From The Nation
Less than a month after making a show of reading the US Constitution
into the Congressional Record, the leaders of the Republican-controlled
House of Representatives engineered a vote to extend the surveillance
authorities that both the Bush and Obama administrations have used to
conduct "roving surveillance" of communications, to collect and examine
business records and to target individuals who are not tied to terrorist
groups for surveillance.
While most Democrats opposed the extension of the surveillance
authorities -- rejecting aggressive lobbying by the Obama administration
and its allies in the House GOP leadership -- overwhelming Republican
support won approval of the legislation on a 275-144 vote.
Thus, the supposedly Constitution-obsessed House has endorsed a measure
that is widely seen -- not just by Democrats and progressives but by
Republicans and conservatives -- as a constant threat to privacy
protections outlined in the document's Fourth Amendment.
As Michelle Richardson, the legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union,
noted Monday night: "It has been nearly a decade since the Patriot Act
was passed and our lawmakers still refuse to make any meaningful changes
to this reactionary law. The right to privacy from government is a
cornerstone of our country's foundation and Americans must be free from
the kind of unwarranted government surveillance that the Patriot Act
allows. If Congress cannot take the time to insert the much needed
privacy safeguards the Patriot Act needs, it should allow these
provisions to expire."
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The 275 votes for extending the surveillance authorities came from 210 Republicans and sixty-five Democrats.
The 144 votes against extending the authorities came from 127
Democrats (including minority leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and
Michigan's John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary
Committee) and 27 Republicans.
The left-right coalition that prevented passage of the extensions last week
held on the final vote Monday, with "no" votes coming from across a
spectrum that extended from Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich to Texas
Republican Ron Paul. But because speaker John Boehner and his allies in
the GOP leadership managed this vote so that a two-thirds majority was
no longer required, it has now passed the House and will go to the
Senate for consideration on a timeline that seeks to get the process
finished before the surveillance authorities expires February 28.
The determination of the House Republicans to deliver for President
Obama on what is seen as a national security issue was somewhat
remarkable.
More remarkable was the House vote on a motion offered by the Democrats,
which sought to recommit the bill with instructions to add language
ensuring that surveillances would only be conducted in compliance with
the Constitution.
That motion lost on a 186-234 vote.
All 234 "no" votes came from Republicans, including two dozen members
who minutes later would vote against extension of the surveillance
authorities.
The 186 "yes" votes came from 184 Democrats and two Republicans -- Ron
Paul and South Carolina Congressman Walter Jones Jr., a pair of
stalwart civil libertarians who refused to put partisanship ahead of the
rule of law.
The message from the Republicans, aside from Paul and Jones, was
clear enough: for all their talk about how much they revere the
Constitution, they're cool with violations of the Fourth Amendment.
John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Online Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.
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