Privacy
We all make jokes about our FBI agent that is watching our messages, it is a common joke whenever one sends a message that is meant as something innocent that can be taken as insidious. Messages like “your the BOMB” or something of the nature are usually followed by a thought or comment that, “Now I’m probably on a watchlist or something for saying bomb”. While this is a running joke, there is some truth to the matter. It is not realistic to think that there is an FBI agent watching every single person because if that were true there would need to be over 300 million agents, and then who would watch the agents, and then who would watch the agents watching the agents, and so on and so fourth. What Is Actually Happening is that the NSA or other intelligence groups have collected phone records of every single American for the last seven years under the Patriot Act. This includes the number of incoming and outgoing calls, their phone numbers, the duration of the call, the location both calls took place from, and that’s just the stuff they admit to, if you listen to the conspiracy theorists it could be a whole lot more in-depth. 
The Amash Amendment was proposed to limit the ability of intellegece agencies to collect data in this manner without a warrant. In the words of the Democratic representative Ted Leiu from California, “The fourth amendment (the one preventing unreasonable search and seizure) does not have and asterisks next to it saying that our intelligence agencies do not have to listen to it.” The Amash Amendment garnered support and disapproval from both parties. The parties are split relativity evenly with about half of the Democratic representatives supporting and opposing the bill respectively and approximately the same amount supporting or opposing the bill on the republican side of the aisle. The Members Of Congress That Voted Against The Amash Amendment can all be found on the roll call if your interested to know wether your representative wants to continue to allow the data collection. “It’s a question of balancing privacy and security, It’s a question of who will do the balancing. Right now, the balancing is being done by people we do not know, people we do not elect.” says Mick Mulvaney R-S.C.
A majority of Republicans voted against it, 94-134, while a majority of Democrats voted for it, 111-83. The amendment had such bipartisan support and opposition that it made for some very interesting alliances. Former Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., all voted against the amendment. These are some high ranking political opponents all working together to defeat a bill. It is also worth noting that this was during the time of the Obama administration, so the 111 democrats that voted for the bill went against the largest political office holder in their party, the President of the United States. Out spoken republican representative Rand Paul from Kentucky voted for the bill, along with the equally out spoken democratic representative Ted Lieu from California. To think that the two of them voted together on a bill makes me wonder if congress is really as divided as everyone thinks it is. I wonder when the next time the two will vote together will be.