There Was No ‘Right’ Vote on the USA Freedom Act

[Brett85]

http://www.americanbroadside.com/there-was-no-right-vote-on-the-usa-freedom-act/


The arguing over yesterdays vote on the USA Freedom Act is getting a little shrill. Articles are coming out accusing Rand Paul of betraying his principles by voting against restrictions on NSA Surveillance and Paul’s adherents are accusing Ted Cruz of being a turncoat for supporting an early extension of the USA PATRIOT Act for supporting the bill.

These look an awful lot like the opening shots of the presidential primary, but in the end this is all sound and fury, and it means very little. There wasn’t any ‘right’ vote on this bill. It was emasculated in committee and is really a sad commentary on the difficulty of getting a good bill to the floor intact.

The original USA Freedom Act as proposed in the House was pretty good, but in successive committees in the House and Senate the provisions were watered down and ultimately an extension of the USA PATRIOT Act was tacked on as well. If you supported it you thought that the surviving changes in procedures and accountability for the NSA were worth enough to risk and early renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act. If you voted against it you disagreed and were betting that in the next six months you can do something else to fix or stop the USA PATRIOT Act before it is due for renewal.

Rand Paul voted with Mitch McConnell and party leadership and against the recommendation of almost every civil liberties group. His vote buy us 6 months to come up with another solution before the USA PATRIOT Act is renewed next summer.

But Mike Lee and Ted Cruz voted the other way. Their vote was in agreement with the ACLU and the EFF and even Glenn Greenwald. They also voted against party leadership and against Mitch McConnell. Just about everyone except ardent Paul supporters thinks they voted the right way on this.

Campaign for Liberty and other groups supporting Paul are making out that he voted correctly and everyone else is wrong and a villain, but they have a vested interest. They pushed very heavily for a vote against the act and they have a big stake in Paul having made the right decision. They are slamming Ted Cruz for his vote, and who can blame them because their reputation is on the line and they have to defend their candidate.

If you read Patrick Leahy’s defense of the bill, it sounds like the greatest thing since sliced bread and the answer to all our surveillance problems, but he’s just putting lipstick on a pig because it’s his pig.

Both sides should be careful to not let this partisanship go to far. Despite their different votes and presidential ambitions, these factions need to work together in the next few months if something real is going to be done about the USA PATRIOT Act and issues like data gathering and warrantless surveillance, which really need to be dealt with.

There was no wrong vote and there was no right vote. The bill was defeated and now we have to work together to find another solution. Dragging out the recriminations just weakens us and gives the advantage to those who really don’t want limits placed on the security state.

[Lucille]

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2013/09/when-state-floods-zone-reform-is-dead.html


As a result of the recent NSA/surveillance stories, there is much debate about the NSA and its massive spying apparatus. But as the existence of InfraGard shows, the NSA is only the beginning of what should concern us. In fact, and it gives me no pleasure to say this, but it's better to face the truth as fully as we can, if the NSA ceased to exist today, it would not make any appreciable difference in the surveillance activities of the United States government.
[...]
As I already noted, you could eliminate the NSA entirely this very minute, and it wouldn't make a damned bit of difference. But the heightened focus on the NSA, while ignoring all the other agencies and programs involved in similar and even identical activities, leads directly to the "solution" that will make the State writhe in ecstasy. Congress will have some hearings, and they will provide for some "oversight" and "accountability," and most people, including most of the State's critics, will herald the great triumph of "the people" and "democracy." Meanwhile, the State will continue doing exactly what it was doing before.

http://ohtarzie.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/usintelligencefunding.png?w=640&h=272

http://ohtarzie.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/dr-rosen-and-the-snowden-effect/

[ZENemy]

Viable solutions are impossible from within the system, because the system is the problem.

[HOLLYWOOD]

No different than the "Cheap Import Drug Act of 2007" or just listing GMO products numerous bills shot down by clueless voters across the country.

The lawyer-up lobbyists-corporations can craft any bill to be a 'Poison Pill' to vote upon today. Add in the usual millions spent on propaganda for the air waves... and it's business as usual, inside the Washington DC beltway.

FEAR PORN is big business today and you can count on NAB-MSMedia in continuing to be the public relations firms of the US government. Always remember those military-security-war journalists/press clowns caught on a HOT MIC at the Pentagon, "about a Ron Paul presidency would cause 50% of the FEAR PORN media being laid-off."

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

[staerker]

Politics: purposefully blurring the line between right and wrong.

[Occam's Banana]

Politics: purposefully blurring the line between right and wrong.

This ^^^.

