On the recordMay 22, 2015
I rise today to discuss the votes the Senate will soon take relating to three expiring provisions in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I will vote to support the USA FREEDOM Act, the bill passed by the House last week by a vote of 338 to 88, and strongly urge my colleagues to do the same. In my view, this is the only action that we can take right now that will prevent important intelligence authorities from expiring at the end of next week. Let me describe the situation in a little more detail. On Monday morning at 12:01 a.m. on June 1, three separate sections of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, will expire. Two of those provisions were first added to FISA in 2001 in the USA PATRIOT Act, shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11. They are the business records section, also known as section 215, and the roving wiretap provision. The business records provision was originally intended to allow the government to go to the FISA Court to get an order to be able to obtain a variety of records relevant to an investigation. The authority was, and remains, very important for the FBI. Since 2006, the business records authority in FISA has also been used by the NSA to get telephone metadata records from telephone companies-- the records of the telephone numbers and the time and duration of a call. Metadata does not include the content or the location or names of the individuals on the phone.…
