Rand Paul Blocks Extension Of Patriot Act, Future Of Illegal NSA Spying On Americans In Limbo

[Butifldrm]

Rand Paul Blocks Extension Of Patriot Act, Future Of Illegal NSA Spying On Americans In Limbo  

 

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/23/2015 10:42 -0400

• While an extension of the Patriot Act, that landmark bill which ushered in the America's Big Brother, "turnkey totalitarian state" (previewed here long before Edward Snowden's shocking revelations), is just a matter of time, supporters of the Fourth Amendment scored a brief victory last night when following yet another marathon 10 hour filibuster...

  • ... and refusal to play by the script by Rand Paul, the Senate failed to extend the Patriot Act, leaving the future of America's "war against terrorists" but really against "enemies domestic", i.e., anyone who uses email, has a cell phone or in any other electronic way communicates with others, in limbo. 

    As the WSJ recalls Friday night's events, Senators first rejected a House bill overhauling the NSA, a two-month Patriot Act extension and then increasingly short extensions of the law.

    Which is ironic because less than a month ago a Federal Appeals court found that NSA spying on US citizens is not only authorized by the Patriot Act, but is outright illegal. So how and why Congress can even consider an extension to an illegal program is a bit of a mystery.

     

     

    Beginning shortly after midnight, the Senate narrowly blocked a House bill ending the NSA’s collection of bulk phone information, requiring the government instead to obtain court approval to request phone records from companies on a case-by-case basis. The vote to move forward with the House bill was 57-42, short of the 60 votes needed to clear the Senate’s procedural threshold. The bill had easily cleared the House with bipartisan support last week and was backed by the White House.

    Ironically, the showdown was between two Kentucky Republicans: the senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and presidential candidate Rand Paul:

     

     

    Following the defeat of the House bill, the Senate then blocked a two-month extension of the Patriot Act, the 2001 law that expanded the government’s authority to search for terror suspects. The two-month patch was defeated in a 45-54 procedural vote

    Which of course is a total lie: recall that just last November, the "Surveillance State Wins - Senate Votes To Allow NSA Bulk Data Collection To Continue." As a further reminder, the only reason for the existence of the NSA's massive Bluffdale, UT storage facility is simple: to store every electronic communication everywhere, and for ever.

     

     

    Known for his meticulous, long-range political strategizing, Mr. McConnell had surprised many in the Capitol by taking on a fight with the House over the nitty-gritty policy details of the bill. In particular, Mr. McConnell worried that the House bill wouldn’t require phone companies to retain the phone records information that could help authorities spot terrorist activity.

     

    “This is beyond troubling,” Mr. McConnell said on the Senate floor Friday. “We should not establish an alternate system that contains a glaring hole in its ability to function, namely the complete absence of any requirement for data retention.”

    

    The facility above is where everyone's back up phone records and emails are stored.

    In the end it was almost entirely due to the objections Rand Paul that the Senate couldn't agree to pass even a 24-hour extension of the Patriot Act, the 2001 law that followed the September 11 events.

    “This is a debate that should be had,” Paul said on the Senate floor early Saturday. He said he would have agreed to a short-term Patriot Act extension had Senate leaders guaranteed two of his amendments would see future votes and would be able to pass with 50 votes.

    Since in Congress every day is opposite day, some promptly spun the brief restoration of the 4th Amendment as "jeopardizing to Americans' civil liberties and national security."

     

     

    With the chamber’s two primary options exhausted, Mr. McConnell sought
    to get an agreement to extend the Patriot Act for a week, and then
    periods of four and two days and finally, one day. But Mr. Paul and some
    Democratic senators, including Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico,
    objected. Mr. Paul has made the NSA program a centerpiece of his 2016
    campaign, saying it violates Fourth Amendment protections against
    unreasonable search and seizure.

    Amusingly, as the Senate left for this week's Memorial Day recess, nobody had any idea how to proceed. Quote The Hill:

     

     

    “The Senate has failed to make the important reforms necessary, jeopardizing Americans’ civil liberties and our national security,” the House Judiciary Committee’s chairman, Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.) and top Democrat, John Conyers of Michigan, said in a statement with two other lawmakers after the House bill was defeated in the Senate.

    McCain knows all about raising revenue:  let's compare revenue raising dear war hawk neocon Armed Services Committee John McCain, shall we:

     

     

    Leaving the Capitol, Republicans seemed confused on what their leader’s next steps would be.

     

    “That's a really good question,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said, when asked what would change between Saturday and when senators return to Washington for a rare Sunday session on May 31.

     

    Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) seemed equally unsure if Paul would accept a deal before returning to Washington.

     

    "I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. They march to a different drum,” the Armed Services Committee chairman said, adding that he was sure Paul’s tactics were“a great revenue raiser.”

