Zoe Lofgren: “I agree with Mr. Sensenbrenner for the reasons he has outlined that this bill should not become law. However, I am also…”

“I agree with Mr. Sensenbrenner for the reasons he has outlined that this bill should not become law. However, I am also speaking in favor of the Amash amendment that has been put in order that would fix the problems that he has so eloquently outlined. Before 702 was enacted into law, the NSA and the FBI would need to get a probable cause warrant to collect this information. We made a major change that allows this information to be collected when a foreigner is communicating with an American, and when you go to the ``abouts'' collection, which the underlying bill would codify, even when that doesn't occur, when there is merely discussion of a foreigner. That is not what I think our Constitution requires. And we did not outsource to the judicial branch or the executive branch the decision on what the Constitution requires us to do. Now, we have learned that there is a vast amount of information being collected--we can't go into the details of that in an open session, just that we have been told by Admiral Rogers the scope of this--and that the database that is so-called incidentally collected because of the architecture of the internet could be searched for Americans without a warrant is not consistent with the protections outlined in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. The Amash amendment, which is basically the USA RIGHTS Act, ends these backdoor searches by requiring a warrant. It ends reverse targeting.…”