Floor Statements

Mr. President, for the past year, the Senate has engaged in a serious, bipartisan effort to reform a controversial spying authority known as section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. I have never questioned that section 702 is a valuable tool for collecting foreign intelligence.

Congress's intention when we passed section 702 was clear as could be: FISA section 702 is supposed to be used only for spying on foreigners abroad. Instead, sadly, it has enabled warrantless access to vast databases of Americans' private phone calls, text messages, and emails. This powerful tool has been misused, sadly, in the United States to spy on protestors, journalists, and even Members of Congress.

Last Friday, the House of Representatives passed an alarming bill. It is misleadingly called the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act, but rather than fixing the flaws in section 702, the House bill will dangerously and unnecessarily expand it.

The Senate is now rushing to pass the House bill as is because FISA section 702 will sunset on April 19, but that is a false choice. No Member should be fooled into believing section 702 will go dark and not be available to be used on April 20 if we do nothing.

We planned for this exact scenario by providing clear statutory authority to continue surveillance under existing orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as FISC, after section 702 nominally expires. In fact, the U.S. Department of Justice has already obtained a fresh, 1-year certification from this court to continue section 702 surveillance through April of 2025. Let me repeat that. Existing section 702 surveillance can continue through April 2025 even if it nominally expires on Friday. There is no need for the Senate to swallow whole a House bill that expands rather than reforms section 702.

The House bill contains several alarming and unnecessary expansions of the government's authority for spying. The bill could allow the government to force ordinary U.S. businesses with access to communications equipment--like a Wi-Fi router--to give the National Security Agency access to their equipment. This would greatly expand the number and types of companies forced to assist the NSA with spying and increase warrantless collection of Americans' communications.

Another provision in the House bill would authorize the use of section 702 data by immigration authorities. I am very concerned that that would allow future administrations to target Dreamers and other noncitizens who are only applying for travel documents and are subject to sensitive background checks in that capacity.

Rather than expanding section 702, Congress should reform this authority to protect Americans' privacy. Unfortunately, the purported reforms will have little or no impact. For example, the bill would prohibit what is known as evidence of a crime only queries. This would have prevented the FBI from accessing Americans' communications in only 2 cases out of more than 200,000 searches on U.S. persons in 2022. Other changes merely codify existing internal approval requirements. But with these limits in place, the FBI still conducted an average of more than 500 warrantless searches of Americans every day in 2022.

I will try to make this as basic as I can. After 9/11, we were seriously concerned about the security of the United States, as we should have been. We established authorities in this government to keep us safe. But we had a problem that we had to reckon with, and the problem was this: Despite the great threat we faced, we also had a great responsibility to this publication, the Constitution of the United States, and so we created section 702 and said that we will use it to have queries and surveillance of foreigners in foreign lands but not Americans.

Why did we draw that distinction? Because the Constitution makes it clear: Before the government can listen to my phone call, read my text or email in this country, since I am a U.S. citizen, they have to have a warrant--a warrant which gives them approval for that search--and they have to go to court to get the warrant for that purpose. We made the exception for foreigners in foreign countries, but we said we were trying to protect Americans from this kind of surveillance without complying with the Constitution.

Well, over the years, sadly, the application of this law was not very good. At one point, there were 3.4 million inquiries of American citizens in 1 year.

The Agencies of our government said: We are going to do better. We won't be invading the privacy of individual American citizens. We will do better.

They did better, but there is still an outrageous and unacceptable level of misuse of FISA authority to have surveillance into the privacy of individual American citizens. That is why I rise today.

After the long history of the abuses of this authority--spying on Americans

without a constitutional warrant as required--Congress should not rely on internal executive branch procedures as a substitute for court approval.

If the government wants to spy on my private communications or the private communications of any American, they should be required to get approval from a judge, just as our Founding Fathers intended in writing the Constitution.

A bipartisan amendment in the House would have required the government to obtain a warrant before searching section 702 databases for the communications of American citizens, but this critical reform narrowly failed on a tie vote, 212 to 212.

I want to offer a narrower amendment that would only require the government to obtain a warrant in a small fraction of situations where it actually wants to read or listen to private communications of American citizens.

The vast majority of warrantless FBI searches on U.S. persons do not return any results. Less than 1.6 percent--less than 1.6--return any measurable results. Based on recent FBI statistics, that would amount to just 80 times a month that the FBI or other Agencies that are engaged in this 702 surveillance would have to ask for a court order to protect inquiries and investigations into private communications of American citizens.

