Political Quotes

“I want everyone--especially my Republican colleagues and especially the people in the White House--to listen to what I am going to say. FISA, if we don't do something on it today, will expire. It will be out of business. The House is going out of session tonight, so unless we get to them the 30-day extension we have tried to move forward five or six times, unless we have an extension of 18 months, a year, 2 weeks, whatever the Republicans think is appropriate--if they think nothing is appropriate--then the full brunt of this law expiring is on their shoulders because it is virtually legislatively impossible to get anything done today. Remember, the House has already done what they are going to do. If we took what the Intelligence Committee passed, which is likely not going to happen, we would have to have a conference with the House. They are going out of session tonight. They are out of town on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday. So unless we do something today, the bill is not going to be enacted and the legislation we passed last August will expire. Now, the orders that have been sought and accomplished during the time since last August will still be in effect, and, of course, there will be an opportunity under the old FISA law to work on an emergency basis for new things they want to do. We want to maintain the ability to go after the bad people.…”