Tuesday, June 2, 2015
Senator Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made the following statement after the Senate passed the USA FREEDOM Act. Grassley voted for several amendments to improve the bill that did not pass. He voted for the bill on final passage.
"I`ve pointed out in the past the concerns I have with this bill. Those concerns remain. I voted for several amendments to fix the amicus provision, provide the government notice if the telephone companies were not going to continue to hold the phone records for at least 18 months, and require the Director of National Intelligence to certify that the new program was operationally effective. Those amendments would have addressed several of my concerns. I remain hopeful that many of these deficiencies can be addressed in the future.
"In the end, I felt that the bill was better than no reform at all and it restored several important, noncontroversial national security tools."
