USA Freedom Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. I think the ranking member has made a number of very important points here.

The fact of the matter is that we are all here because the majority leader wasn't able to defeat the surveillance reform. So instead, he has chosen to introduce amendments designed to water it down. I am disappointed by this. I will oppose all of these amendments, and I want to have a colloquy briefly with the ranking minority member.

The ranking minority member and our colleague from Connecticut, Senator Blumenthal, have done very good reform work with respect to the FISA Court. In particular, what the distinguished Senator from Vermont has done, with the help of the Senator from Connecticut, is to bring some very important sunshine and transparency to the court. As my two colleagues have pointed out on the Judiciary Committee, we really meet on the major questions--not all of them, as the Senator from Vermont has just said--but what is really needed is to make sure that both sides get a chance to be heard, not just the government side.

So what troubles me--and I am interested in the reaction of my colleague from Vermont, and I want to praise him and my colleague from Connecticut--is that it seems to me that what the Senate majority leader wants to do is basically to take us back to the days of secret law.

What is important, as we get into this, and particularly with this amendment, is that there is a difference between secret operations and secret law. Operations always have to be kept secret.

I see my friend Chairman Burr here. We serve on the Intelligence Committee together. The two of us feel so strongly about making sure secret operations are kept secret because otherwise Americans are going to die. We can't have secret operations splayed all hither and yon in the public square.

But the law always ought to be public. As Senator Leahy has pointed out for some time--and I warned about it here on the floor--what we would see is, if you live in Connecticut or Vermont, the PATRIOT Act talked about collecting information relevant to investigation. Nobody thought that meant millions and millions of records on law-abiding people. That decision was made in secret. It was made without the reforms advocated by the Senator from Connecticut and the Senator from Vermont.

So I would be interested in my colleague from Vermont's reaction to the majority leader's amendment to scale back your very constructive reforms on the FISA Court. And my sense is that what the majority leader's approach would do would take us back to the days of secret law. I think that is a mistake, and I would be curious about the reaction of my colleague from Vermont on this.

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Mr. WYDEN. Because I think, again, my colleague from Connecticut has spoken to what the stakes are here. For the last decade, intelligence officials have been relying on secret interpretations of their authorities that have been very different from the plain reading of public law. The public has seen the consequences of that, and they are angry because the American people know we can have policies that promote both security and liberty.

I would just like to ask a question of my colleague with the respect to what the implications would be of hollowing out the good work you and Senator Leahy have done with respect to having more transparency and both sides making a case on key questions with respect to the FISA Court. I would like to note that the majority leader's second amendment delays implementation of other important reforms that you all have dealt with.

For example, one question I was asked about at a townhall meeting just this past weekend in Tillamook, OR, where I was, is people were concerned about what would we do to protect our Nation when there was an emergency. You all, in your good work, have, in effect, said you would strengthen the language to make sure that when there was an emergency--government officials already can issue an emergency authorization to get the business records and you would then seek court approval, and you all strengthen that.

All of you on the Judiciary Committee said: We are going to provide another measure of security for the American people; in other words, we are going to protect their liberty and we are going to strengthen their security. It looks to me like the combination of the majority leader's two amendments scaling back the reforms, the transparency reforms in the FISA Court, and delaying the strengthening of emergency authorities that can protect the American people without jeopardizing their liberty would really roll back the kind of reforms the American people want.

I would be interested in my colleague's reaction to that.

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