Amash’s Amendment To Defund NSA Program Fails 205-217

http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/24/rep-amashs-amendment-to-defund-the-nsas-domestic-phone-metadata-program-fails-205-217/

by llamataboot • 13 years ago

291 159 13 years ago

techcrunch.com

livestyle• 13 years ago

Would be interested in a consolidated list names of those who voted in favor and against this bill.

unimpressive3• 13 years ago

I would be interested in knowing where I can find this sort of information in general.

svachalek• 13 years ago

govtrack.us generally has this info although I don't think this particular vote is posted yet.

emhart• 13 years ago

Senate: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_m...

House: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/index.asp

hga2• 13 years ago

Look later (today or definitely tomorrow) at http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php ; click on Bill Number, enter H.R. 2397 (periods are necessary), click on the correct search result.

For this particular amendment and vote, go to the lower right corner where there's "All Congressional Actions with Amendments".

cinquemb• 13 years ago

here's raw if the links posted by others are 404ing for you: https://gist.github.com/beaugunderson/6075673

dlg• 13 years ago

It's not available yet, but will be posted first at http://clerk.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.asp?year=2013&rollnumber...

SF HNers: Rep. Pelosi was against the ammendment.

gonzo• 13 years ago

so vote her out.

benihana• 13 years ago

SF HNers: Rep. Pelosi was against the ammendment.

Surprising no one.

jcdavis2• 13 years ago

Its worth noting that from my quick glance, she was the only Bay Area congressperson to vote No. Incredibly disappointed

clarkm• 13 years ago

Here is the roll call with a map from the NYT:

http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/113/house/1/412

Not only did the vote fail to break along party lines, it didn't break along geographic lines either. Outside of the Bay Area, I don't see any obvious patterns, like an urban / rural split. Does anyone see anything else?

mturmon3• 13 years ago

Good question. It's more muddled than typical votes.

If you take the party line (Dems favored the amendment, Reps disfavored) as a baseline, you have to explain two things: solid red (R's who voted Yes) and striped blue (D's who voted No).

So, the regional delta's on that baseline: (1) the Western states (Montana down to New Mexico) had plenty of Republican votes for (solid red); (2) the DC-NY area had more Dem votes against (striped blue). The standard explanation of (1) would be libertarian Westerners, and for (2) would be, that was where 9/11 was, plus that's where much of the intelligence community lives. If you're in the government, you may trust the government more.

I don't know how to explain the consistent voting of Tennessee and South Carolina.

mayneack• 13 years ago

That is quite the map.

Off the top of my head, it appears that the leadership on both sides was against it (Pelosi, Cantor, Boehner)

If I had more time on my hands, I'd go check to see if tea party/progressive caucus/cbc/freshmen/intelligence committee went one way or another.

They get to split quite a few incentives here: Dems have the incentive to vote no to side with their president, R's have the opposite (and it's a republican amendment). The stereotypical platform of the two sides is the reverse of this, but both parties are generically pro-surveillance.

kristopolous5• 13 years ago

I'm knowingly paying an organization to openly wage cyber warfare and espionage operations on me?

Splendid. At least we may get a few good HPC and IR publications out of it.

Actually, it will probably be outsourced to contractors who will squander it away without producing anything.

Unless, that is, the next 9/11 gets planned using twitter hashtags. Actually, since the Sandy Hook shooter openly talked about his plans on 4chan, I'm guessing that even a twitter campaign would still "pass under the radar".

I bet the only real consequence is that someone will lose a laptop with like, everybody's social security number and financial history on it. It's going to be so awesome.

marshray5• 13 years ago

Clarify acronyms please?

Zircom• 13 years ago

From what Wikipedia can tell me, the two most relevant terms those acronyms refer too are "High-performance computing" and "Information retrieval".

unimpressive3• 13 years ago

Actually, given that the Sandy Hook shooter openly talked about his plans on 4chan, I'm guessing that even that would still "pass under the radar".

Hoax?

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/415935/20121217/sandy-hook...

kristopolous5• 13 years ago

ok fine. Gabriel Giffords shooter posted pictures and details on his MySpace profile prior to the assassination attempt.

