Cruz objects to Paul in testy GOP spat over ‘spy fridges’ on Senate floor

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the conservative stalwart, and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a hero to libertarians, got into a testy spat on the Senate floor when Cruz objected to Paul’s routine request for unanimous consent to transfer a few acres of federal land to a local Boys & Girls Club and the fight spiraled into an argument over Cruz’s proposal to regulate so-called “spy fridges.”

Cruz and Paul, two of the most prominent conservatives in Congress, squared off against each other in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, and it became clear on Wednesday that the two senators aren’t exactly chummy when Cruz objected to Paul’s seemingly innocuous request to help a Boys & Girls Club expand its facilities by transferring some federal property by unanimous consent.

While such small requests are often granted without objection on the Senate floor as a matter of senatorial courtesy, Cruz blocked Paul’s request and informed his colleague that he’s not happy about the long list of non-controversial bills that the Kentucky senator has held up on the Senate floor.

More than 20 of those bills have come out of the Senate Commerce Committee, which Cruz chairs.

“Sen. Paul is, right now, singlehandedly blocking nearly 20 bipartisan bills that have passed the Senate Commerce Committee from getting through this chamber,” Cruz said.

Cruz expressed his exasperation over Paul’s hold on one bill in particular, a measure to require companies to provide more information to consumers about smart appliances that have cameras and microphones that might record conversations in private homes — or as Cruz succinctly characterized it, a bill to crack down on “spy fridges.”

The legislation is called the “Informing Consumers about Smart Devices Act, or Spy Fridge [bill,] as it’s known,” Cruz explained.

The legislation would require a smart appliance’s packaging or online listing to disclose to consumers that it has a camera or recording capability.

“Many Americans do not realize that a growing number of these so-called smart household appliances include cameras and/or microphones that can record them and have the ability to transmit their data without their knowledge,” Cruz said.

He offered to agree to Paul’s request for unanimous consent to transfer land to the Boys & Girls Club in Paducah, Ky., if his colleague agreed to lift his hold on the Spy Fridge bill.

“That is a reasonable compromise. Ninety-nine senators support the Spy Fridge Bill. He is the only one who opposes it,” Cruz said.

But Paul told Cruz bluntly that that would be a completely unbalanced trade, as his request pertained to a local backyard issue and Cruz wanted him to agree to a nationwide policy change that would hit smart appliance makers with new regulations, fees and fines.

“It’s sort of a false equivalency that somehow granting a Boys and Girls Club … three and a half acres they’ve been using for 50-some-odd years but was once held by the federal government, that is somehow equivalent to nationwide regulation with fines and fees,” Paul argued.

“I would never in my right mind come to the floor to object to the Boys and Girls Club of Texas,” he fumed.

Paul said his objection to bills to impose new regulations nationwide are a matter of principle with real consequences for everyday consumers and argued that it’s entirely different from interfering in a local issue in another senator’s state, such as helping a local recreation club.

“I don’t want a national regulation on refrigerators. I don’t want it and I think it’s a reasonable position to take. But it has nothing to do with the Boys Club. If you have anything to do with a Boys and Girls Club or a parochial interest, you haven’t seen me, I haven’t come to the floor to object to that,” he said.

Then Paul slammed Cruz’s bill to direct the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to require automakers to maintain AM broadcast radio in new vehicles, declaring that it would pose a burden on Tesla and other makers of electric vehicles.

“You want to mandate to the car manufacturers that they have AM radio. We have Teslas. Nobody in their Tesla is going to tune in through antenna. To get an antenna in a Tesla and to get it to work, you have to coat the battery, and it costs a couple of hundred dollars,” Paul shot back at his colleague.

Paul argued that mandating that companies warn consumers about their appliances spying on them “sounds like a solution in search of a problem.”

But Cruz didn’t take those salvos sitting down. He expressed his bewilderment that Paul, a champion of the Constitution’s 4th Amendment guarantee of privacy and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, would be fine with the potential danger posed by spy fridges.

“He may be the only libertarian on planet Earth that is fighting to have more surveillance, fighting to have private, intimate conversations in your home recorded without your knowledge. That’s certainly not consistent with any libertarianism I’ve heard of,” Cruz marveled.

But Paul said consumers should know what they’re getting when they connect a smart refrigerator or other smart appliance with a camera and microphone to the Internet.

“Are they so smart that they hook themselves up to the internet unbeknownst to the person? The refrigerator shows up to your house, and somehow a cord surreptitiously comes out of the back and plugs into the cable, or it somehow hooks up to your router. It knows your password and your Bluetooths,” Paul asked with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

“The refrigerator doesn’t just come and grab your picture. There ought to be some thought that goes into this,” Paul said. “I’m disappointed that you chose to hurt the Boys and Girls Club.”

Both senators left the floor without reaching a resolution on how to move their dueling requests.

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