Senator Leahy Calls For More Surveillance Hearings, This Time With 'Honest Answers'

from the and-even-pelosi-is-disturbed dept

It appears that with the latest revelations of abuses by the NSA, Congress is making noises about actually doing something about it this time. Senator Leahy seems quite reasonably ticked off, calling for new hearings in which he appears to make it clear that he's not at all happy that the intelligence community was less than honest during the last hearings:

"The American people rely on the intelligence community to provide forthright and complete information so that Congress and the courts can properly conduct oversight. I remain concerned that we are still not getting straightforward answers from the NSA," Leahy said in a statement.

"I plan to hold another hearing on these matters in the Judiciary Committee and will continue to demand honest and forthright answers from the intelligence community."

Of course, one could argue that it was clear during those hearings last month that the answers were not particularly truthful, so this does have a bit of a "for show" feeling to it. But, it's becoming clearer that even if the NSA had a slight majority of support in Congress recently, that too may be eroding. Even Nancy Pelosi, who may have single-handedly saved the NSA's ability to collect all info on every phone call under Section 215 of the Patriot Act a few weeks ago, is now saying that these latest revelations are extremely disturbing. Of course, perhaps she should have investigated that a little more before making sure the NSA could continue doing what it was doing...

Filed Under: congress, nancy pelosi, nsa, nsa surveillance, oversight, patrick leahy, surveillance

Nancy Pelosi Saved The NSA Surveillance Program; Now She Should Help Kill It

from the okay,-second-chance dept

As we pointed out yesterday, there was a bizarre group of Democratic congressional reps who apparently followed the lead of Nancy Pelosi in voting against the Amash Amendment to defund the NSA program to collect all of your phone data despite the fact that those same Representatives had voted against that very same program a couple years ago. We pointed out that it was clearly Pelosi's lead that made the others follow -- and it was likely that Pelosi was responding to great pressure from the White House. Now ForeignPolicy.com confirms that it was Pelosi's actions that "saved" the NSA surveillance program, noting that her lobbying was much more effective than NSA boss Keith Alexander's "private briefing" for Congress.

"Pelosi had meetings and made a plea to vote against the amendment and that had a much bigger effect on swing Democratic votes against the amendment than anything Alexander had to say," said the source, keeping in mind concerted White House efforts to influence Congress by Alexander and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. "Had Pelosi not been as forceful as she had been, it's unlikely there would've been more Democrats for the amendment."

[....]

"Pelosi had a big effect on more middle-of-the road hawkish Democrats who didn't want to be identified with a bunch of lefties [voting for the amendment]," said the aide. "As for the Alexander briefings: Did they hurt? No, but that was not the central force, at least among House Democrats. Nancy Pelosi's political power far outshines that of Keith Alexander's."

Of course, the oddity here is that Pelosi has been a vocal critic of these programs in the past. And now that plenty of Pelosi supporters are quite pissed off that she effectively blocked the Amash Amendment, she appears to be trying to jump right back to that critic position:

"Well, I didn't vote for the PATRIOT Act the last time it was up," she said today, at her weekly press briefing. "I don't want anybody to misunderstand a vote against the Amash resolution yesterday."

At the briefing, she emphasized her current effort circulating a letter for members to sign expressing concern over how metadata is collected.

While the cynical among you can rightly mock this position -- of voting to save the NSA spying program and then immediately claiming you're against it -- this could turn out to be a good thing. For whatever it's worth, the Amash amendment was a blunt instrument and attaching it to an appropriations bill might not have been the best way to go about stopping the NSA surveillance plan. The fact that the amendment was seven votes away from passing suggests that a more careful approach has a much higher likelihood of passing, and it might happen soon. If the Amash Amendment had received very few votes, this would be dead. But with it so close, there's enough momentum that a followup has a chance.

