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mr chairman the american people don't want to be spied on by their own government our founding fathers included the fourth amendment for a reason to require

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probable cause and a warrant before the government and government agents can snoop on anyone during the 113th congress the house of representatives

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passed the bipartisan amendment i am offering today by a 293-123 vote this year our bipartisan group is

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reuniting once again to shut down unconstitutional surveillance that does not meet the expectations of our constituents or the standards required

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by our constitution our amendment shuts one form of backdoor surveillance by prohibiting warrantless searches of government databases for

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information that pertains to u.s citizens the director of national intelligence has confirmed that the government searches vast amounts of data

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including the content of emails and telephone calls without individualized suspicion or probable cause at this time i will submit for the record the letter from the director of

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national intelligence which confirms this warrantless spying the gentleman's request will be covered under general leave

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the director of the fbi has also confirmed that he uses the information to build criminal cases against u.s persons but the director of national

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intelligence and the fbi are not above the fourth amendment and this practice should end this time i would like to yield one and a half minutes

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to my uh colleague from california miss lofgren gentlewoman is recognized i think the gentleman for yielding uh in support of

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the massey lofgren amendment you know as has mentioned the declassified fisa court decision has indicated that substantially more warrantless

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communications are collected through 702 than 215. you know we had a a bill up to

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recently the usa freedom act that alleged that we were stopping bulk collection but we didn't and during the markup of that bill in the judiciary

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committee we offered this amendment and everyone in on the committee including the chairman of the committee said they

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were for this provision but it wasn't the right time well this is the right time and that's why we have this broad support

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it's the massey lofgren sensor brenner conyers poe gabbard jordan o'rourke its broadest bipartisan it's supported by

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groups like the american civil liberties union as well as the campaign for liberty the demand progress as well as freedom works this has broad bipartisan support

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and the american people deserve this that when we have a an interest in querying the 702 database for american

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citizens get a warrant that's what the fourth amendment requires finally this re closes

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the opportunity to require back doors on technology and as has been mentioned earlier by technologists and scientists

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to do that just opens a door wide open for the bad guys and the hackers to break in so i thank the gentleman fielding and yield back

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mr gentleman kentucky mr chairman as my colleague stated our amendment also prohibits the nsa and the cia from placing back doors into commercial

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products this is important because in december of 2013 it was reported that a u.s security company had received 10 million dollars

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from the nsa to use a flawed encryption method our government should strengthen technology that protects our privacy not take advantage of it at this time i'd

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like to reserve the balance of my time gentleman reserves for what purpose is the gentleman from new jersey right mr chairman i rise to claim time in

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opposition gentleman recognized for five minutes in opposition mr chairman of race to claim time in opposition to this amendment this amendment restricts the use of

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section 2 702 of fisa which is not currently up for reauthorization the law does not sunset until december

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of 2017. any reforms of this authority should be fully vetted by the authorizing committees and not inappropriately

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attached to our spending bill this amendment would impose greater restrictions on the intelligence community's ability to protect national

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security and create an impediment to our government's ability to locate threat information already in our government's possession

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such an impediment would potentially put american lives at risk of another terrorist attack colleagues the house recently passed h.r

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3361 the us freedom act with overwhelm overwhelmingly bipartisan support was signed into law last week this

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amendment which seeks to relitigate an issue fully litigated in the drafting of that legislation a similar amendment was offered and

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rejected by the house judiciary committee during its markup of that bill the usa freedom act does include two reforms related to section 702

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collection these were reforms properly considered during the authorization process not slapped on an appropriations bill

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without consideration and deliberation the first limits the government's use of information about u.s persons that is

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obtained under section 0 702 that the fisa court later determines to be unlawful the second provision requires the

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director of national intelligence to report annually the number of u.s person queries under section 702 under current law a person can only be

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the target of an intelligence gathering under fisa pursuant to an interval individualized court order based upon

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probable cause the intelligence community is allowed to query communications illegally collects from foreigners for information about a

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u.s person so long as the query itself has foreign intelligence value there is no difference from traditional

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criminal law if the government has a legal wiretap on a drug dealer's cell phone and records the conversation where a second drug dealer talks about

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committing a murder police can use that phone call as evidenced against the second drug dealer in a murder trial

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what matters is that the initial wiretap or here the initial targeting of the foreign terrorist was legal

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colleagues this is an issue critical to our national security and it is complicated any changes to 702 should be fully

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evaluated and voted on using the authorization committee process which is the appropriate channel for considered review and debate

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on this critical issue unfortunately this amendment has not benefited from the work of the authorization process it would potentially put american lives

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greater at risk for another terrorist attack that's not a risk many of us are certainly i'm willing to take for these ro for this

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reason and many others i strongly oppose this amendment urge my colleagues to do the same and they yield back gentleman yields back gentlemen from kentucky mr chairman how much time do i

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have remaining one minute and 30 seconds at this time i yield 45 seconds to my colleague from california i thank the gentleman for

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yielding the unclassified fisa court reported that the 702 search had in fact

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scooped up vast amounts of holy domestic uh information how does this work the upstream communications are tapped

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into by the nsa and in the digital world your digital information your domestic information is stored throughout the united throughout the world it's scooped

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up and it's used the fbi has indicated it's used and the dni is indicated it's used for holy domestic purposes without

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a warrant routinely thousands tens of thousands of times it is in violation of the fourth amendment it must stop and i thank the gentleman

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for yielding and i just say on the judiciary committee every member of the committee who declined to support this amendment said they were for the

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amendment and said we should offer it to the dod appropriations bill and i yield back gentleman from kentucky

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now it's been said here tonight that this is not the time or the place to address these problems with 702 but look we have a constitutional crisis and this

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was the excuse we were given in the judiciary committee when my colleague tried to get the amendment allowed there it was the same excuse i was given in the rules

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committee when we had an opportunity to address this and i would maintain that 2017 two years from now is too long to

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go in this constitutional crisis situation where we recognize something that illegal and or unconstitutional is occurring yet we don't do anything about

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it so this is the time to do something about it this is the place to do something about it i urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment and i yield

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back the balance of my time