[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Page 15894]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            USA FREEDOM ACT

  Mr. REID. As I have indicated, this evening we will vote on the 
motion to proceed to the bipartisan USA FREEDOM Act, which reforms the 
U.S. Government's domestic surveillance authorities under the Foreign 
Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, as we have come to call it.
  In 2013 the American public first learned that the Federal Government 
collected telephone and Internet records of ordinary Americans--even 
when those Americans were not suspected of any wrongdoing. Earlier this 
year Senator Leahy introduced the USA FREEDOM Act to end this bulk data 
collection. This bill has the support of the entire U.S. intelligence 
community, including the Director of National Intelligence, Gen. James 
Clapper. It enhances privacy and civil liberties protections, and it 
continues to give the U.S. intelligence community the ability to gather 
the information it needs to help keep America safe.
  Two weeks ago the American people sent Congress a simple message: 
Let's work together. The USA FREEDOM Act is an excellent opportunity 
for Democrats and Republicans to work together to pass legislation that 
is good for this country.
  The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Pat Leahy, has done 
tremendous work in crafting this bill. I hope we will invoke cloture 
today to allow us to proceed to this matter. Chairman Leahy will manage 
the bill on the Senate floor in what I hope will be an open, bipartisan 
process.
  In working to craft this bipartisan legislation, I expect Senators on 
both sides will want to offer amendments. Everyone should understand 
that there is not going to be any effort to stop this by the procedural 
avenue we call tree-filling. Instead, if we get on the legislation, the 
bill's managers will address amendments as they are offered. So I hope 
Democrats and Republicans will be able to come to agreements for votes 
on a number of amendments--hopefully a reasonable number or, of course, 
we will have no alternative than to try to terminate that by trying to 
get cloture on the bill itself. I am optimistic that we can work 
together--I hope so--to forge a compromise and pass this essential 
legislation.

                          ____________________