Carol Shea-Porter: “I am happy to be here. I am standing here tonight at 10:30 for the same reason that we are all here, because we believe…”

“I am happy to be here. I am standing here tonight at 10:30 for the same reason that we are all here, because we believe that it's our obligation, our duty to defend the Constitution. This Constitution is a gift that has been handed to us through the centuries, and it's the envy of the world. This is what differentiates us from other nations. To give you an idea of our Founding Fathers and what they thought about this, at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked, What have you wrought? And he said, A Republic, if you can keep it. So they understood even then that we would have to defend this Constitution against well-meaning people who believed that they had to give up some liberty in order to make themselves safe. This is not the first time in our history that we have faced peril, as you know. This has been an ongoing issue for us through the centuries. There are always countries that wish to do us harm, and it is our obligation to keep ourselves safe and to keep the American public safe. But that is not what this argument is about, as you know, because we have FISA, and FISA is in effect. Now the President more than suggested that the intelligence community went dark and that they would be unable to do any surveillance. But the reality is, and the President and the Justice Department had to admit recently, that the wiretaps could still go on.”