Political Quotes

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the Senate amendment to H.R. 514 extends the three expiring provisions of the Patriot Act for only 90 days. I am disappointed that the Senate refused to agree to the 10-month extension approved by the House earlier this week. Repeated short-term extensions of these authorities create uncertainty for our intelligence agencies. They don't know if the tools they rely on to keep America safe today will be available to them tomorrow. That is why the House sought a 10- month extension, to allow sufficient time to reauthorize the law while providing greater certainty to the intelligence community. With adoption of this amendment, the House and Senate will now have to move expeditiously to approve a Patriot reauthorization bill so we can avoid the need for another short-term extension. It is important that the House approves this 90-day extension today to keep the expiring intelligence-gathering provisions in place. In a recent letter to Congress, Director of National Intelligence Admiral Clapper and Attorney General Holder said that ``it is essential that these intelligence tools be reauthorized before they expire'' and they ``have been used in numerous highly sensitive intelligence collection operations.'' Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned that ``the terrorist threat . . .…”