Thread: House Defeats Effort to Rein In N.S.A. Data Gathering

House Defeats Effort to Rein In N.S.A. Data Gathering

By JONATHAN WEISMAN

Published: July 24, 2013

WASHINGTON — A divided House defeated legislation Wednesday that would have blocked the National Security Agency from collecting vast amounts of phone records, handing the Obama administration a hard-fought victory in the first Congressional showdown on intelligence policy since Edward J. Snowden’s security breaches last month.

But the bipartisan coalition, pressing to rein in the N.S.A., vowed that increasing outrage unleashed by Mr. Snowden’s leaks would overwhelm opposition in the coming months.

The 217-205 vote was far closer than expected and displayed the shifting allegiances and fierce lobbying on both sides. Conservative Republicans — leery of what they see as Obama administration abuses of power — teamed with liberal Democrats long opposed to intrusive intelligence programs in a left-right coalition.

The Obama administration made common cause with the House Republican leadership to try to block it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/25/us/politics/house-defeats-effort-to-rein-in-nsa-data-gathering.html?_r=0

We will carry our fight to the Senate next, Mark Udall & Ron Wyden will be introducing a similar Bill in the Senate. This is not a Left vs Right issue, this is an American Issue, everybodies freedoms are at stake here.

FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 412(Republicans in roman; Democrats in italic; Independents underlined)
H R 2397 RECORDED VOTE 24-Jul-2013 6:51 PM
AUTHOR(S): Amash of Michigan Amendment No. 100
QUESTION: On Agreeing to the Amendment

	Ayes	Noes	PRES	NV
Republican	94	134		6
Democratic	111	83		6
Independent
TOTALS	205	217		12

---- AYES 205 ---

Amash Amodei Bachus Barton Bass Becerra Bentivolio Bishop (UT) Black Blackburn Blumenauer Bonamici Brady (PA) Braley (IA) Bridenstine Broun (GA) Buchanan Burgess Capps Capuano Cárdenas Carson (IN) Cartwright Cassidy Chabot Chaffetz Chu Cicilline Clarke Clay Cleaver Clyburn Coffman Cohen Connolly Conyers Courtney Cramer Crowley Cummings Daines Davis, Danny Davis, Rodney DeFazio DeGette DeLauro DelBene DeSantis DesJarlais Deutch Dingell Doggett Doyle Duffy Duncan (SC) Duncan (TN) Edwards Ellison Eshoo Farenthold Farr Fattah Fincher Fitzpatrick Fleischmann Fleming Fudge Gabbard Garamendi

Gardner Garrett Gibson Gohmert Gosar Gowdy Graves (GA) Grayson Green, Gene Griffin (AR) Griffith (VA) Grijalva Hahn Hall Harris Hastings (FL) Holt Honda Huelskamp Huffman Huizenga (MI) Hultgren Jeffries Jenkins Johnson (OH) Jones Jordan Keating Kildee Kingston Labrador LaMalfa Lamborn Larson (CT) Lee (CA) Lewis Loebsack Lofgren Lowenthal Lujan Grisham (NM) Luján, Ben Ray (NM) Lummis Lynch Maffei Maloney, Carolyn Marchant Massie Matsui McClintock McCollum McDermott McGovern McHenry McMorris Rodgers Meadows Mica Michaud Miller, Gary Miller, George Moore Moran Mullin Mulvaney Nadler Napolitano Neal Nolan Nugent O'Rourke

Owens Pascrell Pastor (AZ) Pearce Perlmutter Perry Petri Pingree (ME) Pocan Poe (TX) Polis Posey Price (GA) Radel Rahall Rangel Ribble Rice (SC) Richmond Roe (TN) Rohrabacher Ross Rothfus Roybal-Allard Rush Salmon Sánchez, Linda T. Sanchez, Loretta Sanford Sarbanes Scalise Schiff Schrader Schweikert Scott (VA) Sensenbrenner Serrano Shea-Porter Sherman Smith (MO) Smith (NJ) Southerland Speier Stewart Stockman Swalwell (CA) Takano Thompson (MS) Thompson (PA) Tierney Tipton Tonko Tsongas Vela Velázquez Walz Waters Watt Waxman Weber (TX) Welch Williams Wilson (SC) Yarmuth Yoder Yoho Young (AK)

