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Can you explain how this is consistent with his political alignment? Because Bernie Sanders (regardless of how you feel about him) has voted consistently agains

Can you explain how this is consistent with his political alignment? Because Bernie Sanders (regardless of how you feel about him) has voted consistently against increasing the surveillance state. Hence why his vote wouldn't have mattered, because it would've been a NAY vote and NAY votes don't have any affirmative power.

sterlind 6y ago
The vote is on a plan to REQUIRE a warrant. If he'd voted, he would have voted YEA, to pass this bill requiring a warrant, because he does not want to increase the surveillance state (on that we agree!) It's "yea" for requiring warrants, and "nay" for warrantless surveillance (which is somehow the law of the land now? When did I miss this??)
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  Actually, this is an amendment on a bill to reauthorize expired warrantless surveillance programs, so a yes vote is a vote to make warrants for certain searches a condition for reauthorize broad authority for warrantless dragnet surveillance. I suspect Bernie's abstention is because he thinks reauthorization is equally unacceptable with or without the condition. Procedurally, he could vote yes on the amendment and still vote on the bill, and there's an argument that not doing so is making the perfect the enemy of the good (or at least the barely decent the enemy of the mildly less oppressive of two oppressive options), but it's kind of hard for me to get mad at Sanders for not collaborating in putting lipstick on this particular totalitarian pig of law. One can maybe rationalize the USA Patriot Act in the context of it's time, it's much harder to rationalize the USA Freedom Act’s deliberate after-the-fact authorization of much of the illegal blanket surveillance that went beyond what the original Patriot Act authorized, and it's far harder to rationalize the current reauthorization of the combination, with or without minor tweaks.
- fzeroracer 6y ago
  See my other response. This makes a lot more sense when you consider this to be a reaction to a separate amendment to the Patriot Act which is meant to explicitly authorize warrentless surveillance of a user's internet history.
dragonwriter 6y ago
He could have voted yes on the Amendment and still voted no on the bill.
function_seven 6y ago
I think you're misreading what happened here. The vote that failed would have required a warrant for something that does not require one today. It would have added a hurdle to law enforcement's access to user browsing histories. Assuming Bernie would have voted YEA on this, we're all wondering why he didn't vote at all.
deleted 6y ago
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sterlind 6y ago

The vote is on a plan to REQUIRE a warrant. If he'd voted, he would have voted YEA, to pass this bill requiring a warrant, because he does not want to increase the surveillance state (on that we agree!) It's "yea" for requiring warrants, and "nay" for warrantless surveillance (which is somehow the law of the land now? When did I miss this??)

dragonwriter 6y ago
Actually, this is an amendment on a bill to reauthorize expired warrantless surveillance programs, so a yes vote is a vote to make warrants for certain searches a condition for reauthorize broad authority for warrantless dragnet surveillance. I suspect Bernie's abstention is because he thinks reauthorization is equally unacceptable with or without the condition. Procedurally, he could vote yes on the amendment and still vote on the bill, and there's an argument that not doing so is making the perfect the enemy of the good (or at least the barely decent the enemy of the mildly less oppressive of two oppressive options), but it's kind of hard for me to get mad at Sanders for not collaborating in putting lipstick on this particular totalitarian pig of law. One can maybe rationalize the USA Patriot Act in the context of it's time, it's much harder to rationalize the USA Freedom Act’s deliberate after-the-fact authorization of much of the illegal blanket surveillance that went beyond what the original Patriot Act authorized, and it's far harder to rationalize the current reauthorization of the combination, with or without minor tweaks.
fzeroracer 6y ago
See my other response. This makes a lot more sense when you consider this to be a reaction to a separate amendment to the Patriot Act which is meant to explicitly authorize warrentless surveillance of a user's internet history.

dragonwriter 6y ago

He could have voted yes on the Amendment and still voted no on the bill.

function_seven 6y ago

I think you're misreading what happened here. The vote that failed would have required a warrant for something that does not require one today. It would have added a hurdle to law enforcement's access to user browsing histories. Assuming Bernie would have voted YEA on this, we're all wondering why he didn't vote at all.

deleted 6y ago

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