Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I thank my colleague. He and I have worked on this. He is really outlining the hypocrisy behind what has been going on over the past few days. Mr. President, due process ought to apply as it relates to guns, but due process wouldn't apply as it relates to the Internet activity of millions of Americans. My view is that the country wants policies that promote safety and liberty. Increasingly, we are getting policies that do not do much of either. Supporters of this amendment, the McCain amendment, have suggested that Americans need to choose between protecting their security and protecting their constitutional right to privacy. The fact is, this amendment doesn't improve either. What it does is, it gives an FBI field office new authority to administratively scoop up Americans' digital records, their email and chat records, their text message logs, Web-browsing history, and certain types of location information without ever going to a judge. The reason this is unnecessary--and it is something I believe in very strongly and worked hard for it in the FREEDOM Act--there is a very specific section in the FREEDOM Act, which I worked for and authored in a separate effort in 2013, that allows the FBI to demand all of these records--all of the records I described--in an emergency and then go get court approval after the fact. So unless you are opposed to court oversight, even after the fact, there is no reason to support this amendment.…”