[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 7955]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      PATRIOT ACT REAUTHORIZATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Kentucky (Mr. Massie) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Speaker, I am here today because last night, at 
midnight, a wonderful thing happened. In what seems like a constant 
flow, a tide that has been washing away our liberties since the 
founding of this country, we experienced something unique.
  The tide reversed, thanks to one Senator, Senator Rand Paul of 
Kentucky, and now, we have some of our civil liberties restored. If 
only but for a brief second in history, they are restored. It may 
register only as an eddy current, but clearly, we changed the tide last 
night.
  Now, what happened? The PATRIOT Act expired. How does a law expire, 
do you say? Why do we allow them to expire? It is because, when we 
enact laws, we know that we don't have the foresight to see how they 
will be carried out. We don't know everything that is going to happen 
as time transpires. It is important that we revisit these laws. In this 
case, this law expired.
  I would like to pretend that, if I were here when the PATRIOT Act 
passed after the attacks on our country, that I wouldn't have voted for 
it, but I can't say that. I am not going to pass judgment on my 
colleagues that were here when it did pass. I can barely imagine the 
incredible pressure they were under from their constituents, from 
everybody, to do something--to do something to protect our country, and 
so they passed the PATRIOT Act. I don't blame them. I wasn't here. I 
might have done the same thing.
  We have new facts today, so we revisit this law; we revisit the 
PATRIOT Act. What are the new facts? What are the things that have 
changed since it was issued? Let me list them.
  First of all, our Director of National Intelligence lied to us, lied 
to Congress about how the law was being implemented. In fact, he said, 
``I said the least untruthful thing I could,'' when he testified. Those 
were his words. He said the least untruthful thing he could.
  That is not good enough. He is in charge of all of our intelligence, 
and you are spying on Americans, and you lied to Congress about it, so 
that has changed.
  What else changed? The NSA broke the law. How do we know this? The 
second highest court in the land said they broke the law. Just a few 
weeks ago, they ruled this. Surely, we can't trust them to enforce the 
laws that we are giving them now without some major reform.
  What is the next thing that has changed since the PATRIOT Act first 
passed? The Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence failed us. The 
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is privy to information that 
the rest of Congress cannot have, and I understand that. It would be 
hard to keep a secret if 435 Members knew about it, so we entrust some 
of our Members to know the Nation's most important secrets.
  What do we trust them with? Oversight, oversight over the 
intelligence community to make sure that the laws that all 435 of us 
vote on are being implemented in the way that we intended them to be 
implemented--and that was not the case, so that has changed.
  What is the fourth thing that has changed since the first PATRIOT Act 
was issued and the last time it was reauthorized? The FISA court, this 
is the secret court that issues the secret warrants, if you will--if 
you would call them warrants. I would not call them warrants.
  They issued the mother of all general warrants. What are general 
warrants? These are warrants that are not specific. The warrant they 
issued would make King George III blush. Think about this: a warrant 
that covers every--every--American.
  Let me read the Fourth Amendment to our Constitution here, and this 
is specifically about your right to privacy: ``The right of the people 
to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against 
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no 
warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or 
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and 
the persons or things to be seized.''
  The warrant that they issued, the one that went to Verizon which 
authorized the collection of everybody's phone records, was not 
constitutional; yet we trusted them with the oversight, and they 
betrayed us. They betrayed that trust.
  Since 1979, there have been 34,000 surveillance orders requested of 
the FISA court by the intelligence community; 12 of the 34,000 have 
been denied.
  Mr. Speaker, things have changed. I urge my colleagues not to 
reauthorize the PATRIOT Act. The Freedom Act does not go far enough.

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