Ted Poe: “I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Buck) for yielding and for doing this Special Order. Most Members of Congress…”

“I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Buck) for yielding and for doing this Special Order. Most Members of Congress agree, I believe, that the Constitution should be followed. There are certain rights in the Constitution that are very, very important to all of us. One of those is the right of privacy, enumerated specifically in the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment is unique to America. Other countries don't have the Fourth Amendment. We have it in the United States to protect the privacy of Americans. Let me give you a little history. As Congressman Buck pointed out, back in 1986, which was an eternity ago when you start talking about the digital age, Congress passed legislation to protect the emails that people had on their server for 6 months. The idea was that people wouldn't keep their emails. They would delete them, and 6 months was a good enough time to protect those emails from the spies in our government--I will use that phrase, that is my phrase--and that is the current law. But here is what has happened over that 30 years. Many Americans stored their emails after that 6-month period. They store them in the cloud, for example. Americans store their schedules in the cloud. They store photographs in the cloud. When Americans store those items that are over 6 months old in the cloud, they are not protected against the search by our government of that email, of those photographs, of that schedule.…”