Jackie Speier: “I thank the gentleman. I want to address one section of this bill that would now allow individuals to record telephone…”

“I thank the gentleman. I want to address one section of this bill that would now allow individuals to record telephone and in-person conversations with Federal employees. This would preempt the law in my State of California and in the chairman's State of California and in 11 other States that require the consent of all parties to a conversation. It contains no exceptions for law enforcement, sensitive communications, the military or anything else. The FBI has already indicated to us that it strongly opposes this bill because, in its words, ``this proposal risks undermining criminal investigations by reducing the willingness of individuals to cooperate with law enforcement and would result in the creation of recordings of law enforcement conversations that could jeopardize sensitive and important criminal and counterterrorism investigations.'' I think this is ill-founded. Even the ACLU, which strongly supports the principle of allowing citizens to record law enforcement interactions, does not support the provision in this bill because it ``threatens to impermissibly interfere with government workers' constitutional liberties.'' So this is a bill in search of a problem that actually makes it harder to go after real criminals, and this bill does not apply to this body, to Members of Congress. Maybe it's time for this bill's authors to look a little closer to home.”