I have sat through numerous classified briefings on section 702 and listened carefully to the government's concerns about having to obtain this court approval in order to review the contents of Americans' communications. My bipartisan amendment accounts for these concerns by providing exceptions to the warrant requirement for emergencies or cyber security attacks or where an American consents to the search. This will ensure that there won't be any delays that jeopardize national security. What it will not allow are fishing expeditions in which there are no unusual circumstances and the government does not have probable cause.

This pragmatic approach--respecting the Constitution--will safeguard Americans' privacy and still preserve section 702's critical value for collecting foreign intelligence and protecting national security.

The Chair of the independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board conducted a thorough review based on the classified record and reached the same conclusion.

Congress has a responsibility to the American people to get this right.

I recognize the importance of section 702, but we should not rubberstamp the House's flawed bill when surveillance is already authorized until April 2025.

I want to respect the need for section 702, but I am sworn to respect the need to follow this Constitution. Without critical changes to improve this bill, I cannot support it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from Texas. Though we may disagree on some aspects of this important law, once again he has made a professional and thorough presentation of his point of view. I hope that those who are following this debate understand it, because it is complicated. It is complicated to understand; it is complicated even to explain. But it seems to me there are a couple of areas here that I would like to express a point of view on of the Senator from Texas's comments.

No. 1, I am in favor of keeping section 702--no question about it. When it comes to its initial purpose, we still need it to keep America safe, and we need it in many different aspects. He mentioned the fentanyl situation. It is horrible. The most recent figures I have received from the Drug Enforcement Administration suggest there are over 100,000 victims a year of fentanyl in the United States. It is the deadliest narcotic. There are at least two cartels in Mexico that are generating this fentanyl: Jalisco and--I am trying to recall the other one. But they are actively engaged, and the Drug Enforcement Administration is monitoring what they are doing.

Do we want to use our capacity to get into that business model and try to find out more information to thwart deliveries into the United States and more fentanyl in the United States? Of course. Sign me up.

The question comes down to a practical question. Let's assume for a moment that we decide that we want to know if someone involved in one of these cartels is making a drop in the United States. We can use 702 because we are dealing with foreigners in a foreign land. That is the premise of 702. So, if we intercept the communications of someone in that cartel in Mexico, the question is, What do we do if the information that they disclose in this conversation includes a reference to an American? What right do we have to go any further in questioning that American's involvement with the cartel? That is when we run into the Fourth Amendment, as far as I am concerned, and it is a serious question as to whether or not we can ask any questions about text, emails, or phone conversations of the American whose name came up in the conversation that we intercepted of the member of the cartel.

That is where we have, probably, a difference of opinion. How far can we go? I believe, if we are going into an inquiry as to what that American's involvement is with that cartel, the Fourth Amendment applies. At that point, we need a warrant.

Through the Chair, I ask if the Senator would like to comment on what I have said so far.

Well, I hope I understand the Senator's position as well because I think we just reached a point of agreement. The question is, where do we go from here?

If the foreigner names an American citizen, that is incidental. If our Agency of government decides that they want to explore conversations--phone conversations, texts, and emails--of that named American citizen, I think we both agree, at that point, we have reached Fourth Amendment protection, and it requires a warrant.

All I have tried to do with my amendment is to condition that situation that I have just described to you to be protected in law with three exceptions. I create three exceptions: an emergency situation. I mean, you can imagine--and I can too--after living through 9/11 and other instances. Sometimes you have to move and move quickly, and even a Fourth Amendment warrant may be questionable.

The second part is cybersecurity--or that may be part of it. And the third is when that American citizen happens to be asking to be protected for fear that something is happening to them that they don't want to happen; so they ask the Agency of the government to go forward and inquire as to that foreigner because they want, for their own protection, the Agency to do it. Those three things are built into my amendment as well.

So we may be perilously close to an agreement. I don't know. I won't presume that, but I think what we have said so far is something that I can live with.

The consent of the person, of the American.

Mr. President, I would like to thank my colleague from Texas and say to those who have witnessed this: This came dangerously close to an actual debate on the Senate floor--a bipartisan debate-- that happens so seldom that those who witness it should probably call their friends.

Seriously, I respect the Senator from Texas. Though we may disagree on some aspects of this, I respect his presentation and thank him for answering the questions.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Scott Chamberlain, a fellow on the Senate Judiciary Committee, be granted floor privileges until May 16, 2024.

Madam President, May 1 will mark the beginning of Older Americans Month, a time to honor the many contributions our seniors make to our communities. In honor of Older Americans Month, I would like to congratulate Illinois' 13 area agencies on aging--AAAs--on 50 years of service to Illinois seniors.

