On the recordJanuary 11, 2018
I oppose the amendment and support the underlying bill. I served a year in Iraq, and every day we got foreign intelligence information to us. Why? Because it helped us prepare. It helped us plan. It helped us deter. It helped us save American lives--not only the lives of our troops in theater, but the lives of people at home. I am all in favor of protecting American citizens and their privacy; do not get me wrong. I hope that, in the information we collected in theater, there were no Americans involved. But guess what this amendment will do. It will virtually guarantee that terrorists are going to make sure that they have an American, complicit or otherwise, involved with every one of their communications, email, or through a phone call. Why? Because that protects them. That will protect terrorists. That is what this amendment would do. That is why I oppose the amendment and stand in favor of the underlying bill.
