#The Atlantic Best of The Atlantic publisher The Atlantic * Subscribe * Search * Menu Now the GOP Must Choose: Mass Surveillance or Privacy? * * * ____________________ (BUTTON) Close * Home * Latest * Most Popular * Magazine * Video * Photo * Writers * News * Politics * Business * Culture * Science * Technology * Health * Sexes * U.S. * Education * Global * Notes * Projects * Events * Books * Shop * Your AccountSign Out * Sign InSign Up [javascript] 2 Free Issues Try two trial issues of The Atlantic with our compliments. Claim now Follow * Facebook * Twitter * LinkedIn * Tumblr * Pinterest * RSS * App Store See our Newsletters > previousThe Dream of Country-Music Gender Equality, Made Visible for One NightWhat American Voters Have in Common With the Vietnamesenext story Now the GOP Must Choose: Mass Surveillance or Privacy? Before May, Congress has no alternative but to endorse or end NSA spying on the phone calls of virtually every American. What does the new party in charge want? [lead_large.jpg?1430150520] Toby Melville/Reuters We noticed that you have an AD BLOCKER ENABLED Please consider disabling it for our site, or supporting our work in one of these ways [large.jpg?1450107429] [large.jpg?1446761730] Subscribe Now > __________________________________________________________________ Sign up for The Atlantic Daily newsletter ____________________ [X] I want to receive updates from partners and sponsors. Sign up * * * * * * * * * Conor Friedersdorf * Nov 7, 2014 * Politics The Patriot Act substantially expires in May 2015. When the new Congress takes up its reauthorization, mere months after convening, members will be forced to decide what to do about Section 215 of the law, the provision cited by the NSA to justify logging most every telephone call made by Americans. With Republicans controlling both the Senate and the House, the GOP faces a stark choice. Is a party that purports to favor constitutional conservatism and limited government going to ratify mass surveillance that makes a mockery of the Fourth Amendment? Will Mitch McConnell endorse a policy wherein the Obama administration logs and stores every telephone number dialed or received by Roger Ailes of Fox News, Wayne LaPierre of the NRA, the Koch brothers, the head of every pro-life organization in America, and every member of the Tea Party? Is the GOP House going to sacrifice the privacy of all its constituents to NSA spying that embodies the generalized warrants so abhorrent to the founders? The issue divides elected Republicans. Senator Rand Paul and Representative Justin Amash are among those wary of tracking the phone calls of millions of innocent people. Senator Richard Burr favors doing it. Republicans pondering a run for president in 2016 will be trying to figure out how mass surveillance will play in that campaign. Many would rather not take any stand before May, as if governing—the very job citizens are paying them to do—is some sort of trap. But their preferences don't matter. This fight is unavoidable. Nor is it the only one that touches on surveillance. The dubiously named USA Freedom Act began as an effort to reform the NSA and has since been weakened. The NSA and FBI engages in lots of questionable surveillance besides the phone dragnet. Republicans will now run the Senate and House intelligence committees. 'I believe phoning your obstretician should be private.' Don't Republicans see the appeal of that commercial? Rather than urging the GOP to avoid "the governing trap," National Review and other outlets purportedly dedicated to constitutional conservatism ought to be demanding that Republicans use their newfound power to rein in our surveillance bureaucracy, since anyone with a healthy mistrust of government should see how easily its staggering power, exercised in secret, could be ruinous to liberty. A limited-government movement that does not demand oversight and reform now that its party has regained power is a farce. To endorse the national surveillance bureaucracy as it now stands is tantamount to declaring oneself a trusting statist. And opposing it would be a populist victory that puts Republicans in a position to truthfully brag about fighting to save core liberties from Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and every other prominent Democratic apologist for the NSA. "When you phone your obstetrician, the Democratic nominee believes that call should be recorded and stored in a government database. I believe it should be private." Don't Republicans see the appeal of a nominee who could run that commercial? The GOP is at a crossroads. It could easily go on as a party that dismisses affronts to individual liberty so long as they're carried out in the name of counterterrorism. But enough Republicans are uncomfortable with that approach (among both elites and the grassroots) that a major change of course is possible. What's most important for the public to know, as events unfold in Congress, is that anyone who claims to be seriously concerned about NSA surveillance but favors no reform save the USA Freedom Act, is ignorant, lying, or both. It is imperative to deny them credit as surveillance reformers—and even more important to reward any legislator of either party if they help, against long odds, to wrest back our core right to privacy from an abusive state. It's your move, Republicans. * Continue Reading * Jump to Comments * About the Author * * * * * * * * Latest Video [thumb_wide_300.jpg?1453474769] How America Trains Its Officers to Respond to School Shootings Inside the program that's preparing law enforcement for the rise in active shooting incidents * The Editors * 10:56 AM ET * Latest Slideshow [thumb_wide_300.jpg?1447874076] Peter Garritano In Photos: Inside the Internet