Political Quotes

“I would say to my friend from Oregon that the American people want to know how the laws are being interpreted. They want to know what the courts are doing. As to secret operations, of course, you have had briefings on those. I have had briefings on those. I have been in places I will not name here. They are places overseas where I was there in the operations center as operations were taking place and being briefed on what they did, where they got the information, and what they were going to do next. Of course, none of that you want to be reading in the press or seeing in real time. But I also know that when we are dealing with Americans and with their lives and with their sense of privacy, we have to protect them. The USA FREEDOM Act makes very simple changes to the FISA court. The bill provides the FISA Court with the authority to designate individuals who have security clearances to be able to serve as an amicus or a friend of the court. It is triggered in only relatively rare cases involving a novel or significant issue of law, and the decision of appointment is left entirely up to the court. That is about as narrowly drawn as you can get. But I think we have to have this ability to know what the court is doing because we have known for years that the FISA Court secretly misinterpreted Section 215 to allow for the dragnet collection of Americans' phone records.…”