Political Quotes

“Mr. President, on January 25, I introduced S. 149, the FISA Sunsets Extension Act of 2011 to extend the three expiring provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act--the authority to conduct, subject to court order, so-called ``roving wiretaps,'' ``lone wolf'' surveillance, and collection of business records. S. 149 was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. Today, I am reintroducing that legislation with a new, identical bill. This new bill, just as S. 149 would do, will extend these three authorities, otherwise set to expire on February 28, to December 31, 2013. The bill will also change the expiration date of the intelligence collection authorities provided in the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 so they, too, last until the end of 2013. The sole purpose of reintroducing the measure is to begin the process under Senate rule XIV to place the reintroduced extension bill on the Senate calendar. The three provisions of FISA will sunset in a little more than 3 weeks. One of those weeks is a congressional recess. By placing the extension bill on the Senate calendar, we will, at least, be one procedural step closer to acting. On January 28, Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper wrote to urge Congress to grant a reauthorization of sufficient duration to provide intelligence and law enforcement agencies with reasonable certainty and predictability concerning the tools available to them.…”