Photographs of what “the cloud” actually looks like * Emily Anne Epstein * Jan 5, 2016 * About the Author * [headshot.jpg] Conor Friedersdorf is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he focuses on politics and national affairs. He lives in Venice, California, and is the founding editor of The Best of Journalism, a newsletter devoted to exceptional nonfiction. + Twitter + Email Most Popular Presented by * [javascript] Reuters Standing Athwart History Yelling, 'Stop Donald Trump!' + Conor Friedersdorf The National Review publishes the movement-conservative case against the Republican frontrunner. Last summer, George F. Will, the elder statesman of conservative pundits, declared Donald Trump “an affront to anyone devoted to the project William F. Buckley began six decades ago with the founding in 1955 of National Review––making conservatism intellectually respectable and politically palatable.” He urged conservatives to treat Trump as Buckley once treated the John Birch Society. On Thursday, the National Review published its bull of excommunication. Its new issue leaves no doubt about where the magazine stands on the race for the GOP nomination. Say the editors, “Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.” Continue Reading * [javascript] Barry Blitt Twilight of the Headbangers + James Parker How long can the legends of heavy metal keep on rocking? Where’d lemmy go? The stage is empty: vacated mics, cooling drum stool, the blocky, buzzing statuary of amps and speakers. Motörhead, the legendary Motörhead, is not there anymore. I’m in a heavy-metal hangar in Salt Lake City in late August, and singer/bassist Ian Fraser “Lemmy” Kilmister has just walked off, shakily and in evident distress, after only four songs, anxiously pursued by his drummer, Mikkey Dee, and guitarist, Phil Campbell. A man in a bandanna approaches me, pop-eyed with dire foreknowledge: “He’s not comin’ back, man! He’s not comin’ back! He’s too old!” Then he reels away, into the hormonal half-smoke and press of bodies in front of the stage. Should we riot? Are we sad? Is it possible that Lemmy—69 years old, pacemakered, diabetic—Lemmy, the great survivor, opposer, grizzled odds-beater, humanity’s middle finger, was crying? “Listen,” he’d said to us before exiting, in his familiar English roar-gasp, that voice of fiery exhaustion. “I’m really sorry—I can’t tell you how sorry I am—but my back’s gone. I’ve got this bad back and … I can’t breathe up here either.” Then he covered his face with his hands, and he left us. Continue Reading * [javascript] Carolyn Kaster / AP Milk, Bread, and Eggs: The Trinity of Winter-Storm Panic-Shopping + Joe Pinsker Why do people reliably stock up on the same things before they get snowed in? Lines of frantic shoppers have mobbed grocery stores in Washington, D.C., after the National Weather Service gently advised residents on Wednesday that an intense weekend storm will pose “a threat to life and property” and impact “you, your family, and your community.” Which led me to wonder: After people hear a message so ominous, and after reminders of their employers’ inclement-weather policies hit inboxes, what do they buy to prepare for spending a good deal of time indoors? I called up the managers of some grocery stores in D.C. to find out, and they all had more or less the same answer: bread, milk, and eggs. This holy trinity of winter-storm preparedness is not some quirk of the nation’s capital—bread, milk, and eggs are popular panic-buys everywhere from Knoxville to New England. Continue Reading * [javascript] Aaron P. Bernstein / Reuters Why Precisely Is Bernie Sanders Against Reparations? + Ta-Nehisi Coates The Vermont senator’s political imagination is active against plutocracy, but why is it so limited against white supremacy? Last week Bernie Sanders was asked whether he was in favor of “reparations for slavery.” It is worth considering Sanders’s response in full: No, I don’t think so. First of all, its likelihood of getting through Congress is nil. Second of all, I think it would be very divisive. The real issue is when we look at the poverty rate among the African American community, when we look at the high unemployment rate within the African American community, we have a lot of work to do. So I think what we should be talking about is making massive investments in rebuilding our cities, in creating millions of decent paying jobs, in making public colleges and universities tuition-free, basically targeting our federal resources to the areas where it is needed the most and where it is needed the most is in impoverished communities, often African American and Latino. Continue Reading * [javascript] Glory Foods / Flickr What's Leafy, Green, and Eaten by Blacks and Whites? + Conor Friedersdorf A tiny but illuminating controversy over collards. This is a story about how tiny things come to divide us. Fittingly, it begins with a Tweet. Last week, Whole Foods Market sent this to its 4.81 million Twitter followers: If you're not cooking with these greens, you need to be! How to cook collards: https://t.co/2lk2bMnKdS #HealthYeah pic.twitter.com/YqBPXg3uus — Whole Foods Market (@WholeFoods) January 14, 2016 One imagines a marketing staffer drafting the Tweet without apprehension or anxiety. Obesity is epidemic. Americans suffer from their unhealthy diets in myriad ways. Who could object to a supermarket cheerily touting a leafy green vegetable? Alerted to the Tweet by a foodie who asked me to explain why it was controversial, I looked at it, vaguely recalled that Michelle Obama had included a collard-greens recipe in her cookbook, American Grown, and asked if maybe the Red Tribe was giving the Blue Tribe a bit of ribbing about its affinity for plant-based