And for people like Colleen LaRose or the Underwear bomber, just a web browser and plain-old internet led to the apprehension. With Michael Reynolds, traditional "law enforcement officers posing as honeypots" style did the trick.

These classical methods seem to be working quite alright.

What is the use-case here? Some dastardly secret terrorist conspiracy where they collaboratively make detailed plans, over the internet, in clear text, like this:

-----

From: evilbomber@yahoo.com

Subject: Re: RE: re: re: Re: Secret plans

To: confidant@not-the-fbi.com

CC: coconspirator@gmail.com, evildoer2213@excite.com, bombmaker@msn.com

Attachments: annotated-map.pdf

----

Hey all,

After reviewing the bombing plans of the terrorist attack next Tuesday, set for Washington DC, when the Secretary of State, Jon Carey, is set to arrive by motorcade at 4:15 PM, I've decided that our assassination attempt (where we plan to Kill Jon Carey) would be best suited for a different intersection.

As you can see here, there is a better place to bomb the motorcade.

Also, I've gotten all the parts for the IED. This includes the incendiary, a timer, and all the wiring necessary. I carefully asked a bunch of questions on various open forums and posted pictures to confirm I made everything right. I also disclosed my intended use of the bombs along with my radical political leanings.

Anyway, Down with the USA, and I hope to meet all of you to make this death of a US diplomat a reality, next Tuesday, at 4:15 PM.

Patiently Awaiting Martyrdom,

evilbomber.

P.S.: What's encryption?

tptacek2• 13 years ago

Copied from the other thread, because it bears repeating:

I think it's important to keep in mind that the 12 vote margin is comfortable for Amash and supporters of new NSA restrictions and uncomfortable for its defenders.

Here's why: opponents of Amash wielded an argument that "split the vote". Representatives who voted against Amash could have done so for one of two reasons:

(1) They actively support providing the NSA with unchecked access to cell phone metadata under the "business records" provision of PATRIOT, or

(2) They don't support that access, but can't support a broad amendment that potentially de-funds whole NSA programs, and instead need something finer grained to correct NSA with.

Meanwhile, everyone who supported Amash believes strongly --- so strongly that they're willing to do something disruptive to NSA --- that new checks on NSA are needed.

(I think Amash was a good amendment, if only because it would force the House to do its actual job and carefully regulate intelligence collection; if it caused a temporary shitstorm, so much the better --- it'd be a well-deserved comeuppance for a legislature that has been derelict in its duty to oversee these programs. But you should be aware that opponents of Amash had a persuasive-sounding argument for voting it down even if you believed new regulations were needed.)

I think this was a pretty hopeful vote.

llamataboot3• 13 years ago

agreed, especially how quickly it came together and how hard the Dem establishment came down on it. I hope that this is the seed for a strongly bi-partisan group of legislators concerned about civil liberties.

Silhouette3• 13 years ago

especially how quickly it came together

There was some great coverage of this on the BBC[1] earlier today, before the result was known:

(Quotation begins)

However, the White House said the measure would deprive the intelligence agencies of a key tool in preventing terror attacks.

"This blunt approach is not the product of an informed, open or deliberative process," said spokesman Jay Carney.

(Quotation ends)

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23430126 (emphasis added)

eli2• 13 years ago

A majority of House Democrats voted for it. That is a significant rebuke of the Obama administration.

mtgx• 13 years ago

You're right. In fact, this just in:

Holt’s bill, the “Surveillance State Repeal Act”, would repeal the PATRIOT Act and the FISA Amendments Act, each of which contains provisions that allowed the dragnet surveillance. The bill would reinstate a uniform probable cause-based warrant standard for surveillance requests, and prohibit the federal government from forcing technology companies from building in hardware or software “back doors” to make it easier for the government to spy on the public. Additional features of the bill include the true legal protections for national security whistleblowers, as well as changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to give it greater expertise in reviewing and challenging executive branch applications for surveillance operations.

http://ggsidedocs.blogspot.com.br/2013/07/rush-holt-repeal-s...

jaynos• 13 years ago

I love having that man represent me! I pay a lot of attention to what goes on, but I could safely stop reading any news and still be sure that my representative was doing the right thing. We need more 5 time Jeopardy champions/actual rocket scientists in Congress.

ronaldx3• 13 years ago

Agreed: as a British citizen, I find this vote incredibly close.

