Free Republic

A bill that would allow key government surveillance programs to resume for now – after they were temporarily suspended Sunday – cleared another hurdle in the Senate on Tuesday.

The Senate on Tuesday sent legislation reforming the nation’s surveillance laws to President Obama’s desk — days after a stalemate caused the National Security Agency’s powers to lapse. The vote for the USA Freedom Act came more than 36 hours after three parts of the Patriot Act expired, which caused the NSA to wind down its programs. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) suffered a political blow during the bruising fight over the USA Freedom Act, which he and other hawkish Republican senators opposed even after it was approved by the House in a broad, bipartisan vote. Senate Minority Leader...

Sen. Ted Cruz is polling better against Hillary Clinton, but not against the people he’d need to beat to face her. Cruz gained ground on the former secretary of state in a CNN/ORC poll released Tuesday trailing her 52 percent to 43 percent in a hypothetical 2016 match-up. The nine-point gap is a major improvement from the 24-point Cruz lost by in a mid-April poll. But Cruz only gained one point on his primary competition in a poll of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents, inching from seven to eight points. Clinton’s polling in favorability, trustworthiness and empathy also tanked, so this...

The Senate has rejected all three controversial amendments from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to legislation reforming the National Security Agency (NSA), edging closer to sending the bill to President Obama's desk. The first amendment from McConnell, rejected in a 42-56 vote, would have changed the structure of a new expert panel created by the USA Freedom Act to weigh in one some matters before the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees spying matters. The second amendment, rejected in a 44-54 vote, would have delayed the transition time for the NSA to end its phone records program from six...

The pages were blacked out by the Bush administration on national security grounds. “We cannot let page after page of blanked-out documents be obscured by a veil,” Paul said at a packed Capitol press conference on Tuesday, flanked by fellow lawmakers and families of victims of the 2001 attack. “We owe it to these families, and we cannot let this lack of transparency erode trust and make us feel less secure.” For years, Jones and other lawmakers have been fighting for the release of the pages, which are believed to paint senior officials within Saudi Arabia as complicit in the...

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, the main author of the original Patriot Act, wrote an op-ed in 2013 explaining the NSA bulk collection of data belonging to Americans is an abuse of the legislation. In particular, Sensenbrenner slammed the Obama administration for abusing the Patriot Act in order to collect phone call information of all Americans, despite any ties to terrorism. Last week, the Guardian reported that the Obama administration is collecting records of every call made to, from or within the US, as well as records of many digital communications. President Obama has tried to deflect criticism by claiming "every member...

Trading liberty for a false sense of security? No thanks. Well done, Rand Paul. The faster we rid ourselves of the Patriot Act, the better The Constitution matters. It’s a simple as that. If you want to live in a free and open society, you don’t spend your time and effort chipping away at the bill of rights. Usually, that’s the battle-cry of small government conservatives. Today, for some reason, that’s changed. Today, Republicans are admonishing constitutionalists for their stubborn refusal to “sacrifice liberty” for a false sense of security. Among them is my colleague, Dan Calabrese, whose column you...

---snip--- Sen. Rand Paul is in step with his party on most issues. He’s pro-life, a big backer of gun rights, a small-government conservative and he’s an unabashed critic of President Obama and Hillary Clinton. And yet, Paul is again in the spotlight talking about his disagreements with his own party. For months, Paul has been focused on reducing criminal penalties for drugs. Last week, he blamed GOP hawks for the creation of ISIS. Now, he has succeeded in pulling off a one-man blockade of the Patriot Act. Like his other views, Paul’s stand is no doubt sincere and he...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Security Agency lost its authority at midnight to collect Americans’ phone records in bulk, after GOP Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) stood in the way of extending the fiercely contested program in an extraordinary Sunday Senate session.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The National Security Agency lost its authority at midnight to collect Americans' phone records in bulk, after GOP Sen. Rand Paul stood in the way of extending the fiercely contested program in an extraordinary Sunday Senate session. But that program and several other post-Sept. 11 counter-terror measures look likely to be revived in a matter of days. With no other options, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in an about-face, reluctantly embraced a House-passed bill that would extend the anti-terror provisions, while also remaking the bulk phone collections program. Although the lapse in the programs may be brief,...

