On Tuesday, the House of Representatives voted 231-192 to approve a large funding measure to stave off another so-called government shutdown. As objectionable as such measures tend to be, the biggest problem with this particular measure is that a provision extending dubious surveillance powers was inserted at the last minute.

It’s not particularly novel for Congress to slip in assorted measures into “must pass” spending bills. Doing so helps provide appropriate political cover to whoever votes for the spending legislation. It’s just another dirty trick that House leaders of both parties like to play.

Such is the case with the late insertion to reauthorize surveillance powers set to expire on Dec. 15 until March.

Ever since the rushed passage of the USA Patriot Act in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, the federal government has engaged in sweeping and even unconstitutional mass surveillance of the American people and others.

While some of the excesses have been cut back over time, Congress has still erred on the side of keeping vast surveillance powers in place.

This includes the authority for the call detail records program, which the National Security Agency claims to have ended.

Ahead of the vote, a coalition of organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union, Campaign for Liberty, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and FreedomWorks appealed to Congress to reject the reauthorization, citing the abuses of the call detail records program.

“Last year alone, the program only designated 11 targets but vacuumed up the call records from over 19 million phone numbers, collecting over 430 million call detail records in total,” the groups note. “Further, the National Security Agency revealed 17 months ago that this program was unlawfully acquiring massive amounts of sensitive information about our phone conversations.”

Rather than hold a debate on the legitimacy of keeping authorization for such a program in place and do the job of legislating, the House leadership chose to include authorization extensions through March.

Related Articles If Newsom followed the science, he’d reopen the state: Donald Wagner

Is Newsom serious about banning gas-powered cars?

The Roberts Court is more complicated than it seems: Tom Campbell

Who is left out of the new American mainstream?

California is indeed a cautionary tale for the nation Rep. Justin Amash, I-Michigan, sought to include an amendment striking the inclusion of the extension from the spending bill, but that was rejected by House leaders.

“The Patriot Act extension passed the House with nearly all Democrats voting for it. When Pres. Trump signs it into law, Democrats will be just as responsible for warrantless surveillance as Trump and the GOP. Neither party is looking out for you,” Amash said via Twitter.

Indeed, while 10 progressive Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, joined Amash in voting against the spending bill in response, the vast majority of Democrats, including every Democratic representative from Los Angeles County, Orange County, Riverside County and San Bernardino County, went along with the farce.

We urge Congress to consider putting the civil liberties of Americans ahead of political expediency for a change.