    John McCain (source):

    

    and Rand Paul (source):

    

    We show this just in case there is any confusion who is just a little bit more detached from the interests of America's "main street" and middle class, assuming one is still left.

    Average:

     

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-23/rand-paul-blocks-extension-patriot-act-future-illegal-nsa-spying-americans-limbo

  U.S. Senate Blocks NSA Surveillance Bill, Patriot Act Extension Votes set up new struggle between House and Senate leaders over how to extend the Patriot Act

 

ENLARGE

U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Republican Mitch McConnell, walks to a meeting of Republican Senators near the Senate chamber, on Capitol Hill in Washington DC. PHOTO: EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY

By 

KRISTINA PETERSON

Updated May 23, 2015 2:39 a.m. ET

50 COMMENTS

WASHINGTON—The Senate early Saturday defeated a string of efforts to extend the Patriot Act as lawmakers splintered over its contentious phone surveillance programand left town with no plan in place to prevent the law from lapsing.

After next week’s Memorial Day recess, the Senate will resume its debate over the national security law at 4 p.m. on May 31, eight hours before the law expires at midnight.

Lawmakers fractured through the evening, rejecting a House bill overhauling the NSA, a two-month Patriot Act extension and then increasingly short extensions of the law. Primarily due to objections from presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) the Senate couldn't agree to pass even a 24-hour extension of the Patriot Act, the 2001 law that expanded the government’s authority to search for terror suspects.

“We better be ready next Sunday afternoon,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said on the Senate floor after the early-morning series of blocked votes. Next Sunday’s session will be an “opportunity to act responsibly and not allow this program to expire,” he said.

Beginning shortly after midnight, the Senate narrowly blocked a House bill ending the NSA’s collection of bulk phone information, requiring the government instead to obtain court approval to request phone records from companies on a case-by-case basis. The vote to move forward with the House bill was 57-42, short of the 60 votes needed to clear the Senate’s procedural threshold.

The bill had easily cleared the House with bipartisan support last week and was backed by the White House.

• Following the defeat of the House bill, the Senate then blocked a two-month extension of the Patriot Act, the 2001 law that expanded the government’s authority to search for terror suspects. The two-month patch was defeated in a 45-54 procedural vote.

With the chamber’s two primary options exhausted, Mr. McConnell sought to get an agreement to extend the Patriot Act for a week, and then periods of four and two days and finally, one day. But Mr. Paul and some Democratic senators, including Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, objected. Mr. Paul has made the NSA program a centerpiece of his 2016 campaign, saying it violates Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.

“This is a debate that should be had,” Mr. Paul said on the Senate floor early Saturday. He said he would have agreed to a short-term Patriot Act extension had Senate leaders guaranteed two of his amendments would see future votes and would be able to pass with 50 votes.

Mr. Paul’s procedural moves frustrated some other Republicans, who said they worried about the consequences of a potential Patriot Act lapse.

“There’s 99 people who were basically willing to have this put off for a period of time so there could be negotiations and one person decided that he didn’t want to have that happen,” said Sen. John McCain (R. Ariz.), suggesting that Mr. Paul was motivated to take a stand to boost his campaign fundraising. “I’m sure it’s a great revenue raiser.”

When lawmakers return on Sunday, they are expected to revisit the House bill, which came close to securing the needed 60 votes.

“We had a good piece of legislation that protects the security of the country but also protects the privacy of American citizens,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.), a Senate sponsor of the House bill. “The mistake is not to have it pass now.”

The House isn’t expected to consider a short-term Patriot Act extension before it returns to Washington on the evening of June 1, according to GOP aides.

“The Senate has failed to make the important reforms necessary, jeopardizing Americans’ civil liberties and our national security,” the House Judiciary Committee’s chairman, Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.) and top Democrat, John Conyers of Michigan, said in a statement with two other lawmakers after the House bill was defeated in the Senate.

Known for his meticulous, long-range political strategizing, Mr. McConnell had surprised many in the Capitol by taking on a fight with the House over the nitty-gritty policy details of the bill. In particular, Mr. McConnell worried that the House bill wouldn’t require phone companies to retain the phone records information that could help authorities spot terrorist activity.

“This is beyond troubling,” Mr. McConnell said on the Senate floor Friday. “We should not establish an alternate system that contains a glaring hole in its ability to function, namely the complete absence of any requirement for data retention.”

Democrats criticized Mr. McConnell for waiting until the last minute to try to extend the Patriot Act in an effort to use the impending recess to pressure lawmakers to reach agreements.

“Senator McConnell set several bills on a collision course without any real plan to resolve the inevitable pileup,” said Adam Jentleson, spokesman for Senate Minority LeaderHarry Reid (D., Nev.), saying Mr. McConnell “badly misjudged the members of his own conference.”

