[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 74 (Thursday, May 14, 2015)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E701]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  UNITING AND STRENGTHENING AMERICA BY FULFILLING RIGHTS AND ENSURING 
            EFFECTIVE DISCIPLINE OVER MONITORING ACT OF 2015

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                         HON. PETER A. DeFAZIO

                               of oregon

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, May 13, 2015

  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I have always been a staunch defender of 
privacy and civil liberties. I voted against the Patriot Act and its 
extension in 2008 and 2011 because I feared it gave the federal 
government too much unchecked power over the rights of law abiding 
citizens and lacked effective oversight tools for Congress. Clearly I 
was proven right. Thankfully, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second 
Circuit ruled that the NSA's program to collect telephone records in 
bulk under Section 215 of the Patriot Act is illegal. This was a big 
win for privacy and civil liberties advocates, but it is not the end of 
the fight. Given this decision, it is clear that Congress must do more 
to rein in unconstitutional intrusion into our personal lives. 
Unfortunately, today's bill fell short of those reforms.
   H.R. 2048 is an improvement from the weakened bill that passed the 
House last year. However, it falls short of shutting the door on 
unrestrained government surveillance. The bill does nothing to address 
``backdoor'' searches of U.S. citizens under Section 702 of the FISA 
Amendments Act. This statute is possibly of more concern than the 
telephone records collected under Section 215. While Section 702 
expressly prohibits the government from intentionally targeting the 
communications of U.S. persons, the NSA has applied an incredibly loose 
interpretation of this statute and used it to justify collecting not 
only communications records of U.S. citizens, but also the contents of 
communications, including email, social media messages, or web browsing 
history.
   While this bill attempts to address bulk data collection under 
Section 215 of the Patriot Act, the NSA has an unscrupulous tendency to 
find loopholes in statute and twist the intent of Congress to fulfill 
their own wishes. I fear that given our past experience, this bill will 
undermine the Second Circuit's decision and create new legal loopholes 
for the NSA and law enforcement agencies to collect even more data on 
millions of Americans.
   It is possible to gain information on potential terrorist threats 
while still protecting the privacy and freedom of American citizens, 
complying with the Constitution, and preserving adequate congressional 
and judicial oversight. The original version of the USA Freedom Act, 
introduced in 2013, balanced these priorities. The bill we considered 
today did not. I urge the Senate to make the needed reforms to this 
bill so that it bolsters the Second Circuit's decision and accomplishes 
the goal of once and for all ending mass government surveillance of 
law-abiding Americans.

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