Yet Franken made a lengthy speech on the Senate floor on July 26, 2012, during discussion of a Cybersecurity Act of 2012, declaring the NSA should not be gatekeepers of the American public’s information because of its poor track record of spying on citizens:

But the cyberthreat information that companies are sharing often comes from private, sensitive communications like our emails. And so the gatekeeper of any information shared under these proposals should never be the military. It should never be the NSA. Now, the men and women of the NSA are patriots and they are undoubtedly skilled and knowledgeable. But that institution is too shrouded in secrecy-and has too dark a history of spying on innocent Americans-to be trusted with this responsibility, under any Administration.

Under the new, revised Cybersecurity Act of 2012, the one that will soon be before us on the floor, companies can use the authorities in the bill to give cyberthreat information only to civilian agencies.

That is a critical protection for civil liberties-and it is a protection that CISPA and the SECURE IT Act do not have. I want to be very clear: An America with CISPA and an America with the SECURE IT Act is an America where your emails can be shared directly, immediately and with impunity, with the NSA.