and stephanie o'sullivan, the principal deputy director of national intelligence.for providing test which was on the u.s.a. freedom act. our witnesses are very experienced on these issues and expect the committee will benefit from the insight on this bill. while i recognize this bill is gained a lot of momentum, i think we all need to step back and ask ourselves whether all of these changes are really necessary. seems to me that this bill is fixing a lot of things that simply are not broken. for example, this bill in the section 215 bulk data collection program. all three branches of our government have performed extensive oversight of this program for years and have ensured that it has been operated in accordance with our constitution and within the u.s. law. the program from the -- historical analysis of suspicious threats in an effort to identify emerging and evolving terrorist networks. the system where the state is maintained is very secure. the number of analysts who can't access this data is extremely small. there are a host of multilayered oversight mechani

stephanie o'sullivan, the rentable deputy director of national intelligence. thank you for being here. after this panel we will have a second panel of outside witnesses who i will introduce at the time. let me turn to the distinguished vice chairman for his remarks. >> thank you, madam chair, and i join you in welcoming our witnesses and thank you for providing testimony on the usa freedom act. are experienced on these issues and i expect our committee will benefit from their insight on this bill. while i recognize this bill has gained a lot of momentum, i think we need to step back and ask ourselves if these changes are necessary. it seems this bill is fixing a lot of things that simply are not broken. for example, the bill will end this section 215 bulk data collection program. all three branches of our government have performed extensive oversight of this program for years and have ensured it has been operated in accordance with our constitution and within the u.s. law. officials toermits conduct historical analysis of suspicious threats in an effort to ide

stephanie o'sullivan will now make an opening statement and then we will all be happy to answer your questions. >> thanks very much, mr. cole. mrs. o'sullivan. >> chairman feinstein, vice chairman chambliss, and distinguished members of the committee, we are pleased to appear before you to express the administration's strong support for the usa freedom act, hr 3361, as recently passed by the house of representatives. the deputy attorney general has provided an in-depth review of the usa freedom act as passed by the house last month, but i wanted to touch on a few key points in my remarks. over the past year the nation has been engaged in a robust discussion about how the intelligence community uses its authorities to collect critical foreign intelligence in a manner that protects civil liberties and privacy. we take great care to ensure the protection of individual privacy and civil liberties in the conduct and intelligence activities. nevertheless, we have continued to examine ways to increase the confidence of our fellow citizens that their privacy is being protected while at the sa

stephanie o'sullivan will make an opening statement and we will be happy to answer your questions. >> thank you, the star cole -- mr. cole. mrs. o'sullivan. >> thank you. we are pleased to sit before you -- the usa freedom act as passed by the house last month, but i wanted to touch on a few key points in my remarks. over the past year the nation has been engaged in a robust discussion about how the intelligence community uses its authority to correct -- collect critical for and intelligence in a way that protects privacy. we take great care to ensure the protection of privacy and civil liberties in the conduct of collection activities. nevertheless, we have continued to examine ways to increase the confidence of our fellow citizens that their privacy is being protected, while at the same time providing the intelligence community with the authorities that he needs to fulfill its mission and response abilities. to that end we have increased our transparency efforts and the director of national intelligence has declassified and released thousands of patients -- pages about the program i