Matt Gaetz: “I regret that I rise in opposition to this NDAA because there is a great deal of good in it, but only in Washington must…”

“I regret that I rise in opposition to this NDAA because there is a great deal of good in it, but only in Washington must we bring a bill to the floor so that we are able to militarily confront China while at the same time embracing the policies that make the United States more like China. There is no desire on the part of our great Armed Services chairman, and even the Democrats we worked with, to have an extension of spying authorities put in this bill when we have already seen those authorities just totally abused, 278,000 violations of the existing law, as the FBI has queried information regarding Americans. When the Obama-appointed inspector general was reviewing whether or not the administration was complying with existing law, they found out we were breaking the law 38 times an hour. To extend the authorities for spying that were being violated so that people at the FBI could do queries on their neighbors, their coworkers, their ex-lovers, that does not belong in the National Defense Authorization Act. Maybe we would be able to stomach some short-term extension if the underlying bill looked a little more like the product we sent out of the House of Representatives. With this NDAA conference report, you almost feel like a parent who has sent a child off to summer camp and they have come back a monster. That is what we have done. This bill came back in far worse shape.…”