Letter: Newhouse votes ‘yea’
On Jan. 11, Rep. Dan Newhouse voted in favor of a renewal to the warrantless spying program that falls under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act known as FISA.
On its face, the bill is touted as necessary to combat terrorism.
But as many, including Edward Snowden, have pointed out, the program routinely includes communications from American citizens.
As these communications are obtained without a warrant, this should be an obvious violation of the Fourth Amendment and our right as citizens to privacy.
If you believe this law does not violate the constitution, that’s certainly up for debate in a democracy such as ours.
An amendment to the bill was offered by Reps. Justin Amash and Zoe Lofgren. This amendment wouldn’t have stopped the FISA program from obtaining the communications of American citizens, but it would have required law enforcement to obtain a warrant before they could search that data for communications relative to an American citizen.
This amendment was supported by the House Freedom Caucus.
Unfortunately, Dan was in opposition to them, to law enforcement needing a warrant, and to the rights of American citizens, and thus voted “yea”.
Cory Miller, Kennewick
This story was originally published January 13, 2018 at 4:52 PM with the headline "Letter: Newhouse votes ‘yea’."