Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WENSTRUP. Mr. Chair, I certainly am a supporter of this underlying bill. This is a bipartisan product. It came out of the Intelligence Committee, and it came out of the Intelligence Committee when we realized a few years ago all the abuses that were taking place within our intelligence system. We knew we had to act. There had to be reforms, and there had to be criminal liability when people and their agencies are doing the wrong things. That wasn't in place, and for the last 2\1/2\ years, we have worked on this.

We have worked on it in a bipartisan way not just with the Intelligence Committee but with the whole body. We opened this up to the entire body, Republican and Democrat, regardless of what committee a Member is on, and we worked together to craft a very good bill.

This isn't just an Intelligence Committee bill. This is a House of Representatives bill.

That is what we have brought forward. This bill ensures Americans' civil liberties are secure and that we have intelligence collection tools that we need to safeguard our country from foreign threats.

The Constitution asked us to provide for our defense, which is what we are trying to do, and to work against all enemies, foreign and domestic, which is what we are trying to do.

I want to set the record straight. It is already in statute that a warrant is required every single time the United States Government wants to investigate a U.S. person under FISA under section 702, but a warrant is not required to do a query to find out what we might need for probable cause to get a warrant. Now, this amendment wants to put a warrant on getting a query when time is of the essence.

Mr. Chair, if Ali Khamenei is talking about you and we pick up that, then I want to know why he is talking about you. I want to do a query into the information we already have to see if anyone else is talking about you.

Moreover, I want to find out if they are planning to assassinate you, Mr. Chair. I shouldn't need a warrant to try to find out if a foreign actor is trying to assassinate a U.S. citizen. I shouldn't need a warrant to find out if a foreign actor or terrorist is working with someone in the United States to harm other Americans, but if we want to investigate that person, then yes, we do.

There is a lot of misinformation out there. American civil liberties are not being harmed.

Mr. Chair, I will give you a hypothetical example, too. American citizen Bob Smith pops up in a FISA database. Some are saying that government can obtain or search Bob's emails, texts, and phone calls. That is not true. That is not true, but you can do a query to see if anyone else is talking about this person, and not just anyone else anywhere, but a foreign actor or a foreign terrorist whose information you already have.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WENSTRUP. Mr. Chair, I want to just say what is true and what is not true. A query does not investigate a U.S. citizen. In many cases, it is acting on behalf of a U.S. citizen to keep them safe.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source