Florida has a winner take all system.
Politico just updated. Rand can speak long enough to filibuster the next days.proceedings. Maybe you shouldnt listen to Politico.
It would be a good time for someone to show that they understand the difference between The Patriot Act, and the 1978 FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Patriot Act. Since I have only been involved in implementing FISA, and have never read the text of the ACT, I only know that every telephony switch must support a protocol permitting the federal government to access metadata, the sources and destination of connections through the switches that transport mostly Internet traffic today.
I saw maps generated using that metadata, shown innocently I suspect, at a very large intelligence trade show in the early 2000s, identifying Jemaah Islamiyah members in Brooklyn before the second WTC attack. These maps were identified using “big data” techniques, data mining, now commonly used by Google, Amazon, and other advertising ventures to direct products for which your metadata, your more frequent connections, suggest you as a likely customer. Had those maps been shared with and respected by the FBI, CIA, or local police, there might not have been attacks on the WTC. (The DIA’s Able Danger program was buried, and explicitly avoided by the committee investigation the WTC attacks, fairly obviously to protect those who knew, but didn’t act.)
Scott Walker, Rand Paul, and surprisingly, Loretta Lynch, along with naturalized citizens Cruz, Rubio, and Jindal, seem to be hedging their bets because they all know we have tens of thousands on our soil willing to honor Allah by killing non-believers. Think of the bridges, tunnels, electrical infrastructure and water supplies near you. Guerrilla war is an old tactic.
Today we honor code breakers from earlier conflicts like Turing. He allowed the West to read communications of our enemies. We have enemies all around us, who, along with the naïve, tell us to give them privacy. The price for granting complete privacy could be the sovereignty of the individual. Under Islam, submission, enforced by Sharia law, is absolute. Islam, about one eighth of the world, is unlikely to prevai, but overcoming the effort to impose a new caliphate will weaken us in a world whose two non-democratic powers, Russia and China, have no illusions about Islam.
In an open society identifying enemies is not easy. Edward Snowden showed maps of FISA surveillance like the one I saw, and certainly generated by the same technology. He said more than metadata were being used, and I’m inclined to believe him. That appeared not to be the case twenty years ago. Wire taps, actually listening to conversations, used to require the approval of a federal judge, not that they are sacrosanct, political appointees that they are, but that was a core tenet of FISA. There was oversight.
We need to be able to identify who our charming Muslim Brotherhood members are talking to, and who, not directly identified with them, are associated by unusually frequent communication. You know people by their friends and contacts. Who, for example, knew that Grover Norquist, American’s for Tax Reform and former NRA board member is very active with the Muslim Brotherhood, and a founder of the Islamic Free Tax Institute with a Muslim Brotherhood member now in federal prison, and with his brother-in-law, Muslim Brotherhood, like his wife, an “observant” Muslim, meaning he and she are violating Islamic law by being married to non-believers. Or are Grover and his sister non-believers?
We have been thoroughly infiltrated and it is important to know who is communicating with whom if and when things get much worse in the U.S. Eliminating surveillance tools is suicide. What we need is for more citizens to understand just what the limits of the laws are, and do what we can to direct legislators to provide oversight.
In the Florida Straw Poll this past week end. Cruz polled evenly with Rubio. I don’t think Cruz will concede any state and he will campaign in all of them. I think by the time the primaries come around, Bush will have flamed out. I haven’t heard from any one supporting him. Folks are not buying what he is selling and Rubio is in the same boat on Amnesty. It’s going to be very interesting watching this unfold. Keep the Faith!:)
agree.
Politico is a Leftist joke. Why does Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives loves this left wing propaganda is beyond me?
Politico wants to keep the so called “Patriotic Act” that targets all Americans. Remember this is coming from the same people that refuse to secure the border (pre 911 approach), and say they cannot stop ISIS. Furthermore, it validates that giving them more money was a waste. Oh they do not even consider ISIS or Al Qaeda the number #1 enemy.
So who does the “Patriot Act” says is their #1 enemy via DHS? Mainly returning veterans, gun owners, Tea Party and conservatives. In other words this bill targets Patriots. Remember the Leftist were against it until they realized they could target their political enemies, by pass the Bill of Rights, the U.S. Constitution, and send them UN Constitutionally to Kangaroo Courts that are hidden from public agree with the government almost 100% of the time.
For those that are still confused... If Politco loves it, then by default......, you should be against it. Politico is a leftist rag that hates the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, gun owners, Tea Party, returning war Veterans, etcc...
So that should be enough to delay the works so Congress goes home without passing anything to reauthorize PATRIOT Section 215 which is due to expire on June 1.
So it's a long speech that should have the real procedural effect of killing a bill to "renew the PATRIOT act," even if it's not technically a filibuster.
The only possible way around Sen. Paul's gambit would likely be for McConnell & Boehner to break their own rules, cancel the recess, or both.
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