Political Quotes

“Mr. President, let me point out there are no recent cases of abuse of these authorities. The oversight system in place is working well, I believe, to ensure they will not be misused in the future. Other Senators may come to this floor and talk about abuses of these authorities, but I ask: Listen carefully. Chances are they are talking about a section not involved here, and that is the section on national security letters. Again, national security letters are not touched by these three sections we are renewing today. And I would say, yes, they were abused or misused in years past, according to the Inspector General of the Department of Justice. But corrections have been made since then. More important, for today's debate, there is nothing we are taking up today that affects or mentions national security letters at all. I have referred to this now four times. I hope I get it across because that is what happened last time. People came to the floor and what they were talking about was not in the legislation we were considering. Earlier this year, I was pleased to support legislation authored by Senator Leahy that would have made several improvements in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in order to better protect privacy rights and civil liberties. But the point I made during the debate in the Judiciary Committee, which I will repeat again today, is that many of these changes were in fact codifying practices the Department of Justice and the FBI have already implemented.…”