Xavier Becerra: “Mr. Chairman, we need to do everything we can to give our law enforcement men and women the tools they need. This bill…”

“Mr. Chairman, we need to do everything we can to give our law enforcement men and women the tools they need. This bill does a lot to go that route of giving them the resources, the tools they need. One of the tools they do not need is the ability to violate the Constitution. One of the tools they do not need is the ability to violate our privacy rights. I don't believe any officer from Customs would stand here and say that is what I want. I can understand if they are saying we want to have any frivolous lawsuit against our conduct while engaging in the scope of our authority, that that should not be appropriate; that those lawsuits while they were acting in the scope of their authority should not be appropriate. Those frivolous lawsuits, absolutely. In fact, this substitute has language which, as I said before, would not permit monetary damages against a law enforcement official acting within his scope of authority. So I would hope that the Members of this body will recognize that this substitute is reasonable, it is sensibly based, and it tries to go after the problem that Customs tried to identify, which completely missed in providing some exceptions to constitutional law which have no place in this good legislation.”