NSA Affair in US Congress: Against Party Lines

The ranks are breaking in the National Security Agency affair, and the hardliners in Congress only barely held their own in a vote. This gives us a hopeful sign.

Nobody votes against party lines as often as Justin Amash; that occasionally makes the 33-year-old lawyer from Michigan a menace to his Republican faction in the U.S. House of Representatives. As a result of his latest transgression — voting for restrictions on the powers of the military secret service known as the NSA — the margin jumped from a comfortable 33 to a handful of seats. The hardliners only barely held their own: The status quo in the war on terror must not be changed, even 12 years after 9/11.

In the congressional agenda, the vote on Wednesday evening was just one of many. However, it proved that both parties’ camps are more mobile than the 2012 election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney and its aftermath would have us believe.

Many were surprised by the breaking of ranks in the NSA affair and saw parallels to Europe: Here too outrage over legal, borderline and illegal spying practices brought left and right together. This is hopeful, if not for the actual spying issue, then maybe in the sense that politics could be different in the future. In existential issues — and this one, because it pertains to civil rights, is such a case — it would be negligent to vote simply along party lines. At times like these, you have to be willing to leave the party line.