Political Quotes

“I know there are a number of Members coming down, and I do not want to hold them up, but I do want to point out that my good friend, the senior Senator from Pennsylvania, was concerned that the President's terrorist surveillance program was not briefed to Members of Congress. It is my understanding it was briefed to the leadership of the Intelligence Committee and the leadership on both sides. Personally, I would have preferred that more Members be briefed, but it is my understanding that when these leaders were briefed, it was their view that in light of the urgency and the need and the difficulties of explaining what we were going to do prior to--which could delay the implementation of the terrorist surveillance program, that it was a consensus of these meetings that the President should not bring a measure before Congress modifying FISA to take account of the new means of electronic surveillance and electronic communication. Secondly, my good friend, the senior Senator from Connecticut, in his comments urged that we ban reverse targeting. I would call his attention to section 703(b), subparagraph 2 and subparagraph 3, which do explicitly ban targeting of overseas terrorist activities in order to gain information on U.S. persons. That is explicitly banned.”