The Majority of House Democrats Just Voted to Protect Trump’s Surveillance State Rather than Your Civil Liberties

Last week, the House voted for a spending bill for the Defense, Education, and State Departments, along with other federal agencies, together totaling about 75 percent of the federal budget.

In the lead-up to passing this, the House voted on more than 100 amendments across a wide array of topics. Many of them were uncontroversial.

Perhaps the most controversial, however, was an important amendment from Justin Amash (MI-03) and Zoe Lofgren (CA-18) to curtail unchecked surveillance.

In particular, the amendment would have defunded Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act unless the federal government agreed to stop knowingly collecting the data of people communicating from within the US to other US residents, and who are not specifically communicating with a foreign surveillance target (Remember the Snowden revelations?). It would have also require the government to explicitly promise not to engage in the practice of collecting communications that merely mention a foreign intelligence target (known as “about collection”). Although the government ended this practice two years ago, it has consistently claimed that it has the right to restart it.

Putting controls on unchecked government surveillance is good under any president. Given the recklessness and pettiness of the Trump administration, it seems even more important.

Well, tell that to the 126 Democrats who voted against it.

The amendment failed 175 to 253. 110 Democrats and 65 Republicans voted for it. 126 Democrats and 127 Republicans voted against it.

Two of the 126 were actually non-voting delegates: Eleanor Holmes Norton of DC and Gregorio Sablan of Guam.

Here were the remaining 124:

Surveillance issues have always divided House Democrats. Out of curiosity, I decided to look at the roll call votes for the 2013 Amash-Conyers amendment on ending bulk surveillance and the 2014 USA FREEDOM Act, which had become so watered down that it lost the support of civil liberties groups.

Blumenauer, Cardenas, Cartwright, Cummings, Grijalva, Lewis, Swalwell, and Thompson (MS) all — rightly — voted for the Amash-Conyers amendment and against the USA FREEDOM Act. They’ve apparently learned to love surveillance since then. Given the new occupant of the Oval Office, that’s just bizarre.