diets? Continue Reading * [javascript] Stefano Rellandini / Reuters Sympathy for the Macklemore + Spencer Kornhaber “White Privilege II” bravely tackles difficult truths about race, but that doesn’t make it a good song. The third verse of Macklemore’s new song, “White Privilege II,” is from the perspective of a fan complimenting the 32-year-old Seattle rapper for hits like “Thrift Shop” and “Same Love.” Everything is copacetic and nice until the speaker—it’s Macklemore using a filter and multi-tracking to make it clear that this isn’t his voice—disses the rest of hip-hop: That’s so cool, look what you’re accomplishing Even an old mom like me likes it cause it’s positive You’re the only hip-hop that I let my kids listen to Cause you get it, all that negative stuff isn’t cool Yeah, like all the guns and the drugs The bitches and the hoes and the gangs and the thugs Even the protest outside—so sad and so dumb If a cop pulls you over, it’s your fault if you run Continue Reading * [javascript] Brian Snyder / Reuters Ted Cruz's Tithing Problem + Jonathan Merritt Many Christians believe God requires the faithful to donate a tenth of their income to charity. Will they vote for a candidate who doesn’t? Conservative critics of Ted Cruz are going after his tithing practices. According to recently released tax records, the Texas senator contributed less than 1 percent of his income to charity between 2006 and 2010. But many Christians believe that the Bible commands a charitable offering, or tithe, equal to 10 percent of one’s annual earnings. This discrepancy could end up making a difference less than two weeks before the caucuses in Iowa, a state where a Republican politician’s faith matters. And this is exactly what a newly formed political group, Americans United for Values, is hoping for. Today, the group is launching a 60-second radio advertisement on news, talk, and Christian stations across Iowa that raises the tithing question and labels Cruz a “phony”: “He doesn’t tithe?” a female voice asks in the ad. “Isn’t he a millionaire? His wife worked for a big Wall Street bank, right?” Continue Reading * [javascript] Carlos Javier Ortiz The Case for Reparations + Ta-Nehisi Coates Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole. And if thy brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing today. — Deuteronomy 15: 12–15 Besides the crime which consists in violating the law, and varying from the right rule of reason, whereby a man so far becomes degenerate, and declares himself to quit the principles of human nature, and to be a noxious creature, there is commonly injury done to some person or other, and some other man receives damage by his transgression: in which case he who hath received any damage, has, besides the right of punishment common to him with other men, a particular right to seek reparation. Continue Reading * [javascript] Toby Talbot / AP The Decline of the Driver's License + Julie Beck Fewer people of all ages are getting them, and it’s not quite clear why. Remember how, in Clueless, Alicia Silverstone’s character Cher fails her driver’s test after nearly killing a biker and scraping her car alongside several parked cars? And then how she asks, “Do you think I should write them a note?” as she drives away? And then how, at the climax of the movie, her friend Tai (Brittany Murphy) calls her “a virgin who can’t drive” and it is just the harshest burn? Well, that was a fictionalized version of the ‘90s, and this is now. Things are different. Young people are not getting driver’s licenses so much anymore. In fact, no one is. According to a new study by Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, the percentage of people with a driver’s license decreased between 2011 and 2014, across all age groups. For people aged 16 to 44, that percentage has been decreasing steadily since 1983. Continue Reading * [javascript] NASA/NOAA What the U.S. East Coast's Massive Snow Storm Looks Like + Marina Koren and Adam Chandler From outer space down to the streets Updated January 22 at 2:10 p.m. EST That swirling cover of white up there is the first blizzard of 2016, captured by satellite on Friday as it barrels across the central United States, toward the East Coast. The “potentially crippling” storm is expected to bring powerful winds and up to two feet of snow to parts of the Mid-Atlantic this weekend, which could result in flooding in coastal regions, the U.S. National Weather Service warned. The storm has the makings of the “Big One” and so far appears “textbook,” according to the winter-weather expert who literally wrote the textbook on northeast snowstorms. As of Friday morning, more than 85 million people—or more than one in every four Americans—were covered by some kind of blizzard or winter-storm advisory, according to weather.com. Local, state, and federal officials have been scrambling to organize their responses to the blizzard as residents swarm grocery stores to stock up on food and water. As of Friday afternoon, there were already five storm-related deaths reported. Continue Reading * [javascript] The Most Powerful Images of 2015 + Greyson Korhonen and Alan Taylor A selection of the year's best photos Watch Video * [javascript] A Photojournalist Walks Away From His Profession + Nadine Ajaka How do you decide when you've seen enough of war? Watch Video * [javascript] Dennis Hlynsky / The Atlantic / Pearson Scott Foreman / Wikimedia Commons Revealing the Hidden Patterns of Birds and Insects in Motion + Sam Price-Waldman A video shows the dreamlike voyages of starlings, water striders, and more. Watch Video More Popular Stories Show Comments Subscribe Get 10 issues a year and save 65% off the cover price. 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