On Tuesday evening, the U.S. Senate held a vote on a bill that would have curtailed the extensive and likely unconstitutional data collection programs of the National Security Agency.
The bill would have placed restrictions on the NSA’s once-secret phone surveillance program, which “collects records of Americans’ phone calls in bulk,” according to The New York Times. The bill received 58 votes in favor and 41 against — a clear majority but not enough to overcome the Senate’s arcane and abused cloture rules, which require 60 “yes” votes to avoid a filibuster. Both of Florida’s senators, Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson voted against the reform bill. Nelson was the sole Democrat to vote with 40 Republicans against the bill’s passage.
Rubio’s opposition to NSA reform is hardly surprising. Last year, Rubio suggested that NSA programs are necessary to protect ordinary Americans from the threat of Islamic terrorism.
“The threat that we face — largely radical, political Islamists — is probably a threat that is going to exist for the rest of our lifetimes. It’s just the reality. We have to deal with it,” Rubio told the Tampa Bay Times.
Apparently, in Rubio’s mind, dealing with it means funding a massive national security state that violates Fourth Amendment rights of innocent Americans on a regular and indiscriminate basis. He justified his opposition to the reform bill by saying that it would “weaken our ability to protect Americans by severely degrading our ability to identify and disrupt terrorists plots against the U.S. and our allies.”
Rubio’s statement contradicts a number of reports, including one from the New America Foundation and a separate study commissioned by the White House, which found that the NSA surveillance program “was not essential to preventing attacks.”
Nelson’s vote against NSA reform, while deeply disappointing, is also not surprising given his previous favorable statements on the surveillance programs. Last year, Nelson wrote an op-ed in the Orlando Sentinel describing the NSA’s data collection techniques as necessary weapons in an “evolving-global battle against a shadowy enemy determined to harm us.”
He described the surrender of Americans’ constitutional rights and personal freedoms as “sacrifices to strengthen our nation’s security.”
Nelson’s fear mongering on this issue is simply despicable, and his assertion that the NSA spying on ordinary Americans improves national security is deeply misguided. He had an opportunity to stand with the rest of the Democratic Party in support of the Constitution and rights of ordinary Americans by voting for the NSA reform bill. Instead, he chose to embrace unnecessary and unconstitutional programs that are justified through baseless scare tactics.
Floridians deserve senators who stand up for their civil liberties and constitutional rights. Hopefully, Nelson and Rubio will make more thoughtful decisions about the NSA’s surveillance programs if the issue resurfaces.
[A version of this story ran on page 6 on 11/20/2014]
