Political Quotes

“This is a striking amendment to strike the language in the bill out of the Intelligence Committee that would provide for retroactive immunity to the telecom industry. It has been debated at length. This amendment strikes that language in the bill, conforms it to what has been adopted by the other body in its legislation dealing with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act suggestions and recommendations, and conforms it to what has been included in the Senate Judiciary Committee bill. So while there have been three different committees that have reported their suggestions to the Congress on this issue, the committees in the House of Representatives and one committee here have reached different conclusions than that of the Intelligence Committee, where they have recommended that retroactive immunity be granted to the telecom industry for having kept over the last 5 years sort of a vacuum-cleaner approach to telephone conversations, faxes, e-mails that have been engaged in by Americans across the board. This goes back immediately to after 9/11. As I said, had this been a temporary deviation from the norm, particularly in the wake of 9/11, I would not be standing here asking that retroactive immunity not be granted. But this program went on for 5 years. It only came to an end because of a revelation by whistleblowers and others that the program stopped.”