As an analogy, there is absolutely no political will here to change the status quo regarding unchecked data collection. The two largest political parties would likely be automatically against an equivalent amendment on national security grounds, whipping their members to vote against (and few members would care to break ranks).

As such, no vote would even take place. If it was forced in a full chamber, it would perhaps fall 100-550.

Edited to add: Exemplified by a spending review announced a month ago http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23060592 "3.4% increase in combined budget for intelligence agencies": meanwhile many other budgets are squeezed by 5-10%

Silhouette3• 13 years ago

3.4% increase in combined budget for intelligence agencies

Yes, that was a rather striking discrepancy. Our media seem to be giving the current administration a free ride lately regarding civil liberties generally and trying to control the Internet in particular. Maybe everyone is too busy worrying about getting onto the "Bob watches porn" list this week to worry about getting onto any other lists that may or may not be relevant to this discussion as well.

fsck--off3• 13 years ago

It is very close, especially when you consider that a million more Americans voted for a Democrat House candidate than a Republican one.

Republicans have a 33 seat majority, despite losing the popular vote 48.7% - 47.6%, thanks to rampant gerrymandering after the 2010 election.

I did a (meaningless) back of the envelope calculation, and found that if the number of representatives were proportional to the popular vote count, and the same percentage of Democrats voted for this bill, then the bill would have passed.

Of course, it probably wouldn't have made it through the senate, since the non-talking filibuster allows any single member to effectively veto any bill brought up.

bradleyjg• 13 years ago

Whipping in the United States Congress is far less effective than in Parliament. There is no equivalent to the three line whip and the party leadership can't expel members. The most they can do to rebellious members is take away their preferred committee assignments, and even there they are hemmed in by tradition.

However, particularly for Republicans at the present time, there is always a looming threat of a primary challenge if ideological purity is not maintained.

m_mueller5• 13 years ago

As a Swiss I'm always amazed how in indirect democracies, 'political will' equates to whatever the top ruling people are up to, depending largely on what lobbyist de jour is paying best as well as the proximity of elections. It's absurd to me to be honest. Why wouldn't you want a system where (a) the final say can always be cast by people's votes and (b) the government is put together proportionally? This basically mitigates both of these problems: (1) Elections become way less important, so the parties don't throw too much money into them - winning 2% every 4 years, in rare cases an additional cabinet member of 7, just doesn't justify putting hundreds of millions into a campaign. (2) Lobbying is worth much less as well since you can't lobby people very easily.

And yes, I'm aware that every system has flaws and people's votes aren't always sane - but given the alternatives...

smutticus• 13 years ago

I think this was a pretty hopeful vote.

It's easy to vote 'yea' on something that you know will never become law. Even if the House would have approved it AND the Senate it would just get vetoed by Obama.

I remain hopeful. And I hope this at least signals to the executive branch that maybe, just maybe the legislative branch has balls. We just need to keep the pressure on them and just keep pushing for it. Call your congress critter today.

tptacek2• 13 years ago

Obama couldn't veto the Amash amendment without vetoing the entire NDAA. So, no, that's not true.

hkmurakami• 13 years ago

Would it be as easy as you say to veto this? There would be a HUGE uproar across the country if this had passed both houses of Congress and got killed by the Commander and Chief.

stfu• 13 years ago

it would just get vetoed by Obama

This would be extremely important. At the moment Obama's principle seems to avoid the subject as much as possible. And if it is addressed just blaming the "system". By vetoing it he would take personal responsibility for this scandal, something he will try to avoid at all costs.

jdp23• 13 years ago

Agreed. This is the closest vote on anything related to the Patriot Act in a long time; and the bipartisan support is very encouraging.

griffordson• 13 years ago

It also gets lots of people on the record making claims about the capabilities of the NSA and how much they are really collecting. Many of these people are on the intelligence committee and have been fully briefed on everything the NSA is doing and they use those credentials to support their claims of authority.

Glenn Greenwald says that he has hundreds (if not thousands) of documents, including NSA training manuals, that prove Snowden's claims about NSA analysts having the technical ability to listen to and read the contents of "billions" of phone, email, and chat conversations. See his response starting at 19:51 in this interview:

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/7/18/glenn_greenwald_growin...

