Finally — the Republican Party’s National Committee Passed a Resolution — Calling on the NSA to Stop Mass Surveillance of Citizen Communications

© 2014 Peter Free

 

24 January 2014

 

 

Does the word “thrilled” make me sound like a schoolgirl?

 

The Republican National Committee finally did something that America desperately needs — a call to fight autocracy:

 

 

RESOLVED, the Republican National Committee encourages Republican lawmakers to enact legislation to amend Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, the state secrets privilege, and the FISA Amendments Act to make it clear that blanket surveillance of the Internet activity, phone records and correspondence – electronic, physical, and otherwise - of any person residing in the U.S. is prohibited by law and that violations can be reviewed in adversarial proceedings before a public court;

 

RESOLVED, the Republican National Committee encourages Republican law makers to call for a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying and the committee should create specific recommendations for legal and regulatory reform to end unconstitutional surveillance as well as hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance; and

 

RESOLVED, the Republican National Committee calls upon Republican lawmakers to immediately take action to halt current unconstitutional surveillance programs and provide a full public accounting of the NSA’s data collection programs.

 

© 2014 RNC, Resolution to Renounce the National Security Agency’s Surveillance Program, via Politico and Time (24 January 2014)

 

 

Yes!

 

Maybe some people with influence will finally put the kabosh on the Obama Administration’s trouncing of the Fourth Amendment.

 

 

A revitalized Republican Party?

 

America has been sliding down the flusher for some time.  Our allegedly two-party system has degenerated into two “more similar than not” aspects of the same plutocracy/autocracy-supporting theme.

 

Today, however, the RNC’s resolution could inject some old-fashioned, pro-citizen teeth back into the perennial pretended conflict between the parties.

 

 

Discipline and sound-bites

 

Republicans’ disciplined messaging — and their talent for crafting motivating sound bites — could turn the tide that preserves the Fourth Amendment against Washington’s willingness to crush it into dust.

 

That matters to me.  As it should also matter to every American who treasures both freedom and our historically protected privacy.

 

 

The moral? — I would like to see Republicans carry the ball that Americans originally picked up in 1776 and 1789

 

Preserving the Fourth Amendment, in these desperate times, has turned me into a 1-issue voter.

 

Note

 

Next on my list is another law and human rights related matter — getting rid of President Obama’s indiscriminating willingness to kill innocents abroad with American drones.

 

Curious (isn’t it) how politicians’ contempt for legalities and the public’s exaggerated fear of terrorists turns us into what we profess to hate — royalists and their subjects.