Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Effective Discipline Over Monitoring Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

First, let me say thank you to Chairman Goodlatte and Ranking Member Conyers as well as to my colleague, Chairman Nunes. We have worked this issue together for a long time, and I am very proud of the bipartisan legislation that we have produced. I also want to thank the administration that worked with us so long and hard, and the work done in the last Congress by former HPSCI Chairman Mike Rogers and former HPSCI Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger. I rise today in strong support of H.R. 2048.

This Nation was founded on the revolutionary principle that liberty need not be sacrificed to security, that public safety can and must coexist with individual liberty. Our Founders set out to create a lasting Union and a great Nation, one in which the people would be free to govern themselves, to express themselves, to worship for themselves, while also being secure in their homes, their papers, and their persons.

Nearly two-and-a-half centuries later, it is easy to forget that these freedoms were enshrined in the Constitution amidst great peril. Americans had only recently fought a war for independence and would be confronted by powerful and often hostile forces in the future, including the powerful empires of Britain, France, and Spain. Here were truly existential threats, and still the Founders said, We can be secure and we can be free. They were right; we can and we must.

So today, at another moment of national danger, we are challenged to reaffirm our commitment to these twin imperatives--security and liberty--and to prove again that we can find the right balance for our times. The USA FREEDOM Act strikes that delicate but vitally important balance.

On the side of freedom, it ends bulk collection, not just of telephone metadata under section 215, but of any bulk collection under any other authority. It creates a specific procedure for telephone metadata that allows the government, upon court approval, to query the data that the telephone companies already keep, something I have long advocated. It increases transparency by requiring a declassification review of all significant FISA court opinions and by requiring the government to provide the public with detailed information about how they use these national security authorities. And it provides for a panel of experts to advocate for privacy and civil liberties before the FISA court, also something that I have advocated for quite sometime.

At the same time, the USA FREEDOM Act of 2015 preserves important capabilities and makes further national security enhancements by closing loopholes that make it difficult for the government to track foreign terrorists and spies as they enter or leave the country, clarifying the application of FISA to those who facilitate the international proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and increasing the maximum penalties for those who provide material support for terrorism. This is a strong bill and should advance with such an overwhelming majority that it compels the Senate to act.

But this is not a one-and-done legislative fix or the end of our work. Rather, it is a reaffirmation of our commitment to constantly recalibrate our laws to make sure that privacy and security are coexisting and mutually reinforcing. While the public may have begun its debate on these programs 2 years ago, many of us--myself included--have been working these issues long before, and we will continue to work them long afterwards. That is our responsibility and the great obligation the Founders bequeathed to us.

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