Congress should fire back on McCarthy's obstruction tactics
The latest political storm blowing from Mar-a-Lago is the Aug. 31 apparent threat by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to 35 telecommunications and social media companies. To head-off the companies' compliance with evidence-preservation demands from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol assault, McCarthy declared that if the companies comply, Republicans "will not forget" whenever they retake control of Congress, potentially costing these companies "their ability to operate in the United States."
The same day, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) piled on, declaring: "These telecommunications companies, if they go along with this, they will be shut down, and that's a promise."
These apparent threats followed the committee's requests that the companies retain phone records and other information related to the attack and that they identify sender, receiver, time and related data that might provide a basis for further investigation. Those records could be used as evidence but would not disclose the content of conversations.
McCarthy asserted vaguely that the Committee's request violated federal privacy law. However, in 1979 the Supreme Court established in Smith v. Maryland, that Americans have no protected privacy in such records.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/congress-should-fire-back-on-mccarthys-obstruction-tactics/ar-AAO41F2
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