Political Quotes

“Some would argue that no reforms are needed. Unfortunately, they do not go into the facts, as the Second Circuit did; they invoke fearmongering and dubious claims about the utility of the bulk collection programs to defend the status quo. These are the same arguments we heard last November when we were not even allowed to debate an earlier version of the USA FREEDOM Act because of a filibuster. Last week, some Senators came to the floor to argue that the NSA's bulk collection of phone records might have prevented 9/11. Now, this specter is always raised, that it might have prevented 9/11 and is vital to national security. We also heard that if we enact the USA FREEDOM Act, that will somehow return the intelligence community to a pre-9/11 posture. None of these claims can withstand the light of day. I will go back to some of the facts--not just hypotheses. Richard Clarke was working in the Bush administration on September 11, 2001. I asked him whether the NSA program would have prevented those attacks. He testified that the government already had the information that could have prevented the attacks, but failed to properly share that information among Federal agencies. Likewise, Senator Bob Graham, who investigated the September 11 attacks as part of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also debunked the notion that this bulk collection program would somehow have prevented the 9/11 attacks.…”