Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chair, I would just point out that my good friend from Ohio says that we are searching foreigners in this database. Well, if we are just searching foreigners, why do we have this distinction called ``U.S. person queries''? If you are just searching the bad guys, that is one thing, but you are not or you wouldn't have violated U.S. person inquiries 278,000 times. That is the fundamental distinction. You can search all the bad guys you want--that is what we want. Do surveillance on them. They are in the database. You want more about them in the database, go do it. But if you want to search an American-- their name, their phone number, their email address--you have to get a warrant. That is all this does. We shouldn't make it too complicated. That is all this does. Mr. Himes just used the term, ``U.S. person queries.'' That is not a foreigner, that is someone here in the United States who is a person, and they are being searched. All we are saying is if you are going to do that, go get a warrant from a separate and equal branch of government.”