Political Quotes

“Well, I want to thank the Senator from Oregon for the great questions and also for being supportive and really being the lead figure from the Intelligence Committee trying to make this better. I think so often our Intelligence Committees don't have enough people who are really concerned with the Bill of Rights as well as national defense, so we get a one-sided view of things. I think over the years you have been able to continue this battle in a healthy way, understanding both sides of it, both with national security but also understanding that who we are as a people is important and that we not give that up--that we not give up our most basic of freedoms in doing this. I think that power tends to be something people don't give up on easily. So when you have power that you give to people, you have to have oversight. It is incredibly important that we do have oversight on what we are giving up, but it is also important that we see what has gone wrong. The FISA Court model hasn't worked to oversee and regulate the NSA, because when finally a real court looked at this, when finally the appellate court looked at this, what we find is that the appellate court was aghast that basically they were maintaining that this was relevant to an investigation. Apparently, the way the process worked was the NSA said it was relevant, but there was no debate or dispute. It was just accepted at face value.…”