Political Quotes

“I think my colleagues have made an excellent point today in outlining all the details of how this program works. Let me back up and point out why we are even having this debate, other than the fact that it is expiring. It is because the perception has been created--including by political figures who serve in this Chamber--that the U.S. Government is listening to your phone calls or going through your bills as a matter of course. That is absolutely categorically false. The next time that any politician--Senator, Congressman--talking head, whoever it may be, stands up and says ``The U.S. Government is listening to your phone calls or going through your phone records,'' they are lying. It is not true, except for some very isolated instances--in the hundreds--of individuals for whom there is reasonable suspicion that they could have links to terrorism. Those of us in this culture in our society are often accused of having a short attention span. We forget that less than a year ago, Russian separatists shot down a commercial airliner armed by the Russians. Maybe even the Russians themselves did it. We forget that it was not long ago that Assad was using chemical weapons to slaughter people in Syria. The world moves on. What we should never forget is what happened here on the 11th of September of the year 2001. There are a number of seminal moments in American history that people always remember. They remember when President Kennedy was assassinated.…”