Political Quotes

“I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment. The USA FREEDOM Act that reformed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was the product of nearly a year of carefully considered negotiation and debate. It passed the House last month with an overwhelming bipartisan majority of 303 votes, but now, we have an amendment to an appropriations bill that makes major legislative changes to FISA with only 10 minutes of debate, and it makes our country less safe. It would prohibit the urgent search of lawfully-collected information to thwart a bomb plot against a synagogue in Los Angeles, a church in Maryland, or the New York Stock Exchange. It has no emergency exceptions, and it basically says that what you can do to stop a criminal in this country, you can't do to stop a terrorist. That is wrong. We cannot allow this to happen. We will continue to work on FISA and our other national security laws to maximize privacy and civil liberties, especially for U.S. persons, but we must do so carefully and deliberately. We must make sure to also keep our country and our allies safe from terrorist attacks. Ultimately, while I applaud these Members for continuing to look for ways to reform our intelligence laws, we shouldn't be doing this on an appropriations bill with only 10 minutes of debate.”