As the saying goes: With age, comes wisdom. But living a long, full life also means facing life's many changes, challenges, and uncertainties. Let me take you back to 1965. Thanks to modern medicine and science, Americans were living longer than ever before. Every 20 seconds, an American was turning 65. But that progress exposed a lack of support for the needs of the older population. While more Americans were living longer, many were living their Golden Years in poverty, alone, and without the services and care they needed. They had nowhere else to turn.

At this same time, President Lyndon B. Johnson was pursuing an ambitious agenda of domestic policies aimed at eliminating poverty and racial injustice, his ``Great Society.'' Recognizing our ``nation's sense of responsibility toward the well-being of our older citizens,'' President Johnson signed the Older Americans Act--OAA--on July 14, 1965. This legislation paved the way for the creation of a nationwide network of area agencies on aging--AAA--that would support the health, social, and economic well-being of older people and their caregivers.

In accordance with the OAA, Illinois has 13 AAAs that offer services in all 102 counties in Illinois. For the past 50 years, they have served as a backbone of Illinois' senior services, helping develop aging services in local communities across Illinois. From addressing the health needs of older adults, to providing nutrition, transportation, legal assistance, benefit enrollment, and in-home services, Illinois' AAAs help older Americans thrive in their homes and communities. In 2023 alone, Illinois' AAAs served more than half a million adults over the age of 60.

Currently, around 18 percent of the U.S. population is 65 and older. And by 2054, that number is estimated to jump to 23 percent. So these services do not just benefit older Americans; they

strengthen our communities as a whole. For example, AAAs provide services for grandparents tasked with the precious task of caring for their grandchildren. And during the darkest days of the pandemic, AAAs rose to the occasion to deliver meals, vaccines, and programming that saved lives. These unsung heroes make sure that older adults have the medical support they need to prevent falls, manage chronic diseases, and remain as healthy as possible.

I have called on AAAs in Illinois as I crafted, and ultimately passed, legislation in 2020 to bolster family caregiver supports through the network of AAAs. My legislation increased funding for AAAs to deliver caregiver respite care, training, and counseling, and enabled AAAs to partner with Medicare and Medicaid to deliver meals, case management, and transportation, and receive reimbursements for this critical work.

Despite the fact that aging is an inevitable and natural part of life, it is often met with stigma or shame. But your efforts help ensure that birthdays remain cause for celebration, regardless of how many candles are on the cake.

My wife Loretta and I want to express our utmost appreciation for the work Illinois' 13 AAAs do in Illinois. Congratulations to Northwestern Illinois Area Agency on Aging; AgeGuide Northeastern Illinois; Western Illinois Area Agency on Aging; Central Illinois Agency on Aging, Inc.; East Central Illinois Area Agency on Aging, Inc.; West Central Illinois Area Agency on Aging; Area Agency on Aging for Lincolnland, Inc.; AgeSmart Community Resources; Midland Area Agency on Aging; Southeastern Illinois Area Agency on Aging, Inc.; Egyptian Area Agency on Aging, Inc.; Chicago Department of Family and Support Services; and AgeOptions, Inc., on 50 years of service to older adults and caregivers.

Family is the most important thing we have, and every family in our State owes you a debt of gratitude for helping support the wisest members of our community.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Ramona Villagomez Manglona to the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.

Judge Manglona was born in Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands--CNMI. She received a B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1990 and a J.D. from the University of New Mexico School of Law in 1996. Following her graduation from law school, she clerked for Judge Virginia Sablan-Onerheim and Judge Alexandro C. Casto, both on the CNMI Superior Court. Judge Manglona then began her legal career as assistant attorney general in the criminal division for the CNMI Office of the Attorney General. She served in the criminal division for 3 years before moving to the civil division in 2001. In 2002, she was appointed to serve as the attorney general for the CNMI. Judge Manglona was appointed to a 6-year term as an associate judge on the Superior Court for the CNMI in 2003 and was elected to serve a second term in 2009.

In 2011, Judge Mangona was nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve a 10-year term as the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands. As the sole active Federal district judge in the Northern Mariana Islands, she performs the work of a chief judge, a magistrate judge, and a bankruptcy judge. In her entire judicial career, Judge Manglona has presided over 185 cases that have gone to verdict, 35 of which were bench and jury trials she presided over as a Federal district court judge.

The American Bar Association unanimously rated Judge Manglona as ``well qualified,'' and she was unanimously voted out of the Judiciary Committee by a vote of 21-0.

