Representative Heather Wilson: “If my colleague would think about that for a second, you've got a tip. Most people know that a lot of big cities have…”

“If my colleague would think about that for a second, you've got a tip. Most people know that a lot of big cities have gang units. Put this in this context. You got a tip that somebody may be a terrorist overseas, but really all you have is maybe a name and maybe a phone number. That's not enough to get probable cause for a warrant. So you've got to be able to amass why is it that you think this is the person. What relationships do they have? You have to build up this whole case. And unlike something in America where it would be the gang unit in the Albuquerque Police Department or the Washington Police Department, we're talking about people in foreign countries. It's not as though you can send the FBI out to talk to their neighbors to build a case for probable cause to get a warrant to believe that this person is affiliated with a terrorist organization. So in many cases you cannot even reach that standard to get a wiretap in an emergency situation because the probable cause standard was set up to protect Americans who have rights under our Constitution with respect to law enforcement investigations. This is applying a whole body of law to something it was never really intended to be applied to.”