EU-DIGEST: NSA Surveillance Divides the US Republican Party

1/28/14

NSA Surveillance Divides the US Republican Party - by Conor Friedersdorf

A Republican Party resolution that renounces NSA spying is an extraordinary document. For over a decade, the GOP dismissed civil-libertarian complaints about the War on Terror. The RNC stood behind Team Bush through the war crime of torture and a secret, illegal program of warrantless surveillance on U.S. citizens.

Circa 2009, the Tea Party began vying for control of the Republican Party. But even then, mass surveillance on innocents wasn't among its complaints.

President Obama's first term would play out with the GOP opposing him on virtually every issue except his embrace of his predecessor's War on Terror approach.

But Obama's second term has been different.

Rand Paul's filibuster against lethal drone strikes drew support from Senate colleagues Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee. Representative Justin Amash has distinguished himself as a leading civil libertarian in the House.

And is if to signify that the GOP establishment is changing along with its elected officials, the RNC voted in a winter meeting to literally renounce NSA domestic surveillance. "It was passed by a voice vote as part of a package of RNC proposals," Benjy Sarlin reports. "Not a single member rose to object or call for further debate, as occurred for other resolutions." That's incredible, because it's almost impossible to exaggerate how unequivocally the resolution condemns the NSA.