Ensuring Tax Exempt Organizations the Right to Appeal Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I have been having a lot of people ask me where we are on the USA Freedom Act of 2015, and we actually have a very interesting, easy choice: We can either pass the bipartisan bill the House of Representatives passed with a majority of Republicans and a majority of Democrats voting for it, or we can let the expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act sunset at the end of the month. Some may prefer that. I think the House made a number of improvements which protect our freedoms and protect our security, and that is what we ought to pass.

Some people have talked about short-term extensions. Well, we could have a 2-day extension or we could have a 5,000-year extension; we would be extending something that doesn't exist. The fact is that the House gave us the USA FREEDOM Act in plenty of time to act upon it, to amend it if we wanted to, to send it back and go to a conference. But now the House has adjourned and gone on recess. If we don't vote for their bill, we will end up at the end of the month with nothing. There will be nothing to extend. We could feel good about passing an extension, but we can't extend something that is dead.

I have worked for more than two years with Members of Congress from both parties and in both Chambers to develop the USA FREEDOM Act of 2015. It is a commonsense, balanced reform bill that protects Americans' privacy, while also ensuring our national security.

The bill doesn't go nearly as far as the bill I first introduced in October of 2013 with Congressman Sensenbrenner. It doesn't go as far as the USA FREEDOM Act that was filibustered last November by Senator McConnell and others. At that time, the incoming majority leader wanted to wait and see how it would be with a Republican majority and was able to rally his Members to delay reform. But we shouldn't delay it any further. Americans deserve to have their privacy restored and their national security protected. There should be no more excuses.

In the bill Senator Lee and I have introduced and supported, the USA FREEDOM Act of 2015--it has not just our support, it has the administration's support, it has the support of the Director of National Intelligence, the Attorney General, the FBI Director, a supermajority of the House of Representatives, the technology industry, privacy and civil liberties groups, librarians, and the NRA. I mean, when are we ever going to find all these groups coming together? Well, they came together because they know the USA FREEDOM Act is a good bill, and the support for our bill continues to grow.

Just yesterday, national security experts at the conservative Heritage Foundation concluded that the USA FREEDOM Act ``strikes a balance between maintaining our national security capabilities and protecting privacy and civil liberties.'' Why? Because it is a reasonable and responsible bill. When we get the civil liberties groups, the NRA, the Heritage Foundation and privacy groups together, we have something.

I have been here 41 years. I have seen very few pieces of legislation where these diverse groups come together, and they did because the USA FREEDOM Act is a responsible and reasonable bill. But even if they hadn't come together, it is the only option left for any Senator who wants to avoid a sunset of the surveillance authorities at midnight on May 31. We won't be in session. The other body won't be in session. The one thing that will happen is our current authorities will sunset. They will go away. Wow. Can't you hear the cheers from some of our enemies?

Last year when the current Senate majority leader led the filibuster of the USA FREEDOM Act, we were told that the Senate needed more time to consider the issue and that the new Senate would take up the matter under new leadership. All right. We have known the sunsets were coming for years. That is why I brought up the bill last year. There has been nothing done on this urgent matter this year--no public hearings and no committee markups, unlike the six public hearings I held in the Judiciary Committee last year.

In contrast, the House leadership has acted responsibly and decisively. They moved the USA FREEDOM Act of 2015 through the Judiciary Committee and passed this bipartisan bill overwhelmingly.

We had significant debate on this issue this week. I have heard Senators across the political spectrum who have spoken at length on the Senate floor about their views. Most of these Senators have urged us to reform the government's bulk collection program--which is, of course, the same way the vast majority of Americans feel. But there have also been voices urging more surveillance. We have heard the familiar fear-mongering and demands for a data-retention mandate on the private telecom companies. Well, I disagree with those Senators who voiced that perspective, but they have at least been heard.

Unfortunately, the clock has been running. The House worked very hard, they completed their work, and they left. They are not coming back until after the surveillance authorities are set to expire. And the House leadership has made clear that they will not pass an extension. Even if they were in session and we passed an extension, they made it very clear to Republican and Democratic leadership that they will not take it up.

So here is the choice. It is a very simple one. We can let the three provisions at issue expire--some may like that; frankly, I don't--or we can pass the bipartisan and bicameral USA FREEDOM Act of 2015.

