Patriot Act Reauthorization

Floor Speech

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Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I am here today because last night, at midnight, a wonderful thing happened. In what seems like a constant flow, a tide that has been washing away our liberties since the founding of this country, we experienced something unique.

The tide reversed, thanks to one Senator, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, and now, we have some of our civil liberties restored. If only but for a brief second in history, they are restored. It may register only as an eddy current, but clearly, we changed the tide last night.

Now, what happened? The PATRIOT Act expired. How does a law expire, do you say? Why do we allow them to expire? It is because, when we enact laws, we know that we don't have the foresight to see how they will be carried out. We don't know everything that is going to happen as time transpires. It is important that we revisit these laws. In this case, this law expired.

I would like to pretend that, if I were here when the PATRIOT Act passed after the attacks on our country, that I wouldn't have voted for it, but I can't say that. I am not going to pass judgment on my colleagues that were here when it did pass. I can barely imagine the incredible pressure they were under from their constituents, from everybody, to do something--to do something to protect our country, and so they passed the PATRIOT Act. I don't blame them. I wasn't here. I might have done the same thing.

We have new facts today, so we revisit this law; we revisit the PATRIOT Act. What are the new facts? What are the things that have changed since it was issued? Let me list them.

First of all, our Director of National Intelligence lied to us, lied to Congress about how the law was being implemented. In fact, he said, ``I said the least untruthful thing I could,'' when he testified. Those were his words. He said the least untruthful thing he could.

That is not good enough. He is in charge of all of our intelligence, and you are spying on Americans, and you lied to Congress about it, so that has changed.

What else changed? The NSA broke the law. How do we know this? The second highest court in the land said they broke the law. Just a few weeks ago, they ruled this. Surely, we can't trust them to enforce the laws that we are giving them now without some major reform.

What is the next thing that has changed since the PATRIOT Act first passed? The Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence failed us. The Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is privy to information that the rest of Congress cannot have, and I understand that. It would be hard to keep a secret if 435 Members knew about it, so we entrust some of our Members to know the Nation's most important secrets.

What do we trust them with? Oversight, oversight over the intelligence community to make sure that the laws that all 435 of us vote on are being implemented in the way that we intended them to be implemented--and that was not the case, so that has changed.

What is the fourth thing that has changed since the first PATRIOT Act was issued and the last time it was reauthorized? The FISA court, this is the secret court that issues the secret warrants, if you will--if you would call them warrants. I would not call them warrants.

They issued the mother of all general warrants. What are general warrants? These are warrants that are not specific. The warrant they issued would make King George III blush. Think about this: a warrant that covers every--every--American.

Let me read the Fourth Amendment to our Constitution here, and this is specifically about your right to privacy: ``The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.''

The warrant that they issued, the one that went to Verizon which authorized the collection of everybody's phone records, was not constitutional; yet we trusted them with the oversight, and they betrayed us. They betrayed that trust.

Since 1979, there have been 34,000 surveillance orders requested of the FISA court by the intelligence community; 12 of the 34,000 have been denied.

Mr. Speaker, things have changed. I urge my colleagues not to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act. The Freedom Act does not go far enough.

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