Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Question for Mr. Markey and Mr. Gomez: Where do you stand on NSA data gathering?

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I do think that it’s time our two Senate candidates address the many questions raised by the NSA data gathering scandal.

I’d like to know where Mr. Markey stands on matter. I’d especially like Mr. Markey to compare and contrast his stance with the views offered by Mr. Capuano in his recent BMG post. I’d like Mr. Gomez to do the same.

I’d also like each candidate to express their reaction to Senator Feinstein’s characterization of Edward Snowden as a “terrorist”:

“I don’t look at this as being a whistleblower. I think it’s an act of treason,” the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee told reporters.

The election is a few weeks away. This is an vitally important issue, and I want to hear what each candidate has to say about it.

Update, June 14, 2013

I realize that my original post may not have been clear enough.

I would like to see Mr. Markey and Mr. Gomez specifically respond to the following excerpt from Mr. Capuano:

It is time for those of us who support President Obama to speak up. I believe he is a good man and has been a good President. However, I think his Administration has allowed their concern for our safety to lead them down the wrong path. If we remain silent, those who have always wished him to fail on every point stand a better chance of winning the hearts and minds of America and we will all be worse off for it. It is possible to support President Obama and yet disagree with him on certain issues – this is one of those times.

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Comments

  1. The Constitution is quite clear: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” Mr. Snowden has neither engaged the USA in war nor assisted our enemies by giving them material or informational aid.

  2. Markey is opposed to the policy, Gomez more deferential. Link here:

    Gomez:

    “I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt right now, but I assume that this has risen to an imminent threat or to some serious national security threat right now,” Gomez told reporters in South Boston Friday afternoon.

    But Gomez said he understands why people are suspicious of the NSA collection of phone and Internet records. He said:

    “You’ve got the IRS targeting groups because of political beliefs. You’ve got the Justice Department seizing records. You still don’t have any answers on Benghazi, and then something like this comes up.

    It just shows you just how distrustful people are of D.C., and there’s a reason for that. It’s because it’s broken, and everything down in D.C. is effectively tainted in my eyes. So, they got a higher bar to clear because of the reputation down in D.C.”

    So he basically tried to tie it to his Ed Markey = Everything Anyone Does in D.C. schtick.

    Markey:

    The candidate who is more critical of the NSA’s monitoring of phone calls and Internet use is the Democrat, Ed Markey. In Congress, he has pushed for standards to protect innocent people from surveillance by the government.

    “As they’re looking for the guilty needle, they gather an innocent haystack of millions of Americans’ information, and we have to make sure that all of that information is protected,” Markey told reporters in East Boston Friday. “We have to make sure there is no compromise of the privacy, of the security of ordinary American families, who are no security risk in our country. That’s why I vote no any of these programs which do not require a warrant.”

    Markey voted against reauthorizing the Patriot Act in 2005, 2010 and 2011. And he voted against reauthorizing the Foreign Intelligence Security Act last year. That’s the law that set up the secret court that allowed the surveillance of tens of millions of Verizon customers.

    But Markey declined to criticize Obama for the surveillance.

    Probably because Obama was coming to stump for him the next day.

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