Rep. Neugebauer on Phone Records Seizure and Defunding Obamacare

Open email to Rep. Neugebauer (Texas):

Dear Rep Neugebauer,    I have read your Newsletter and have the following comments:

National Security Agency (NSA)    I believe you are confused on this issue concerning government protection of citizens from terrorism and seizure of private citizen records.
    You say you voted for the Nugent amendment, which prohibits NSA from acquiring and storing the content of any American’s communications, including phone calls and e-mails. Then you say NSA isn't collecting individual's information--just numbers and times. Rep.Neugebauer, believe me, when I say that "numbers and times" ARE individual's information. Each phone number and time of call is related to a particular individual. You may say that NSA will not look at who the individual is and certainly not the content of the message, but we have no assurance that is correct. In addition, you say NSA cannot get information on the content of any communication without first getting a separate, specific court order. You certainly know that to obtain a court order an individual must be named, which proves that NASA already has in its records the name of an individual relating to each phone call. That is clearly an infraction of the Fourth Amendment, which you so vigorously claim you support.
    You go further in making general claims, through third-party information, that the collection of phone records and times of individual have been of great value in thwarting terrorist activities. You indirectly claim that you cannot reveal this information because of its confidential nature. I suspect its confidential nature is only that NASA has been looking at various records, including those of many individuals. However, giving you some benefit of the doubt, I would like you to name at least one potential terrorist that we have in jail as a result of NSA's collection of phone records. I don't need to know how this was done, I would just like to know the name of the person who has been deterred.

Defunding Obamacare    I have previously written on this subject and you have received a copy.
    Your 35 votes against defunding have obviously accomplished little. The next push was to threaten a shutdown of the government, if Obamacare was not defunded. Fortunately, that threat has been withdrawn, since it would have been a disaster for the Republican Party. Millions of low-information voters depend on government free-stuff checks, as do legitimate Social Security receivers. A shutdown of the government would have meant disaster for the Republican Party in the next election.
    The best alternative for the defunding may be to use it as an amendment to any bill involving the federal government debt increase. The general low- information voters do not pay attention to our national debt.