USA Freedom Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I wish to begin by thanking our very esteemed colleague, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy, for his leadership on this issue and my colleagues whom he has named who have helped in drafting and crafting this very important piece of legislation.
I also wish to thank my friends and colleagues across the aisle, such as the Senator from Utah, who have supported and helped to make clear that this bill advances the cause of safeguarding our Nation without in any way detracting from its essential operational intelligence capabilities.
In fact, National Intelligence Director Clapper said:
The bill will retain the essential operational capabilities of the existing bulk telephone metadata program while eliminating bulk collection.
This bill increases trust and confidence and credibility of our intelligence system. It advances that trust and confidence in the capability of government surveillance to do its job but at the same time protect our vital privacy interests. It advances the cause of constitutional liberty and the appearance and perception of trust in that system. It does so by making the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court look and function like the courts we are accustomed to seeing issue search warrants in the criminal process and protect essential liberties. It does it by strengthening and, in fact, installing an adversarial process so that more than just the government's version of the facts and law are presented to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. It does it by providing for appellate review, just as we have in normal civilian court. It does it by increasing the transparency and accountability of the FISA Court system.
Our Founders would have been astonished and appalled to learn that we permit warrants to be issued by a court that is operating in secret, issuing secret opinions, and making secret law much like the Star Chamber did, and that is why this reform is so profoundly and historically important--because we made the FISA Court one that we can more aptly and abundantly trust and one that will have credibility and confidence.
I support this bill.
I thank my colleagues for showing that we can work together in a bipartisan way to safeguard the essential rights of Americans at the same time we protect and preserve our national security.
I thank the Presiding Officer.
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