Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has checked out, making it very clear in her fourth and final term in the House that she’s not shying away from Republican squabbling, this time fighting with Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.).
During The Heritage Foundation’s monthly ‘Conversation with Conservatives’ forum, the two Representatives got into it over Amash’s National Security Agency amendment. Bachmann was the only member of the panel who said she would vote no on the proposed amendment.
“I’ll be voting ‘no’ on the Amash amendment,” she said. “And the reason why is because with the business records exception, section 215 [of the Patriot Act], there is no expectation of privacy.”
Bachmann added that phone records belong to the phone companies and therefore there is no Fourth Amendment expectation of privacy regarding those records. She made it clear that she thought NSA leaker Edward Snowden is a “traitor” who jeopardized the security of the nation.
“I believe that we need to win the war on terror,” the Congresswoman added. “We need to defeat the goals and aims of Islamic jihad and for that reason, I will be voting no on the Amash amendment.”
Amash responded to Bachmann, clarifying that his amendment would not influence the national security of the country. He said that many thwarted terror plots are the result of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and not a result of section 215 of the Patriot Act. He said that his constituents don’t want their phone records to be collected.
“All you have to do is go home to your constituents and ask them whether they think they have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their phone records, or any of their other records that are stored by a third party, and they will tell you yes,” the Michigan Congressman said.
He argued that if section 215 was applied across the board, no records in the modern era would be private because most of our papers are digital and held by a third party.
“You might as well throw the Fourth Amendment out the window,” Amash said.
The faceoff between Amash and Bachmann was really no surprise, however. After Bachmann announced back in May that she wouldn’t seek a fifth term in U.S. House of Representatives, the outgoing Congresswoman has no incentive to stay on the good side of fellow GOP-ers.
