Political Quotes

“I know this is morning business, but I need to get people's attention back on FISA, I hope. Let me clarify some things that have been said earlier today. From time to time, some have tried to rewrite the history on what happened 1 year ago in producing the Protect America Act, our first attempt to fix the problems with foreign intelligence surveillance 1 year ago. That was not pretty, but I note there have been mischaracterizations of it. After last year, many critics of FISA, most notably in the House, tried to rewrite history and discredit ADM Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, and this compelled me to speak out on the matter at this time. He, in my view, from what I saw, acted in good faith, and he was charged with not having done so. But it seems there is another effort today to rewrite history. I can say, as vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the cosponsor of the Protect America Act, I was the lead negotiator during the final hours of the Congress, as we tried to pass a critical short-term update of our Nation's law governing terrorist surveillance.”