Who Voted to Keep Funding the NSA's Spy Programs?

Yesterday, the House of Representatives narrowly defeated Rep. Justin Amash's Defense Appropriations Bill amendment that would have defunded the NSA. Nonetheless, the vote did put Congressmen on record as being either for or against the NSA's dragnet surveillance program.

Defund the NSA is a Taskforce project designed to help raise awareness of the Amash amendment. The group has now put together a comprehensive, easy-to-navigate list of who voted for and against it. It includes a simple search feature so you can single out your representative with a couple quick clicks. The group and others are now hoping to apply pressure to the politicians who voted against the measure, and praise those who voted in favor of NSA limits. Nancy Pelosi, for instance, is a vocal surveillance critic and she may come to regret her decision to kill the amendment—she's now being billed as the savior of the NSA surveillance program.

On Wednesday, I interviewed Defund the NSA's co-creator Sina Khanifar about his goals with the campaign. This afternoon, I followd up with Khanifar to get his post-vote perspective, and to talk about the list's utility going forward.

See the Amash amendment voter roll call over at Defund the NSA.

Motherboard: Any surprises on that list, whether they who voted for or against the Amash amendment to defund the NSA?

Sina Khanifar: I think the main surprise for me was the actual number of people who voted for the amendment. A day before the vote, a reporter who closely follows votes like this told me that he expected that only 30 to 40 representatives would vote for the amendment. Even amongst activist circles, the upper bounds of optimism put us at 150 votes. The fact that just seven votes would have swung it shows that there's a lot of support in the House for changing the way the NSA's phone record collection system works. We've heard from staffers that they fielded a ton of calls from people before the vote, which goes to show that the DefundTheNSA campaign had a pretty big impact on getting grassroots support mobilized on the issue.

Do you think this list will help apply pressure to these legislators?

The list is as much about thanking those who voted for the amendment as putting pressure on those who voted against. Often when folks contact Congress, it's to complain about a particular issue—but it's important that we give our representatives positive reinforcement when they listen to their constituents. In fact, we're in the midst of organizing with groups like Fight for the Future to send "Fourth Amendment" cakes to House representatives to thank them for the way they voted.

Are you hoping to roll out campaigns against the "Nay" voters during the mid-term elections in 2013/2014?

We'll see. I think it's important that representative's are held accountable for their voting records, but we don't have any specific plans yet.

What do you think it says about Nancy Pelosi that she voted against the amendment? Would it have been career suicide if she had voted for it, or do you think she actually believes in the NSA program?

It's a strange move by Rep. Pelosi—she's generally been a surveillance skeptic, and voted against the PATRIOT act when it was up for reauthorization in 2005 and again this year. She also sent a letter to the President yesterday, which noted that, "Although some of us voted for and others against the amendment, we all agree that there are lingering questions and concerns about the current 215 collection program." My best guess is that she was under pressure from the White House, which was strongly against the Amash amendment, to vote against it. Nevertheless, it's a very disappointing move.

What's the mood like now with Defund the USA and other similar groups aligned against the NSA surveillance program?

I think many of the public advocacy groups are really encouraged that the vote was so close. We've been working on this for almost a month now through projects like StopWatching.us, so it's exciting to see legislation that would restrict the NSA's domestic surveillance come so close to becoming law. In broad strokes, I think groups involved in the battle view this as a turning point: our representatives in Congress were called to vote on surveillance, and a significant number of them agreed that we need greater limits. This vote likely didn't pass because of lobbying by the White House and Nancy Pelosi, but this is just the first vote on the issue. Stay tuned.