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McConnell Introduces Bill To Extend NSA Surveillance
jriding sends word that the majority leader of the U.S. Senate has introduced a bill that would extend the surveillance provisions of the Patriot Act until 2020: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell introduced a bill Tuesday night to extend through 2020 a controversial surveillance authority under the Patriot Act. The move comes as a bipartisan group of lawmakers in both chambers is preparing legislation to scale back the government's spying powers under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. It puts McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the bill’s co-sponsor, squarely on the side of advocates of the National Security Agency’s continued ability to collect millions of Americans’ phone records each day in the hunt for clues of terrorist activity.
Sen. Rand Paul, a fellow Kentucky Republican, who pledged to end the NSA program — which he called “unconstitutional surveillance” — if elected. This is the only guy who pledged to shut down this entire unnecessary clown show.
Um, it does matter. The GOP party leaders and their conservative faction (i.e. non-Tea Party, non-Libertarian) fetishize the military and security establishment. And they will _always_ defend and fund the NSA and similar organizations, no matter what they tell the public, or what the public demands. These leaders are more heavily involved with the defense industry than most politicians, and their electorate is blinded by the notion that the military and police can do no harm (unless they're trying to take your guns way), and gripped more than most by politics of fear.
Yes, the Democrats supported the Patriot Act and its subsequent renewal. They were more than complicit. But you simply cannot equivocate all the various factions. And in this case, the heart of the problem lies squarely in the GOP camp, along with a few outliers (e.g. Diane Feinstein, who is considered a hawk and well outside Democratic and liberal circles on this issue).
I'm tempted to defend Obama here by saying that if Bush were still in office, he'd probably have a televised national speech explaining why the NSA needs these powers to prevent a WMD attack or something. And by contrast, Obama has not publicly come out in favor supporting renewal. However, Obama is clearly working behind the scenes to push renewal. OTOH, every president inevitably fights to hold onto and expand their powers. It's the nature of the office, so it's not worth drawing a distinction between R & D, here. What we can do is blame Congress for clearly abrogating their responsibility of reigning in the executive.
(Ugh, html stripping.)
email < phone calls < handwritten letters < requesting a meeting
Make sure your communication is proportional to your level of concern.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
When they're looking at you, fine. But congress freaked out when the CIA was looking at THEM. It's fair to say they think rules are great for us, but they should be held to a different arbitrary self made standard when it comes to applying the law to themselves:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
The difference between truth and fiction is that fiction has to be plausible.
Less transparency would be a good idea in congressional votes. Money and party interests require accountability. Force congress to vote anonymously and suddenly you've severed those ties and allow policy to return from the extremes to sanity.