Martin Heinrich: “I wish to expound on that point a bit, about the many other ways the government can legitimately acquire phone records…”

“I wish to expound on that point a bit, about the many other ways the government can legitimately acquire phone records of terrorism suspects, because I think this is a very important point to understand the tools that already exist that have been very effective and have proven themselves over time. There are actually a number of legal authorities that can get the same information without the government collecting billions of call records--billions of call records that, in large part, belong to innocent Americans. For example, the Stored Communications Act permits the government to obtain precisely the same call records that are now acquired through bulk collection under section 215 when they are ``relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation.'' Additionally, national security letters, which I point out do not require a court order, can also be used by the government to obtain call records for intelligence purposes. Further, the government can also acquire telephony metadata on a real-time basis by obtaining orders from either regular Federal courts or the FISC for the installation of pen registers or trap-and-trace devices. Finally, individualized orders for phone records, as opposed to orders authorizing broad bulk collection, can also be obtained under section 215. I think those of us early in this debate thought that was what was going to occur under the PATRIOT Act in the first place.…”