I'll just repeat what I said in another thread about this issue:

When you have some "authoritarians" united with some "libertarians" in opposing something (the former because it "goes too far" and the latter because it "doesn't go far enough") - and at the same time you have other "authoritarians" united with other "libertarians" in supporting the very same thing (the former because it "goes adequately far" and the latter because it "doesn't go too far") ... well, then you know that you have reached the utter and droolingly vacuous wit's end of politics ...

And that's not even considering the fact that you could simply "reverse the polarity" of the "goes far" rhetoric and it would STILL amount to exactly the same thing (for example, "authoritarians" in opposition to this bill could say that it "doesn't go far enough" and "libertarians" in opposition could say that it "goes too far") ...

SMGDH ... but what else can you expect from such a grotesque mish-mash of "X steps forward, Y steps backward" stuffed into the same bag? ... it's like a Trojan Horse for everybody ...

[jmdrake]

I don't know who the coward is that down voted this thread without commenting, but I upvoted it to add balance. It's a solid point. Rand Paul is no better than Ted Cruz or Mike Lee on this issue. And I say this not being a fan of Ted Cruz.

[Christian Liberty]

I don't know who the coward is that down voted this thread without commenting, but I upvoted it to add balance. It's a solid point. Rand Paul is no better than Ted Cruz or Mike Lee on this issue. And I say this not being a fan of Ted Cruz.

Here's my take.

As someone who does in fact believe that anti-freedom, pro-government aggression votes and support are moral wrongs, I do not think either vote on this was inherently immoral. Its not a definitive issue of principle. Its not a case where its easy to say "OK, voting for this would be anti-liberty, while voting against would clearly be pro-liberty." Its not. Pro-liberty stances were mixed with anti-liberty stances, and when that happens, you have to do the best you can, decide whether you think a bill is more pro-liberty than not or vice versa, and then go with it. In my opinion, Rand Paul made the right decision not to expand the Patriot Act. But I can respect why people would disagree, and its not something I'd hold against them in the same time that I'd hold it against someone if they just voted to expand the Patriot Act in a vaccuum.

BTW: I didn't neg rep the thread. It seems like there is someone who is just -repping all of TC's threads, regardless of content. Its not me.

[Brett85]

I don't know who the coward is that down voted this thread without commenting, but I upvoted it to add balance.

There's one person on this forum who down votes every single one of the threads I create. Lol.

[Brett85]

In my opinion, Rand Paul made the right decision not to expand the Patriot Act. But I can respect why people would disagree, and its not something I'd hold against them in the same time that I'd hold it against someone if they just voted to expand the Patriot Act in a vaccuum.

This is something that came to mind just a little while ago, but this wasn't even a vote on whether to pass this bill. It was just a vote on whether to begin debate on the bill. Harry Reid also said that he was going to allow amendments to the bill, so Rand would've had the chance to offer amendments to the bill if it had been brought to the floor. He could've offered an amendment removing the Patriot Act extension from the bill, and we at least could've seen where every Senator stands on that issue. We could've seen whether Cruz would've voted for that, for instance. Then if Rand wasn't able to change the bill at all, he could've voted against ending debate, leaving it short of the 60 votes it would need to end debate and get to the final vote. So I don't really see why he didn't even want to debate the bill and try to add amendments to it. I think I would've at least voted to begin debate on it.

[Anti-Neocon]

When the vote comes to re-extend the Patriot Act comes, and it will, it will pass with 90+ votes.

So Rand had the opportunity to make a vote that could at least improve something, and instead he voted no due to the "principle" of not extending something that will be extended anyway.

[Brett85]

When the vote comes to re-extend the Patriot Act comes, and it will, it will pass with 90+ votes.

So Rand had the opportunity to make a vote that could at least improve something, and instead he voted no due to the "principle" of not extending something that will be extended anyway.

That's kind of what I think. But it's kind of an unusual situation, because usually Rand gets criticized for being too pragmatic, but this time he took the "extreme" position, just like Ron would've.

[Christian Liberty]

This is something that came to mind just a little while ago, but this wasn't even a vote on whether to pass this bill. It was just a vote on whether to begin debate on the bill. Harry Reid also said that he was going to allow amendments to the bill, so Rand would've had the chance to offer amendments to the bill if it had been brought to the floor. He could've offered an amendment removing the Patriot Act extension from the bill, and we at least could've seen where every Senator stands on that issue. We could've seen whether Cruz would've voted for that, for instance. Then if Rand wasn't able to change the bill at all, he could've voted against ending debate, leaving it short of the 60 votes it would need to end debate and get to the final vote. So I don't really see why he didn't even want to debate the bill and try to add amendments to it. I think I would've at least voted to begin debate on it.

OK, I probably agree, but I still would have voted against the bill.

That's kind of what I think. But it's kind of an unusual situation, because usually Rand gets criticized for being too pragmatic, but this time he took the "extreme" position, just like Ron would've.

And I think that's a good thing.