By recent standards, an extraordinary thing happened early Wednesday evening on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. For about one hour, Republicans and Democrats engaged in a thoughtful, passionate, nonpartisan debate — all right there for the world to witness. Members of both parties, 205 in all, broke with their party leaders in voting for an amendment that would have de-funded controversial NSA anti-terrorism surveillance programs. House GOP and Democratic leaders sided with the Obama administration in opposing the amendment, offered by Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich. Watch the full floor debate over that amendment, and an alternative that was overwhelmingly adopted, in the above video. (Video provided by C-SPAN)
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