We all know that the NSA has for years been using section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act to sweep up phone
records of innocent Americans without any connection to terrorism. I am sure innocent Americans who may be in the Chamber or who are hearing what we are saying have had their phone records swept up. Well, I don't think anybody would feel very comfortable with that.

We also know that the NSA used a similar legal theory for years to collect massive amounts of metadata related to billions of emails sent to and from innocent Americans--a parent to a child asking, ``how is my granddaughter's cold coming along?'' or ``How did my grandson do in school?'' or somebody writing to a friend, back and forth.

The American people oppose this indiscriminate dragnet collection of their records--not only that, the courts do, too. They found it to be unlawful. The House of Representatives listened to the American people, they listened to the courts, and they voted overwhelmingly to end this program through the USA FREEDOM Act and assumed, of course, that the Senate would do what the courts have said and what the vast majority of the American people said.

Last November, when Senator McConnell convinced his caucus to block the USA FREEDOM Act, I warned that we would not have much time in the new Congress, and that the American people were demanding action. People should go back and see the number of letters and emails that came pouring in to the Capitol saying: We want this passed. Yet, here we are--Congress racing against the clock to act before the sunsets take effect next weekend.

Well, this is a manufactured crisis. I think there are some who hope that enough Senators will be scared by the prospect of these authorities expiring that they will blindly vote in favor of a clean extension even though that will go nowhere. We have all seen this movie before. We know that opponents of the USA FREEDOM Act simply want to delay again. Well, I don't frighten.

Many Americans, especially my constituents, are wondering what opponents of the USA FREEDOM Act have been doing for the past six months? They are rapidly approaching a sunset that has been on the books for years--the original sunset provision written by myself and Republican leader Dick Armey. It is not as though this deadline suddenly snuck up on the leadership or the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, who is just now considering alternative proposals.

Remember, we are just a few days away from the expiration date. But despite this urgency and the extensive debate we have been having for many months, the only bill that has been filed by the opponents of the USA FREEDOM Act is a 2-month rubberstamp of the USA PATRIOT Act provisions--a bill the Senate sponsors know cannot pass the House even if they were in session. And because they are not in session, if we were to pass it here, it would become a ``nothingburger'' because there would be no law to extend.

I read in the press that there may be an alternative proposal in the works. It may include a provision to keep the bulk collection program in place for more than two years. But even if we could legally pass that, it is entirely unnecessary.

Just this week, the NSA Director stated in a letter to Leaders McConnell and Reid that the NSA only needs 180 days to transition to the new targeted program established by the USA FREEDOM Act. Not 2 years. The 180-day transition has been part of the USA FREEDOM Act for more than a year. And during all the negotiations about the bill, neither the NSA nor the intelligence community ever raised a concern with me about this provision. In fact, we have on the record that they support it.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a copy of the May 20 letter from Admiral Rogers, the head of NSA.

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Mr. LEAHY. We all know this last-ditch attempt at further delay is just too late. We have two options: Pass the USA FREEDOM Act or let the provisions expire. A growing majority of the Senate--a straight up-or-down vote--supports the USA FREEDOM Act. If we pass it today, the President can sign it today or tomorrow.

Also, the intelligence community says: Is the law going to be here or is the law gone? By passing the USA FREEDOM Act, they can move forward with the certainty they need to protect the American people.

Senator Lee and I, along with a bipartisan group of Senators ranging from Senator Durbin, to Senator Heller, to Senator Schumer, to Senator Cruz--and that is going across the political spectrum--are moving for a responsible path forward.

We have worked for 2 years on this bill to end the NSA bulk collection of Americans' phone records. Republicans and Democrats have worked together for 2 years to end the NSA's bulk collection of Americans' phone records, something that every one of us, at a townhall meeting--I do not care what State you are in, if you ask Americans ``Do you want a bulk collection of all your phone records?'' you know what the answer would be: ``Of course not.''

The clock has run out, but there is a responsible choice before us. Let's pass the USA FREEDOM Act today. Then we will have important reforms, we will keep America secure, and we will not have all of these authorities expire.

Mr. President, I see other Senators on the floor.

I yield the floor.

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