Needed beyond december 22nd. This is 35 minutes. Thanks, everybody, for coming. We are going to make this a filibuster freezone. Chairman leahy is going to leave in a few minutes. At the end of the year where he is doing a lot of good work, for three minutes or so and privacy friends, watchdogs as well. All of us are here on a bipartisan basis. To make it clear we support government efforts to target foreign threats overseas. We simply dont want to see americans be part of an end run on the constitution here at home. That is what unifies our group and we want to make sure there is not an effort in congress to shortcircuit a real debate on this critical question. The fact is the senate has done a whole year with a minute of debate, not a single minute on the floor or in an open markup. You ask what is the government hiding . Why is it talking about unchecked surveillance without some discussion about what it means for the public. I close by saying the administration is going backward on transparency. It wont provide an estimate on the number of americans swept up under the program. That is 180 turn about on the governments position as recently as may. The government has refused to answer the question senator lee and i have been interested in, what are the general categories of people being targeted under section 702. When the government wont answer the most basic questions, the congress is forced to legislate in the dark and to see how farfetched this has become it has not even been possible to get a straight answer on whether a law called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act can be used to collect communications the government knows are entirely domestic. A little bit of an example of how we are freeing the governments position, senator paul will go next. And we will take questions. Intelligence community in our country needs more oversight, not less. Permanent reauthorization of the Intelligence Surveillance act is less oversight and a huge mistake. I oppose permanent reauthorization. It needs to be short and we need more oversight, not less. We have the capability to listen to every phone call in the world including americans and the ability to see every email and read all the metadata concerning phone calls and emails. Our Intelligence Community has the capability of looking at every internet search. There needs to be more oversight, not less. We allow our government to collect things on foreigners with a less than constitutional standard. You dont have to name the person or have probable cause, you dont have to say what items you are looking for. We have Carte Blanche on foreigners. Any american data caught up in it needs to be protected by the constitution and any Data Collected at a less than constitutional standard should be used for domestic prosecution. Full throated debate on reforming, controlling and overseeing this enormous power we allow our intelligence. Senator leahy. Like they said, and i agree, you look at the group here, we go across the political spectrum, both parties. In many ways this is what we would see in the state of vermont, an agreement that our privacy is extremely important. We know other countries spy on us, but we shouldnt have our own country spying on us. As innocent americans, we ought to have a sense of privacy. 702 was intended to be a powerful foreign Intelligence Surveillance tool, and it is, but remember, it sweeps up massive amounts of americans communications. So if we reauthorized 702, which we should do, we should do it only with real privacy reforms. We have bipartisan consensus, but as senator wyden and senator paul have said we have to have a real debate. We should codify it into whats called bulk collection. We should address the back door search loophole. We have increased transparency measures. This is too important an issue to jam through on a year and continuing resolution. We could have a shortterm continuing resolution, keep the government going, but then in the first couple of weeks of january, plenty of time, we thought a year to debate this. Lets take the time to debate. The House Judiciary Committee reported a bipartisan bill. Senator lee and i working together with the leaders of them just as it did at usa freedom. I understand we preach to the converted and the public. They ought to listen to what we hear back, protect our privacy. People worry about their privacy being invaded all the time. Other countries invade our privacy. Our own country should not do it. Let us have a real debate on the senate floor, and let us get a consensus bill that can pass. Thank you. Its clear that the extremist groups and other likeminded terrorists, theyre their inten destroying our very way of life, including our Nations Foundation of freedom and justice for all. But even as we strengthen our intelligence capabilities, we must with equal vigor and equal determination protect our constitution. Protect our civil liberties. Because after all, it is a very foundation of our country. And we can do both without sacrificing the other. But it requires careful consideration and robust debate. Thats why we here today. Because if the forces of evil