Political Quotes

“Thank you very much, Mr. Conyers. I certainly appreciate that. I will certainly never seek to impugn the feelings of those who say that we have to have the PATRIOT Act in order to protect our country. We are all patriots here, and we all want America to be protected; but we have to recognize our constitutional experience here and the reason why we have a Fourth Amendment that protects people not just from unreasonable search and seizure, but from unwarranted intrusion by the government into their lives. When we look at our constitutional experience and all of the efforts that made it and built up to it, we didn't hear ``give my liberty or give me a wiretap.'' We didn't hear ``don't tread on me, but it is okay to spy.'' What we heard was a ringing declaration about freedom, and it was enshrined in the Constitution. I stood on the floor of the House way back when the Patriot Act came forward, voted against it because I read it and understood that it opened up the door for a broad reach and possibilities of broad reach by the government into our daily lives. The gentleman from Wisconsin, who is my friend, correctly pointed out earlier the difference between National Security Letters and the Patriot Act. But it also is true that section 505 of the Patriot Act gave the government the ability to greatly expand who could issue a national security letter, so much so that nearly 50,000 national security letters were issued by the FBI in 2006, I think the year was.…”