Political Quotes

“The Terrorist Surveillance Program began in mid-October of 2001, and it operated until January of 2007. It operated outside of the jurisdiction of the FISA Court during that period of time. That is 5 years and 2 months, when a program operated with no court review or no court approval. Now, I must regretfully say the United States--long before this President and the prior President, but for decades--has had a rather sordid history of misusing foreign intelligence for domestic political purposes. This was well outlined in the Church Committee's report, which led to the development of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act--which is the bill we are talking about--in 1978. If you go back and read the record, you will see that President Carter signed the bill. In his signing statement, as well as the record of the deliberations of the Congress at that time, he tried to overcome this sordid history by making the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act--this bill--the exclusive authority for electronic surveillance of Americans for the purpose of foreign intelligence. That was the bottom line, so that never again could foreign intelligence be used politically against American citizens domestically. FISA has continued over the decades, and I think it has served this Nation well.”