Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, for starters, we need to examine why we are being hustled to do this today. When we extended FISA earlier, there was a provision in the bill that allowed the FISA court to extend, and they have taken advantage of that. They have extended FISA until June of 2025, and so I think we are being hustled here today for a reason, which is to prevent the Constitution from being applied to FISA. Mr. Speaker, under the amendment being offered, a warrant would be required for a search of the data of U.S. persons. This is important. It would exclude imminent threats; exigent circumstances, as any warrant does; or exclude cases where a person consents to a search or where there is cybersecurity. It excludes metadata. It is important to note that the FBI executed more than 200,000 warrantless searches of U.S. persons in 2022, including 141 Black Lives Matter protesters, 2 Members of Congress, journalists, commentators, political parties, donors to political campaigns. It is really outrageous. The base bill is insufficient to protect us. There are two major points that it makes. Neither makes any sense or any difference. The big deal is a prohibition on U.S. person queries that are conducted solely for the evidence of a crime. That sounds good until it is realized that the FBI almost never does that. In fact, in 2022, there were only two cases in which that provision would have been a prohibition. The second issue is codifying the regulations about searches by the FBI today.…”