Political Quotes

“Mr. President, the Select Committee on Intelligence has just reported a bill that would extend the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 for 5 more years. I voted against this extension in the Intelligence Committee's markup because I believe that Congress does not have enough information about this law's impact on the privacy of law-abiding American citizens, and because I am concerned about a loophole in the law that could allow the government to effectively conduct warrantless searches for Americans' communications. Consistent with my own longstanding policy and Senate rules, I am announcing with this statement for the Congressional Record that it is my intention to object to any request to pass this bill by unanimous consent. I will also explain my reasoning a bit further, in case it is helpful to any colleagues who are less familiar with this issue. Over a decade ago the intelligence community identified a problem: surveillance laws designed to protect the privacy of people inside the United States were sometimes making it hard to collect the communications of people outside the United States. The Bush administration's solution to this problem was to set up a warrantless wiretapping program, which operated in secret for a number of years. When this program became public several years ago many Americans--myself included--were shocked and appalled. Many Members of Congress denounced the Bush administration for this illegal and unconstitutional act.…”