Senator Wyden's recent comments support the idea that there is much more coming in this story.

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/events/2013/07/16/6975...

It is incredibly hopeful that there is this much support for an amendment like this before the full story has been told. I hope the Senate is forced to take up a similar vote (less likely for sure) before the full details are published because it would be very valuable to get the position of every Senator on record before November 2014.

newman314• 13 years ago

Is there a list/site somewhere that shows all the people that voted against vs. for this?

JoshTriplett• 13 years ago

But you should be aware that opponents of Amash had a persuasive-sounding argument for voting it down even if you believed new regulations were needed.

Compromise arguments are often persuasive, but the vast majority of legislation succumbs to the fallacy of middle ground (or "argument to moderation"), assuming that the compromise is always right.

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window , for which this seems like a textbook example. Claim way too much ground, give up part of it, repeat.

This is not a case for a compromise: the program is entirely wrong and needs to entirely die.

diminoten2• 13 years ago

On the other side of the coin, the 12 vote margin is still a 'no', and the party whips (or whoever was rallying the vote for this considering it was bipartisan) may have given "permission" for people to break ranks for their re-election or fundraising campaigns once the determination was made that there weren't going to be enough 'yea' votes to win it in the first place.

A 'no' is always a 'no', don't look much into the fact that it was a fairly close 'no'.

malandrew• 13 years ago

I know that is how things work, but isn't that the sign of a fundamentally broken process. Shouldn't each representative be required to vote in a way that is blind to the success or failure of a piece of legislation.

It seems like such a process would automatically bias votes against the will of the people and in favor of the lobbyists, since at the end of the day it is the lobbyists that are actually paying attention to your voting record on issues and are likely to withhold campaign donations during the next election.

noonespecial• 13 years ago

I don't think a lot of people know this. "Yes" votes are "given out" by party leaders as favors to to those who are willing to play ball so that they can please the folks back home when the outcome of the issue is already assured.

When a candidate makes a big deal during a campaign about how they voted against the grain on a particularity thorny issue that pleased a lot of voters in their district, take it with a huge grain of salt and a hard look at their broader voting record.

rhizome3• 13 years ago

The way I'm looking at it is that there was a chance that this amendment was going to be the most that was ever done about it. The door is not closed on modifying what the Intelligence Agencies surveille, and there can now be an even better bill passed outside of a defense appropriations bill, on its own terms.

samstave2• 13 years ago

Now we know who the political enemies of true freedom are.

pawrvx2• 13 years ago

Now you know who runs America.

AsymetricCom2• 13 years ago

Right, the ones we cannot criticize...

pawrvx2• 13 years ago

The downvotes just proves my point.

darkmethod• 13 years ago

Is this the will of the people?

paraxisi2• 13 years ago

Not yet, but it's getting closer.

meepmorp5• 13 years ago

Don't assume you're privy to the will of the people.

georgechen• 13 years ago

My rep. actually voted NO to the bill, and I didn't like it. Guess what? I've since emailed my rep. so he now know how I feel. Next time, if similar vote comes up, I'll call my rep... That's how democracy work.

AsymetricCom2• 13 years ago

Lets ask the press what the will of the people is first, so we know how we should feel about this.

lettergram2• 13 years ago

Republican: 94 yea 134 Nay Democratic: 111 yea 83 Nay

Pretty close and party lines didn't seem all that important.

protomyth• 13 years ago

Some of the Republicans were probably swayed by the Heritage Foundation's critique of the amendment's wording. This is the type of issue that won't be a party line vote, but I would be curious about an age breakdown.

marcamillion3• 13 years ago

This surprised me too - especially given the rhetoric I was hearing from the lamestream media about this vote being cast along party lines.

Given that the majority of Dems in the house voted for it - in fact more than Republicans - I think that is a MAJOR, MAJOR rebuke to Obama.

I am sure he will notice that.

altero5• 13 years ago

I think this is the end of the cloud. For me (as european) it is now unacceptable to use american webservices and remote apps. We had a good run.

hga2• 13 years ago

Give it a little while. This is the very first time this issue has come up for a vote post-Snowden, it's also in the summer when plenty of people are not paying all that much attention to this sort of thing (vacations and such).

