Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, it's incredulous what I am hearing here today from my friends on the other side of the aisle. I was a U.S. Attorney and used the PATRIOT Act. I debated it, I lectured it, and I put a terrorist away by using the PATRIOT Act. I was also a district attorney, and it was easier for me to get a warrant for documents as a district attorney than it was for me to get documents pursuant to the PATRIOT Act. I just could not sign a document and go get papers and have a wiretap. I had to go through a FISA judge. It had to go through my first assistant, myself, the Justice Department, a judge, and then back to the office for a signature. {time} 1930 There are absolutely no circumstances where I could get information from a citizen who we believed to be a terrorist or to be involved in terrorism by not getting a warrant. An example is the roving wiretap. The roving wiretap was designed for one specific reason. Wiretaps, when the wiretap law went into effect, were based on a phone being on a wall in a particular location. Over the years, because of cell phones, terrorists, criminals, and drug dealers were buying-- and are still buying--cell phones in the 5, 10, and 20 batches, using them for several minutes, dropping them, continuing the same crime, and just switching to a new cell phone. The law allowed us not to have to go after a new warrant for each cell phone. That was logical because the phone was not attached to a wall in a particular location; they were roving.…”