Political Quotes

“I wish to speak this afternoon about a controversial proposal, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, otherwise known as CISA, which was filed yesterday as an amendment to the Defense authorization bill. I want to begin by saying to the Senate that I believe tacking this legislation onto the Defense bill would, in my view, be a significant mistake. I expect our colleagues are going to have a wide range of views about this legislation, and I hope the Senate can agree that bills as controversial as this one ought to be subject to public debate and an open-ended process, not stapled onto unrelated legislation with only a modest amount of discussion. This is particularly true given the issue of cyber security, which is going to have a significant impact on the security and the well-being of the American people and obviously the consumer rights and the privacy of law-abiding Americans. Because it is designed to increase government collection of information from private companies, I am of the view that for the Senate to have this expansion of collecting so much information about the people of the United States, for it to have real legitimacy in the eyes of the public, it is important to have open debate, with votes on amendments from Senators who have a wide variety of opinions on the issue of cyber security. Trying to rush this bill through the Senate, in my view, is not going to increase public confidence.…”