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  • Patriot Act expires as Paul blocks final vote on NSA reform

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    The Senate advanced legislation 77-17 to reform the National Security Agency on Sunday, but parts of the Patriot Act will nonetheless lapse for a few days amid opposition from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

    The legislation, called the USA Freedom Act, will not reach President Obama’s desk until after the three measures expire at midnight, meaning that the provisions will expire until the bill is passed by the Senate and signed by Obama later this week.

    “The Patriot Act will expire tonight,” Paul declared triumphantly from the Senate floor during a rare Sunday evening vote. “It will only be temporary. They will ultimately get their way.”

    Obama has supported the measure and had repeatedly urged lawmakers to support it in the days leading up to Sunday’s deadline. The bill needed 60 votes in order to advance.

    “The Senate took an important—if late—step forward tonight,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement late Sunday. “We call on the Senate to ensure this irresponsible lapse in authorities is as short-lived as possible. On a matter as critical as our national security, individual Senators must put aside their partisan motivations and act swiftly. The American people deserve nothing less.”

    A failed gambit by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) opened the door to Paul’s use of procedural tactics to delay consideration of the bill.

    Paul had made the spying programs unearthed by former government contractor Edward Snowden a central part of his presidential candidacy and vowed to force the expiration of the Patriot Act heading into the weekend.

    Paul argues the USA Freedom Act — which was approved by the House 338-88 earlier in May — does not go far enough to rein in spying programs that he and his allies argue are unconstitutional.

    “Are we going to so blithely give up our freedom? Are we going to so blindly go along and take it?” Paul said in heated remarks on the Senate floor before the vote.

    “I’m not going to take it anymore,” he declared, as his voice rose to a shout. “I don’t think the American people are going to take it anymore.”

    Paul — who had roughly two dozen supporters crowding the gallery of the Senate in red “Stand with Rand” t-shirts — appeared to declare victory after the vote.

    “We didn’t have 60 votes before to end the bulk collection,” he told reporters after emerging from the chamber. “By slowing the process down, talking about the Patriot Act, we now will end bulk collection of records by the government.”

    McConnell introduced a handful of amendments Sunday evening on behalf of himself and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.). Paul and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has also attempted to bring up amendments of their own, but they were blocked.

    Paul’s opposition will push votes on both those amendments and the final bill back to Tuesday at the earliest, and potentially Wednesday.

    The House would then either need to vote on the new bill or hash out the details in a conference committee.

    Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) — an NSA critic — warned senators against adding amendments to the legislation that could potentially weaken the bill in the eyes of its supporters.

    “On the House side there’s not support for a more watered down version of the Freedom Act,” he said. “If they want to get something passed through the House they need to make it better not worse.”

    Tensions between Paul and other Senate Republicans were evident throughout Sunday’s proceedings — particularly when the Kentucky Republican sought to speak in opposition to the bill when Sens. Dan Coates (R-Ind.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) were holding the floor.

    “The senator from Kentucky needs to learn the rules of the Senate,” McCain said.

    “Maybe the senator from Kentucky should know the rules of the Senate.”

    Paul a little more than a week ago blocked the Senate from considering a short-term extension of the Patriot Act, which also could have prevented a lapse in the program if the House had found a way to consider it.

    Paul at the time blocked motions by McConnell, his Kentucky colleague, who had sought to win the short-term extension. The clash was remarkable given McConnell’s support of Paul’s presidential bid.

    Source: Patriot Act expires as Paul blocks final vote on NSA reform


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  • Rand Paul: The Patriot Act Provides No Security at the Cost of Our Liberty

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Supporters of the NSA’s large scale spying on the American people claim the program has made our country safer. Benjamin Franklin famously said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

    This week, I stood on the Senate floor for over 10 hours explaining just that. We should never give up our rights for a false sense of security, but supporters of the PATRIOT Act are also presenting voters with a false choice. This week, the Investigator General reported that the FBI has not cracked a single terrorist plot thanks to the invasive spying powers implanted under the PATRIOT Act. Let me reiterate that: even the most vocal defenders of the spying program have failed to identify a single thwarted plot.

    When will we realize that trading liberty for security is a monumental mistake? The Revolutionary War was fought to protect against writs of assistance, general warrants written by soldiers not judges. Our Founding Fathers believed that the right to be left alone—the right to be secure in your own persons—is the most cherished of rights.

    Politicians like Senators Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Governors Jeb Bush and Scott Walker have all endorsed the NSA domestic surveillance program. Alone among presidential candidates, I am leading the fight to end this unconstitutional program. They are threatening our rights, freedoms, and privacy by encouraging the NSA to continue their warrantless tapping of American’s cell phones, and all without good reason.

    Two independent, bipartisan presidential commissions have now said that not a single terrorist has been caught or terrorist plot stopped by this program. The only thing this program is stopping is the freedom and right to privacy of law-abiding citizens. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recognized this infringement and deemed the NSA spying program to be illegal. Additionally, a recent Pew Research Poll shows that a majority of Americans want the PATRIOT Act changed.

    These politicians claim there is ‘ample evidence’ that bulk data collection of law-abiding citizens has played a major part in our anti-terrorist efforts. This is simply not true, when the facts have been independently reviewed by private and public organizations.

    In a report issued Thursday, the Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said that between 2004 and 2009, the FBI tripled its use of bulk collection under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. Section 215 allows for secret court orders to collect “tangible things” that could be relevant to a government investigation—a far lower threshold and more expansive reach than a warrant based on probable cause. The list of possible “tangible things” the government can obtain without a warrant is seemingly limitless and can include things like driver license records and Internet browsing history.

    Though the invasive program was tripled, FBI agents can’t point to any major terrorism cases they’ve cracked thanks to the key snooping powers in the PATRIOT Act.

    Earlier this year, the court of appeals for the Second Circuit deemed this bulk collection of data to be illegal, writing in the opinion that the program was an “unprecedented contraction of the privacy expectations of all Americans.”

    Source: Rand Paul: The Patriot Act Provides No Security at the Cost of Our Liberty


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  • Amash amendment only enforced Patriot Act, not Fourth Amendment

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Last week, Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., introduced an amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill. It required the NSA and other government agencies merely to obey the Patriot Act, not the Fourth Amendment. That the data to be collected are “relevant to an ongoing national security investigation” doesn’t mean that there is probable cause that the person whose records are collected has committed a crime.

    The language was taken from Sec. 214 of the Patriot Act, which amended Section 402 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1842).

    Amash’s amendment did not attempt to enforce the standard set in the Fourth Amendment, which requires “probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” That the data to be collected is merely relevant to an ongoing national security investigation doesn’t necessarily mean that there is probable cause that the person whose records are collected has committed a crime.

    That means the Patriot Act is unconstitutional, according to any reasonable interpretation of the Fourth Amendment.

    The NSA’s activities do not even meet the lower standards set by the Patriot Act. They are illegal even under an unconstitutional law.

    It is important to remember the difference between “constitutional” and “legal.” Legal means the activity in question complies with existing law passed by a legislative body. Constitutional means the legislative body had been given the power to pass the law in the first place.

    The U.S. Congress not only wasn’t given the power to pass the Patriot Act, it was strictly prohibited from doing so by the Fourth Amendment. Congress passed the legislation anyway. The NSA hasn’t even complied with that.

    Not only was Amash’s amendment defeated, but its sponsors were met with a backlash of scorn and ridicule from Governor Chris Christie and other defenders of the national security apparatus, citing the need to protect Americans from terrorism, regardless of the legal and constitutional issues.

    Source: Amash amendment only enforced Patriot Act, not Fourth Amendment


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