Judge Manglona is a highly experienced jurist who will continue to serve with distinction in her second term as a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.

I am proud to support her nomination.

I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Ms. Hirono), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Judge Ann Marie Allen to the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah.

Born in Richfield, UT, Judge Allen earned her B.A. from Brigham Young University and her J.D. from Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark Law School.

After teaching at BYU J. Reuben Clark Law School and Utah Valley University, Judge Allen began working in private practice under a public defender contract with Beaver County, UT, handling indigent defense cases and Criminal Justice Act panel appointments in Federal criminal matters.

In 2007, Judge Allen became the deputy Iron County attorney and prosecuted a range of felonies and misdemeanors. She returned to private practice in 2013 while also serving part-time as the deputy Garfield County attorney. In 2016, Judge Allen was appointed by the president of Southern Utah University to serve as the university's special counsel and director of ethics and compliance. She became the university's first general counsel in 2018. In 2020, Judge Allen was appointed by then-Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert to the Utah State Fifth District Court. Over the course of her judicial career, she has presided over hundreds of civil cases and thousands of criminal cases resulting in plea bargains.

The American Bar Association unanimously rated Judge Allen as ``well qualified,'' and she has the strong support of Senators Lee and Romney. Her nomination was unanimously advanced by the Judiciary Committee.

Judge Allen's significant courtroom experience and dedication to service make her an excellent nominee to the District of Utah. I will vote in favor of her confirmation and encourage my colleagues to do the same.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of H. Con. Res. 85, which was received from the House and is at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, reserving the right to object.

Reserving the right to object, Madam President. The Senator from Louisiana is my friend. We throw that term around here in the Senate, but it is true. I think he would say the same. We both serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee. We have worked on issues together. We have been adversaries, but we have done it respectfully, and it will continue, I hope, to this day.

But the gentleman, the Senator from Louisiana, brings to the floor of the Senate and to this debate special qualities. He sounds many times like a homespun backwoods lawyer. Don't be fooled. He is a graduate from a famous university in England--I have forgotten which one-- Oxford, Cambridge, one of those. They are not in the Big 10, I am sure of that, but I know they are in England. I congratulate him. I was never even considered for a university of that stature. He is a brilliant lawyer and Senator and raises important questions, not just for the moment but for history.

The question before us today that he is raising is about the purported impeachment--I should say actual impeachment--of a member of President Biden's Cabinet, Mr. Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security. That is now about to be reported to the Senate, and we have constitutional responsibilities when it is reported.

In this situation, we are waiting for the actual report to arrive. I think it will be momentarily, perhaps this week or next, and we will take up this matter as we are required to do.

The House Homeland Committee engaged in a yearlong investigation of Secretary Mayorkas and his alleged maladministration of the border of the United States. This committee in the House held 12 hearings, testimony from more than two dozen witnesses, producing nearly 400 pages of reports.

The Senate, when sitting as a Court of Impeachment, is not responsible for making the case on behalf of the impeachment managers. We are the jury. We are the ones who will decide the impeachment. Our duty is to make the determination based on the Articles of Impeachment and the facts at hand. We are not a factfinding operation.

My friend from Utah is also on the floor. During the first Trump impeachment, he said that ``the Senate--here sitting as a court of impeachment--has both the authority and the obligation to decline to hold a full trial where the material facts in the case are not in dispute.''

The facts are not in dispute here. This is the first time that the House has successfully impeached a sitting Cabinet-level official without providing any evidence of a high crime or misdemeanor. None. All those hearings, all those pages, all those witnesses--no evidence of high crimes or misdemeanors. And that is a requirement in the Constitution. The Articles of Impeachment that will be before us contain zero evidence that Secretary Mayorkas has committed high crimes and misdemeanors. Instead, it can be read as a summary of Republican grievances with this administration's approach to border policy, immigration, detention, and methods of removal and parole--all of which is conduct that falls squarely within the executive branch's constitutional prerogative. Fortunately, the Constitution was designed to prevent this type of partisan politics driving this effort from contaminating the extraordinary process of impeachment.

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention considered and rejected the concept of maladministration as an impeachable offense, in part, because they feared the misuse of impeachment for purely political retribution.

The Constitution empowers the Senate to have the sole power to try all impeachments and to determine the rules of its proceedings, but the Senate

only has the power to convict, remove, and disqualify officers whose conduct meets the constitutional standard. That standard is well known to all Members of Congress and to the Senate particularly.

