Political Quotes

“I thank my good friend from Florida for his willingness to come to the floor and talk facts. I see my good friend from Arizona here. Before I yield, let me just restate what the Senator from Florida asked me, which was, geez, we need a longer transition period and we need something addressed on the data that is held. I say for my colleagues that there will be three votes at some point. One will be on a substitute amendment. It has the exact same language as the USA FREEDOM bill. It makes two changes to the USA FREEDOM bill. It has a requirement that the telecoms notify the government 6 months in advance of any change in the retention program for their data, which I think is very reasonable. The second would be that it requires the Director of National Intelligence to certify, on whatever the transition date is, that the software that needs to be provided to the telecoms has been provided so that search can go through. In addition to that, there will be two other amendments. The first will deal with expanding the transition period from the current 6 months in the USA FREEDOM bill to 12 months. Again, I would have preferred 24 months. We have settled on 12 months. The last thing is that it would change the current amicus language in the bill to reflect something provided to us by the courts. It was the court's recommendation that we change it. This would be easier to fit within a program that has a time sensitivity to it.…”