Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, it is illegal for the U.S. Government or any of its Agencies to spy on American citizens. It is illegal. And nothing in this bill changes that. The fact is, the House has passed a reform bill which has made it far less likely for there to be abuses, inadvertent and otherwise, and it has real accountability measures that will punish people who abuse these necessary tools.

The fact of the matter is 702 applies to foreigners overseas, not Americans here in the United States. And where there is incidental collection, court after court after court has said it does not violate the Fourth Amendment. There is no constitutional violation. And if the intelligence Agencies want to look further at an American citizen, they have to go to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and get a warrant to show probable cause that a crime has been committed.

If we pass this requirement, it will simply benefit our foreign adversaries--Russia, China, Iran, Hamas--just to name a few.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source