Political Quotes

“given the events of yesterday, this is the last opportunity for the next 5 years for the Congress to exercise a modest measure of real oversight over this intelligence surveillance law. Here is why. Colleagues, it is not real oversight when the Congress cannot get a yes or no answer to the question of whether an estimate currently exists as to whether law-abiding Americans have had their phone calls and e-mails swept up under the FISA law. That is the case today. Colleagues, it is not real oversight when the Congress cannot get a yes or no answer to the question of whether wholly domestic communications between law-abiding Americans in this country have been warrantlessly intercepted under the law. That is the case today. Colleagues, it is not real oversight when National Security Agency leadership states in a public forum that the Agency does not keep dossiers on millions of Americans and yet they will not give the Congress a yes or no answer as to whether the Agency collects any sort of data on millions of Americans. That is not the case today. What this amendment does is it gives us the opportunity to do real oversight--real oversight--by getting yes or no answers to questions that have been asked repeatedly by members of the Intelligence Committee.…”