Political Quotes

“If I might comment on that, as you know, from our perspective, this is one of the problems. This is a very serious, important bill. It's critical to the defense of our country. I want to see that facilitated. I think every Member on both sides of the aisle wants to see that facilitated, but there are serious issues. There are serious constitutional issues involved here. That's why FISA was passed in 1978, very frankly, as a result of an administration that intercepted communications here domestically. You will recall that, I know, and a great concern about that. FISA was adopted by the Congress and signed by the President in an attempt to try to ensure that those kinds of things that happened in the early 1970s were not repeated by the intelligence community. So these are serious issues. Unfortunately, the Senate which had our bill for 22 months and had spent a lot of time considering a bill long before we passed our bill did not send us a bill until, as I said, about 14 days ago, and we have since that time, notwithstanding the fact we were on break, staff and Members have been working on that. As you know, we have invited the other side of the aisle, ranking members, to participate in that. Some have chosen not to, but we are hopeful that we can move ahead on this, and we hope there is room for positive resolution. I thank the gentleman for yielding.”