Roy Blunt: “I thank Mr. Hoekstra for the leadership he has given on this issue. The problem we have with the bill on the floor today…”

“I thank Mr. Hoekstra for the leadership he has given on this issue. The problem we have with the bill on the floor today is, in everything I read, it can't become law. That is one problem. A bigger problem is that it doesn't address the fundamental question of how we treat these companies for doing what we asked them to do after 9/11. It is clear from all of the facts that as the FISA law anticipated, that the leaders of the House and the leaders of the Senate on the Intelligence Committee would be informed of what was going on. And, in fact, in October of 2001 and November of 2001, in March of 2002, those leaders were informed. On our side, the ranking Democrat at the time is the current Speaker of the House. Porter Goss, the future CIA director, was the chairman of the committee. They were informed on all of those occasions, and these companies only have liability protection if they were pursuing what was given to them as a lawful government order; orders that Members of Congress, including the now Speaker, were told would be issued to these companies. This program doesn't work without voluntary compliance on the foreign side. It also doesn't work without subpoenas on the American side, the U.S. side. Every U.S. effort has to include a subpoena. The 1978 law anticipated that. The law we would like to have on the books today continues that.”