The legal authority for several national security programs expired at midnight Sunday and will not be renewed for at least two days, after Senate Republicans leaders were unable to maneuver around Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a presidential candidate who followed through on a pledge to block an extension of the law. The Senate closed a rare Sunday session without approving the only legislation that would have averted a lapse in the authority — a House-passed bill that would provide for an orderly transition away from the most controversial program authorized under the current law: the National Security Agency’s bulk collection...

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul on Monday walked back his comments that some in Washington might be “secretly” hoping for a terrorist attack with the expiration of provisions of the PATRIOT Act, saying in an interview on Fox News that “hyperbole can get the better of anyone,” and that was what happened on the Senate floor on Sunday. “I think, sometimes, in the heat of battle, hyperbole can get the better of anyone, and that may be the problem there. The point I was trying to make is that I think people do use fear to try to get us to...

Republican Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) faced off late Sunday afternoon, as the Kentucky Republican tried to speak from the Senate floor about expiring provisions of the Patriot Act. McCain and Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) were speaking about the National Security Agency's (NSA) phone "metadata" collection program when Paul tried to ask a question. Coats said he had not yielded the floor to Paul, effectively blocking the 2016 presidential candidate from speaking. Coats then yielded to McCain for a question, instead. "The senator from Kentucky needs to learn the rules of the Senate," McCain said. "Maybe the...

The Department of Justice is concentrating on “far-right” groups in a new study of social media usage aimed at combatting violent extremism. The Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) awarded Michigan State University $585,719 for the study, which was praised by Eric Holder, the former attorney general, earlier this year. “There is currently limited knowledge of the role of technology and computer mediated communications (CMCs), such as Facebook and Twitter, in the dissemination of messages that promote extremist agendas and radicalize individuals to violence,” according to the NIJ grant. “The proposed study will address this gap through a series...

To say that the Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, and other progressive sites have carried the water for Obama since he emerged on the national stage is a drastic understatement. They've covered up lies, downplayed scandals, accused Republicans of everything from rape to murder, and through it all declared Barack Obama as one of their greatest heroes. It takes a lot to turn the opinions of blinded sheep like these. And while they have yet to awaken to who the President really is, the NSA scandal and the government's stance on Edward Snowden has started to make them hate the man...

I didn't a post saying LIVE THREAD, so I decided to post one. Senator Rand Paul will likely be able to force an end to some parts of the NSA program by midnight. (1 hour 15 minutes from now) http://www.c-span.org/video/?326227-2/us-senate-debate-nsa-surveillance&live

The Senate voted overwhelmingly to advance the USA Freedom Act Sunday evening, but too late to prevent Sen. Rand Paul from being able to force a short-term expiration of Patriot Act surveillance authorities at midnight. The overwhelming vote Sunday came after Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., threw in the towel on advancing any short-term extensions of the Patriot Act authorities under the continuing objections of Paul, the fellow Kentuckian he has endorsed for the presidency. The Senate voted 77-17, far above the 60-vote threshold to advance the bill. Several more steps are required, however, before a vote on final passage,...

The Senate convenes for a rare Sunday session to review key anti-terrorism programs under the Patriot Act, which are set to expire at midnight if the Senate fails to conduct a successful vote. Republican Senator Rand Paul has said he plans to derail the vote.

Rand Paul says he’s going to block the Senate passing a surveillance reform bill Sunday, forcing an expiration of key parts of the PATRIOT Act. But the Kentucky firebrand can’t stand in the way forever. If supporters of the USA Freedom Act can get 60 lawmakers to back the bill, the Senate could approve the measure this week. The bill, first proposed in 2013 by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), is chiefly designed to block the intelligence community from collecting millions of Americans’ phone records every day — the first and most salacious revelation from former...

Sen. Rand Paul burst back into Washington on Sunday evening making clear that he is not relenting in his battle to hobble the Patriot Act. “Are we going to so blithely give up our freedom? Are we going to so blindly go along and take it?” the Kentucky Republican and presidential candidate said from the Senate floor, raising his voice to reach the approximately two dozen supporters wearing “Stand with Rand” t-shirts in the chamber gallery.