Article from Rare by Brandon Morse.

Republicans scored many goals in their mad rush to pass tax cuts, finally winning a game decades in the making. But while House Speaker Paul Ryan was playing the forward position, Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was playing goalkeeper, seeing to it that the government is kept out of our private electronic communications.

In addition to tax reform, also up for vote last week was the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017 (Section 702), which had it been approved, would have allowed the government to continue to spy on and collect electronic communications such as emails or phone calls made by non-U.S. citizens.

With Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) also joining Paul’s side, too many Republicans would have been missing to get the bill passed. Furthermore, with Wyden by his side, Paul’s threat of stopping everything with a filibuster if the bill went up for a vote was a fight many in Washington weren’t willing to have.

Paul was right, and the renewal bill never saw the light of day.

Read the entire article at Rare.

Image Credit: Gage Skidmore [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons