Jay Rockefeller: “after a long debate, we are, in fact, ready to, hopefully, pass the FISA bill. This has been an extremely important…”

“after a long debate, we are, in fact, ready to, hopefully, pass the FISA bill. This has been an extremely important debate over important issues critical to the Nation's security. As I discussed at the beginning of the debate, the guiding principle in bringing this bill to the Senate floor was to modernize our ability to collect communications intelligence against foreign targets without compromising the constitutional and statutory privacy protections afforded to all Americans. In my mind, we have achieved this goal. Vice Chairman Bond and I worked very hard in the Intelligence Committee to produce a balanced and bipartisan bill. One can say whatever one wants, but 13 to 2 is 13 to 2. I think we can be proud of the improvements we have made to the bill each step of the way since last September. But, in fact, it goes all the way back almost a year. In the end, the bill we are about to pass, I hope, strengthens our national security and represents a very significant improvement over the Protect America Act that passed last summer. Let me mention a few of the provisions we have included in the bill for protecting the rights of Americans here in the United States and overseas. We require an individual FISA order for the targeting of U.S. persons believed to be located outside the United States any time the collection is conducted inside the United States.”