Political Quotes

“I rise to speak on an issue that is critical to our constitutional rights and our national security. The revelation and subsequent declassification of the National Security Agency's intelligence gathering programs have shocked Americans in ways that I long ago had telegraphed. We are having a spirited and critical debate about what the right balance between privacy and security ought to be. With regards to NSA activity, I am introducing bipartisan legislation today, with several senators of both parties, designed to narrow Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, known also as the ``business records'' provision, to better balance the authorities we give the federal government while protecting our constitutional rights. More specifically, my legislation would prevent the federal government from collecting millions of law-abiding Americans' phone call records without first establishing some nexus to terrorism. We all expect the NSA to target terrorists, but the revelations in the past few weeks have made clear that the information of millions of law-abiding Americans is being swept up in the process. Let me start by saying that I continue to feel that a number of the permanent PATRIOT Act provisions should remain in place to give our intelligence community important tools to fight terrorism.…”