Roy Blunt: “Mr. Speaker, the law in place today, the law that we brought up to today's technical standards in August, is essentially…”

“Mr. Speaker, the law in place today, the law that we brought up to today's technical standards in August, is essentially the law that the Congress passed in 1978, a Congress that had a majority of Democrats in it. Jimmy Carter, President Carter, signed that bill, and it has worked for 30 years now. The way this bill is drafted, the administration would be forced to seek warrants, as Mr. Smith just said, for foreign targets in case they might call the United States. If Osama bin Laden calls the United States, we should know it. If Osama bin Laden calls and it turns out to be a call that didn't matter, there are ways to minimize that. In all likelihood, if Osama bin Laden called, it shouldn't be a matter that we shouldn't know about. If he calls to order a pizza and says 'deliver the pizza to cave 56 in Bora Bora,' that is something we ought to know at that minute. We should not have to go to court to monitor these calls, just in case they call somebody in the United States. Granting what in essence is de facto fourth amendment constitutional rights to noncitizens who are not in this country makes no sense at all. It is not the right direction. We need a permanent fix. This bill does not contain, as my good friend Mr. Conyers said, retroactive liability. We need to have liability for those companies that stepped up after 9/11 and immediately helped the country begin to monitor the things we needed to monitor.”