Political Quotes

“Ladies and gentlemen, with the passage of the USA FREEDOM Act today, the House will have done its part to enact historic and sweeping reforms to the government's surveillance program and powers. This legislation ends bulk collection, creates a panel of experts to guide the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and mandates extensive government reporting. Today we have a rare opportunity to restore a measure of restraint to surveillance programs that have simply gone too far. For years the government has read section 215 of the PATRIOT Act to mean that it may collect all domestic telephone records merely because some of them may be relevant at some time in the future. Last week, endorsing a view that I and many of my colleagues have held for years, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that ``the text of section 215 cannot bear the weight the government asks us to assign it, and it does not authorize the telephone metadata program.'' Now, with section 215 set to expire on June 1, we have the opportunity--and the obligation--to act clearly and decisively and end the program that has infringed on our rights for far too long. A vote in favor of the USA FREEDOM Act is an explicit rejection of the government's unlawful interpretation of section 215 and similar statutes. Put another way, a vote in favor of this bill is a vote to end dragnet surveillance in the United States. Mr.…”