Sheila Jackson Lee: “Let me thank the ranking member and the chairman of the full committee. As my colleagues have done, let me also…”

“Let me thank the ranking member and the chairman of the full committee. As my colleagues have done, let me also acknowledge the chairman of the Crime Subcommittee, Mr. Sensenbrenner, on which I serve as the ranking member. As many have noted, let me acknowledge the work of Mr. Goodlatte and Mr. Conyers and their leadership on a very important statement on behalf of the American people. Mr. Speaker, the USA FREEDOM Act is the House's unified response to the unauthorized disclosures and subsequent publication in the media in June 2013 regarding the National Security Agency's collection from Verizon of the phone records of all of its American customers which were authorized by the FISA court pursuant to section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. You can imagine, Mr. Speaker, the public was not happy. There was justifiable concern on the part of the public and by a large percentage of the Members of this body that the extent and scale of the NSA data collection bundling, which, by orders of magnitude, exceeded anything previously authorized or contemplated, may have constituted an unwarranted invasion of privacy and a threat to the civil liberties of Americans. Mr. Speaker, I have been a decade-plus-long member of the Homeland Security Committee. I do not in any way want to infringe upon the security of this Nation, but if we allow the terrorists to terrorize us, then we are in very bad shape, and I am glad the voices of opposition were raised.…”