Political Quotes

“Since November 2014, Senator Leahy and I have been engaged in conversations with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Member Conyers, and Congressmen Sensenbrenner and Nadler to develop a new version of the USA FREEDOM Act. After extensive negotiations with the administration, intelligence community officials, privacy and civil liberties groups, the technology industry, and other stakeholders, we introduced the USA FREEDOM Act of 2015, S. 1123/H.R. 2048, on April 28, 2015. Of course, the USA FREEDOM Act of 2015 was not introduced in a vacuum. Nearly 2 years ago, on June 5, 2013, the Guardian newspaper published an article and posted a classified FISA Court order revealing that the U.S. Government had been engaging in the bulk collection of Americans' telephone metadata. One day later, on June 6, 2013, the Washington Post published an article and posted further classified information about a separate government surveillance program called PRISM involving the collection of the contents of Internet communications. The administration subsequently acknowledged that the NSA's bulk collection of telephone metadata was being conducted pursuant to section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. The NSA's PRISM program to collect the contents of Internet communications of certain overseas targets was being conducted pursuant to section 702 of FISA, which was enacted as part of the FISA Amendments Act.…”