Political Quotes

“The answer is no--a flat no. Our committee bill only allows the targeting of persons outside the United States to obtain foreign intelligence information. It is not dragnet surveillance. The targets of acquisition must be foreign targets and they must be suspected terrorists or spies. The Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence, whom I will refer to as the DNI, must certify that a significant purpose of the acquisition is to obtain foreign intelligence information. For example, if a foreign target is believed to be an agent or a member of al-Qaida, then all communications of that target could be intercepted. Only Americans who communicate with suspected terrorists abroad will have those specific communications monitored. If those same communications turn out to be innocent, they will be minimized, which is intel community speak for suppressed, so that Americans' privacy interests are protected. It is very misleading and nonfactual to suggest that the intelligence community is spying on parents who are calling their children overseas or students who are talking with their friends, or on our own soldiers in the battlefield.”