I guess not just Obama is against our Liberty

[TrinityeXchange]

......after people spit out the koolaide and remove the polarizing sunglasses, one really has to ask themselves, "who really is for the people??"  because i am hard pressed to find anybody in congress who is pro-constitution any longer.  Ron Paul I will sorely miss you my friend

 

Republican Wall Crushes NSA Bill   12:06 AM EDT

A wall of Republican opposition brought down a controversial National Security Agency reform bill Tuesday night, leaving the future of the package in doubt ahead of a Republican takeover next year.

 

Sen. Patrick Leahy’s legislation that would end the NSA’s bulk data collection narrowly fell short of the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, 58-42, a major defeat for privacy advocates, civil libertarians and a White House that supports the bill. The filibuster of the proposal prevents it from even coming to the floor for debate.

Story Continued Below

 

Opposition was led by Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell and colleague Sen. Rand Paul, who both voted down the legislation, though for different reasons. McConnell, like many Republicans, voted it down because he believed the reforms went too far, while Paul voted against the bill because it did not go far enough.

 

Paul said immediately after the vote that he “felt bad” about his vote against the motion.

 

“They probably needed my vote,” he said, opposing Leahy’s bill because it would extend the sunset provisions for the laws authorizing surveillance. “It’s hard for me to vote for something I object to so much.”

 

Other heavy hitters joined the view that NSA proposal would make it difficult to combat terrorism, a crowd that included Marco Rubio of Florida, another potential White House aspirant.

 

“They cannot cite a single example of this program being abused,” Rubio said of the bill’s supporters. “Not one. We are dealing with a theoretical threat.”

 

Advocates of the bill made impassioned pleas to advance it past a filibuster, the rare proposal that drew the support of both GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Democratic Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein of California.

 

“It would help address the problem of the American government spying on its citizens without cause,” said Lee, a co-sponsor of the bill, on the Senate floor before the vote. “What opponents of this bill fail to appreciate is that most Americans are deeply, deeply, concerned about the collection of their personal information.”

 

”It’s a carefully crafted bill,” Leahy warned ahead of the vote. “Don’t wait until next year on this.”

 

But in the end McConnell’s opposition proved to be the kiss of death, sidestepping legislation that threatened to prominently display the GOP’s internal divisions just weeks before Republicans take over the Senate. And the bill’s failure on Tuesday also allows the GOP to take up NSA reform on their own terms next year.

 

Though Lee was joined by fellow Republicans Ted Cruz of Texas, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Dean Heller of Nevada in supporting the bill, others took a dim view of the legislation.

 

Paul, a likely 2016 contender, said the NSA legislation failed to enact enough sweeping reforms like ending the Patriot Act. McConnell, on the other hand, “strongly” opposed the legislation because he believed it would hinder the intelligence community. The GOP leader said on Tuesday morning that it’s “the worst possible time to be tying our hands behind out backs” with the rise of the Islamic State and recent executions of Americans at the militant group’s hands.

 

The dual-track opposition from Paul and more traditional hawks like Rubio and McConnell made it impossible for chief Senate sponsor Leahy and the White House to pass the legislation during the waning days of Democrats’ Senate majority. On Monday the White House urged passage of the USA Freedom Act, arguing it would “strengthen Americans’ confidence” in the controversial data collection programs exposed by Edward Snowden last year. Leahy’s bill would require court orders for warrantless data collection, sunset the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2015 to align it with the Patriot Act and create new privacy advocates in the FISA courts.

 

After McConnell lit into his legislation on Tuesday morning, Leahy tried to engage the Republican leader about his harsh criticism of legislation the GOP leader argued could harm the effort to destroy the Islamic State. McConnell ignored Leahy’s entreaties on the Senate floor.

In addition to McConnell siding with Paul against the legislation, the GOP leader also found himself once again at odds with a familiar foil: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who urged the Senate to advance legislation “that’s good for this country” past an initial filibuster and pledged not to block consideration of amendments to the bill had it advanced.

 

But as it became clear the bill was headed toward defeat, and with little time this year to take it up again, Reid voted for the bill as it failed. Reid’s support for the bill made it procedurally difficult for him to swiftly call the legislation up for another vote, kicking the nation’s still unresolved debate over government surveillance to next year’s Congress — and new Majority Leader McConnell.

Edited May 26, 2015 by TrinityeXchange

[RVWITHME]

If Harry Reid's for it, I'm against it, whatever it is...

 

Plain and simple.

 

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[RV ME]

Trinity,

This is obviously an older article since it speaks of the future Senate takeover by the R’s, which happened in 1/15. 

 

As for the NSA data collection, if the Senate does not pass the House bill, the NSA meta data collection would become illegal by way of being sunsetted.  To me, anything that makes the NSA stop collecting our data is a good thing no matter how the program is shut down.

 

This was the reason that Rand was filibustering last week, so you might still be able to like him after all. RV ME

 

 

The Senate looks poised to defeat a House-passed bill that would move the bulk collection of telephone metadata from being held by the government to being held by telecom companies instead.

 

The way forward on a short-term extension is uncertain as the House has left town for the month and will not return until after the provisions are set to expire on June 1st. The uncertainty leaves that provision, called "Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act", on its way to expiring on June 1st with no real path to being reauthorized before it lapses for at least a brief period of time.

 

"I think the House-passed bill will fail, and I don't know about a two month extension at this point because that leaves us in a kind of a bit of a bind I would say," Sen. John Thune, of South Dakota, a member of Republican leadership, told reporters on Thursday, "So we're going to see where the votes are."

