I am disappointed that my unanimous consent request was not agreed to, and I would like to explain my action here today, and the comments that I am about to give are in explanation of a vote I intend to take later today.
As Senator Chambliss said just before me, the powers of the Patriot Act are too important for us to risk their expiration as this body considers whether or not to amend them or revise them, and I couldn’t agree more. So I offered a one month extension in order that this body might take the time that I think is so needed and so deserved to seriously debate and conduct real oversight over the Patriot Act.
This is a significant piece of national security legislation that I believe is worthy of further consideration and debate. Law enforcement agencies—state, federal and local—work day in and day out, as we know, to protect us from very real threats that go largely unknown by most Americans. And I want law enforcement to have all the appropriate tools in their toolbox to accomplish this goal.
Unfortunately there are also, in my view, legitimate concerns about the legislation on which we are about to vote, concerns that my colleagues and I, including yourself Madame President, on the Judiciary Committee reviewed and addressed in detail and in a bill ultimately passed, S. 193, which forms the core of the Leahy-Paul Amendment, of which I am a cosponsor. We put those modest, real but needed revisions to this Act before this Chamber.
Madame President I am disappointed we don’t have consent to move forward in order to have the time to debate these reforms to the Patriot Act. As Americans, the choice between liberty and safety is not one or the other; we expect and demand both. Balancing the two responsibly requires careful consideration to each.
We must be cognizant our nations very real enemies intend to do us harm, just as they did on September 11th. It was awareness of the dangers of this world that motivated this Congress, as we just heard in the previous speeches, to enact the Patriot Act now nearly ten years ago in the wake of those attacks. A grave new threat called for bold, new authorities. Though I was not then in the Senate, I likely too would have voted for its passage.
But this body’s passage of the Patriot Act did not amount to a permanent choice of security over liberty. Because of the broad scope of the new authorities in the Patriot Act, the bipartisan drafters of the bill insisted upon placing key sunset provisions in the bill to ensure that Congress periodically reviewed how they were being used and assessed whether they were still essential to our security.
Madame President, being cognizant of the number of other members who hope to speak on this topic today, I ask unanimous consent that the body of my comments be entered into the record in order that I might summarize and proceed to a conclusion.
President: Without objection, so ordered.
If I might in summation simply say this: If we were today to pass a four year extension without amendment, without revision, it will have been nine years in which Congress does not act in any substantive way on the amendments. I join the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy, in intending to vote no today, not because I believe the Patriot Act is fundamentally flawed, not because I believe the United States doesn’t face real enemies, but because I believe Congress has not taken seriously its very real oversight responsibilities, its need to strike that balance.
The Judiciary Committee did that hard work, and for this Congress not to amend this bill with the simple balanced and reasonable amendments offered in the Leahy-Paul Amendment, I believe I am compelled to strike the balance between security and liberty on the side of liberty today by saying that this body has failed to act and to appropriately conduct thorough oversight of this bill before we send it four years into the future.
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