[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 12 (Friday, January 19, 2018)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E73]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          PERSONAL EXPLANATION

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                          HON. MARK DeSAULNIER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, January 19, 2018

  Mr. DeSAULNIER. Mr. Speaker, I regret that I was unable to vote on 
Friday, January 11, 2018 as my mother passed away.
  We can provide law enforcement officials with the resources and 
capabilities necessary to defend the nation while simultaneously 
upholding the hard-fought and hard-won individual rights enshrined in 
the Constitution. As we now know, the National Security Agency has 
collected vast swaths of telephone and internet data, using Section 702 
as justification, some of which was on Americans for whom there was no 
suspicion of wrongdoing. Liberty and security do not need to be 
mutually exclusive. However, S. 139 did not do enough to protect 
Americans from the watchful eye of government surveillance.
  I strongly supported the amendment put forth by Congressman Justin 
Amash and Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren that would put more limitations on 
access to information collected on Americans and stronger safeguards 
against law enforcement using that information without a warrant. I 
would have supported this amendment and was disappointed that it did 
not pass.
  Without the addition of the Amash-Lofgren amendment, I would have 
voted against this bill. There is still space to address these issues 
so that individual privacy rights will be upheld while our country is 
protected, but this bill did not protect Americans' privacy adequately.

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