 

Justice and National Security officials warn that if the Senate does not pass the compromise replacement legislation for the Patriot Act before the Memorial Day holiday recess the National Security Agency will have to start dismantling bulk collection of metadata records to avoid both practical and legal problems.

 

In a memo sent from the Department of Justice to Congress on Wednesday, the NSA has said they would begin to wind down the bulk collection program if Congress fails to act by Friday, saying they would be doing so "in order to ensure that it does not engage in any unauthorized collection or use of the metadata."

 

Senate Republicans expect to vote on two options in the coming days to reauthorize or reform the expiring provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — which prescribes how foreign intelligence is gathered.

 

The options are the House-passed USA Freedom Act, and a short-term 60 day extension, both of which could fail. If both fail to get the 60 votes needed to proceed, Senate Republicans say an even shorter-term bill could be introduced in an effort to stop the program from expiring.

 

"Nobody wants us to go dark on our ability to detect terrorist activity," Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters, "So I imagine there will be some very urgent discussions" about next steps if both the USA Freedom Act and a 60-day extension fail.

 

On May 13, the House overwhelmingly passed the USA Freedom Act by a vote of 338-88. The bill would take the storage of bulk telephony metadata away from the government and would instead rely on the telecom companies to hold the data, where it could then be obtained with a subpoena.

 

But because the House has left for the month, and will not be in session until the afternoon of June 1st, the only bill that has any path to being signed into law by President Obama is the House-passed USA Freedom Act.

 

If the USA Freedom Act fails in the Senate, and they instead pass a short-term bill, the House will not be able to consider it until after they return, and by that time the program will have sunset. House Republican leadership aides say there are no plans to come back in session before then to pass any possible short-term extension.

 

"The worst possible outcome is that the program lapses at a time when the threat level has never been higher since 2001, that's just totally unacceptable to us," Sen. Dan Coats, an Indiana Republican, and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters, "I think the stark reality is if we get to the point where the program goes dark at this time at this threat level we're running a dangerous, dangerous course."

 

According to a report by the Congressional Research Service, the section of the PATRIOT Act that is used to authorize the government's collection of bulk data would sunset at 12:00:01amET on June 1st if Congress fails to act.

 

"I think it's a real problem, but I think the overwhelmingly majority know that we can't just let the whole program lapse," Sen John McCain, R-Ariz., told reporters, "They're searching around for different ways to prevent that from happening. Nobody wants that to happen except for Senator Paul."

 

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., took to the Senate floor Wednesday and spoke in a 10 ½-hour filibuster-like speech in opposition of the government's bulk collection of data . Paul has said he would oppose not only any clean extension of the program, but also the USA Freedom Act, which he says does not go far enough.

 

But any clean extension of the program will have a tough path to passing, as the controversial bulk data collection program which was unearthed by whistleblower Edward Snowden is politically toxic to many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

 

"I'm strongly opposed to a short-term extension (of the bulk data collection program)," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. told reporters. "The reality is this bulk phone records collection program, which I consider to be a federal human relations database, is a badly flawed program that some of the anti-terror leaders in the past have said does not make America safer."

 

Many of the opponents in the Senate of the House-passed bill are concerned that there are no assurances regarding how long the telecom companies will hold onto the data, and they believe that the process to get that data from the telecom companies could delay an investigation. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio said today that he believes the Senate misunderstands their bill.

 

"I do think that there is a big disconnect in terms of how they view our bill, and I've been surprised by it," Boehner said today, "But at the end of the day, we've got to work our way through this issue, and I'm confident at some point we will."

 

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/senate-down-wire-bulk-data-collection-bill-n363146

 

[TrinityeXchange]

Trinity,

This is obviously an older article since it speaks of the future Senate takeover by the R’s, which happened in 1/15. 

 

As for the NSA data collection, if the Senate does not pass the House bill, the NSA meta data collection would become illegal by way of being sunsetted.  To me, anything that makes the NSA stop collecting our data is a good thing no matter how the program is shut down.

 

This was the reason that Rand was filibustering last week, so you might still be able to like him after all. RV ME

 

thanks for clarifying things my friend.  i was reading different articles and may have gotten confused.  yes, right now rand paul is my guy.  he holds a lot of the same tenets of his father.  unless you are talking about preserving the freedom and liberty of the people, you are saying a whole bunch of nothing as far as i am concerned.  but nobody could say it like ron paul.  i sorely miss seeing him in government.   

[RV ME]

thanks for clarifying things my friend.  i was reading different articles and may have gotten confused.  yes, right now rand paul is my guy.  he holds a lot of the same tenets of his father.  unless you are talking about preserving the freedom and liberty of the people, you are saying a whole bunch of nothing as far as i am concerned.  but nobody could say it like ron paul.  i sorely miss seeing him in government.   

 

NP my friend, sometimes there are too many troubles to keep track of them all.

 

Personally I would have rather seen 100 Statesmen declare this Unconstitutional and unacceptable and end the program permanently, but at least Rand did the right thing.  Pretty sad state of affairs especially knowing that the FBI admits there has not been a single terror plot foiled by the program.

 

FBI agents can’t point to any major terrorism cases they’ve cracked thanks to the key snooping powers in the Patriot Act, the Justice Department’s inspector general said in a report Thursday http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/21/fbi-admits-patriot-act-snooping-powers-didnt-crack/#ixzz3bI26f0W4

 

 

The problem is that even if the current law is sunsetted out, I believe the Senate will still pass a new version and when the House returns they will hash it out and pass a “new and improved” version, but the metadata will still be collected by someone.  I am sure we will be told that there are safeguards and such, but I do not believe for a second that the ever more powerful Federal Government will not be able to access this information at their leisure.