Senator from montana. Mr. Daines mr. President , americans want their privacy protected. For far too long the patriot act and the foreign Intelligence Surveillance act, commonly referred to as fisa has been used to trample the Civil Liberties of american citizens. For montanans the right to privacy is so fundamental it is enshrined in our own constitution. In fact, very few states have such protections, but the drafters of the Montana Constitution recognized that privacy was essential to exercise all of the other freedoms that we hold so dear. The fill the u. S. House has sent us does have some good reforms. It has some good provisions in it, including a provision from my bipartisan bill with my colleague from oregon, senator wyden, called the safeguarding americans private records act which would revoke the now terminated call Detail Program which secretly collected data on our cell phones, our land lines as well as private conversations. But the house bill fails to enact real reforms to fisa that will actually protect the privacy of the American People. And we saw what a handful of scornful government bureaucrats did to President Trump when they abused fisa to serve their political motives. Our own government spied on an american citizen, a political advisor to thencandidate trump with no oversight. And what happened to President Trump can happen to anybody for any purpose, and that is a very serious problem. Republican or democrat, we cant allow the abuse of our Government Intelligence Services to be used for political attacks. It puts our democracy in danger and it undermines the trust and the confidence that our citizens place in these same institutions that are meant to protect them. The house bill fails to prohibit the warrantless searches of browsing data and internet Search History and it fails to include any meaningful oversight and accountability. We need to get government out of our private lives and instead prioritize freedom and privacy. We can and must protect our National Security and protect our Civil Liberties by making targeted reforms that will keep every day americans, their privacy secure, and continue to allow the government to go after the bad guys. The house bill does not go far enough and we cannot compromise on an issue that is so vital to the very foundations of our government. Montanans sent me to congress to get government off their backs, and im working not only to get government off their backs, but to get government out of their phones, out of their computers, and out of their private lives. At the end of the day this is about protecting privacy, and today today, this day, we have the opportunity to get these reforms right. Ive been working on behalf of mon montana tannians to be sure to take a bipartisan approach to this issue. Mr. President , id like to speak on the wydendaines amendment well be voting on shortly. My bipartisan amendment is simple. It protects all american Civil Liberties by prohibiting the collection of browser data and internet Search History under section 215 of the patriot act. Browser data is some of the most personal and revealing information that can be collected on private citizens. Your internet Search History can reveal extremely intimate information, including personal health data, religious beliefs, political beliefs, where you might go on your next vacation, even what you bought your mom this past mothers day. And i dont think the government should have access to such private information without a warrant. In section 215 of the patriot act is supposed to investigate potential terrorists, not spy on our own browsers data. Let me be clear. My amendment doesnt stop the Intelligence Community from doing their job. Im grateful for the Intelligence Community. But it doesnt prevent them from doing their job or accessing the data they need to keep americans safe. It simply requires our intelligence agencies to abide by the constitution and work within our nations laws which means requesting a probable cause warrant to get this type of information. That means they might have to go to a judge and prove that they have a valid reason to believe someone is involved in espionage or possible terrorism operation. Without my bipartisan amendment, the government would be able to access browser data through the secret 215 spy program with little to no oversight. At the end of the day this is about securing our most basic Fourth Amendment rights to protect our citizens most personal data. In fact, recently the Supreme Court found in the carpenter decision that the government needed a warrant to access cell site location data because of how personal and how invasive that information is. Well, the current house bill before us does have a prohibition for the collection of cell site location under section 215, and thats a good thing. But my amendment extends this prohibition to include browser data and internet Search History which is even more sensitive and personal than location data. And i agree with many of my colleagues that we have to have the tools in place to help find and stop our nations enemies who seek to harm the American People, we all agree on that. Yet, we need to make sure we are protecting americans from our own government spying and intervening in our personal lives. And my amendment balances these important Civil Liberties and National Security by allowing the government to track down terrorists while also stopping them from violating the rights of lwcfabiding of lawabiding citizens. This is not a zerosum gain. We can have both and this amendment has strong bipartisan support. Senator wyden and i have been working on this issue for months and we have joined by a