Where Right Meets Left

Republicans in the House Judiciary Committee Approve ISP Snooping Bill, HR-1981.

On Thursday legislation was approved that would force internet service providers to save information on customer usage for twelve months on the chance law enforcement might want to look at it sometime. The bill was mislabeled the "Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011" in a nauseating attempt to cut off debate on its merits.

It eliminates the warrant requirement.

ISPs would be required to store customer names, bank account numbers, IP addresses, credit card numbers and home addresses. In other words, a gigantic database will be created for any snooping purpose. And, let's be clear, since there is no warrant requirement, law enforcement will end-up simply grabbing all of the information available, whether or not there is an ongoing investigation, and storing it permanently.

Republicans did this.

There's a point where right meets left. It's where some in the Republican party would liberally use government power to further their ends. It's a "we need a new law for that" kind of mentality. "Hell, we just wanna do good." They're the same as liberals; they're just on different sides of the coin. They both want to spread their good deeds far and wide with little thought to proper limits on the extent of government and police power. This has very little to do with what America is all about. It has everything to do with how these people view themselves. Liberals and conservative like these are drunk on power. They're so enamored of their own brilliance and so certain of their abilities, they feel they can fashion new law on an ad hoc basis whenever it suits them.

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was a co-sponsor of this bill.

I would submit that the only real conservatives are constitutional conservatives. Socons and corporatists, like liberals, feel government is to be used get you things. They view government power as a sword rather than a shield. They also assume government is only benevolent, that bureaucrats never do harm.

Below the fold is a rogue's gallery of CINOs who joined forces with Sheila Jackson Lee to vote this bill out of committee.

Lamar Smith (R TX-21)


Howard Coble (R NC-6)


Elton Gallegly (R CA-24)


Bob Goodlatte (R VA-6)


Dan Lungren (R CA-3)


Steve Chabot (R OH-1)


J. Randy Forbes (R VA-4)


Steve King (R IA-5)


Trent Franks (R AZ-2)


Tim Griffin (R AR-2)


Tom Marino (R PA-10)


Trey Gowdy (R SC-4)


Dennis Ross (R FL-12)


Sandy Adams (R FL-24)

Darrell Issa and James Sensenbrenner voted against the bill. Here are links to transcripts and webcasts of the full committee markup of the bill.

posted by rdbrewer at 03:20 PM

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