[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 82 (Tuesday, June 11, 2013)]
[House]
[Page H3261]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         SUMMER OF SURVEILLANCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Poe) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker:

       The administration puts forward a false choice between the 
     liberties we cherish and the security we provide. No more 
     illegal wiretapping of citizens. No more ignoring the law 
     when it is convenient. That is not who we are. That is not 
     what is necessary to defeat the terrorists. We will again set 
     an example for the world that the law is not subject to the 
     whims of stubborn rulers and that justice is not arbitrary. 
     This administration acts like violating civil liberties is 
     the way to enhance our security. It's not.

  Mr. Speaker, that was candidate Obama in the year 2007 when he was 
attacking another administration, but that was then and this is now. 
How times have changed. Flash forward to the summer of 2013, the Summer 
of Surveillance. The Department of Justice seized information from 20 
different Associated Press phone lines. The Department of Justice 
seized phone records of FOXNews reporter James Rosen, his parents, and 
several FOXNews phone lines.
  The NSA, which I call the National Surveillance Agency, seized from 
Verizon Business Network Services millions of telephone records, 
including the location, numbers, and time of domestic calls. Thursday, 
we learned about another secret government program called PRISM that 
allows the NSA to search photos, emails, and documents from computers 
at Apple, Google, and Microsoft, among many other Internet sources.
  Mr. Speaker, the American people have lost trust in this government. 
Do you think? The government spooks are drunk on power, and it's time 
for Congress to intervene to prevent the invasion of privacy by 
government against the citizens.
  The administration says its snooping activities are lawful. Well, not 
so fast. Let's start with the PATRIOT Act, which needs to be reviewed, 
but let's look at it as it now stands. The PATRIOT Act requires ``a 
statement of facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe 
that the tangible things sought are relevant to foreign intelligence, 
international terrorism or espionage investigation.''
  I see no way that the National Surveillance Agency could be lawfully 
conducting such a widespread and intrusive fishing expedition based on 
the PATRIOT Act or FISA. They're supposed to be justifying each 
individual search based on lawful grounds, not snooping, prying, and 
spying through tons of data hoping to find a hit on some bad guy. In 
other words, the government should only be able to collect phone 
records with a court order for someone they have reasonable suspicion 
to be connected with a terrorist. Government cannot use a Soviet-style 
dragnet approach hoping to catch a big fish while also catching the 
endangered species of freedom.
  What the PATRIOT Act does not allow is widespread, warrantless 
invasions of privacy where government blindly snoops around looking for 
some mischief. But the government claims it got some bad guys--two or 
three terrorists, it says. Well, if so, show us the cases. Those cases 
should be public if charges were filed. But that still doesn't justify 
the invasion of privacy.
  Let me continue. The administration could also be seizing emails of 
citizens over 6 months old without a warrant in its snooping frenzy. 
Unfortunately, the law allows this to occur. This needs to be changed.
  Representative Zoe Lofgren and I are trying to fix that with 
legislation to reform the outdated Electronic Communications Privacy 
Act by requiring a warrant for government to search and seize emails. 
Such a basic constitutional requirement should be made the law when 
government wants to arbitrarily take people's emails.
  The bullying and badgering of the Fourth Amendment must cease. The 
Federal Government tries to scare the citizens and arbitrarily redlines 
the Fourth Amendment.
  Mr. Speaker, technology may have changed over the years, but the 
Constitution just does not. We can have security, but not at the cost 
of losing individual freedom because to quote the constitutional law 
professor, there should be no ``choice between the liberties we cherish 
and the security we provide.''
  But the Summer of Surveillance continues.
  And that's just the way it is.

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