---- NOES 217 ---

Aderholt Alexander Andrews Bachmann Barber Barr Barrow (GA) Benishek Bera (CA) Bilirakis Bishop (GA) Bishop (NY) Boehner Bonner Boustany Brady (TX) Brooks (AL) Brooks (IN) Brown (FL) Brownley (CA) Bucshon Butterfield Calvert Camp Cantor Capito Carney Carter Castor (FL) Castro (TX) Cole Collins (GA) Collins (NY) Conaway Cook Cooper Costa Cotton Crawford Crenshaw Cuellar Culberson Davis (CA) Delaney Denham Dent Diaz-Balart Duckworth Ellmers Engel Enyart Esty Flores Forbes Fortenberry Foster Foxx Frankel (FL) Franks (AZ) Frelinghuysen Gallego Garcia Gerlach Gibbs Gingrey (GA) Goodlatte Granger Graves (MO) Green, Al Grimm Guthrie Gutiérrez Hanabusa

Hanna Harper Hartzler Hastings (WA) Heck (NV) Heck (WA) Hensarling Higgins Himes Hinojosa Holding Hoyer Hudson Hunter Hurt Israel Issa Jackson Lee Johnson (GA) Johnson, E. B. Johnson, Sam Joyce Kaptur Kelly (IL) Kelly (PA) Kennedy Kilmer Kind King (IA) King (NY) Kinzinger (IL) Kirkpatrick Kline Kuster Lance Langevin Lankford Larsen (WA) Latham Latta Levin Lipinski LoBiondo Long Lowey Lucas Luetkemeyer Maloney, Sean Marino Matheson McCarthy (CA) McCaul McIntyre McKeon McKinley McNerney Meehan Meeks Meng Messer Miller (FL) Miller (MI) Murphy (FL) Murphy (PA) Neugebauer Noem Nunes Nunnelee Olson Palazzo Paulsen Payne Pelosi

Peters (CA) Peters (MI) Peterson Pittenger Pitts Pompeo Price (NC) Quigley Reed Reichert Renacci Rigell Roby Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rogers (MI) Rooney Ros-Lehtinen Roskam Royce Ruiz Runyan Ruppersberger Ryan (OH) Ryan (WI) Schakowsky Schneider Schwartz Scott, Austin Scott, David Sessions Sewell (AL) Shimkus Shuster Simpson Sinema Sires Slaughter Smith (NE) Smith (TX) Smith (WA) Stivers Stutzman Terry Thompson (CA) Thornberry Tiberi Titus Turner Upton Valadao Van Hollen Vargas Veasey Visclosky Wagner Walberg Walden Walorski Wasserman Schultz Webster (FL) Wenstrup Westmoreland Whitfield Wilson (FL) Wittman Wolf Womack Woodall Young (FL) Young (IN)

---- NOT VOTING 12 ---

Barletta Beatty Bustos Campbell

Coble Herrera Beutler Horsford McCarthy (NY)

Negrete McLeod Pallone Rokita Schock

---

House passes defense spending bill, rejects effort to cut off NSA surveillance program

Published July 24, 2013FoxNews.com

• 

The House of Representatives passed a $598.3 billion defense spending bill Wednesday, while rejecting an amendment to the bill that would have challenged the National Security Agency’s collection of millions of Americans’ phone records, in a debate that clashed privacy rights against the fight to thwart terror.

The defense spending bill passed 315 to 109. The amendment was voted down 217-205 on an issue that created unusual political coalitions in Washington, with libertarian-leaning conservatives and liberal Democrats pressing for the change against the Obama administration, the Republican establishment and Congress' national security experts.

94 Republicans and 111 Democrats voted for the amendment, while 134 Republicans and 83 Democrats voted no.

The showdown vote marked the first chance for lawmakers to take a stand on the secret surveillance program since former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden leaked classified documents last month that spelled out the monumental scope of the government's activities.

It is unlikely to be the final word on government intrusion to defend the nation and Americans' civil liberties.

"Have 12 years gone by and our memories faded so badly that we forgot what happened on Sept. 11?" Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the Intelligence committee, said in pleading with his colleagues to back the program during House debate.

Republican Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, chief sponsor of the repeal effort, said his aim was to end the indiscriminate collection of Americans' phone records.
After the vote, Amash could barely hide his frustration, telling reporters: “Ask the American people if the House did the right thing."

His measure, offered as an addition to the defense spending bill, would have canceled the statutory authority for the NSA program, ending the agency's ability to collect phone records and metadata under the USA Patriot Act unless it identified an individual under investigation.

Amash told the House that his effort was to defend the Constitution and "defend the privacy of every American."

