GOP Allows NSA, Syria Debate

Photo Credit: APA long-delayed Pentagon appropriations bill is heading to the floor after the House Rules Committee voted Monday night to allow a structured debate including amendments related to NSA surveillance at home and the flow of military aid overseas in the Mideast.

Altogether, 100 amendments are promised consideration, but those affecting the NSA — funded in the bill — and military aid to anti-government forces in Syria are clearly the most sensitive politically for the Republican leadership.

Indeed, conservatives led by Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) had threatened to defeat the rule if votes were not permitted on a bipartisan proposal to narrow the ability of the NSA to collect private call records and metadata on telephone customers in the U.S.

“It’s not a partisan issue. It’s something that cuts across the entire political spectrum,” Amash told the Rules panel. And he argued that the amendment seeks only to rein in the NSA’s “blanket authority” under the PATRIOT Act to collect records and the metadata.

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