This vote has demonstrated a really serious intent to change things, and there's a good chance they will be in due course.

altero5• 13 years ago

All discusion so far has been about spying on US citizen. EU citizens have zero rights in this case.

Silhouette3• 13 years ago

For me (as european) it is now unacceptable to use american webservices and remote apps.

As someone running businesses in Europe, I am genuinely concerned about whether the Safe Harbor scheme still protects us legally if we allow US-based services to use personal data about our customers.

As I understand it, the point of Safe Harbor is to recognise that some US-based companies have data protection measures sufficient to meet the stronger European standards, and therefore to permit the export of such personal data outside the EEA to those trusted partners where this would otherwise be against the law.

Given that the protection that any US-based partner can offer is now known to be limited, and that no-one running a business here could credibly claim not to be aware of that, I don't know where we'd stand legally if a politically active customer decided to make a point. Even if we openly disclose which US-based partners are involved as part of the relevant privacy policy, it still leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

altero5• 13 years ago

It already started. Irish Google has been sued recently for sharing data with american mothership.

lukifer• 13 years ago

Given the tepid reaction (or tacit endorsement) of Europe to the spying revelations, I'm not sure what country to put trust in for cloud services or hosting.

altero5• 13 years ago

Germany and Switzerland seems like a good choice.

igravious3• 13 years ago

For me (as a European) I think it shows that there's life left in the democratic process in the US. I am heartened by that. It shows, though the effort failed, that there is a strong bi-partisan backlash against mass surveillance. I think it also shows up badly how silent European countries have been; where are similar parliamentary revolts in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, ...?

I am very glad the vote was close, it would have been utterly terrible if it was not close. The executive branch is well out of step with the House. One really wonders if the president's pre-election rhetoric was naivety or lies. I suspect a bit of both. I believe that it points to the fact that the executive branch has been partly captured by the military, let's not forget that a general heads what should be essentially a civilian organ.

The issue still remains though that even if miraculously provisions are put into place for US citizens we still have the mass surveillance of every other nation's citizens by numerous nations just because net traffic is routed through their geographic location. Never mind tapping into trans-oceanic cables - if that's true, I can't believe that could be true, how horrific. We need a Geneva convention on mass surveillance / privacy. It's going to take years and years. Also, what do all the spooks do with all that hardware?

KevinEldon• 13 years ago

Your representative is probably on Twitter. If you've got an account tweet how they voted and what you think about it. Be polite. You can of course email and call them too to share you viewpoint.

Find your Representative - http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

Amash vote - http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2013/roll412.xml

kbd• 13 years ago

Thanks for the links! I learned who my representative was and sent him a respectful e-mail inquiring about his nay vote.

tnorthcutt• 13 years ago

Thank you, just did this. My rep (Bill Flores) voted "no".

bargl• 13 years ago

I think this should be higher. I also found my representative and said thank you for supporting the bill. And thank you for posting the links.

pvnick• 13 years ago

Twelve votes? That's it? Wow, that's incredible. The first real tide change we've seen since the passage of the patriot act. Those who voted Nay seemed to do so because "metadata isn't covered under the 4th amendment."

Wait until they find out the NSA is raking in the call contents too [1]

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/29/glenn-greenwald-nsa...

BashiBazouk• 13 years ago

If this is to be fought the time is close at hand. First off if this is played as a left vs right issue it will lose. Second this needs to be won at the primary level. If both the democrat and the republican in a district/state are against it, then it doesn't really matter who wins as far as this issue is concerned. Bonus points if when the debates start, instead of opposite sides of the issue, they try to one up each other on how they will dismantle the surveillance state. I think asking your Representative their stand on this issue as well as any one else who enters the race is a good start but also try to get some sort of pledge that they will work across the isle with the other party to get this done.

This will need at least two election cycles to be successful. Everyone in the house is up for re-election every two years but the senate requires six for everyone to go through the re-election process. I think with some luck, the third senate election cycle might not be needed if enough momentum can be attained. But I think to really succeed it will have to survive a filibuster and possibly a presidential veto.

We can do this if we are willing to put aside our political differences, work together and think long term.

guelo• 13 years ago

If congress were to pass some law (over Obama's veto) limiting the intelligence agencies, what is to stop the administration from coming up with a secret interpretation of the new law that effectively ignored it? They are already in violation of current law, as the author of the Patriot Act has stated.

