[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 160 (Wednesday, December 14, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S13564]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        PATRIOT ACT IMPROVEMENT

  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, the people of Vermont are proud of the 
important role that Senator Patrick Leahy is serving in trying to 
improve the USA PATRIOT Act.
  My colleague from Vermont rightly believes that security and civil 
liberties need not be mutually exclusive objectives. We can and we 
should advance both goals. As the ranking member of the Judiciary 
Committee, Senator Leahy worked closely with Chairman Arlen Specter in 
helping to produce a bipartisan bill to renew and improve the USA 
PATRIOT Act. That bill was unanimously approved both by the Judiciary 
Committee and by the Senate. Now he is working with Senators of both 
parties in trying to win further improvements in the proposed 
conference report on that bill.
  Just as he did in 2001, then as chairman of the Judiciary Committee 
and the leader of the Senate's negotiations with the administration in 
crafting the initial USA PATRIOT Act, Senator Leahy now, once again, 
has worked tirelessly to ensure that we do not hastily pass flawed 
legislation. Back in the fall of 2001, the Bush administration had 
demanded that Congress pass the PATRIOT Act in 1 week. The Senator from 
Vermont knew that rushing such an expansive law through Congress was a 
mistake, and he secured more time, allowing Congress to add crucial 
checks and balances to the law. In the best tradition of the Senate, 
Senator Patrick Leahy has championed effective law enforcement and the 
rights and freedoms that we cherish as Americans.
  I ask unanimous consent that two recent editorials which have 
spotlighted these issues and Senator Leahy's role be printed in the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Bennington Banner, Dec. 9, 2005]

                     A Real Green Mountain Patriot

       Much has been said about what makes someone a patriot. 
     Sadly much of it has come as a result of the response to the 
     terrorists attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon 
     on Sept. 11, 2001. What makes that sad is that an outside 
     attack should have--and did for a brief time--brought the 
     country closer together.
       That has been fractured by political opportunists who 
     responded to the attacks with legislation that Americans 
     would never have accepted before their confidence was rattled 
     so vehemently.
       One such piece of legislation is the provocatively named 
     USA Patriot Act. The Patriot legislation was drafted to give 
     the government a way to fight terrorism. No one would argue 
     that's an important and necessary goal.
       But it contains too many provisions that we find 
     unacceptable despite the fact that we remain staunchly anti-
     terrorist and pro-America. (We're cutting off that argument 
     at the pass . . .)
       The scariest provision is one that allows the government to 
     get warrants that would allow them to find out what books 
     someone is reading or checking out of the library.
       That's un-American enough in a society that prides itself 
     on the free and open exchange of ideas. What's worse is that 
     we wouldn't know what books or articles are on that list that 
     makes a reader a suspect.
       To make it scarier, those warrants are requested and 
     granted in secret.
       We know that there are armchair generals who are rushing to 
     point out that this is the kind of action needed to fight 
     enemies like terrorists. We remain unconvinced that such 
     secret warrants would make us much different or better than 
     nations that support terrorists.
       Nor can we justify giving a tool like this to the federal 
     government under an administration that can't convince its 
     people or the world that it's not engaging in torture. We 
     suspect there will be more Abu Ghraibs before the War on 
     Terror is finished.
       So what makes somebody a patriot? How about standing up 
     against faulty legislation even when a nation that's still in 
     fear may support that law? Maybe it's recognizing the lessons 
     of history and trying to protect our country from another 
     shameful incident like the imprisonment of Japanese citizens 
     during World War II?
       That's exactly what Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking 
     Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is doing by 
     refusing to sign a version of the Patriot Act that would 
     extend these powers for four years.
       We're proud that a patriot like that is serving the people 
     of Vermont.
                                  ____


                    [From USA Today, Dec. 14, 2005]

         Qualms About Anti-Terror Law Unite The Left and Right

       Patrick J. Leahy first made his name in politics as a 
     tough-on-crime, attention-grabbing county prosecutor in the 
     turbulent late 1960s and early '70s. His law-and-order 
     aggressiveness propelled him to election as the first--and, 
     so far, only--Democrat to represent historically Republican 
     Vermont in the U.S. Senate.
       After the 9/11 attacks, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary 
     Committee, Leahy helped shepherd the questionably named ``USA 
     Patriot Act'' through Congress. Reassuring a frightened 
     nation, the Patriot Act granted unprecedented powers to law 
     enforcement, some of which are set to expire at the end of 
     this year.
       Federal investigators and prosecutors have welcomed the law 
     as providing a clutch of much-needed tools in the war on 
     terrorism. Indeed, much of the act is a good fit for 
     threatening times.
       But it's also something else: cover for sweeping invasions 
     of citizens' privacy, secret fishing expeditions into 
     privately held records and muzzling of targets who want to 
     complain about it.
       All are convenient for law enforcement. All have already 
     been abused.
       This year's rewrite fails to solve these problems and, in 
     fact, would add provisions that have nothing to do with 
     terrorism (see box at right).
       Leahy is a useful barometer of just how troubling the 
     latest legislation is.
       Today, the former prosecutor is leading a bipartisan 
     coalition in the Senate seeking to block renewal of some of 
     the PATRIOT Act's most controversial provisions until more is 
     done to curb the potential for assaults on privacy and civil 
     liberties. ``This much unchecked power doesn't make us any 
     safer,'' Leahy told us Tuesday. ``It makes us less safe. . . 
     . Ultimately, you're secure only if you maintain basic 
     liberties.''
       Other Senate critics of the bill range the full breadth of 
     the political spectrum, from Idaho Republican Larry Craig to 
     Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold. Their bid to hold up the 
     legislation is a worthy one.
       Since Sept. 11, 2001, using the Patriot Act and stretching 
     authority under other laws, government investigators have 
     collected private information on thousands of people who have 
     no apparent connection to international terrorism. Secret 
     sweeps have been made into library records, hotel bookings, 
     car-rental files and other documents. That material is 
     retained, perhaps forever, in government computers. In at 
     least one case, a lawyer's home and office were searched 
     based on false information.
       The Bush administration and its allies in Congress have 
     resisted calls for more meaningful protections against 
     invasion of privacy and abuse of civil liberties. While some 
     of the most troubling provisions have been modified in the 
     latest changes, many of the revisions are cosmetic at best.
       The pressure is on because portions of the PATRIOT Act, 
     including several of the most troubling provisions, expire 
     Dec. 31, and lawmakers are trying to get home for Christmas.
       Leahy and his allies are proposing to extend the law for 
     three months to allow more time to fix what's wrong. That 
     makes sense. Mistakes made in the heat of post-9/11 anxiety 
     shouldn't be compounded and extended based on an artificial 
     deadline.
       As Leahy and others have discovered, there's more to 
     patriotism than the label on an antiterrorism law. True 
     patriotism requires not only giving law enforcement the tools 
     it needs, but also adequately protecting citizens against 
     abuse of that power.





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