long list of bipartisan cosponsors including senators cramer and markey and more. The amendment is also supported from a Diverse Group of stakeholders across the political spectrum from Freedom Works and americans for prosperity on one end to the aclu and demand progress on the other. Americans across the country overwhelmingly back this amendment. This is a core constitutional issue that brought a democrat from oregon together with a republican from montana. Montanans and oregonians may have different priorities, but we all believe strongly in the right to privacy, to protecting our Civil Liberties, and preserving our american way of life. I urge my Senate Colleagues to stand with senator wyden and myself to protect the privacy of all americans and i judge them i urge them to vote in favor of this amendment. Mr. President , before i yield to senator wyden, i also want to take a minute to speak in the leeleahy amendment. This bipartisan amendment strengthens and clarifies the role and the authority of the amic ami krirch in the court. The department of justices Inspector General found major major abuses in applications to surveil President Trumps Campaign Advisor carter page, and this abuse is just the tip of this eisenberg. We need iceberg. We the leeleahy does that, it gives americans a fighting chance and brings some clarity, and importantly, some transparency to the fisa court. I encourage my colleagues to also join me in supporting the leeleahy amendment. And i see that my distinguished colleague and friend, the senator from oregon, ron wyden, is on the floor and i yield to senator wyden for his remarks. Wind wind mr. President. The presiding officer mr. Wyden mr. President. Mr. Wyden i call up amendment 1583. The clerk the senator from oregon calls up amendment 15583 1583. Mr. Wyden i ask that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with. The presiding officer without objection. Wide which i i thank my mr. Wyden i thank my colleague from montana for his support and i hope we can count on his caucus, the Senate Majority when we vote in a little bit. Mr. President , i rise to offer this bipartisan amendment because i think a basic question needs to be asked at this unique time. Is it right when millions of lawabiding americans are at home for their government to be able to spy on their internet searches and their web browsing without a warrant . Should lawabiding americans have to worry about their government looking over their shoulders from the moment they wake up in the morning and turn on their computers to when they go to bed at night . I believe the answer is no. But that is exactly what the government has the power to do without this bipartisan amendment. I want to start by reflecting for a moment on how americans are using the internet these days. They are helping kids with homework, checking out Prescription Drug prices for a sick parent, and they visit scores of different websites. In a pandemic the internet may be their own connection to the outside world. So the question that were presenting is, dont those americans deserve some measure of privacy . Dont they deserve better than their governments snooping into the websites they visit . How can this be that the government can spy on them when they are not suspected of doing anything wrong . And most importantly, how is this okay in america . With web browsing and searches, you are talking about some of the most intimate, some of the most personal, some of the most private details of the lives of americans. Every thought that can come into peoples heads can be revealed in an internet search or a visit to a website. Their health history, their medical fears, their political views, their romantic lives, their religious beliefs. Mr. President , collecting this information is as close to reading minds as surveillance can get. It is Digital Mining of the personal lives of the American People. Now, typical americans may think to themselves, ive got nothing to worry about. Ive done nothing wrong. The government has no reason to suspect me of anything. Why do i need to worry . Unfortunately, the question is not whether you did anything wrong. The question is whether a government agent believes they have the right to look at your web searches. In other words, without this bipartisan amendment, it is open season on anybodys most personal information. Now theres a simple solution. Require a warrant. With this amendment the government can go to court and with a warrant collect whatever it needs from those who actually threaten the safety of our people. And in an emergency, something i feel very strongly about and have worked for as a member of the p Intelligence Committee, the government can use emergency provisions, collect the information immediately, and settle up with the court later, proving once again, mr. President , that liberty and security arent mutually exclusive, that smart policies like this type of amendment help to get you both. Now a brief explanation of how we got here. Right now the government can collect web browsing and internet Search History without a warrant under section 215 of the patriot act. Section 215 from the beginning has been the most controversial and dangerous provision of the fisa law. Thats because it is so extraordinarily broad and so vague. Under section 215, the government can collect just about anything so long as the government believes its relevant to an investigation. This can include the private lives of many innocent lawabiding americans. As i indicated, they dont have to do anything wrong. They dont have to be suspected of anything. They dont have to even have been in contact with anyone suspected of anything. Their