[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Page 1895]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the order before the Senate allows me and 
the Republican leader 10 minutes any time during this debate to make a 
presentation. I will do that later. I do want to say, based on the 
remarks of the distinguished Republican leader, I, too, appreciate the 
work of Senator Rockefeller and Senator Bond, but I also appreciate the 
work done by the Judiciary Committee and Senator Leahy. As a result of 
that work, the bill has already been made better and, hopefully, we can 
adopt some of these amendments today.
  We, for example, have as a result of the work done by the Judiciary 
Committee a compromise reached on a number of amendments that have made 
this bill better, including a Feingold amendment providing Congress 
with FISA Court documents that will facilitate congressional oversight 
and enable Congress to better understand the court's interpretation of 
the laws we passed; a Whitehouse amendment giving the FISA Court the 
discretion to stay lower FISA Court decisions pending appeal rather 
than requiring a stay; a Kennedy amendment providing that under the new 
authority provided by this bill the Government may not intentionally 
acquire communications when it knows ahead of time that the sender and 
all intended recipients are in the United States.
  The bill has been made better. The bill that Senator Rockefeller and 
Senator Bond did is not a bill that is perfect in nature, and I hope 
they will acknowledge that point. The bill has been made better as a 
result of work done by the Judiciary Committee. We have members of the 
Intelligence Committee who also serve on the Judiciary Committee. Two 
who come to my mind are Senator Feinstein and Senator Whitehouse. They 
have worked very hard in the Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary 
Committee to improve this legislation.
  We should understand where we are. We are now doing different 
wiretaps, and I think the situation today that is so concerning to most 
of us is the President has been advised by his lawyers that he does not 
have to follow the law anyway. Whatever we do here, he has been told by 
his lawyers that he need not follow the law. He can do whatever he 
wants; he is the boss; he is someone who does not have to follow the 
law, does not even have to give a signing statement saying he rejects 
it. He can just go ahead and do it.
  I do not think this should be a day of celebration. This should be a 
day of concern for the American people. I am very happy we have been 
able to improve the product that came out of the Intelligence 
Committee. Hopefully, by the voting today we can improve it more.

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