Bruce L. Braley: “while President Bush and congressional Republicans sit on the sideline demanding that this House rubber-stamp the…”

“while President Bush and congressional Republicans sit on the sideline demanding that this House rubber-stamp the Senate-passed FISA bill, House and Senate Democrats are doing exactly what's expected of us, working to iron out differences between different FISA bills passed earlier in the two Chambers. Last November, the House passed the RESTORE Act that modernizes the FISA law by giving the intelligence community the tools it needs to track terrorists while protecting the constitutional rights of innocent Americans. The Bush administration objects to our legislation because we oppose giving blanket immunity to telecommunications companies who turned over information about their customers. Today, our committees continue to review telecom documents so that we can ensure the companies' actions are thoroughly reviewed and they are held appropriately accountable. Madam Speaker, despite the fear-mongering from the President, his own administration says the intelligence community still has access to all the information it did last month. We have time to get this critical legislation right, and that's exactly what we plan to do.”