Jason Smith on Homeland Security | |
The Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Effective Discipline Over Monitoring Act of 2014 or the USA FREEDOM Act: Congressional Summary:
Opposing argument: (ACLU, "Surveillance Reform After the USA Freedom Act", June 3, 2015): The USA Freedom Act that passed by a 67-32 margin is not as strong as we wanted. It is markedly weaker than the original version of the USA Freedom Act that the ACLU first supported in 2013. We supported a sunset of the provisions in an effort to advance more comprehensive reform, including rejecting surveillance through cybersecurity information-sharing legislation. Notwithstanding this, however, it is very clear that the USA Freedom Act is a historic step forward.
Opposing argument: (Cato Institute , "Cato scholars differ on USA Freedom Act", Oct., 2015): The privacy community remained divided over the USA Freedom Act. The final version of the bill reauthorized several expiring Patriot Act provisions, but limited bulk collection. Some legislators argued that to pass new legislation would only provide the government convenient new legal justification for its spying--which it would interpret broadly. On the opposite side of the argument stood some pro-privacy groups who held that modest reforms were better than no reforms at all.
Congressional summary:: Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-collection, and Online Monitoring Act or the USA FREEDOM Act:
Opponent's argument against (Electronic Frontier Foundation): The bill only addresses a small portion of the problems created by NSA spying. It does not touch problems like NSA programs to sabotage encryption standards; it does not effectively tackle the issue of collecting information on people outside of the US; and it doesn't address the authority that the government is supposedly using to tap the data links between service provider data centers, such as those owned by Google and Yahoo. The bill also does not address excessive secrecy; it won't deal with the major over-classification issues or the state secrets privilege.
Opponent's argument against (J. Kirk Wiebe, former NSA Senior Intelligence Analyst interview with TheRealNews.com): It's window dressing. Stopping bulk collection is a good step, but the only thing that's going to fix this is direct access into NSA's databases by an independent group of hackers, techie types, people like Snowden who know how to get into a network and look at things and verify that the data they're collecting and what they're doing with it complies with the Constitution. The NSA has essentially operated illegally--unconstitutionally--for 60% of its existence.
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2017-18 Governor, House and Senate candidates on Homeland Security: | Jason Smith on other issues: | |||
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Freshman class of January 2019 (Republicans):
AZ-8*:Lesko CA-39***:Kim FL-6:Waltz ; FL-15:Spano ; FL-17:Steube GA-7:Woodall ID-1**:Fulcher IN-4:Baird IN-6:Pence KS-2:Watkins MN-1:Hagedorn ; MN-8:Stauber MS-3:Guest MT-0*:Gianforte NC-9***:Harris ND-a:Armstrong NM-2***:Herrell OH-12*:Balderson ; OH-16:Gonzalez OK-1:Hern PA-9:Meuser ; PA-11**:Smucker ; PA-12*:Keller ; PA-13:Joyce ; PA-14:Reschenthaler SC-4:Timmons SD-0:Johnson TN-2:Burchett ; TN-6:Rose ; TN-7:Green TX-2:Crenshaw ; TX-3:Taylor ; TX-5:Gooden ; TX-6:Wright ; TX-21:Roy ; TX-27*:Cloud VA-5:Riggleman ; VA-6:Cline WI-1:Steil WV-3:Miller |
Freshman class of January 2019 (Democrats):
AZ-2**:Kirkpatrick ; AZ-9:Stanton CA-49:Levin ; CA-10:Harder ; CA-21:Cox ; CA-25:Hill ; CA-39:Cisneros ; CA-45:Porter ; CA-48:Rouda CO-2:Neguse ; CO-6:Crow CT-5:Hayes FL-26:Mucarsel-Powell ; FL-27:Shalala GA-6:McBath HI-1**:Case IA-1:Finkenauer ; IA-3:Axne IL-4:Garcia ; IL-6:Casten ; IL-14:Underwood KS-3:Davids KY-6***:McGrath MA-3:Trahan ; MA-7:Pressley MD-6:Trone ME-2:Golden MI-8:Slotkin ; MI-9:Levin ; MI-13:Tlaib ; MI-13*:Jones ; MI-11:Stevens MN-2:Craig ; MN-3:Phillips ; MN-5:Omar NC-9***:McCready NH-1:Pappas NJ-2:Van Drew ; NJ-3:Kim ; NJ-7:Malinowski ; NJ-11:Sherrill NM-1:Haaland ; NM-2:Torres Small NV-3:Lee ; NV-4**:Horsford NY-14:Ocasio-Cortez ; NY-11:Rose ; NY-19:Delgado ; NY-22:Brindisi ; NY-25:Morelle OK-5:Horn PA-4:Dean ; PA-5:Scanlon ; PA-6:Houlahan ; PA-7:Wild ; PA-17*:Lamb SC-1:Cunningham TX-7:Fletcher ; TX-16:Escobar ; TX-29:Garcia ; TX-32:Allred UT-4:McAdams VA-2:Luria ; VA-7:Spanberger ; VA-10:Wexton WA-8:Schrier |
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