Democracy has been completely subverted at this point. We need impeachments and new anti-secrecy laws.

rhizome3• 13 years ago

Nothing, but good luck claiming victories achieved under an illegal interpretation (see: Iran-Contra).

krapp2• 13 years ago

If you don't trust the government to follow the law in the former case, why would you trust them to follow anti-secrecy laws in the latter?

Either the system can possibly work or it can't, you can't say the process is a sham then suggest a legislative solution.

marcamillion3• 13 years ago

Even though I don't have the time to do it, I have a feeling that if you drilled down into the votes some more, you would likely see a pattern/relationship re: authority.

i.e. those in higher authority would have voted it down (Boehner, Pelosi, etc.) and those with less authority supported it. So the powerful preserving their power, with the less powerful challenging it.

That alone can speak volumes about the potential for their power crumbling. Boehner has been on the ropes recently with his caucus warning him to tread carefully.

If that turns out to be the case, then the leadership has big problems. Both in the House and the Whitehouse.

That could be good for the issue over the long-term....which is encouraging to me as a "foreigner".

ars4• 13 years ago

If you're going come up with an interesting theory like that you almost have an obligation to track it down definitely.

Otherwise you're just making an assumption, and drawing conclusions from it without knowing if your assumption is right.

marcamillion3• 13 years ago

I know the feeling, but I figured I would just put it out there and let people more versed at this stuff than I find the relationships, if any exist and let us know.

D9u• 13 years ago

The bit about "...not the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process" illustrates the hypocrisy inherent to the ruling class.

They rarely hold themselves to the same standards which they set forth for the proletariat.

s_q_b• 13 years ago

Repost from another thread on the same issue:

I really do commend everyone involved in this effort. This is how the system is supposed to work, citizens making their voices know, and the legislature acting upon the will of the people.

Honestly you guys got far closer to your goal than I would have anticipated. The bipartison support was almost unprecedented in recent years.

From a practical matter, even if the House bill passed it was dead on arrival in the Senate. But nevertheless it is a significant symbolic blow to blank surveillance against American citizens.

All I've tried to communicate, perhaps with less than appropriate tact, is that this is going to be a long slog.

If you're going to reign in the surveillance state, you'll need to start thinking like Washington insiders. Pick one incumbent that vocally supported these programs, and take him or her down. That will instantly catapult this issue to the top of the concerns in DC.

It only costs a few million to get that done. Considering the wealth of the tech industry, and the threat this poses to overseas expansion of the US internet services, donations shouldn't be overly difficult to drum up. We could really make a large dent in getting the legislature to help roll back these programs to sane levels. Add to that an anit-SOPA style social media campaign, and you could accomplish real and lasting change.

coldcode• 13 years ago

The tool who represents my district actually voted AYE. Maybe there is hope for this body of morons.

tzs• 13 years ago

The votes from members of the Permanent House Select Committee on Intelligence were 2 yes, 21 no.

By party, that was among Democrats 2 yes, 8 no, and among Republicans 0 yes, 13 no.

tlongren• 13 years ago

I read the title as "Amish's Amendment". Wondering what the Amish did to illicit such attention from the NSA.

krapp2• 13 years ago

Well, they are practically untrackable under the current surveillance architecture, and they do have those strange beards...

pteredactyl• 13 years ago

Maybe its a Spectacle for hegelDialectic/divideConquer #pov

llamataboot3• 13 years ago

I am wondering why we didn't see a /single/ large tech company release something in support of this. Even something as simple as a press release...

evolve2k• 13 years ago

Which way did Obama himself vote?

pawn• 13 years ago

He didn't have to, because it didn't pass the House.

However, he's been vocally supporting spying, so it's assumed he would have voted No on this bill.

rdl• 13 years ago

It's really interesting looking at the people who voted against this -- Nancy Pelosi and Michelle Bachmann?

clarky072• 13 years ago

Really interesting thing here is that 12 people didn't vote, exactly the margin of defeat. I wonder how many of them were leaning towards voting for it, and how many of them were strong advised (coerced) to abstain.

Amash’s Amendment To Defund NSA Program Fails 205-217

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