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WASHINGTON — A deeply divided House defeated legislation Wednesday that would have blocked the National Security Agency from collecting vast amounts of phone records, handing the Obama administration a hard-fought victory in the first Congressional showdown over the N.S.A.’s surveillance activities since Edward J. Snowden’s security breaches last month.
The 205-to-217 vote was far closer than expected and came after a brief but impassioned debate over citizens’ right to privacy and the steps the government must take to protect national security. It was a rare instance in which a classified intelligence program was openly discussed on the House floor, and disagreements over the program led to some unusual coalitions.
Conservative Republicans leery of what they see as Obama administration abuses of power teamed up with liberal Democrats long opposed to intrusive intelligence programs. The Obama administration made common cause with the House Republican leadership to try to block it.
Kinda surprised this didn't show up already:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/25/u...ffort-to-rein-in-nsa-data-gathering.html?_r=0
Some notes of note:
1. This vote shattered party lines.
2. The vote was the product of an amendment offered by Justin Amash, a new Republican who genuinely opposed big government (a rarity these days) and uses his Facebook page to explain each and every vote he takes.
Amash and I disagree frequently, but if he ran in my district I'd vote for him every time, no matter who ran against him. He is principled and transparent. You never need to wonder how he'll vote on something, he'll tell you how and why.
If your Representative voted "no" to this amendment, you would be wise to consider delivering them a message at the ballot box next year:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll412.xml
Mine did, but I was planning on voting for his opposition next time no matter what, anyhow -- Finger Vote 2014.
I would have voted no, but I would consider future bills with some concrete parameters on how long data can be saved and no eavesdropping without a warrant.
For ev er. Why do you think they are building a huge data center in Utah? The train started. Even if congress votes on ending it, it won't end. Just imagine the plethora of programs the gov't acronyms have that we don't know about? The fact you think collecting data on US citizens is OK frightens me. "Give them an inch, and they take a mile" goes hand in hand with gov't agencies and skirting around rules/regulations.
Google and facebook probably know far more about people than the government does.
I'm thankful my rep voted for it. Not surprised that establishment thugs like Pelosi and Bachmann voted against it.
"In reality, the fate of the amendment was sealed when the Obama White House on Monday night announced its vehement opposition to it, and then sent NSA officials to the House to scare members that barring the NSA from collecting all phone records of all Americans would Help The Terrorists™.
Using Orwellian language so extreme as to be darkly hilarious, this was the first line of the White House's statement opposing the amendment: "In light of the recent unauthorized disclosures, the President has said that he welcomes a debate about how best to simultaneously safeguard both our national security and the privacy of our citizens" (i.e.: we welcome the debate that has been exclusively enabled by that vile traitor, the same debate we've spent years trying to prevent with rampant abuse of our secrecy powers that has kept even the most basic facts about our spying activities concealed from the American people).
The White House then condemned Amash/Conyers this way: "This blunt approach is not the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process." What a multi-level masterpiece of Orwellian political deceit that sentence is. The highly surgical Amash/Conyers amendment - which would eliminate a single, specific NSA program of indiscriminate domestic spying - is a "blunt approach", but the Obama NSA's bulk, indiscriminate collection of all Americans' telephone records is not a "blunt approach". Even worse: Amash/Conyers - a House bill debated in public and then voted on in public - is not an "open or deliberative process", as opposed to the Obama administration's secret spying activities and the secret court that blesses its secret interpretations of law, which is "open and deliberative". That anyone can write a statement like the one that came from the Obama White House without dying of shame, or giggles, is impressive."
http://http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/25/democratic-establishment-nsa
Google and facebook probably know far more about people than the government does.
Not sure how that's possible. I suspect they already know everything that google and facebook knows. They woke up and had breakfast together this morning.
Not sure how that's possible. I suspect they already know everything that google and facebook knows. They woke up and had breakfast together this morning.
The White House then condemned Amash/Conyers this way: "This blunt approach is not the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process." What a multi-level masterpiece of Orwellian political deceit that sentence is. The highly surgical Amash/Conyers amendment - which would eliminate a single, specific NSA program of indiscriminate domestic spying - is a "blunt approach", but the Obama NSA's bulk, indiscriminate collection of all Americans' telephone records is not a "blunt approach". Even worse: Amash/Conyers - a House bill debated in public and then voted on in public - is not an "open or deliberative process", as opposed to the Obama administration's secret spying activities and the secret court that blesses its secret interpretations of law, which is "open and deliberative". That anyone can write a statement like the one that came from the Obama White House without dying of shame, or giggles, is impressive."
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