Political Quotes

“Madam President, I came to the floor for a different reason. I want to speak about the National Security Agency and the bulk telephone metadata collection program that basically the new law took over, that there was reform of. Now, let me explain the old law and the new law that just took effect yesterday. The old law had been in effect for--I don't know the exact number of years but something in excess of 5 and less than 8. The old law said that by going to the approved court that handles classified information--called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court, known by its acronym FISA--that the government could ask for these records to come into the possession of the government by showing good cause as to why those records would be held. So it was pursuant to a court order. What were the records to be held? These are business records of the telephone company. This is not the content of the telephone call; this is the business record that says that on such and such a day, at such a time, that telephone number such and such called telephone such and such. That is called metadata. That is it; there is no content. For almost a decade, ever since we had the 9/11 attacks and we passed the PATRIOT Act to try to make it much more efficient for our National Security Agencies to protect us--those records, if the telephone company complied with the order, would be in the data-base. But it is not the content.…”