On Thursday, January 11, the
House of Representatives voted to pass a bill in favor of renewing the National
Security Agency’s surveillance program for another six years. This 256 to 164
vote is the House’s effort to renew a law that enables the NSA to collect data
pertaining to foreigners from American companies, declining a bipartisan effort
(mainly from conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats) to put up privacy
barriers for Americans. This vote was cast shortly after President Trump
appeared to change his mind about the law, sending out Tweets in favor of the
law even though he accused such surveillance to be a ploy targeted against the
Trump administration.
Trump's "change of heart" tweets
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump
Though this was quite a large
margin in terms of votes, in order for this to become law, the results from the
Senate’s procedural vote on this bill next week must be in favor of it, and
President Trump must sign it into law as a final check. Republican
Congressional leaders, US intelligence agencies, and even the White House have
voiced their belief that the program needs little to no revision, but Trump’s
Tweets from this morning may have a determining factor as to how senators will
cast their ballots.
Questions:
- Why do you
believe the margin of “yay” and “nay” votes was so large?
- What do you
think it is about surveillance and privacy that makes it a topic that
transcends party lines?
- Do you predict
the Senate will vote in a similar fashion, or do you think this matter
will go back to the drawing board?
Links
2 comments:
I am a little amused by the fact that the most liberal Democrats and the more conservative Republicans have found the one thing they can agree on. Privacy is an extremely important issue for the federal government to address, especially in the 21st century with the growth of the internet, and "connected" devices. For example, devices like Amazon's Alexa, and the Google Home that could literally be used to listen in on people constantly. I am concerned about the idea of the NSA monitoring the communications of people in the US, whether those people are citizens or not. The fact that there is no constitutional right to privacy (beyond how SCOTUS has previously chosen to interpret the 14th amendment, which cold always be overturned, especially considering the current Supreme Court) means that the government spying on its citizens is not illegal. That should scare anyone. As for Trump, I don't think he really understands the implications of this legislation. As his bipolar tweets seem to indicate, he has not taken the time to understand what programs like this really could mean for a country.
I think that surveillance is an issue that transcends party lines because it goes beyond the individual and has great implications for all of society. While infringing on personal privacy seems oppressive and unfair(and our right to privacy is not explicitly mentioned like Sam mentioned, but rather implicitly included in some amendments like the 3rd-privacy from troops and the 4th-privacy from unreasonable searches and seizures), it is also important to think about whether we should allow this "infringement" if a safer country is the result. I personally do not have predictions about the Senate, however, the NYT article does say that, 'fewer senators appear to favor major change to spying laws," implying that it probably will pass.
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