Political Quotes

“I must admit that when I look around this body, it looks a little bit different than when I first came here, and I will be glad when we get back to normal. In the meantime, I want to say that I entered the Senate in the wake of Watergate in 1975. It was a time when the American people's faith in their institutions, including their intelligence agencies, was profoundly shaken. I remember standing on this floor, and the very first vote I cast was in favor of creating the Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans. That was called the Church Committee. It was the forerunner of our Intelligence Committee. Through the Committee's work, the American people soon learned of years of surveillance and other abuses that had occurred at the hands of the U.S. intelligence agencies. In response, the Senate came together, Republicans and Democrats together, to pass sweeping reforms to rein in this overreach. So much has improved over the 45 years with respect to the intelligence agencies' compliance with the law. I must admit that seeing the changes over the years gives me a great deal of confidence that we can continue to develop. But we do know that there are some inexcusable problems that remain. We have seen time and again that the system we created with the government lawyers seeking approval for surveillance in a secret surveillance court falls short of protecting Americans' due process rights.…”