Rep. Amash's Amendment To Defund The NSA's Domestic Phone Metadata Program Fails 205-217

Today Rep.?Amash?s amendment to the 2014 Defense Appropriations Bill failed in the House?on a vote of 205 in favor to 217 opposed. When it became known that the amendment would in fact come up for a vote, the powers of the status quo came together to decry its tenets as ham-fisted and irresponsible. The White House called the amendment a “blunt approach” that is not “the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process.” Naturally, the irony of that specific complaint resonates: The intelligence programs in question were not enacted with any of those forms of debate. To ask that their rescinding be held to a higher standard then their enaction is hubris of a real sort. Underlining how seriously those who are in favor of maintaining the phone record collection program took the amendment’s threat to yank its funding, General Alexander himself — the good general heads the NSA — gave briefings on the Hill to House Democrats and Republicans, albeit in different sessions. A formal statement from the White House and face time with the head of the NSA are some of the larger guns available for this sort of court press. The NSA has come under heavy scrutiny for its collection of both Internet data and telephonic records by privacy advocates, certain members of Congress, and what is sometimes referred to as the netroots — efforts that include broad surveillance of U.S. citizens and the retention of information relating to their actions. Those in favor claim that it doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment and is a key tool in the fight to protect American interests and national security. Opponents directly proclaim that the various NSA data-collection efforts are beyond unconscionable and should instead be viewed as nothing less than utterly un-American given its diametric opposition to hallowed Constitutional rights. This isn’t a small argument, and it goes beyond our current simplistic ideological dialogue in which there are only two perspectives: left and right. Instead, we’re seeing a number of supposedly small government members of Congress stand behind action that gives the Federal government chronic authority to end the right to privacy. At the same time, the argument that national security can at times take primacy over privacy has been upheld in the past by American courts. Before the vote, House members opposed to the amendment circulated a letter that included the following text: ?While many Members have

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