NSA's program for surveillance survives first post-leak vote in
Congress  Published July 25, 2013 2:15 pm Security • Utah's GOP
representatives vote to stop snooping; Dem Matheson joins the
slim majority to allow it.  Washington • The House on Wednesday
protected the National Security Agency's ability to broadly
collect phone data in the first vote on the covert program
revealed earlier this year by Edward Snowden, a former security
contractor and now a fugitive.  By a vote of 217-205, the House
defeated an amendment offered by Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich.,
that would have prohibited the use of the Patriot Act to gather
information on people not suspected of a crime.  His plan split
the political parties and divided Utah's delegation. The state's
Republican Reps. Rob Bishop, Jason Chaffetz and Chris Stewart
voted to end the program even though a majority of Republicans,
134 of them, voted to keep it.  Rep. Jim Matheson, a Democrat,
voted to keep the program, even though a majority of Democrats,
111, went the ot