Political Quotes

“I think my colleague has asked very good questions, and it is my intention to rejoin him here in a few minutes. But I think it is important--and I would be interested in your reaction--do people understand what is at stake here? We are talking about section 702 of the FISA Act and that involves a very important issue of making sure, when there is somebody dangerous overseas, that we can, in effect, go up on that person to get that kind of information that we have to have. But what we are seeing increasingly--and we have actually put it on our Web site--Americans are being swept up in those searches and their emails are being read. And what is especially troubling to me--and I would be interested in my colleague's views with respect to this backdoor search loophole-- this is a problem today, but it is only going to be a growing problem in the days ahead because increasingly communications systems around the globe are merging. They are becoming integrated. It is not as if the communications systems stop at a nation's border. So I think this is a particularly important issue. As we have talked about, the amendments we are interested in offering, I think this is a particularly important bipartisan effort. I don't think people have known a whole lot about how the backdoor search loophole takes place. We have supported section 702, because when there are dangerous threats overseas, we want our government to be able to ensure it is taking steps to protect the American people.…”