Watch the debate and vote on the Amash amendment in the House of Reps | Hacker News Reader

Watch the debate and vote on the Amash amendment in the House of Reps

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40 pointssinak15 comments

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I'm watching, here is who is for or against in their remarks so far:

+1 = Amash

-1 = Rogers

+1 = Conyers

-1 = Bachmann

+1 = Sensenbrenner

-1 = Mulvaney

+1 = Lofgren

+1 = Barton

+1 = Duncan

+1 = Poe

+1 = Nadler

+1 = Gabbard

-1 = Cotton

And it did not pass on a voice vote. Amash is asking for a recorded vote. Not clear what happens now.

Edit: Amash recorded vote coming up in a couple minutes.

Edit2: Two minute vote, apparently. Begins now 6:50pm EST.

Edit3: Fails to pass. Yea - 205, Nay - 217.

I believe they go through the docket of unfinished ammds. first and then come back to vote on the most current ammd.

From what I observed it seemed like the chair called for a voice vote, where it sounded like an approximately even number of people said "Aye" and "Nay", and the chair then just declared the nay's the winner and then ignored requests to actually count and record the votes.

No, there's a recorded vote, it's just happening after the one for Pompeo's amendment.

I heard a louder chorus of "No's", unfortunately. The "No" arguments on this were particularly dumb.

Why is this bill specifically on the phone metadata? There are other things that the Amash ammd. could go after, do we assume that this is the lowest hanging fruit?

Yes, that's my guess.

Not sure. It was interesting that both Bachmann & Cotton were explicitly stating that no one had a Fourth Amendment Right to privacy about any Metadata. For instance, what you say in a letter or phone call is private, but not who you say it to. Never even heard this idea before.

I wouldn't take Bachmann very seriously; she also doesn't seem to believe that NSA has phone books.

The Amash amendment failed by 16 votes (201 to 217).

Edit: Final tally is 205-217.

I see 205-217?

Which in turn would leave 13 votes absent. Although it's unlikely they'd all vote in favor.

It was 201-217 when the chair called it as there weren't enough uncommitted votes to make up the difference.

I think it's important to keep in mind that the 12 vote margin is comfortable for Amash and supporters of new NSA restrictions and uncomfortable for its defenders.

Here's why: opponents of Amash wielded an argument that "split the vote". Representatives who voted against Amash could have done so for one of two reasons:

(1) They actively support providing the NSA with unchecked access to cell phone metadata under the "business records" provision of PATRIOT, or

(2) They don't support that access, but can't support a broad amendment that potentially de-funds whole NSA programs, and instead need something finer grained to correct NSA with.

Meanwhile, everyone who supported Amash believes strongly --- so strongly that they're willing to do something disruptive to NSA --- that new checks on NSA are needed.

I think this was a pretty hopeful vote.

I read it as "Amish" the first time. Now I'm sad that it's not that word.

Just let CPAN know how easily your opinions and emotions are set on things you don't understand.

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