Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/147897
Sarasota News Leader August 2, 2013 Buchanan's staff did not respond to a request for comment on his Amash vote, but the congressman did proudly note on Twitter the next day that he "voted to restrict the National Security Agency from collecting phone records from American citizens NOT under investigation." Compare that to 2008, when Buchanan voted in favor of the FISA Amendments Act, harshly criticized by Pheneger for simply legalizing "a lot of the things President George W. Bush was doing." The Act, which updated many of the provisions in the original 1978 FISA surveillance law, "immunized" telecommunications companies working with the government, shielding them from lawsuits. Page 38 People & the Press released results of a survey last week showing 56 percent of Americans believe the courts are not providing "adequate limits" on information being collected. "I think Congress needs to have full hearing on what's going on," Pheneger told The Sarasota News Leader when asked his thoughts on the Amash amendment and the potential for congressional intervention. "We need to have ways we can have effective judicial oversight of what's going on. When all the government lawyers talk to one another and say everything is OK, that's a narrow view of what's going on. It would be nice to bring other lawyers in that might have a slightly different view of the The politics of civil liberties may indeed be world, that actually think the Fourth Amendshifting. The Pew Research Center for the ment means what it says." % The National Security Agency headquarters is in Fort Meade, MD. Image courtesy National Security Agency, via Wikimedia Commons