Political Quotes

“So in conclusion, the bottom line is, we have a bill passed by the Senate Intelligence Committee 13 to 2, passed by the Senate with 68 affirmative votes. I believe it was 28 or 29 negative votes-- clearly, a bipartisan effort. The President has indicated he would sign this legislation. It has now been 19 days since it has been sent to the House of Representatives which said it needed 3 weeks to get the job done. During that period of time, we have lost intelligence--we do not know how critical. We will never know because we will never gather it. The phone call was made yesterday or the day before or the day before that. It is gone now, and we cannot go back and get it. But what we can do is ensure that from now on we are going to collect that critical intelligence. Unless this legislation is passed, the telecommunications companies that are critical to the collection of this intelligence are less and less likely to support our efforts. That is why it is critical this legislation, rather than some other version of it, be passed. Mr. President, I urge the House leadership to call up this legislation. Next week is the last week it can be acted on before yet another 2-week recess. The House recessed before without adopting it.”