Ted Poe: “It reads like a page out of George Orwell's ``1984:'' spies, secret courts, and searches of Americans without a warrant.…”

“It reads like a page out of George Orwell's ``1984:'' spies, secret courts, and searches of Americans without a warrant. It is clear: Big Brother is watching us. Most Americans may not be fully aware of what is taking place behind closed doors of government spy agencies, but the reality is our government is spying on ordinary, everyday Americans. How? Through an old piece of legislation, originally signed into law by President Carter in 1978, called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. FISA allows our government to spy on foreign agents, including terrorists, primarily overseas. The government collects all of this information and puts it into a database. If they want to use or search the database, they go to a secret court, and that court issues a secret warrant to search the database. This court operates behind closed doors and issues those secret warrants to go after--remember--bad guys overseas. As the subcommittee chairman of terrorism, I have no problem with our government going after terrorists who seek to harm Americans. What I do have a problem with, Mr. Speaker, is the government uses these databases that they seize and then looks in those databases about Americans and their activities, violating their Fourth Amendment rights because they don't have a warrant to go into these databases to look for Americans. Remember, they are searching for terrorists.…”