Given that the Senate only has the power to convict, remove, and disqualify officers who have committed ``Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,'' the appropriate Senate response to impeachment articles that do not articulate those charges is obvious.

If congressional Republicans were genuinely interested in addressing concerns about our border, they should be willing to work on a bipartisan basis to pass legislation fixing our broken immigration system and give this President and Secretary Mayorkas the tools they have asked for to address the situation at the southern border.

I want to make sure this is clear on the record. The border is broken. It needs to be fixed and what we should do and what we did do was to establish a bipartisan committee. The Republicans said: We insist that James Lankford, a respected Senator from the State of Oklahoma, speak for us and negotiate for us when it comes to changing the rules at the border. We agreed with that.

Senators worked with Senator Lankford, whom I respect, and came up with a bipartisan proposal that gave new authority to the President and to the executive branch to deal with the crisis at the border. What happened on the Republican side of the aisle when James Lankford, the Republican Senator from Oklahoma, came up with this proposal? All but seven of them--I believe that was the number--walked away and said they wouldn't even support it.

Why did they do it? You know why they did it--because Donald Trump announced he wanted no part of any agreement, any bipartisan effort to solve the problem. Then, former President Trump said: And blame me.

Well, I am blaming him. We had an opportunity to actually do something on the floor of the Senate when it came to the border. He stopped it. And so many of the Republican Senators who begged us to work with Senator Lankford turned their backs on him after the yeoman's effort he put into this undertaking. That is the reality.

We had our chance, on a bipartisan basis--and still do--to solve this problem rather than engage in any political stunt. Instead, the vast majority of Republicans, including the Senator from Utah and others on the floor, recently blocked the bipartisan border reform bill that was written by the Republicans' designated negotiator, Senator Lankford. They had their chance. It didn't work; neither will this. I object.

I object.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, the date was June 27, 2013, and on the floor of the U.S. Senate we had done something that no one believed could be achieved: We had, through the Gang of 8, established a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

I was part of that Gang of 8--eight Senators, four Democrats and four Republicans--who labored for months to create that legislation. It was comprehensive, as I noted. It covered every aspect, from border all the way through the immigration process.

We brought it to the floor in the hopes that, for the first time in decades, we would finally reach an agreement, a bipartisan agreement. The people who were involved in it--John McCain on the Republican side, Senator Flake from Arizona, Senator Graham from South Carolina, and four Democrats--worked hard to bring this to the floor. It was an opportunity for us to finally do something together.

It got 68 votes. We needed 60, but we got 68 votes. There was a lot of celebration because business and labor and others were supporting us and so happy that we got it done.

We know what happened to that bill. It went over and died in the House of

Representatives. The Republican leadership over there refused to even call it for consideration. Of the Republican Senators currently on the floor, two of them were on the floor on June 27, 2013. They both voted no.

Listen to the speeches and ask yourself the question: If the border and immigration policy need to be fixed in America, why weren't you there when we had a chance for a bipartisan approach to comprehensive immigration reform?

And to make it even worse, there was an argument made that we would not provide defense supplemental spending, asked for by the administration, around the world, unless we came up with a border reform bill within the last several months. And the Republicans said: We have a leader on our side of the aisle whom we want to head up our effort to come up with a bipartisan bill to deal with the border. We do believe it needs to be fixed; it is in crisis.

They proffered James Lankford, a conservative Republican Senator from Oklahoma, a highly respected Senator. I may disagree with him on many issues, but I respect him as a Member of the Senate. He was to be the lead negotiator, and we respected that request. Democrats had Chris Murphy and Kyrsten Sinema joining in the effort and prepared to bring to the floor a major--it was a bipartisan approach to solve this problem.

Why is that necessary? Because in this body you need 60 votes. If you don't have 60 votes, you are wasting your time. We needed something bipartisan.

And so this measure was headed to the floor. And at the last minute, former President Donald Trump announced that he wanted to stop the process; he did not want to even attempt to solve the problem with bipartisan legislation. He said: You can blame me if you want to. And I blame him again. Yes, he did that.

And, unfortunately, the Republican Senators were complicit, most of them, in that effort instead of respecting what James Lankford had achieved and what a bipartisan bill would have made.

So you can say what you want and make all the speeches about bodies and suffering, and I am sure most or some of that is true. But the bottom line is, when you had a chance to do something about it with the bipartisan Gang of 8 bill, you voted no, and when you had a chance to support James Lankford's bipartisan approach to fixing the border, you were not there to be seen. You were loyal to Donald Trump and not loyal to the situation that we face in the Senate.

I object.

I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) is necessarily absent.