Earlier this week Mr. Paul spoke on the Senate floor for 10-and-half hours, criticizing the NSA’s phone surveillance program.

Write to Kristina Peterson at [email protected]<script cf-hash='f9e31' type="text/javascript"> /* */</script>

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-senate-blocks-bill-overhauling-nsa-phone-surveillance-program-1432357624

[Butifldrm]

Rand Paul vs. Mitch McConnell: US Senate Wrestles With Patriot Act Changes As Deadline Approaches

By http://Weekly Address: Pass the USA Freedom Act

Sens. Rand Paul (left) and Mitch McConnell, both R-Ky., are at odds over provisions of the Patriot Act, due to expire Sunday at midnight. They are pictured here at a 2013 White House event. Getty Images/Brendan Smialowski/AFP

The centerpiece of U.S. efforts to prevent terrorism at home was on the chopping block Sunday, as political factions in the Senate jockeyed for position. The USA Patriot Act, which allows the National Security Agency to collect cell phone data indiscriminately, is due to expire at midnight, and it appears legislation to prevent that from happening, or to modify the law, will be blocked.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who is seeking the GOP presidential nomination, vowed Saturday to let the clock run out. He staged a filibuster last week against the law, which was passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. The NSA's data collection practices were revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, triggering a political firestorm.

Paul, who espouse strong libertarian beliefs, said on his website that though he supports robust efforts to fight terrorists, "we do not need to give up who we are to defeat them."

The Senate has scheduled a rare Sunday session to deal with the measure. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., opposes any changes to the Patriot Act. The House, however, has modified the intelligence-gathering provisions to require a warrant for collection of cell phone data as part of the USA Freedom Act, which President Obama has endorsed.

The Senate meets in rare Sunday session to head off the expiration of the Patriot Act and its provisions for gathering cell phone date. Pictures is the National Security Agency data gathering facility in Bluffdale, Utah, about 25 miles south of Salt Lake City, Dec. 16, 2013.  Reuters/Jim Urquhart/Files

Obama warned in his Saturday morning radio address that the expiration of the Patriot Act, without a substitute measure, could lead to a terrorist attack.

"This shouldn’t and can't be about politics. This is a matter of national security. Terrorists like al Qaeda and ISIL [the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS] aren’t suddenly going to stop plotting against us at midnight [sunday]. And we shouldn’t surrender the tools that help keep us safe. It would be irresponsible. It would be reckless. And we shouldn’t allow it to happen," Obama said.

 

Unlike earlier incidents that saw the federal government lurching from crisis to crisis as a result of partisan bickering, the current standoff is among Republicans, who control both houses of Congress, the New York Times noted.

McConnell and his allies fear ending the bulk collection of data by the NSA under national security letters issued by the FBI will endanger national security. To mitigate those fears, the House and Senate Intelligence committees developed a series of options, including the authority to track "lone wolf" terror suspects not associated with a state sponsor and "roving" surveillance of a suspect rather than a phone number, the Times said.

Among the issues stalling the bill is whether technology can be developed quickly enough to enable phone companies to take over the storage of data so that when the NSA presents a warrant, the material can be turned over. The bill allows for a six-month transition but McConnell and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., doubt that's enough time, the Times said.

http://www.ibtimes.com/rand-paul-vs-mitch-mcconnell-us-senate-wrestles-patriot-act-changes-deadline-1945329

 

 

https://youtu.be/BLlKojPit0o

 

Weekly Address: Pass the USA Freedom Act

Edited May 31, 2015 by Butifldrm

[Butifldrm]

[divemaster5734]

obummers address is full of smelly stuff.

 

SO, instead of our personal information being stored in a secure government facility, they will now force the telcoms to store it.

 

Which means higher cell bills at the very least, so they telcoms can build the massive storage facilities to house it.

 

That's not taking into account the insane privacy invasion by holding onto the data in the first place, or the risk of all the hackers that would just love to access it to see what they can to to either steal your money, credit, standing, or identity.

 

For that idiot to imply that the laws are good just because they've been in place since 911 is insidious.

 

Does that mean that since ISL has been beheading Christians for over a year it is OK for them to continue?

 

Ya know what bothers me most?

 

It's that this post of yours, which is excellent, has been for the most part skipped over, with people more concerned about making jokes, or how soon they will finally realize their windfall.

 

Don't they realize all the money in the world wont buy their freedom back?

[bigwave]

"The facility above is where everyone's back up phone records and emails are stored."

Where is Hillariy's????

[Muleslayer]

Small relief!

Update at 9:45 p.m. ET. Senate Adjourned:

The Senate has adjourned. Three provisions of the Patriot Act will expire at least temporarily.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/05/31/411044789/live-blog-facing-midnight-deadline-the-senate-debates-parts-of-the-patriot-act