Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo).
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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, would the Senator from Arizona yield for a question?

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I would say to my friend from Arizona, before lunch we had a vote on a very important amendment the Senator sponsored, along with the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, that received a majority vote of the Senate but not enough to get us to the 60-vote threshold. I know the majority leader has put in a motion to reconsider, which will allow him to bring that up because of some absenteeism.

I want to ask my friend, during the time the shooter in Orlando was under surveillance by the FBI and was actually put on a watch list, the authority they had to gather information about him and particularly his computer usage by issuing a subpoena to the Internet service provider in order to identify IP addresses and perhaps email addresses, not content--they were denied the opportunity to get that kind of information. Does the Senator have any idea whether perhaps the FBI might have been tipped to the fact that this shooter--let's say he was accessing YouTube videos of Anwar al-Awlaki like Nidal Hasan in Fort Hood was before he committed his terrorist attack there, or let's say one of the email addresses they were able to collect was one of a known terrorist or somebody the FBI suspected was complicit in terrorism, obviously, under the Senator's amendment, in order to get the content of that, the FBI would have to go to the FISA Court and establish probable cause.

Does the Senator have an opinion whether that kind of information, to which the FBI was blinded by the lapse in this authority--whether that would be helpful information in identifying potential threats like we saw in Orlando?

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Mr. CORNYN. I thank the Senator.

I would merely add, this is not a partisan issue. As the Presiding Officer and as the Senator from Arizona knows, the Intelligence Committee has voted in a bipartisan way, with only one Senator dissenting in the Intelligence reauthorization bill, to reinstate this very authority the amendment of the Senator from Arizona pertained to. I believe, of all the votes we have had this week, the vote on Senator McCain's amendment was the one with the greatest potential to stop future terrorist attacks like we saw in Orlando--because we all know the shooter in Orlando was under two separate FBI investigations and he was put on a watch list. With so much discussion about watch lists, he was no longer on a watch list so the FBI was not notified when he went in and purchased the two firearms he used in this attack. We also know he was a licensed security guard, and he actually had a license to own firearms.

This is a complicated and complex and confusing picture we have all been presented, and we are all trying to figure out what is the solution or what could we do to help reduce the possibility that something like this might happen in the future? I can guarantee one thing. It is not to limit the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. That is not going to stop future terrorist attacks. If we fail to give law enforcement and counterterrorism authorities the means by which to identify these self-radicalized terrorists before they kill--if we don't do that, then shame on us. This is not partisan, as I said, because a bipartisan majority--with one dissenting vote--on the Intelligence Committee voted for this provision, but we need to get serious about this. I know, because of some absenteeism today-- necessary, I am sure--we didn't have every Senator here present and voting.

I hope in the interim, from the time of that failed cloture vote on the McCain-Burr amendment until the time we vote on this again when the majority leader moves to reconsider, we can have some serious discussions and serious efforts at trying to make our country safer and protecting innocent Americans from terrorist attacks on our own soil.

If we deny the FBI Director the No. 1 legislative priority of the agency, as he has told us time and time again--most recently in the SCIF, in the secure facility. Obviously, that part is not classified, but he said this is a very important tool. If we are going to ask the FBI and our counterterrorism authorities to connect the dots, well, they can't connect the dots unless they can collect the dots. Again, this is with proper and appropriate regard, under the Fourth Amendment, for American citizens when it comes to searches of their property or seizures. Under the Fourth Amendment, we know there has to be established probable cause that a crime has been committed, established before an impartial judge. We are not talking about the content. We are saying, if there are enough dots to connect together to raise a reasonable suspicion on the part of our counterterrorism authorities, they ought to then have the opportunity to go to a judge and get the content of that communication under appropriate constitutional Fourth Amendment procedures. If they don't even have access to the basic information, then they can't connect the dots because they can't collect them.

So of all the votes we have had this week, I believe the vote on the McCain-Burr amendment was the most important because I think it was the one most likely to produce additional tools that our counterterrorism authorities could use in an investigation to identify self-radicalized terrorists in the United States before they strike. It is too late after they strike, when we are all asking the question: What can we possibly do in order to prevent something like this from happening again? We now know what we can do. It may not be a panacea, but it is making sure our law enforcement authorities, such as the FBI, have the tools they need in order to conduct these investigations, again to collect the dots so they can connect those dots.

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