Political Quotes

“Members of the House, several months ago on October 16, 2007, to be exact, the House passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act legislation, known as the RESTORE Act. In the view of this Member, the RESTORE Act was a reasonable and balanced one giving the administration the power it needs to combat terrorism while protecting our precious rights and liberties. The legislation before us today, which I concede includes significant improvements over the Senate legislation, goes beyond what I think was a reasonable bottom line in the form of the RESTORE Act. Title I of the bill continues the House approach by providing mechanisms to ensure that FISA's longstanding exclusivity is crystal clear. It states only a new statute directly addressing the executive branch's foreign intelligence surveillance authority can modify FISA. Secondly, it provides sunshine by requiring that the government requests to private parties for surveillance assistance must actually cite the statutory authority under which they're issued. Now in earlier versions of FISA reform, the administration claimed that prior court approval of procedures for overseas surveillance would hurt national security. This matter is now laid to rest with the consensus that upfront court review is indeed appropriate.”