Over the past few days, anyone who follows social media, reads blogs, or watches the TV has had the delightful opportunity of listening to Obama loyalists defend a sprawling, unaccountable security complex replete with domestic surveillance which they had criticized when George W. Bush was president. I'm waiting to hear someone argue that Obama's using 11th dimensional chess and he's actually IMPROVING our privacy rights. I really wouldn't put it past people.
The Pew Research Center for People & the Press came out with a poll yesterday that demonstrated the extent of the aforementioned hypocrisy. In 2006, only 37% of Democrats found NSA surveillance acceptable, and 61% found it unacceptable. Today, the numbers almost flipped: 64% find it acceptable, and 34% find it unacceptable. What's the difference? Why, there's a Democrat in office, of course! They don't want that mean old war-mongering cowboy George W. Bush spying on them, but Obama's only listening to them because he's sensitive. As a group, Democrats now support NSA surveillance more than Independents (53%) and Republicans (52%). Republicans have their own hypocrisy, for sure: Republican support dropped from 75% to 52%, still maintaining a majority.
What I find fascinating is the contrast between this hyper-partisan public opinion and the most recent PATRIOT-related vote: that on the PATRIOT Sunsets Extension Act of 2011, signed by Barack Obama on May 26th of that year (almost exactly two years ago).
That bill extended the following three provisions of the original USA PATRIOT ACT for another four years:
• Roving wiretaps. This provision gives intelligence officials authority to conduct surveillance on terrorist suspects regardless of how many communication devices they use (such as cellphones or the Internet). Approval for the surveillance must be obtained from a federal court. Law-enforcement agencies have been able to use wiretaps for criminal investigations since 1986.
• Business records. Another provision allows access to business records in cases involving terrorism, foreign intelligence, or espionage, with approval of a federal judge.
• Lone wolf. In 2004, Congress amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to authorize intelligence gathering on individuals not affiliated with any known terrorist organization, with a sunset date to correspond with the Patriot Act provisions. The provision, which is thus technically not part of the Patriot Act, is explicit in saying it does not to apply to US citizens.
The House passed this bill by a
vote of 250 to 153. 196 Republicans supported it, and 31 Republicans opposed it. 122 Democrats (including Nancy Pelosi) opposed the bill, and 54 supported it. It passed with bipartisan support--but a very Republican-heavy bipartisanship. Democrats, as those numbers show, opposed the bill by over 2 to 1.
Only two members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus---Corrine Brown and Eddie Johnson--voted for the bill. The other 52 Democratic votes were from a mix of Blue Dogs (the John Barrow's and Jim Matheson's) and New Dems.
What's particularly interesting is that the Democratic vote on extending the PATRIOT Act is almost the exact inverse of the Democratic public opinion on NSA surveillance in the recent Pew poll. 122 out of 192 Democrats opposed the bill: 63.5%. 54 out of 192 supported the bill: 28.1%
Hopefully, the House Democrats will continue to vote their conscience and the Constitution, rather than taking their cues from the President as too many in the general public seem to do.