Political Quotes

“I rise in opposition to another amendment that has been argued very strongly on the other side but which would impose additional operational burdens and limit the ability of our collective agencies in the intelligence community to get the information they need and to be able to use it to keep our country safe. We have gone through all of these, and we have worked to develop much greater protections for American citizens. One of the protections the American citizens seek from us is the protection from foreign attack and terrorist attack. If we hamstring our intelligence community--as they were hamstrung under the new techniques under the old FISA law-- you will find out we cannot collect the information we need. This burden--this superexclusionary rule--goes far beyond what is necessary to protect American citizens. While supporters of the amendment may argue that a similar rule appears elsewhere in FISA, it is important to remember that rule is limited to individual domestic surveillance and searches, where the court has found there is no probable cause to target that person. That is very different and is a very important protection for Americans from searches and seizures and surveillance without a court order--not a properly developed court order. This amendment tries to apply that same rule to foreign targeting, when there may be a deficiency identified in the targeting or minimization procedures.”