The unusual political coalitions were on full display during a spirited but brief House debate.

"Let us not deal in false narratives. Let's deal in facts that will keep Americans safe," said Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., a member of the Intelligence committee who implored her colleagues to back a program that she argued was vital in combatting terrorism.

But Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., a senior member of the Judiciary Committee who helped write the Patriot Act, insisted "the time has come" to stop the collection of phone records.

Several Republicans acknowledged the difficulty in balancing civil liberties against national security, but expressed suspicion about the Obama administration's implementation of the NSA programs -- and anger at Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

"Right now the balancing is being done by people we do not know. People who lied to this body," said Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C.

He was referring to Clapper who admitted he gave misleading statements to Congress on how much the U.S. spies on Americans. Clapper apologized to lawmakers earlier this month after saying in March that the U.S. does not gather data on citizens -- something that Snowden revealed as false by releasing documents showing the NSA collects millions of phone records.

With a flurry of letters, statements and tweets, both sides lobbied furiously in the hours prior to the vote in the Republican-controlled House. In a last-minute statement, Clapper warned against dismantling a critical intelligence tool.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Congress has authorized -- and a Republican and a Democratic president have signed -- extensions of the powers to search records and conduct roving wiretaps in pursuit of terrorists.

Two years ago, in a strong bipartisan statement, the Senate voted 72-23 to renew the Patriot Act and the House backed the extension 250-153.

Since the disclosures this year, however, lawmakers have said they were shocked by the scope of the two programs -- one to collect records of hundreds of millions of calls and the other allowing the NSA to sweep up Internet usage data from around the world that goes through nine major U.S.-based providers.

Although Republican leaders agreed to a vote on the Amash amendment, one of 100 to the defense spending bill, time for debate was limited to 15 minutes out of the two days the House dedicated to the overall legislation.

The White House and the director of the NSA, Army Gen. Keith Alexander, made last-minute appeals to lawmakers, urging them to oppose the amendment. Rogers and Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., leaders of the House Intelligence committee, implored their colleagues to back the NSA program.

Eight former attorneys general, CIA directors and national security experts wrote in a letter to lawmakers that the two programs are fully authorized by law and "conducted in a manner that appropriately respects the privacy and civil liberties interests of Americans."

White House press secretary Jay Carney issued an unusual, nighttime statement on the eve of Wednesday's vote, arguing that the change would "hastily dismantle one of our intelligence community's counterterrorism tools."

Proponents of the NSA programs argue that the surveillance operations have been successful in thwarting at least 50 terror plots across 20 countries, including 10 to 12 directed at the United States. Among them was a 2009 plot to strike at the New York Stock Exchange.

Rogers joined six GOP committee chairmen in a letter urging lawmakers to reject the Amash amendment.

"While many members have legitimate questions about the NSA metadata program, including whether there are sufficient protections for Americans' civil liberties," the chairman wrote, "eliminating this program altogether without careful deliberation would not reflect our duty, under Article I of the Constitution, to provide for the common defense."

The overall defense spending bill would provide the Pentagon with $512.5 billion for weapons, personnel, aircraft and ships plus $85.8 billion for the war in Afghanistan for the next budget year.

The total, which is $5.1 billion below current spending, has drawn a veto threat from the White House, which argues that it would force the administration to cut education, health research and other domestic programs in order to boost spending for the Pentagon.

In a leap of faith, the bill assumes that Congress and the administration will resolve the automatic, across-the-board spending cuts that have led the Pentagon to furlough workers and cut back on training. The bill projects spending in the next fiscal year at $28.1 billion above the so-called sequester level.

By voice vote, the House backed an amendment that would require the president to seek congressional approval before sending U.S. military forces into the 2-year-old civil war in Syria.

Rep. Trey Radel, R-Fla., sponsor of the measure, said Obama has a "cloudy foreign policy" and noted the nation's war weariness after more than 10 years of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The administration is moving ahead with sending weapons to vetted rebels, but Obama and members of Congress have rejected the notion of U.S. ground forces.

The House also adopted, by voice vote, an amendment barring funds for military or paramilitary operations in Egypt. Several lawmakers, including Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, who heads the panel overseeing foreign aid, expressed concerns about the measure jeopardizing the United States' longstanding relationship with the Egyptian military.

The sponsor of the measure, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., insisted that his amendment would not affect that relationship.

The overall bill must be reconciled with whatever measure the Democratic-controlled Senate produces.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/07/24/house-rejects-effort-to-cut-off-nsa-surveillance-program/