Sam Farr: “while we are locked up here today, I would like to wish my wife Sherry a very happy birthday. This week, I have been…”

“while we are locked up here today, I would like to wish my wife Sherry a very happy birthday. This week, I have been telling her, has been a real doozy for civil liberties. We learned that both the Pentagon and the National Security Agency have been spying on thousands of innocent Americans. Apparently, the NSA was doing it at the direction of President Bush. I was shocked to learn that one of those documented instances of the Pentagon domestic spying happened in my district. A student protest against military recruiters at the University of California at Santa Cruz, which occurred this past April, was not only observed for suspicious activity, but the ``threat'' was declared ``credible.'' I cannot condemn these actions strongly enough. Using government time and money to spy on people exercising their constitutional freedoms is just ridiculous. I have already signed on to two letters about these violations of privacy, calling on the NSA to fully explain the constitutionality of their surveillances and calling on the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice to investigate NSA's actions. As Members of Congress, we must be diligent in our oversight of the Pentagon, but our job is next to impossible when the administration hides behind the cloak of national security to thwart the civil liberties of many Americans, as they have done with the Pentagon surveillance program.…”