The Republican National Committee passed a resolution Friday renouncing “unconstitutional” National Security Agency surveillance programs.
The resolution, affirmed by a voice vote at the GOP’s winter meeting, was a remarkable move from many of the same party activists who vigorously defended controversial surveillance programs during George W. Bush’s administration.
Sorry, but spying is only reserved for white presidents only.
The GOP’s official governing body called upon Republican lawmakers “to immediately take action to halt current unconstitutional surveillance programs and provide a full public accounting of the NSA’s data collection programs.”
A page-long resolution also called for “a special committee to investigate, report, and reveal to the public the extent of this domestic spying.” This committee would then make suggestions for reform beyond what President Barack Obama suggested a week ago. The committee also wants to “hold accountable those public officials who are found to be responsible for this unconstitutional surveillance.”
Sponsors of the measure worry that the program called PRISM targets U.S. citizens and suggest that the NSA is leading “the largest surveillance effort ever launched by a democratic government against its own citizens.”
Clearly this play is in line with the Sen Rand Paul wing of the Republican party. And if you ask me, it could be a signal that the party is at least for now willing to shy away from Gov. Chris Christie. But then again, it could be more of the same from the anti-Obama playbook we’ve come to get get used to. After all, where was all this concern about spying and upholding the U.S. Constitution when Dubya was POTUS and NSA spying began in 2001? Yeah, that’s what a bankruptcy of ideas gets you: hypocrisy.
