Congress Voting On Amendment to Defund NSA Domestic Spying Tomorrow

New submitter Jah-Wren Ryel writes "It's been just over a month since the NSA's dragnet surveillance program was leaked to the public. Tomorrow, Congress is voting on an amendment that would block funding for NSA programs that collect the call records of innocent Americans. A win tomorrow may start a chain reaction — but it won't happen unless we speak up. We have one day to convince Congress to act." The EFF is urging U.S. citizens to call their representatives, noting that there is no time for email to be effective (find your representative). You can read the amendment on the EFF site, quoting the EFF: "Reps. Justin Amash, John Conyers, Jr., Thomas Massie, Mick Mulvaney, and Jared Polis are proposing an amendment that would curtail funding for the implementation of orders under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act unless the order is explicitly limited in scope. ... Even as the Amash/Conyers Amendment is gaining momentum, some are rallying around a decoy amendment that would do nothing to rein in domestic surveillance. That amendment, championed by Rep. Nugent, would not alter in any way the government's use of Section 215 to obtain bulk communications records on millions of Americans. EFF is urging Representatives to oppose the Nugent Amendment."

Comments

Re:The Greatest Lying Mouth of All Time(tm)

[LordLimecat]

The United States of America is the shining example of totalitarianism in the world today.

We have a major problem with the constitution being seen as completely irrelevant (see Obama's decision that he can unilaterally override legislation with Obamacare / immigration; the idea that the fed has the constitutional right to mandate healthcare; the idea that state governments have the right to prohibit firearm posession; etc ad nauseam).

That said, I have a strong feeling you've never been to a totalitarian government, and have no idea what youre talking about. All governments tend towards totalitarianism, but we're pretty far from it. Part of the issue with "nothing but complaints" is that people get this ridiculous idea that "we've lost, we have no freedoms, and we're already a dictatorship". Guess what, no we're not, we still have a large number of rights, and battles over a lot of them are STILL being fought.

So next time the discussion over gun control or the first amendment or the 4th amendment comes up, rather than saying "think of the children" and conceding, and rather than saying "we've lost' and giving up, try actually standing up for the principle and letting it affect how you vote. I have a strong feeling that this defeatism is a lot of the reason so many people dont vote, and you really should not be complaining about slacktivism on the one hand and encouraging apathy on the other.

Re:I would, but...

[tomkost]

This is the same response that most people get when contacting their congressmen. On top of that, mine is Michael McCall, and he is the Chairman of the Dept Homeland Security committee, so he's REALLY on the side of NSA spying. His people literally laughed at me when I called to voice objection to the Cyber Security Bill.

You never know what you can be done till you try.

[dweller_below]

My representatives surprised me. I am in Utah. I figured that there was little point in complaining about NSA abuses. But, I couldn't live with myself if I did nothing. So I mailed my 2 Senators and my Representative. Hatch responded with the expected: "Sit down and shutup." But Senator Lee responded by saying that he agreed the NSA had greatly exceeded Constitutional authority. He said he would try to address the problem.

So, today, I called Representative Bishop and urged him to support the Amash amendment.

Who knows? If a Utah Senator can acknowledge there is a problem, maybe there is some hope.

I made my letter available at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Bd9crUNvPF71alxCVKcUmVarn80aJQJmZe4FLyzKWXU Feel free to mine it for suggestions for your own action.

Re:Will it mater?

[tukang]

The NSA called an emergency private briefing to lobby the house against the amendment, so maybe it does matter: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/23/keith-alexander-justin-amash_n_3639329.html

Re:Not an amendment -

[Loki_1929]

Actually, defunding this program has an enormous impact on pending court cases. One cannot argue that Congress has authorized this program if Congress has voted to deny it funding. As such, the executive branch would then be running an unauthorized program against the express will of the legislature. At that point, the primary argument against court challenges - that this is legal because it has Congress' stamp of approval - is moot and the court challenges actually have a better chance of having the program declared illegal.

At that point, if the executive branch continues running it, they risk massive backlash and someone (not someone -too- high up of course) will probably go to prison.