IT HAPPENED A coalition of liberal democrats and right wing tea party conservatives, including John Conyers, Michelle Bachman and every other extremist of left and right, came within 15 votes of passing a bill in the House that would prevent the government from accessing telephone and Internet records from private companies like AT&T, Google and Facebook except in specific cases where the information is needed in an active investigation. It would also require the FISA courts to disseminate information related to such investigations to every member of Congress. The private companies concerned will be allowed to retain the data indefinitely for their own purposes, but the evil malevolent Federal government that both sides distrust will be prevented from doing so regardless of the Constitutional safeguards applied. This is the first act in the drama I predicted a few days that will lure formerly Democratic voting young people increasingly attracted to Libertarian ideas into joining forces with Tea Party Republicans in the upcoming mid-term elections. An even more extreme version that would have prevented the government from accessing data needed to counter a cyber-attack, as well as an attempt to de-fund NSA in the Defense appropriations bill, failed by 2 to 1 margins.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 14:19:42 +0000
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