Senate, Rebuffing Privacy Concerns, Clears Path to Extend Surveillance Law
Source: New York Times
WASHINGTON — The Senate cleared the path on Tuesday for Congress to extend the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program for six years with minimal changes, rejecting bipartisan calls to first vote on amendments that would have imposed significant new privacy protections when the program sweeps up Americans’ emails.
The vote, 60 to 38, narrowly overcame a procedural obstacle to an up-or-down vote on the surveillance extension bill, showing that there is probably sufficient support in the Senate to give it final approval and send it to President Trump’s desk this week.
Republicans who broke party ranks to oppose Mr. McConnell’s effort to move forward on the bill without amendments included Ted Cruz of Texas, Steve Daines of Montana, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Dean Heller of Nevada, Mike Lee of Utah, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mr. Paul.
Democrats who supported Mr. McConnell’s move included Tom Carper of Delaware, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Dianne Feinstein of California, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Doug Jones of Alabama, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Ms. McCaskill, Bill Nelson of Florida, Gary Peters of Michigan, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Mark Warner of Virginia and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. Angus King, independent of Maine, also voted to move forward on the bill.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/16/us/politics/senate-vote-section-702-fisa-amendments-surveillance.html
Was really surprised this hadn't been reported earlier. Watched the vote last night and thought John McCain was casting the last vote. It appears it was instead Claire McCaskill and McCain did not vote.
= new reply since forum marked as read
...so this is no surprise. Several other Democrats on the list are, however. And does allowing Trump to spy on your e-mails help convince you to vote for them for "change" this November?
I know several ex-Democrats who now try telling me that "the Democratic Party is just as corrupt as the Republicans." This vote certainly doesn't make it easier for me to rebut them.
