Mike Conaway: “I thank my colleague from Utah. While I am not unappreciative of my colleague from California's comments, I do think we…”

“I thank my colleague from Utah. While I am not unappreciative of my colleague from California's comments, I do think we are at a place where we do need to move forward. If we succumb to the emotions of what is going on around us and don't stick to the facts, stick to what we are trying to get done, I think that we do that to our detriment. So I have great respect for my colleague and his opinions, but I personally believe that plays into the emotions of what is going on rather than the facts of what is going on. If we can, I believe we should just continue to push forward. First, let me say that the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act is a bipartisan compromise bill that preserves the operational flexibility of section 702 while instituting key reforms to further protect U.S. personal privacy. One of the major issues discussed over the past year has been NSA's ``abouts communication'' collection--a tortured title, but, nevertheless, we will stick with the phrase, ``abouts communication.'' So ``abouts communication'' collection takes place in NSA's upstream collection and, due to how the internet communications work, allows NSA to collect the communications that may reference a section 702 target's email address. Despite what some of my colleagues may push in their propaganda, ``abouts'' collection does not collect names of targets, just selectors.…”