Ed Royce: “I rise in opposition as ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Terrorism Subcommittee. And I can share this: there has…”

“I rise in opposition as ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Terrorism Subcommittee. And I can share this: there has not been a terrorist attack on our soil since 9/11, and that is due in part to the improved surveillance in real-time that we are able to conduct against foreign terrorists. There is no disputing that. I cannot help but feel that many of my colleagues have become so blinded by their hatred of this administration that they have put the threat from radical jihadists in the back of their mind. But given the threat, it is unfathomable that we would weaken our most effective preventive tool, and that is exactly what this bill does. Before we unilaterally disarm, before we hobble our ability to listen in real-time to the very real terrorists who are plotting against our country around this globe, shouldn't we have something of an accounting of the supposed civil liberties price we are paying? I asked the Congressional Research Service for such an accounting. They reported there is no available evidence of the type of privacy violations critics are pointing at. The case can't be proven. But under this bill, for the first time this bill would stop intelligence professionals from conducting surveillance of foreign persons in foreign countries unless they can read the mind of their terrorist targets and guarantee that they would not call into the United States, that they would not call one of their people here.”