OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Providing for Consideration of H.R. Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act; Providing for Consideration of H.R. Extending Limits of U.S. Customs Waters Act; Providing for Consideration of H. Res. Denouncing the Biden Administration's Immigration Policies; and Providing for Consideration of H. Res. Opposing Efforts to Place One-Sided Pressure on Israel with Respect to Gaza

Floor Speech

Date: April 12, 2024
Location: Washington, DC

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Mrs. SPARTZ. Mr. Speaker, I guess under the current version of the bill, Americans should feel better that Congress will be authorizing to spy on them only for 2 years, not for 5, but I really want to bring up some other issues that are the essence of this bill that the bill is not addressing.

We have been talking about warrants, which is extremely important. This is a search, so government is able to search without a warrant. That is a violation of the Fourth Amendment. It is unconstitutional.

On top of it, when we are talking about lawfully collected information, in reality, it could be very unlawful information there. We do not know. It is never addressed. We know for a fact that government unlawfully collected information in 2016. We know the government acknowledged that they have a lot of data there. They don't know how much it could be. They call it all incidental.

There is nothing in this bill addressing actually if this is for lawfully collected information. There is no auditing, no checking, and they want us to trust. If we pass with a warrant, at least we will have a warrant to potentially search unlawfully collected information, but if this bill passes as it is, Congress will be authorizing the government to conduct unconstitutional searches of unlawfully collected information for 2 years. It almost sounds ironic for us, an institution that should be protecting the constitutional rights of Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are paying attention to what we will be voting for, and I hope Congress will wake up to start protecting the American people, not playing circuses here.

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