John Rutherford: “I thank the gentleman from Ohio for yielding. Mr. Chair, I rise today in strong support of this bill and equally strong…”

“I thank the gentleman from Ohio for yielding. Mr. Chair, I rise today in strong support of this bill and equally strong opposition to the amendment. Simply put, this amendment ties the hands of our intelligence community, making all of us less safe. This amendment requires the IC to get a probable cause warrant to search a set of data that has legally been collected. Our intelligence community must have access to legally collected, pertinent information, and we should not be adding roadblocks. As a former law enforcement officer, I strongly believe in the civil liberties of all Americans. I spent my life protecting them. However, this amendment does not provide any more protection to Americans. All this amendment does is gut 702, giving to terrorists, adversaries, and bad actors a major win. Restricting access to already legally collected data makes us all less safe, and 702 is a vital piece of our security and must be preserved. Mr. Chair, I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment.”