Will A Growing And Unrestrained American Surveillance State Become A Real Issue In The Midterms?

Yesterday's Politico featured a post by Manu Raju explaining how both Democratic and Republican candidates are running against the NSA's Cheney-conceived domestic spying agenda-- the NSA's Cheney-conceived domestic spying agenda that Obama has largely kept intact. Raju's top example: Maine progressive Shenna Bellows, who has talked with us about this last October and again in November.

Maine Senator Susan Collins has been a lockstep captive of the Military Industrial Complex and an unwavering supporter of the very unpopular Surveillance State and of all the abusive NSA excesses. Maine libertarians hate her. And Bellows, a former executive director of Maine's ACLU, has been going up and down the state explaining why Democrats should be as concerned as libertarians on this one. Collins has infuriated constitutionalists in Maine with her awkward statements about Ed Snowden. She harps on him being responsible for one of the most “serious national security breaches” in modern history. “He’s no hero,” she insists. “He’s no whistleblower.” Bellows, like critics on the right and left do see Snowden as a whistle bower, a position most Americans agree with. “I think she was wrong to vote time and time again to renew the PATRIOT Act without meaningful checks and balances, … she was wrong to vote in November 2013 to legalize the NSA program in the wake of these revelations of abuse,” said Bellows about Collins.

The Democratic candidate didn’t think much about running for Senate against the popular GOP Sen. Susan Collins — until the aftermath of the Snowden revelations prompted tougher restrictions on warrantless surveillance on the state level that she now wants to replicate in Washington. Bellows wants an end to the NSA’s bulk data collection program, along with the PATRIOT Act. She argues the country needs stronger whistleblower protections. She even believes Snowden deserves clemency.

“Constitutional freedoms is how I win the race,” said the 38-year-old Bellows, who headed the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine for eight years and now faces a very steep climb to catch Collins. “I think the erosion of constitutional freedoms exemplifies how Washington has become out of touch with some of the values that we share as communities.”

Candidates across the country are using a similar playbook as they run against an unpopular Washington. Primary candidates running against incumbent GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham in South Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas have seized on this controversy, hoping to woo Ron Paul-minded libertarian voters worried about government overreach. The main GOP and Democratic candidates in Montana are both bashing the agency as they jostle for an upper hand on the issue.

And Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a likely 2016 presidential candidate who has led the charge against the NSA in Congress, is reviewing candidates’ positions on surveillance as a condition of offering his endorsement to upstart challengers.

…Also in the West, Sen. Mark Udall-- the Colorado Democrat and early critic of the NSA-- is quick to point out the alarms he sounded even before the Snowden revelations. That, he said, will be a big selling point to voters as he faces what could be a tough reelection battle. “I think it will be one of the reasons I’ll ask to be rehired-- I want to protect Coloradans’ privacy,” Udall said. “They know I will, they know I have. They know I was on this cause before it was popular, before anybody paid any attention.”

The divisions are far starker in the GOP, with competing libertarian and national security wings battling for the future direction of the Republican Party. In a sign that the GOP is heading in a more libertarian direction, the Republican National Committee called on Friday to investigate the NSA for what it called the “invasion into the personal lives” of American citizens and their constitutional rights.

Paul said in a brief interview that the issue of privacy is “a popular one” that “appeals to people who aren’t traditionally in one camp or the other.” Asked if he would base his endorsement of 2014 Senate candidates partially on their views on the NSA program, Paul said simply, "Yes."

In North Carolina’s contested GOP Senate primary, Paul has endorsed physician Greg Brannon, who called Obama’s latest proposals “nothing more than slight modifications to an unconstitutional program.”

But the issue is becoming a bigger flash point in South Carolina, where Graham-- a longtime national security hawk-- has previously said he was “glad” the government was collecting the phone records of Verizon customers.

"I don’t mind Verizon turning over records to the government if the government is going to make sure that they try to match up a known terrorist phone with somebody in the United States," Graham said last year.

Those comments have made it difficult for Graham to appeal to libertarian-leaning conservatives, who could be a critical bloc in this year’s primary, according to one of his GOP opponents, state Sen. Lee Bright.

"That crowd and Lindsey Graham will never get along,” Bright said last week, adding that the senator’s Verizon comment “pretty much finished off any hope he had for the folks who were really concerned about the Fourth Amendment."

Fortunately, voters in South Carolina have an alternative to voting for an extremist anti-Choice, antigay, anti-environmental, anti-working family lunatic like Bright, if they want to oppose Graham's support of the Surveillance State and NSA domestic spying. Like Bellows, Blue America has endorsed progressive Democrat Jay Stamper. Although Politico is ignoring his campaign, he told us last night that "[t]here is no U.S. Senator more hostile to the Bill of Rights than Lindsey Graham. As his likely opponent in the 2014 general election, I will continue to draw attention to his attacks on our constitutional civil liberties, including his enthusiastic support for the NSA's warrant-less surveillance programs.

"Lindsey Graham says he doesn't mind if the NSA tracks his phone calls. This year, voters across the political spectrum in South Carolina have the opportunity to send a message at the polls that we do mind.

"Sen. Graham can always be counted on to support new wars and the escalation of existing conflicts overseas. He says we need to fight for our freedom. I would remind Senator Graham that protecting freedom starts with standing up for our civil liberties here at home."

And, of course, it isn't just Senate candidates who are talking with voters about these issues. Later today we'll be meeting the Oklahoma Democrat running against Tom Cole, Tae Si, and hearing in some depth how he differs from Cole-- and President Obama-- on the NSA domestic spying. It's a winning issue in Oklahoma and the Blue America-endorsed candidate in the 5th district (Oklahoma City), Tom Guild, has come out strongly in favor of the Constitution and against unwarranted intrusion on Americas' privacy rights. "As the venerated Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says, 'The right of the people to be secure…against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated…except upon probable cause…particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized.' Unrestricted and unrestrained power concentrated in the government to the seize personal information of Americans, who have not been reasonably suspected of any crime, leads inevitably to a system where government overreach, abuse and mischief are invited and encouraged. We are a government of laws and not of men. Legal restraints should be placed on the NSA program to ensure that the privacy of ordinary Americans is not violated without sufficient and reasonable legal restraints. We need to restore the constitutional balance between national security and the cherished right to privacy enshrined in our Constitution."

Rob Zerban, who is running against NSA-backed Paul Ryan in southeastern Wisconsin agrees with Guild that warrantless wiretaps go beyond the intentions of the Founding Fathers when they put together the Constitution. "Everybody," he told us, "should be concerned when their government is collecting random personal data. With the 2014 midterm elections quickly approaching the electorate needs to educate themselves on where the candidates stand on such an important issue. I personally am adamantly opposed to such spying on American citizens. National security is critical to protecting our country and our freedoms, but must we give up those freedoms in order to protect them? I can not find a justification for the program and the way it has been used. Anybody that has supported such efforts needs to be voted out of office as it is a complete breach of trust and a violation of the constitution and our right to privacy."

Pennsylvania's Liberal Lion, state Senator Daylin Leach, the leading candidate for the open PA-13 House seat, is another advocate of a closer adherence to the Constitution. "I've been a member of the ACLU since I was 18 years old," he told us last night. "I taught and practiced Constitutional Law and named my daughter Brennan after my favorite Supreme Court Justice. Civil Liberties mean a great deal to me. I have seen no evidence that the results of the NSA spying program in any way justify the intrusion inherent in such a program. Our Constitution guarantees individualized suspicion that we have done something wrong before we are investigated. The NSA data collection program flies in the face of that basic right. It's time we rebalance our approach to place more emphasis on respecting basic liberties."