Free Republic

Apparently Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is unfamiliar with the old story about the frog and the scorpion, otherwise the man who fancies himself a sage at legislative maneuvering would have been better prepared for the political manipulations of his Kentucky GOP cohort and alleged good friend, Sen. Rand Paul. In the story, a scorpion asks a frog to ferry him across a river. The frog is understandably reluctant, fearing the arachnid might decide to sting him. The scorpion promises to refrain, noting that the sting would lead to the demise of both of them. So the frog consents. Sure...

Supporters of the NSA’s large scale spying on the American people claim the program has made our country safer. Benjamin Franklin famously said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

With key provisions of the Patriot Act in limbo, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky hopes to use the weeklong congressional break to stir grassroots opposition to government collection of Americans’ phone data—and to continue ginning up support for his Republican presidential bid. The Senate will return from its Memorial Day recess May 31, a day earlier than planned after Mr. Paul on Saturday blocked renewal of the antiterror law’s provisions that expire June 1. One House Democrat supporting the program called the outcome a “catastrophe.” -snip- Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina support an extension...

Likely Republican presidential contenders Jeb Bush and Chris Christie on Friday heartily endorsed the Patriot Act and the permission it gives the government to collect phone records in bulk, mocking those who deride the intelligence overhaul passed after the Sept. 11 attacks as an encroachment on civil liberties. “There is ample evidence that the Patriot Act has been a tool to keep us safe, ample evidence,” Bush said at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. “There is no evidence of anyone’s civil liberties being violated because of it.”

Not the endorsement someone heading into the Republican primaries would normally want, but it's the one Rand Paul got. On today's This Week [hosted by Jonathan Karl in the absence of Stephanopoulos], far-left Rep. Keith Ellison declared that on a variety of issues, including opposition to the Patriot Act, he is "proud to stand" with Rand Paul. Roll the video and watch Bill Kristol look on benignly as Ellison praises Paul. You can imagine he was thinking that every Ellison accolade was another chunk of GOP primary voters lost for Kristol's least-favorite Republican candidate. In the unkindest cut, Kristol claimed...

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Americans began to look at our national security in a different light. No longer were the lines of battle neatly drawn and enemies easily identified. In the 21st century, threats would be constantly evolving and growing even more complex. The crisis in Syria and Iraq has illustrated just how dangerous these threats are, both abroad and at home. In February, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center estimated more than 20,000 foreign fighters had joined the Islamic State or other related groups in Syria — among them, some 3,000 were from Western countries. More than...

The forgotten history of the Fourth Amendment, and its relevance for reforming the Patriot Act The authorization for the Patriot Act will soon expire, and elected officials in Washington have been debating whether it should be renewed. There are those who believe this law, which was passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks, should be renewed with no changes. Since the last time it was authorized, Americans have learned that certain provisions of this Act were being interpreted by the National Security Agency to give this agency authority to collect bulk metadata on the phone calls of every...

Mitch McConnell tried to use a time-tested tactic to break his fellow senators’ will and get what he wants: the threat of missing their vacation after a grueling, six-week work period. It didn’t work. The majority leader prioritized a fast-track trade bill over renewing three key PATRIOT Act provisions that expire on May 31. McConnell got the trade bill through on Friday evening, but his attempts to exhaust his colleagues and jam through a clean extension of surveillance laws blew apart just after 1 a.m. Saturday. A trio of libertarian-leaning senators objected to McConnell’s attempts to offer even a two-day...

WASHINGTON—The Senate early Saturday defeated a string of efforts to extend the Patriot Act as lawmakers splintered over its contentious phone surveillance program and left town with no plan in place to prevent the law from lapsing. After next week’s Memorial Day recess, the Senate will resume its debate over the national security law at 4 p.m. on May 31, eight hours before the law expires at midnight. Lawmakers fractured through the evening, rejecting a House bill overhauling the NSA, a two-month Patriot Act extension and then increasingly short extensions of the law. Primarily due to objections from presidential candidate...

Rand is still standing. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the libertarian firebrand and GOP presidential hopeful, isn’t showing any sign he’ll relent and allow speedier votes in the Senate on controversial government surveillance programs, as weary and recess-hungry senators trudged through a rare Friday session with a packed to-do list. Paul said Friday that he hasn’t yet agreed to accelerate procedural votes — currently set for Saturday — on dueling proposals to renew expiring provisions in the PATRIOT Act. He had signaled that he might relent if he secured votes on privacy amendments, but shortly before 10 p.m. he said...

