Political Quotes

“I oppose this rule because it does not allow consideration of amendments to the FISA bill that would strengthen the underlying bill by providing for greater accountability to the public of an otherwise wholly secretive process. Operations of the government must be held accountable to the people. The problem with holding operations under the existing FISA law is that most of the activities under it are conducted in secrecy. The fact that I or other Members of Congress have access to classified information regarding those secret activities is not sufficient for public accountability. Even if I were satisfied by my access to classified information, that only reasonable and constitutionally justified actions are being taken by officials in secret, I would still feel the need to give greater assurances to the public other than simply, trust me, I'm satisfied, so should you. Curiously, if I'm not satisfied, there's nothing I could say because it's classified information. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was passed in 1978 to curb abuses in collection and use of intelligence information, foreign and domestic. Under the original provisions of FISA, procedures for collection of foreign intelligence required the government to show not only that there was probable cause to believe that the target of the intelligence surveillance is an agent of a foreign power, but also that foreign intelligence-gathering is the primary purpose of the collection.…”