In a major political development, the U.S. Congress failed to pass legislation May 31 to extend key parts of the Patriot Act, notably aspects of the infamous mass-surveillance programs administered by the National Security Administration. Despite the hiatus, political willpower in Congress and the White House clearly runs in the other direction.
President Obama warned that if these mass-surveillance programs go unextended, “we” run a risk “where we could have prevented a terrorist attack or apprehended someone who was engaged in dangerous activity but we didn’t do so simply because of inaction in the Senate.”
In the simplest terms, neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party is interested in the actual preservation of civil liberties, preferring instead to tout the United States’ fictional track record of preserving “freedom,” “democracy” and the “rule of law.” While Obama’s betrayal is hardly surprising after the long list of broken promises he delivered in the 2008 and 2012 elections, the hypocrisy of Congress is arguably more shocking.
The May 31 Senate vote delayed its own assault on civil justice by voting to reconvene on June 2 to work out details. The Senate is expected to pass the House-authored bill to extend a version of the Patriot Act whose “major reform” can be summarized thusly: Instead of simply passing phone records directly from telecommunications corporations to the NSA, those corporations will continue to bulk-store those records, and the NSA will be required to produce specific warrants for certain records.
Rand Paul: phony populist, political stunt man
Major news outlets have been touting the delayed vote to re-extend the Patriot Act as a victory for “libertarian” Rand Paul, whose conservative populism has attracted significant media attention. There is no doubt that Sunday’s stunt was meant to attract attention to his brand of semi-anarchist capitalism as he gears up his bid for the presidency in the 2016 elections, as even he acknowledged that “the bill will ultimately pass.”
Paul did not and will not issue any apologies to supporters that he was ultimately unable to prevent the re-extension of the Patriot Act. He did not assemble a serious coalition in Congress to make a principled stand against mass surveillance. He has not threatened resignation nor any other serious form of protest against an institution that is brazenly violating constitutional rights.
Instead, Paul held a handful of press conferences and delayed the vote two days, forcing the NSA programs to go on hiatus during that brief period. Rand Paul has not won a permanent end of the security state or even hobbled it; he simply used obscure Senate bylaws and procedural votes to briefly delay the program.
This is not a major people’s victory; it is an act of theater. Paul’s political maneuvers show the actions of a power-hungry politician groping for media attention, not those of a genuine defender of civil liberties.
Congress kept ignorant before, no escape from 2016 elections
Rand Paul is not the only one jockeying for media attention. The current debate promises all manner of stunts, theater and grand-standing. Constant campaigning is the name of the game, so the battle lines are being drawn not to defend civil liberties but rather candidates’ access to donors, endorsers and media attention.
Even relatively progressive voices in Congress, some of whom hope to run for president under the Democratic Party, are bound to compete for these resources, since there is only so much to go around. Finite donations, political capital and air time, in other words, prevent any kind of “different politics” in Washington.
Many consider the NSA mass surveillance programs and other violations of civil liberties under the Patriot Act to be the product of a massive conspiracy by Congress, the president and the military-industrial complex to construct, expand and maintain an enormous security state. Yet, it is important to remember that most of Congress discovered the programs from the same heroic acts by Edward Snowden that revealed them to the general public. While right-wing stooges lambasted Snowden as a traitor, the pressure Congress feels to at least make the appearance of reform is the result of Snowden’s actions and subsequent protests by an aroused public.
People are left with the following: The military-security establishment wantonly collects information on essentially all phone calls in and out of the United States, retreating to the legal cover gifted to them by the Patriot Act. Politicians were kept in the dark about the pervasiveness of the programs—that they had become mass-surveillance programs completely alien to every promise made by American “democracy”—but those politicians refused to legislate any serious checks on that power or even to insist that the military be accountable to elected leadership.
The June 2 vote adds another layer to this absurd story: Politicians are expected to continue to provide cover for the military-security establishment by extending the Patriot Act. Even though Director of National Intelligence Eric Clapper lied before Congress and dodged serious scrutiny in congressional hearings, and even though the NSA has flatly refused to submit to serious legal investigation, Congress will hand the NSA a pass to continue with a slightly modified version of the present policy.
It is as though Congress has completely forgotten that the NSA lied about the program and truly believes that mandating that the government seeks warrants before accessing data will force accountability. Those same politicians are then shameless enough to proudly tell the public, “You’re welcome, and vote for me,” for inserting a half-measure giving the appearance of regulation.
The politicians making lofty promises for the upcoming elections may have been ignorant before, but their refusal to act has transformed ignorance into negligence. Just as water always runs downhill, the rules of Washington force politicians to serve corporate and military-industrial interests, since big-money campaign donations and the corporate media oligopoly ultimately determine who is politically viable come election season.
