Political Quotes

“My understanding of my colleague's request--and that was my point of once again coming back to bulk collection of phone records, past practices with respect to tracking people on cell phones, and any policies that may be examined for the future--I think my colleague is saying it is time to ask some tough questions. Many of these amendments we have been working on are basically designed to address these issues where we haven't been able to get answers in the past. After 9/11, it was clear the people of our country were worried and there was just a sense that if you were told it was about security, you were supposed to say, OK. That is it. But that is not the kind of oversight the Congress--particularly after we had a time stamp on the PATRIOT Act, we all thought it was going to end, and then it was time to start asking the tough questions. And not enough tough questions have been asked. And my colleague in the amendments we are talking about really seeks to get answers and use that information to change practices on a lot of these areas that have really gotten short shrift in the past. I appreciate my colleague talking about the FISA Court in connection with this. This is, for listeners, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court--certainly one of the most bizarre judicial bodies in our country's history, created to apply commonly understood legal concepts, such as probable cause, to the government's request for warrants to track terrorists and spies.…”