Political Quotes

“I would like to alert my colleagues that I intend to object to any unanimous consent agreement for the consideration of S. 1145, the Civilian Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, CEJA. While I joined in supporting a vote to report S. 1145 out of the Judiciary Committee, my vote does not signal my support for the legislation in its current form. Unless changes are made to address my concerns with the legislation, I will continue to object. I oppose S. 1145 in its current form because it does not include a sufficient carve-out for intelligence, law enforcement, or protective assignments by U.S. Government employees abroad. The current version of S. 1145 does include a carve-out for intelligence activities, but the current version of the intelligence carve-out is problematic. There is repetition in the language and extraneous language is unnecessary. Further, under the current carve-out an intelligence agent may not be protected from prosecution, even though he was authorized to undertake an operation. The current provision in the bill would require that a supervisor's directive be authorized and also be ``consistent with applicable U.S. law.'' This extra requirement opens up a world of questions. How should an agent in the field know his supervisor's instruction was ``consistent with applicable U.S. law''? Will this provision now require agents to obtain a legal opinion before they take action?…”