Thursday, July 25, 2013

Proposal To Limit NSA Snooping Narrowly Voted Down

An amendment by libertarian Republican Justin Amash to strongly limit NSA snooping was defeated, but only narrowly despite the fact that both Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi and Republican leaders John Boehner and Paul Ryan opposed. Both parties were split with substantial numbers of yes and no votes among both. Among Republicans 134 voted no and 94 voted yes while among Democrats 111 voted yes and 83 no.

It would have been good if it had been passed because it would have symbolically been a gigant middle finger pointed at Obama and the NSA, but it wouldn't have changed anything, at least not in the short term, because it was extremely unlikely to be passed in the Senate. And even if it had been passed, Obama would have just vetoed it. What is particularly interesting though is the blatant hypocricy of many of the Democrats that once opposed this invasion of privacy. Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi for example once rightly condemned the so-called "Patriot act" as "a massive invasion of privacy"  Now she in effect voted to reauthorize it.... I guess having a fellow Democrat as President trumps alleged principles.

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