required background checks for purchases at gun shows and for purchases of guns online nationwide. He argued that the bill would "have blocked family members and neighbors from buying and selling guns to one another without a background check." Tester voted for a second Democrat-sponsored proposal to ban gun sales to individuals on the terrorist watch list. Both proposals failed. Privacy Tester opposes the PATRIOT Act, believing it violates Montanans' right to privacy and the Fourth Amendment. During his first Senate election, in a September 24, 2006 debate in Butte, when Conrad Burns criticized Tester for wanting to weaken the PATRIOT Act, he replied: "I don't want to weaken the PATRIOT Act, I want to repeal it!" Tester opposed the confirmations of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, Mike Pompeo as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Neil Gorsuch as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States for supporting the PATRIOT Act's bulk data collection provisions. On September 28, 2018, Tester announced that he would vote against confirming Brett Kavanaugh as an Associate Justice, citing among other reasons "concerns that Judge Kavanaugh defended the PATRIOT Act instead of Montanans' privacy", as Kavanaugh had helped the Bush Administration craft a program of mass domestic surveillance and ruled in favor of increased government surveillance under the PATRIOT Act in Klayman v. Obama. On April 4, 2017, Tester criticized Congress for passing a bill allowing internet service providers to collect and sell personal data and web browsing history to private companies. On May 20, 2015, Tester was one of seven Senate Democrats to join Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky in his 10-hour filibuster against reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act. Torture In May 2018, Tester said that he would not support Gina Haspel's nomination to become CIA Director. The first Democrat from a red state to express opposition to her, he cited her role in Bush administration interrogation and detention programs, and said he was "not a fan of waterboarding." Veterans affairs As ranking member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, Tester raised concerns about the nomination of Ronny Jackson to head the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. There were allegations against Jackson that he dispensed medications in a medically unethical fashion, was drunk on an overseas trip and drunkenly banged on the hotel door of a female colleague. Jackson denied the allegations but withdrew his nomination. In response, Trump called