Mitch McConnell Backs Warrantless FBI Searches of Browsing History

Despite the fact that Mitch often votes the way I want him to and the fact that he is very effective at his job, I have never been a fan. Support of things like the following are a big part of the reason why. There was a bipartisan amendment to defeat this warrant-less search, but it was defeated 59-37. 60 votes were needed for the amendment to pass.


Mitch McConnell is pushing the Senate to pass a measure that would let the FBI collect Americans' web-browsing history without a warrant

This isn't the only thing in the works! He and Barr also support forcing companies to include backdoors in their encryption software. These are HUGE intrusions on our civil liberties and freedom in general.

I am no McConnell fan either. He is as government establishment as Pelosi. Another politician sucking on the teatfor decades, lining their pockets and serving their interests first

Horrible decision. Horrible news for liberty in America. Conservative or Liberal. Democrat or Republican or whatever, this addition to the Patriot Act is as unpatriotic as anything out there.

This should be the campaign issue that unseats him.....

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Originally Posted by Catonahottinroof

This should be the campaign issue that unseats him.....

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Depends on the option. I always seen McConnell as "it could be worse" type candidate

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Originally Posted by Doc

Depends on the option. I always seen McConnell as "it could be worse" type candidate

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Yep. He's always been that candidate.

The problem is a vote for McGrath is a vote for Schumer, and I won't vote for him over McConnell b/c Schumer is just as entrenched and even more corrupt, and will stack the judiciary with activist judges.

It's all a question of which plane of Hell you want to live in, which is a terrible situation but the truth.

Both sides are stacking the judiciary and both sides focus on the extreme of their views which edge towards different forms of equally abusive governments. Allow me to use and keep cash and stay out of my home and things will be a lot better.

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Originally Posted by CitizenBBN

Yep. He's always been that candidate.

The problem is a vote for McGrath is a vote for Schumer, and I won't vote for him over McConnell b/c Schumer is just as entrenched and even more corrupt, and will stack the judiciary with activist judges.

It's all a question of which plane of Hell you want to live in, which is a terrible situation but the truth.

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Originally Posted by UKHistory

Both sides are stacking the judiciary and both sides focus on the extreme of their views which edge towards different forms of equally abusive governments. Allow me to use and keep cash and stay out of my home and things will be a lot better.

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I"m all for that, but then you look at the Left and they are for censoring speech, etc.

It's not like one side is fighting for civil liberties and the other isn't.Neither side cares about those things any more.

I criticized Sessions as AG from Day One b/c of his support of civil forfeiture, and I'm very concerned about this as well. I will say that this does have some investigative/anti-terrorist use, as opposed to civil forfeiture, but not enough to make me OK with it.

Republicans have always been a bit too quick to ramp up invasion of privacy in the name of law enforcement, but now the Left has gone from protecting civil liberties to calling for limits on basic rights like free speech and using Gestapo tactics to shut down freedom of assembly and expression.

No one is looking good on this right now.

Censoring speech is a big issue. We should defend the right of opposing views. And the left has supported censoring opposing views to ensure "safe space" for people That is not a good thing.

Forget Trump specifically, but I do see that foreign powers whether it is Russia or China are now adept at manipulating our people The Mueller Report noted it was Russians that set up dueling Black Lives Matter protests (for and against) a while back to stir up trouble.

The extremes of parties lean to authoritarianism. Clearly I am not a fan of the president but I generally feel like I am a moderate.

At Transy my fellow young Republicans labeled me a true hugger. The more liberal, radical elements of the campus drew me as Hitler and mailed me a picture of it. Ironically I have had a Hitler mustache drawn on me twice in life.

We agree 100% on civil forfeiture. I will go a step further, the notion that it is illegal to carry over $10,000 on a commercial flight is Unconstitutional. It might be stupid. But the law should not criminalize that example of stupid.

We agree completely on those points. No doubt rules on carrying money are unconstitutional. I get why they do it, but saying I can't deal in cash if I want b/c criminals also deal in cash is a non-starter for me.

And I have no doubt foreign powers are trying to influence us every day, which has been my cry during all this Trump stuff. It's not about Trump, that was always nonsense. It's about the Russians and Chinese and others doing two things:

1) Direct influence. Spending money on facebook bots, the BLM thing you mentioned, etc. That's bad

2) What IMO is worse is the corruption we don't see. Everyone in DC apparently is either a foreign agent of a country or company or is married to one. That's what came out of this for me, that DC is RIFE with foreign influence on a daily basis. The Clinton FOundation taking in hundreds of millions from foreign nations then stopping the day they were out of power, the influence peddling of everyone from Flynn to Panetta's brother, it's everywhere.

Making it about Trump makes us lose focus and cohesion on the real problem, which is that this influence is going to go on whether Trump is in office or not. it has nothing to do with him specifically, as the Mueller report showed. NO doubt there is foreign influence, but they are going to work to support or fight Trump, bernie, whoever they think will help them, and what they want most is just dissension, far more than any particular candidate to win.

They want us doing exactly what we have been doing for 3 years: naval gazing at our own drama, becoming more polarized and less able to act internationally on anything as we are so busy with internal distractions.

They've gotten exactly what they wanted with Trump,which wasn't about policy, but was about the bitterness and strife that paralyzed his administration and any other action. Impeachment and all the other investigations play right into their hands.

The Clinton Foundation in my mind made Hillary unfit. It was a horrible conflict of interest for her running for office and really even serving as secretary of State.

Now Trump was totally unqualified and unfit to serve. And has proven that as he really is dumber than a doornail to boot.

The foreign influence and money going around to the people that make decisions is disgusting. Heck Senator Burr who I liked clearly was looking to profit personally. Every now and again the FBI will do something right. But there are examples where it abused its power.

My stance on Trump, is that he is so bad and is corroding the system in so many ways that all other issues and concerns must be tabled to remove him from office.

But this issue of taking away the liberty of Americans is a bipartisan, class issue that we have to fight through every legal means as Americans.

But I d

I will add this though:

I'm DEEPLY troubled that companies like Apple refuse to help investigators when we do have legitimate need to decrypt information for anti-terrorist or criminal purposes.

AG Barr announced today that Apple refused to help crack a phone of a terrorist. I get why Mitch and others are considering legal action to force some level of help in what are absolutely legitimate law enforcement needs.

Now, Apple has denied the claim, which may be a function of the fact they have no back door, or whatever. I haven't read their position, and they have denied past claims of not helping. Regardless, it's clear more than one AG over time has felt them to be uncooperative.

I have no problem with a law that says they have to help in such endeavors, and I do also get the need for back doors, but only to be executed with valid warrants (and maybe not FISA warrants, lol).

it's a touchy area. It is fascinating to me that we have laws as History mentioned that limit cash transactions for example, yet encryption may be unlimited.

I'm all for civil liberties, but how we balance investigating innocent Americans with tracking down a terrorist cell is a tough problem. FISA was designed for that protection but clearly they have become puppets of investigators.

Where this particular issue is a huge problem is this....should it pass, the right leaning judiciary that he would seat is a rubber stamp for it.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions....kinda like Federal laws. Something may be passed for a certain purpose, and will be enforced with an entirely different agenda or angle....