The Protect Our Civil Liberties Act

Massie, Gabbard team up on bill to repeal the Patriot Act
The Hill, December 16, 2020 1:50 PM EST
thehill.com...

Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) have teamed up to introduce a bill designed to repeal the Patriot Act.

The two House members are proposing bipartisan legislation designed to limit government surveillance of people without warrants and probable cause.

The Protect Our Civil Liberties Act would repeal both the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act that permitted government agencies to collect mass telephone and email data. Gabbard and Massie argue that this surveillance violates Americans’ right to privacy and their civil liberties.

This is the kind of teamwork we need in Congress. I mean honestly, do we really need the Patriot Act's provisions any longer? It's quite clear to many of us that the legislation was a backdoor way to amend the Constitution without a 3/4 majority vote.

Essentially, the Patriot Act turned every single American into a terrorist, or a "potential" terrorist, and absolutely shredded our liberty and privacy. It also gave way to the apathetic reasoning "if you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about" BS, and so began the conditioning of the citizenry to accept trading freedoms for security.

In a video announcement Wednesday, Gabbard said the bill would make sure that Congress "reexamines how best to strike this balance of protecting our national security interests while also ensuring that the constitutional rights of every single American is preserved.”

“Protection of our civil liberties is essential,” she later said. “Join us in making sure that our constitutional rights are upheld.”

The Hawaii Democrat also called out the intelligence community, saying it “has not been transparent or honest with the American people or even Congress about what they've been doing.”

You can say that again. Close to 20 years of mass surveillance on the American public with hardly any major busts aside from the ones that were actually developed and coerced by the F.B.I. In the meantime, unbelievable amounts of information and data has been collected, tabulated and stored for what purpose(s)??

Most of us have had our theories as to why, but nothing has ever been concrete on programs known or unknown. Whether we're "not doing anything wrong" or not, we're being perpetually investigated every single day.

All of us.

The bill would also make retaliation against any federal national security whistleblowers, such as Edward Snowden, illegal and require that the Government Accountability Office “regularly monitor domestic surveillance programs.”

It would also ban “government-mandated back doors” built into electronics and software that allows the government to get past any privacy technology, Gabbard said.

Massie retweeted Gabbard’s video and said he is “honored to cosponsor a bill to repeal the Patriot Act with my friend across the aisle @TulsiGabbard.”

In a statement, Massie said the Patriot Act violates the Fourth Amendment and has expanded domestic surveillance in the country.

"Our Founding Fathers fought and died to stop the kind of warrantless spying and searches that the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act authorize," he said. "It is long past time to repeal the Patriot Act and reassert the constitutional rights of all Americans."

Goddamn right. It's a well-known given that government rarely, if ever, relequishes power given to it once it has it, but just as states need to cleanse their voter rolls, so too is a need for our legislatures to cleanse the books of legislation that has obviously ran it's course or has completely ran off course from it's intended purpose.



Democrats COMPLETELY screwed the pooch by not putting this woman in the driver's seat for president or even vice president. She is without a doubt the most level headed and sane person of the whole lot. Both Gabbard and BIDEN tore Kamala a new one, (if that's even possible) and Kamala was STILL chosen as a running mate for the oval office! 🤦🏾‍♂️

I hope her bill gets plenty of traction and we should do what we can to support this effort. In doing so we can definitely define those that are for freedom and those that are not. Contact your Reps and let them know they should get behind some meaningful legislation for a change.

H. R. 8970
www.congress.gov...

She has a tendency to emphasize issues that are usually not possible to change. But the concepts are not bad 😃

Red Herrings 😃

originally posted by: xuenchen
She has a tendency to emphasize issues that are usually not possible to change. But the concepts are not bad 😃

Red Herrings 😃

If we've learned anything this year, it's that anything is possible.

People are waking up more than ever now and we should take advantage of that before most folks hit the snooze button.

a reply to: EternalShadow

I helped send her to Congress.