Two senators have a plane to catch to Cuba, others were hoping to impress Republican presidential primary voters and then there’s Sen. Lamar Alexander, who is slated to deliver a sunset piano performance of “Ol’ Man River” on the banks of the Mississippi. The Senate’s slow-motion amble toward Memorial Day break threatened all that. “It’s not the weather, it’s the Senate that’s the problem,” said Alexander, the Tennessee Republican and former governor, as he waited out the impasse in his office Friday. On a borrowed Senate piano, he tapped out “The Memphis Blues,” with a wink, eager to head home...

The Senate is headed for a pair of late Friday evening votes on competing bills to reauthorize portions of the Patriot Act, with little certainty about the path forward. Neither a National Security Agency (NSA) reform bill called the USA Freedom Act nor Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) two-month “clean” extension of the expiring Patriot Act provisions appears to have the necessary 60 votes to move forward. Failure of both measures would increase the odds of an even shorter-term reauthorization of the current law — or the chance that the legal measures expire entirely. “We’re just trying to figure out...

Attorney General Loretta Lynch believes the United States will be “less safe” if Congress doesn’t reauthorize the Patriot Act. Speaking to “CBS This Morning,” Lynch expressed concerns about not allowing the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of millions of Americans’ phone records. “My biggest fear … is that we will lose important eyes on people who have made it clear … that their mission is to harm American people here and abroad,” Lynch said She continued, “I think that we run the risk … of essentially being less safe. I think that we lose important tools. I think that we...

FBI agents can’t point to any major terrorism cases they’ve cracked thanks to the key snooping powers in the Patriot Act, the Justice Department’s inspector general said in a report Thursday that could complicate efforts to keep key parts of the law operating. Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said that between 2004 and 2009, the FBI tripled its use of bulk collection under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows government agents to compel businesses to turn over records and documents, and increasingly scooped up records of Americans who had no ties to official terrorism investigations. The FBI did...

The Patriot Act provisions that have allowed the National Security Agency to vacuum up Americans' phone records officially expire on June 1. But the Obama administration says the NSA must begin preparing to end its bulk-telephone-spying program as soon as Friday. A Justice Department memo circulated among congressional offices Wednesday and obtained by National Journal said Congress needs to fully settle its differences over the expiring spy provisions this week in order to avoid an operational interruption to the NSA's mass-surveillance program, which was exposed by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden two years ago. "After May 22, 2015, the National...

The Fourth Amendment is getting attention that it's not gotten before, and by popular will, it will be defined in how it is interpreted and implemented. Unless conservatives participate and act to define it, it will be defined by liberals and/or libertarians. From NSA spying to publicized abuses by armed federal agents and even some local police, people are afraid and are speaking out. That's good. The debate is leading to federal legislation and even constitutional amendments in states to rein in lawless government investigations. The Fourth Amendment is one of the most important arrows in the quiver against bullying...

Sen. Rand Paul took to the Senate floor to launch a “filibuster” of a bill to reauthorize a major government surveillance program. One problem: It’s not actually a filibuster. With key parts of the PATRIOT Act set to expire at the end of the month — and the Senate set to skip town at the end of the week — Paul took to the floor at about 1:15 p.m. to expound on his staunch opposition to government surveillance. The 2016 Republican candidate has made government surveillance a key tenet of his quest for the White House and threatened last week...

Rand Paul is filibustering the Patriot Act right now, because it continues the unlimited NSA spying on all Americans.

Well, he’ll try to filibuster it, but it might be harder than it seems. Sen. Rand Paul told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota on New Day that Senate rules complicate filibusters more than people know, but he intends to do what he can to block consideration of any extension of the Patriot Act, or even the reform package called the Freedom Act that passed the House on a wide bipartisan basis. That may leave his fellow Kentuckian Mitch McConnell in a very tight spot:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO ALISYN CAMEROTA: Quickly I want to ask you about the vote to...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., isn't worried that, absent a Senate vote, key provisions of the Patriot Act are slated to sunset May 31. The GOP presidential hopeful told "Meet the Press" Sunday that a federal appeals court found the data-gathering authorized under the Patriot Act's Section 215 is unconstitutional, "so really, it ought to stop." He continued: "I don't want to replace it with another system. I really think that we could get along with the Constitution just fine." Paul spoke to the same effect during a recent trip to San Francisco. He even has threatened a filibuster, if needed,...