[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.
____________________