Wahine akamai (smart lady), but not ready to lead.
The good news is, she's young.

a reply to: EternalShadow

This would be amazing, but like all good things..... it comes with a catch and it’s usually a .22

BUT if this passes without any “pork” in it, then let’s keep pushing until we retain control back (seeing as we are the ones that fund these things)

600$ is what I’m worth apparently.......

a reply to: SeektoUnderstand

I agree.

I got very upset the other day and really gave in to despair and frustration which is not my MO.

Like so many here commented, it's not time to give up, but instead it's time to get busy.

I think the entire populace has been mainlining NyQuil for too long. This new sense of engagement must be sustained and cemented.

a reply to: EternalShadow

WE the people NEED to band together and stop letting the government (both sides) divide us into sewing circles, arguing over who’s knot is the cleanest......

WE ARE THE FUEL to this machine....... let’s throw some sugar in the tank baby!!!!

a reply to: EternalShadow
She would’ve gotten my vote had she gotten the nomination.

a reply to: EternalShadow

They’re not ok with the “Patriot” Act, yet they are ok with forbidding people to make their livings, gather in groups of more than 10, stand closer than six feet apart, and compulsory masks? Something not right is afoot with this one. There must be some leak coming out about Gabbard or something...these two must be trying to get ahead of something and make themselves seem to be privacy-loving representatives. Unless they stop the lockdowns and compulsory mask wearings in their states, I call bullish!t.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: EternalShadow

I helped send her to Congress.

Wahine akamai (smart lady), but not ready to lead.
The good news is, she's young.

Bull # and you think Biden and Harris are ready? Tulsi Gabbard was unelectable BUT

Tulsi has more sense, intelligence, and leadership skills than Jomala could ever dream of having

a reply to: KansasGirl

That's fine.

You call BS, and I'll call my Representatives.

originally posted by: Phage
The good news is, she's young.

The bad news is she runs more on her looks and her uniform.

originally posted by: KansasGirl
a reply to: EternalShadow

They’re not ok with the “Patriot” Act, yet they are ok with forbidding people to make their livings, gather in groups of more than 10, stand closer than six feet apart, and compulsory masks? Something not right is afoot with this one. There must be some leak coming out about Gabbard or something...these two must be trying to get ahead of something and make themselves seem to be privacy-loving representatives. Unless they stop the lockdowns and compulsory mask wearings in their states, I call bullish!t.

Wow. Such an irrational response. You argue against their motives for the anti-patriot act bill by citing the ongoing response to a global pandemic. I’m not sure if that’s an Ad Hominem Fallacy or a strawman fallacy.

In fact, if you don’t want your privacy rights violated, you should be in support of this legislation as it would remove the government from violating said rights. Being supportive of temporary social mandates intended to curb a pandemic is status quo for anyone in political office who wants to avoid political suicide. So that’s not a proper argument in this case.

You may not like the politicians behind this but that doesn’t mean their bipartisan efforts are without merit. The patriot act is flaming hot garbage that is far more restrictive to your personal rights than a global pandemic response, no matter how real you think it is or isn’t.

originally posted by: Snarl

originally posted by: Phage
The good news is, she's young.

The bad news is she runs more on her looks and her uniform.

You don’t know much about Tulsi Gabbard, do you?

What a pretentious thing to say.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: EternalShadow

I helped send her to Congress.

Wahine akamai (smart lady), but not ready to lead.
The good news is, she's young.

Shes hot too.

originally posted by: Assassin82
The patriot act is flaming hot garbage that is far more restrictive to your personal rights than a global pandemic response, no matter how real you think it is or isn’t.

Ummm.. not really.

Yes, the Patriot Act is far more insidious, and potentially more restrictive, but the garbage being shoved down our throats due to a fake plan/scam-demic is purely, directly smack dab in your face restrictive of not only your rights, but our Rights to life, liberty and property.