[国会记录第161卷第79号（2015年5月21日，星期四）][参议院][页数]S3202-S3212][…]美国自由法，弗兰肯先生。总统先生，我今天站起来发言支持2015年《美国自由法》。我是这项两院制、两党法案的共同提案人，该法案为联邦政府的监控计划带来了急需的改革，包括终止大量数据收集计划，情报界称这是不必要的，公众称他们不支持，第二巡回法院裁定这是非法的。[[第S3208页]]我特别自豪地与我的朋友、内华达州参议员迪安·海勒共同制定了该法案的透明度条款。我们非常感谢李参议员和莱希参议员的领导和不懈的工作。美国人和我一样明白，我们在这里的工作是取得适当的平衡，一方面确保我们在维护国家安全的同时，不践踏我们公民的基本隐私权。但是，如果公众甚至不知道我们的主要监控计划的最基本信息，他们就无法知道我们是否成功地实现了这一平衡。这就是为什么我把重点放在透明度上，因为我想确保美国人民能够自己决定我们是否做对了。我支持《美国自由法案》，因为它在所有这些方面都将我们推向正确的方向。6月1日，几个国家安全机构将到期。众议院采取了负责任的行动并通过了《美国自由》法案，该法案反映了共和党和民主党、情报和执法界成员、隐私和公民自由倡导者以及科技界和商界成员的共同努力和一致意见。这项立法确保必要的权力在2019年继续有效，并进行了重大改革，实际上将改善国家安全。你不必相信我的话。国家情报局局长和总检察长明确地告诉我们，我们应该尽快通过《美国自由法》。然而，我的一些同事正试图向我们提出一个选择，要么在不进行任何改革的情况下重新授权即将到期的当局，要么完全终止这些当局。这是非常不幸的，因为我们有一项折衷法案，获得了压倒性的支持，并以338票对88票获得了众议院的压倒性批准。它得到了企业、民间社会和政府内部的广泛支持。我相信，唯一能阻止这项法案在参议院获得类似两党强有力支持的是，如果反对这项法案的共和党领导人向我的共和党同事施压，迫使他们阻挠议案的通过。我真的希望这不会发生。我希望这不会发生，因为美国自由党的改革代表着真正和有意义的进步。该法案结束了大量收集电话元数据的旧计划。根据去年一次听证会上讨论的报告，这些元数据主要收集来自固定电话的通话记录。它用一种更具针对性的方法取代该计划，允许收集通话详细记录，包括这些记录的预期收集。你得到一张逮捕证，然后根据政府对与国际恐怖主义有联系的合理、明确的怀疑，你前瞻性地收集这些逮捕证。现在，我认为这是一个更明智的方法。我知道我的一些同事不同意。去年11月，我的一位同事建议，批量收集比定向收集更可取，因为如果政府“不得不去那些公司索取数据”，美国的隐私将受到威胁。但当然，不管怎样，我们必须去这些公司索取数据。这里讨论的记录是电话公司的业务记录。这就是他们。我还应该注意到，这些公司保留和保护这些记录的原因既有法律原因，也有商业原因，从潜在的账单纠纷到商业分析，再到监管问题。FCC法规要求他们保留电话记录18个月。所有这些都没有改变。需要强调的是，美国电话公司和政府之间的自由关系并不是什么新鲜事。我国执法和情报机构长期以来一直与电话公司合作，在进行国内刑事调查或进行敏感的国家安全调查（如FISA窃听）时，获取特定记录，无论是历史记录还是未来记录。所以我们已经做了很长时间了。情报界、国家安全、执法专家和美国企业，更不用说众议院了，都明白我们必须取得正确的平衡。我们需要维护我们的国家安全，但我们必须ReportsReportsd to do it in ways that do not unduly tread on privacy and civil liberties. Leaders across these different public and private sectors have managed to come together to strike that balance in the USA FREEDOM Act. That is where my work with Senator Heller comes in. We recognized that when the public lacks even a rough sense of the scope of the government's surveillance programs, they have no way of knowing if the government is getting that balance right. So there needs to be more transparency. Since the Snowden revelations came to light 2 years ago, a steady stream of news reports has provided details about NSA programs that collect information about both foreign nationals and the American people. Despite these disclosures, it remains impossible for the American people to get even a basic sense of the real size and scope of these programs. Americans still don't know the number of people whose information has been collected under these programs. They have no sense of the extent to which U.S. persons are affected and, particularly, have no way of knowing how often the government has searched that information, such as call detail records of Americans. Senator Heller and I crafted transparency provisions to make sure Americans get that kind of information. That way the American people can better judge the government's surveillance programs for themselves. Under USA FREEDOM, the government will be required to issue detailed annual reports for each of the surveillance authorities at issue. Importantly, the government will have to tell the public how many people have had their information collected, and for certain authorities--like those permitting the targeted collection of call detail records or the communications of foreigners abroad--the government will also have to say how many times it has run searches for Americans' data. The USA FREEDOM Act doesn't just require the government to be more transparent. We also make it possible for American businesses to provide their customers with more information about what they are asked to turn over to the government. This is not only good for transparency, it is good for our economy. It has been estimated that the Snowden revelations are costing American companies billions of dollars because people have lost trust in those companies, often assuming that all companies are handing over all of their information to the government. So by allowing companies to report the size and scope of the government's requests, the public can get a better sense of what information is actually being turned over, and the bill makes clear that a company that has not received any national security requests from the government is free to say so. All of this will calm fears, both here and abroad, and allow American companies to better compete with their foreign counterparts. The provisions Senator Heller and I wrote will expand the options that companies have to issue their own transparency reports and allow companies to issue those reports more quickly. But we also listened to the intelligence community to make sure we were striking the right balance and ensuring that ongoing investigations are not jeopardized by additional transparency. Now, look, to get the broad, bipartisan support we needed, Senator Heller and I had to compromise a great deal. We didn't get everything we wanted when we initially negotiated our provisions last year, and we had to compromise further still this year, particularly with regard to government reporting under section 702, which authorizes the collection, for intelligence purposes, of communications of foreign persons abroad. I am disappointed the bill doesn't include all of the requirements we agreed on last year and that were included in the Senate bill last Congress, which had 58 votes. But I am committed to pressing my colleagues to revisit this issue in the [[Page S3209]] future--hopefully before the sunset of section 702--in 2017. That, of course, is the Internet traffic of foreign persons abroad who are suspected of being terrorists. But in the meantime, the good news is that after all the give-and- take, our provisions that did get included in the bill will usher in a new era of transparency about our Nation's surveillance agencies. They will allow the American public to see--on an annual basis--whether the government really makes good on its promise to end bulk collection, and they will give those of us in Congress important tools as we work to continually improve our country's laws. The transparency provisions are an essential part of USA FREEDOM, and the bill overall is a step in the right direction for reforming our Nation's intelligence laws. It is a step that the House has already taken on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis. It is a step that the Senate should take as well. I yield the floor.