Representative Heather Wilson: “I would like to start out first by correcting a few misstatements and giving a few facts. The first is that somehow…”

“I would like to start out first by correcting a few misstatements and giving a few facts. The first is that somehow anything less than a warrant on an international phone call erodes civil liberties that we have enjoyed 219 years and does some violation to the Constitution. The truth is that limitations on gathering foreign intelligence in the United States is relatively recent. It was the FISA law passed in 1978 that really set out the first limitations on the gathering of foreign intelligence within the United States. In World War II, all international communications were subject to listening. In World War I, the government not only listened to international calls but opened the mail. Shortly after the invention of the telegraph during the Civil War we were intercepting communications. The constitutional test is reasonableness, and this bill is reasonable. I thank my colleague from Florida for bringing forward this rule today, but I think it is important to understand why we are here. We are trying to modernize the Electronic Surveillance Acts of this country so that we allow our intelligence agencies to collect the intelligence to keep us safe, while also putting in place rules of the road to protect American civil liberties.”