personal information in some way, some way just has to be connected, relevant to what the government is looking for. Back in 2001 when Congress Passed the patriot act, americans were rightly concerned about their government collecting their Library Borrowing records without a warrant. My colleague, the president of the senate, might remember because this was nationwide. People were up in arms about the prospect of the government looking at Library Records, the books they borrowed and the like. Ill tell you something, what were talking about here today, looking at web history, browsing, it is thousands of times more invasive of privacy than the Library Records that americans were concerned about years ago. And there is, regrettably, a long history of abuse of section 215. A few years ago the government decided it could use section 215 to justify the collection of every americans phone records. The government secretly decided that the phone records of millions of innocent lawabiding americans were again somehow connected, somehow relevant to something the government wanted and wanted to get it without a warrant. It was only when this abuse was publicly revealed that congress stepped in and began reining in the governments phone record collection. Now the Supreme Court did determine recently that physical tracking of americans as they move around requires a he requires a warrant. In this bill congress is getting around to stopping the government from using section 215 to collect, to conduct warrantless collection of certain location data. But the irony is and i say this to my colleagues because of this unique time. The irony is now that americans have been asked to stay home and not move around so as to help our country fight this unprecedented contagion, they are more vulnerable to abusive surveillance than ever before. I think thats wrong. People today, whether theyre in north dakota, Washington State, montana, oregon, any of our home states, people are at home and theyre living their lives online. Now more than ever i would say to senators of both Political Parties because ive long felt that these issues were fundamental, fundamental to ensuring that we prove, as i stated earlier, that liberty and security arent mutually exclusive. Smart policies give you both and not so smart policies dont give you either. During this pandemic, americans deserve assurances that the government isnt spying on them as theyre home where they think theyre going to have some measure of privacy, and probably until they heard this debate didnt know the government could spy on them at home as they move around the internet. Americans deserve to know at this unique time that the government is not engaged in digital tracking of their personal lives. The warrantless collection of americans web browsing history offers endless opportunities for abuse. Tonld trump called donald trump called for investigation of his political enemies. All it would take is for some innocent americans web browsing history to be deemed relevant to an investigation, and the governments off to the races collecting all of that personal information. And then it wouldnt even matter whether that web browsing history had anything to do with the original goal of the investigation. For any number of reasons, the web browsing history of that innocent american could reveal potentially such embarrassing information that that person would be humiliated, humiliated for years to come, and of course could be used against him or her. This is not a partisan proposition. Any administration, given the direction of the law absent this amendment, could be tempted to collect the web browsing and internet Search History of political enemies, politicians, activists, journalists. And im just, before we wrap up, going to touch on some of the arguments against this amendment because having served on the Intelligence Committee and followed these issues closely, invariably at some point in this discussion someones going to come and say this bipartisan amendment is going to be pretty much the end of western civilization as we know it. We wont be safe. Its not going to protect our liberties. Its going to set up all kinds of arbitrary policies. And i just want to show how those arguments dont hold water. The first argument is that the government needs this information before it can get a warrant. But without web browsing history, theres still plenty of Information Available to the government even without a warrant. Phone and email metadata, subscription data, business records. But the biggest response of this argument is that its Congress Responsibility to determine when some information is so sensitive that it requires a warrant. In this bill, that was done with respect to geolocation information. I believe digital tracking of innocent americans demands the same protection. And let me say as i did earlier, when there is an emergency and something that i have made a priority in my work on the Intelligence Committee, the government can go get the information immediately and then come back to the court later on and settle up. The other argument i imagine well hear is that this amendment would create protections for americans that dont exist in the criminal context. The problem with that argument is that congress isnt legislating on the criminal law right now. But it does have the unique opportunity to prevent intrusive surveillance of americans and prevent abuses. Mr. President , fisa requires an extra layer of protection. Thats because unlike criminal law, fisa is secret. Its also a nonadversarial process. It relies on government representations as weve learned from the Inspector General are frequently in