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Adam Smith and "Big Brother:" Very Good Friends

Well, it's official:  Rep. Adam Smith is not the least bit concerned about the wishes of the majority of his 9th District constituents (Federal Way, Bellevue, Mercer Island, Newcastle, Renton, Kent, Tukwila, SeaTac and N.E. Tacoma, among others), or the 2014 Congressional election and candidate and challenger Mark Greene, as Smith voted against the Amendment by Rep. Justin Amash (R/Michigan) to rein in part of the overreaching, totalitarian-like NSA surveillance programs.  Unfortunately, the amendment failed by a fairly close margin, 217 - 205, as Smith voted with the "Big Brother 217" in Congress [several Congresspersons did not vote on the Amendment for one reason or another, including Rep. Herrera-Beutler (R) from Washington State].  Hastings (R), Reichert (R), Larsen (D), Kilmer (D) and Heck (D) from the Washington delegation joined Smith in voting down the Amash Amendment.  As you can see, the Democratic Party is as much a problem in not protecting the Constitution as Republicans are, including Smith, of course.  However, the Democrats seem to keep this undeserving image of civil libertarian Constitutionalists when they are anything but.  To be fair, though, outside of Washington state, the national Democrats mostly voted for the Amendment (the national Republicans, overall, voted against it), but it was pretty much a divided vote in both parties.  The pro-democracy, pro-4th Amendment Congresspersons from Washington that sided with Amash were, as follows: McMorris Rodgers (R), DelBene (D), and McDermott (D).  Good for them!

Note: under the Amendment, the U.S. would have had to rely more on warrants to get access to certain information rather than open-ended searches of virtually all citizens with no probable cause.

[Originally published on 7/24/13 on "Commoner," under "Adam Smith Votes to Uphold 'Big Brother;' " revised on 7/26/13.]

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