Political Quotes

“I thank the Chair. I will speak out of our time in order to respond to a couple points. I also wish to commend my colleague Senator Merkley from Oregon for his excellent statement. He has been doing yeoman's work in terms of trying to promote accountability and transparency on this issue and the work he has done in the Senate. I am going to correct a couple of misconceptions about what has been said and also talk on behalf of the good work Senator Merkley is doing. With respect to this amendment I will be offering, I believe the Senate cannot say we passed the smell test with respect to doing vigorous oversight if we don't have some sense of how many Americans in our country who are communicating with each other are being swept up under this legislation. For purposes of the FISA Amendments Act, I think we ought to know, generally, how many Americans are being swept up under the legislation. Oversight essentially would be toothless without this kind of information. I wish to correct one misconception with respect to where we are on the language in the reporting amendment. The distinguished chair of the committee urged Senators to visit the offices of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to see the documents the chair has stated relate to intelligence officials who say it is impossible for them to estimate the number of law-abiding Americans who have had their communications swept up under the legislation.…”