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Rep. Adam Smith: A Fairly Reliable Vote for "Big Brother"


As we promised in our previous post, Commoner researched Rep. Adam Smith's (WA - 9th District) votes on the various so-called Patriot Acts, and as we suspected, he is a reliable lackey for overbearing government intrusion and overreach, the sort of surveillance that author George Orwell warned about in his book about the future of fascism, "1984."  Some political commentators, that are more well versed about the technical aspects of the Obama govt.'s dragnet and spying on virtually all American citizens than we are, have said that the current apparatus that is in place now makes Orwell's imaginations look almost tame, believe it or not.  Orwell, after all, is the author who first came up with the term Big Brother through his "1984" best-seller.  Also, lest we forget, Smith is one of Obama's biggest supporters.  Smith did manage to vote right in '05, not coincidentally the year following the last time that Mark Greene challenged his re-election to Congress, but on the whole this congressman is hardly a defender of civil liberties and the general Constitution.  Greene believes that any surveillance of citizens for criminal justice purposes most be commensurate with the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which the present totalitarian program is not.
 
 
ADAM SMITH'S VOTES ON THE "PATRIOT" ACTS, AS FOLLOWS:
  • 2001 USA PATRIOT ACT:  VOTED YES
  • 2005 USA PATRIOT ACT REAUTHORIZATION: VOTED NO
  • 2011 PATRIOT EXTENSION ACT: VOTED YES
[Originally published on 6/28/2013 on "Commoner," under "Rep. Smith: An Enabler of Overreaching Govt. Surveillance."]
 

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