So, Nancy Pelosi may have saved the NSA spying on Americans yesterday, but now she has the very real ability to kill it. The question is whether or not she'll follow through.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, nancy pelosi, nsa, nsa surveillance, patriot act

The Bizarre Flip-Floppers: 13 Reps Who Voted To Stop Patriot Act Spying 2 Years Ago, But Voted To Continue It Yesterday

from the oddities dept

We've already noted that there were quite a few oddities in the group of Representatives who voted against the Amash Amendment yesterday, effectively giving their stamp of approval of the NSA spying on every single American. But, the strangest of all were those who had spoken out against the very same program in the past. We noted a few who had spoken out years ago, but the Long Strange Journey blog noticed that there are 13 Representatives who voted against extending parts of the Patrtiot Act (including the provision that the Amash Amendment sought to clarify to stop mass data collection), but then voted against the amendment yesterday.

In other words, these 13 Representatives had no problem killing off this data collection program two years ago. They didn't think that ending such a data collection program would put us all at risk or whatever FUD was being spread about why all Americans needed to have their data sucked up by the NSA -- but, yesterday it suddenly became so important that they couldn't vote to stop it? The 2011 vote is here and yesterday's vote is here. The list is led by Nancy Pelosi, who is generating a lot of disappointment from her constituents who aren't happy about NSA spying. Two years ago, she led the charge to stop excessive surveillance and to include more privacy protections. When it failed, she made a statement regretting better privacy protections for Americans:

“Today Congress failed to seize the opportunity to enact measures and improvements needed to preserve Americans’ privacy and to incorporate oversight and compliance with the law. In addition, Congress failed to consider meaningful reforms to National Security Letters to address documented abuses. Instead, we were left to vote only on a long extension of some of the most controversial and troubling aspects of the PATRIOT Act.

“Moving forward, we must ensure that we can protect the American people, and protect and defend the Constitution.”

She had a chance to do that yesterday, but she chose the other side. This was almost certainly political. The White House certainly got spooked that the Amash Amendment might pass, and it seems likely that it put tremendous pressure on Pelosi to side with them -- and to coax other Democrats to vote with her. Nearly all of the other 12 listed below who voted against extending this provision of the Patriot Act in 2011, but to allow it to continue yesterday, were likely pressured by Pelosi.

• Rep. Nancy Pelosi, California
• Rep. Eliot Engel, New York
• Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Illinois
• Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida
• Rep. Mike Thompson, California
• Rep. Bob Andrews, New Jersey
• Rep. Al Green, Texas
• Rep. Luis Guitierrez, Illinois
• Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, Hawaii
• Rep. Rick Larsen, Washington
• Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
• Rep. Edith Bernice Johnson, Texas
• Rep. Marcy Kaptur, Ohio

I would hope that the constituents of these 13 Democrats would reach out to their Representatives and find out why they flip-flopped their vote, from protecting American's privacy to suddenly having no problem with the NSA collecting all their data. If these 13 had stayed true to their earlier vote, the Amash Amendment would have passed and the NSA collection of all data on Americans would have been stopped.

Filed Under: al green, amash amendment, bob andrews, colleen hanabusa, debbie wasserman schultz, edith bernice johnson, eliot engel, flip flop, jan schakowsky, luis guitierrez, marcy kaptur, mike thompson, nancy pelosi, patriot act, rick larsen, sheila jackson lee, s

Pelosi: We Need To Find A Better Solution Than SOPA

from the good-for-her dept

Ever thought there would be a policy issue that both Michele Bachmann and Nancy Pelosi agree on? Turns out it's that SOPA is a terrible idea. Pelosi has stated on her Twitter feed that we "need to find a better solution than SOPA" in response to a question from another Twitter user. This is pretty big. Very few people expected that Pelosi would take a direct position on SOPA at all, but the fact that she's publicly stating it's a bad idea is a pretty huge sign of the impact that yesterday's widespread opposition to SOPA had. Whether you like Pelosi or not (and I recognize she brings out strong feelings in some people -- similar to Bachmann, though at different extremes), having her come out against SOPA is a pretty clear sign that the bill is in trouble.

Update: And Darrell Issa responds on Twitter as well:

If even we agree...

Filed Under: copyright, michele bachmann, nancy pelosi, sopa