WASHINGTON nike air max 93 nz , March 18 (Xinhua) -- As the Capitol Hill is stumbling towards the imminent deadline on a reform bill on the U. S. spy agency's bulk phone metadata collection program, Republican infighting again steals the limelight.
"I want to reassure everybody that there are plenty of safeguards in this program, said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, on ABC News on Sunday. " Nobody at the NSA (National Security Agency) is routinely listening to your telephone conversations."
Though the Republican-controlled House passed last week by an overwhelming vote of 338 to 88 a surveillance reform bill the USA Freedom Act - which would end NSA's spying program nike air max 180 nz , the Republican leader in the upper chamber, a strong advocate spearheading an ill-fated effort to reauthorize through 2020 NSA's surveillance program without any reforms, refused to budge.
"I think it (NSA program) is an important tool if we're going to have the maximum opportunity to defend our people here at home, and I don't think the House bill does that," McConnell told ABC. " I think it basically leads us to the end of the program."
And that is exactly what Republican Senator Rand Paul wants. Also hailing from the state of Kentucky cheap nike air max 90 nz , Paul just recently announced his 2016 presidential bid.
While expressing his dissent from the House-passed surveillance reform bill, Paul's aversion to his fellow Kentucky Republican's proposal to reauthorize the program without reform is even stronger.
"If the President's obeying the law, he should stop it (NSA's surveillance program) immediately and we shouldn't be doing this," Paul told the U.S. TV network NBC on Sunday. "I don't want to replace it with another system."
What Paul referred to was a court decision made on May 7 that ruled NSA's surveillance program illegal.
"...(Patriot Act provisions) have never been interpreted to authorize anything approaching the breadth of the sweeping surveillance at issue here," said a verdict by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.
However nike air max 90 nz sale , the court did not go so far as to mandate termination of the program, leaving it to Congress to pass reforms.
The White House, together with the Justice Department and NSA itself have been vocal in its support for the USA Freedom Act which preserves the administration's ability to obtain more limited amount of records while ending the controversial practice of collecting information on millions of American phone calls.
Two weeks from now, without action from the Congress, NSA's bulk spying program nike air max 90 nz , first revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, would expire.
Sensing dim prospect of a clean reauthorization of the Section 215 in the post 911 Patriot Act, a key provision that has been enabling the NSA to collect Americans' phone metadata for years, McConnell has already filed a short-term extension of the existing law.
But his last resort is likely to unravel as at least two senators, including Paul nike air max 97 womens nz , have threatened to filibuster extension of the NSA program either in short-term or in long-term.
Meanwhile, shortly before the House passed the reform bill last week, House Speaker John Boehner called on his fellow Republicans in the Senate to act promptly.
"I'm not going to speculate what the Senate will or will not do, " Boehner told reporters. "All I know is that these programs expire at the end of this month."
"The House is going to act and I hope the Senate will act soon as well," said Boehner nike air max 97 mens nz , in an appeal most likely to fall on deaf ears in Senate.
With other two competing priorities - a trade bill and a highway bill - cramming the Senate schedule before lawmakers leave town on Friday for a week-long Memorial Day recess, inaction from the Senate as regards to the surveillance reform bill is becoming increasingly likely.
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JERUSALEM, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday asked International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to help bring back Israeli civilians held in Gaza.
He made the request in his meeting with ICRC President Peter Maurer in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu said Israel has been seeking information about two civilians, who voluntarily crossed into the Gaza Strip and are believed to be held captive by Hamas, the Islamist organization that controls the coastal enclave.
Hamas cheap nike air max 97 nz , however, refused to divulge any information, the prime minister added.
""You come at a time when Israel is concerned about the unbelievable cruelty as the bodies of its slain soldiers are kept, and even information about them is kept,"" Netanyahu told Maurer nike air max 97 nz , according to a statement released by the Prime Minister's Office.
""No less important, innocent, defenseless civilians are being held in Gaza,"" he noted.
In response to Netanyahu's request, Maurer said the Red Cross has a mandate under international law but ""also had a mandate to help people and find practical ways (to this end).""
The ICRC president added that he was looking forward to having ""the opportunity to look into some of the challenges that everyone is currently confronted with and to see how the ICRC can eventually help with them.""
Two Israeli civilians nike air vapormax plus nz , identified as Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, entered Gaza in 2014. Israel believes they have been held captive by Hamas since then.
Hamas has never officially acknowledged if the two Israelis are in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
In 2015, an anonymous senior Palestinian official told the Hebrew-language Ynet news site that Mengistu was held by Hamas' security forces which later released him after ensuring that he was not a soldier.
Maurer's meeting with Netanyahu came a day after he met in Gaza with Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar.
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