Political Quotes

“I thank the Presiding Officer. God forbid tomorrow morning we wake up to the news that a member of ISIL is in the United States and Federal agencies need to determine who this person is coordinating with to carry out a potential attack within the homeland. One of the tools they will use is a tool that allows them to see the people they have been calling and interacting with so we can disrupt that cell before they carry out a horrifying attack that could kill millions of American people. Today we are able to do that because of a program that collects those records and keeps them--not in the hands of anyone who is looking at them on a regular basis but keeps them readily available for the government so the government can access those records and disrupt that plot. What this bill would do is take that apart. In essence, it would ask the companies to keep those records--at least in the hopes that they would. Under this plan, if this were to pass, if suddenly we were to go target these members of ISIL and find out whom they are coordinating with, those records may not be there and that plot may indeed go forward. That would be a horrifying result. Here is why this doesn't make sense.…”