[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 165 (Monday, December 19, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14012-S14014]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE PATRIOT ACT

  Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, last Saturday, President Bush castigated 
those of us who voted against cloture on the PATRIOT Act. He said:

       That decision is irresponsible and it endangers the lives 
     of our citizens.

  That is a mistaken characterization. Every Senator supported the 
Senate's reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act last July when it passed 
the Senate unanimously.
  Last Friday, 47 of us said the House-Senate conference report is not 
yet good enough. Before we make the PATRIOT Act permanent, we must make 
it right.
  The PATRIOT Act that we passed 4 years ago, which I supported, gave 
the Federal Government unprecedented powers to conduct surveillance on 
American citizens and demand information about their private 
activities, about their personal lives. We passed the PATRIOT Act 
hastily in the Senate 4 years ago, too hastily in retrospect. We passed 
it when my caucus was in the majority. So we, and I, were

[[Page S14013]]

responsible for that haste. It seemed necessary in the immediate 
aftermath of 9/11.
  One important consideration for this Senator, then, when we voted for 
the PATRIOT Act was that it would sunset in 4 years, and this Congress 
would take the time to review it carefully and modify it as necessary 
to assure the proper balance between combating terrorism and protecting 
the privacy of innocent Americans.
  As I said 5 months ago, the Senate passed unanimously our 
reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act with important changes to protect 
constitutional rights of innocent American citizens.
  The House passed its version of the new PATRIOT Act in July, also, 
allowing plenty of time for the House-Senate conference committee to 
resolve their differences in the best interests of all Americans. But 
the House did not appoint conferees until last month. The House leaders 
chose to engage in this take-it-or-leave-it brinksmanship to try to 
force the Senate to accept their permanent invasion of the private 
lives of innocent Americans.
  Last Friday, 47 Senators--5 Republicans, 41 Democrats, and 1 
independent--said: No, we will not accept this version of the PATRIOT 
Act. We do not oppose the PATRIOT Act, as the President and others have 
falsely charged. Most of us voted for the original law 4 years ago, and 
all of us in this Senate voted for the new one last July. Many of us, 
myself included, have proposed extending the existing law for another 3 
months to give conferees time to resolve our remaining differences to 
design a permanent PATRIOT Act that most of us can support.
  What we haven't said is there is more brinkmanship with the President 
and the Senate leader threatening to let the existing law expire so 
they can blame 47 of us for supposedly weakening the protections of the 
American people.
  Let us be very clear. Let the American people be very clear. If the 
PATRIOT Act is allowed to expire, that is the choice and the 
responsibility of the President and the Senate majority leadership.
  Today is December 19. The Senate is still in session with 12 more 
days until the year's end. That is enough time either to revise the 
conference report so that it has broad bipartisan support in the Senate 
or to extend the existing law.

  All of us, every Member of this Senate, supported the Senate version 
of the new law that passed unanimously 5 months ago. It is absurd and 
wrong for detractors to claim that we do not support it now when we 
just disagree with a few but a very important few features in it.
  Last Saturday, President Bush also reasserted his right to do 
whatever he deems necessary to protect the American people from 
terrorist attacks. That is an enormous responsibility, one that 
Congress shares with him. However, we differ in our approaches.
  The President's legal counsel has opined that he has the 
constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and the legal authority 
from Congress post-9/11 to override or ignore any laws or limitations 
that he decides necessary to combat terrorism.
  Whether Congress intended ``any and all force necessary'' to include 
that authority is highly questionable. But that is the President's 
operating assumption.
  If the President can do whatever he wants, whether it is legal or 
not, and his decision to do it makes it legal, then in a sense the 
PATRIOT Act is not even necessary because the President can order it 
all done anyway.
  In another sense, however, our getting the PATRIOT Act right becomes 
even more imperative because we are a nation of laws, laws which must 
be followed by everyone--even the President, even the FBI, even the 
National Security Agency, during good times and bad, during war and 
peace, because our existence as a nation, as a constitutional democracy 
requires it and depends upon it.
  No external threat to our way of life could be so great as the danger 
that our rule of law not be obeyed by our most powerful institutions 
and individuals.
  This Senate exists to make those laws. Every one of us--all 100 of 
us--takes that responsibility most seriously because we assume that our 
laws matter, that they will be honored and obeyed, or that they will be 
enforced so that they will define the legal courses of action that 
everyone in this country must follow. Otherwise, we are irrelevant and 
laws that we enact are meaningless.
  Our operating assumption, however, continues to be that our laws will 
be obeyed, and, thus, our efforts in the Senate do matter. That is why 
we want and we deserve the time necessary to get our laws right. That 
is the way our process is supposed to work. All 41 or more Senators to 
hold up legislation in order to get it right is the way our process is 
supposed to work.
  It is strange, to say the least, that those who assert their right to 
ignore our rules and our laws are vilifying us in this Senate for 
following them.
  For people watching us today who may be unfamiliar with the details 
of the existing PATRIOT Act, let me give you an example of what it is 
that we are trying to correct.
  According to the Washington Post, last year, under the PATRIOT Act, 
some 56 FBI field agents signed over 30,000 national security letters. 
That is 100 times more than before the act. They were not directed 
toward possible terrorists but, rather, to people, to businesses, to 
universities, to libraries that might have information about people who 
might be terrorists. The PATRIOT Act requires them to turn over the 
information demanded, the most personal information, including health 
records, Internet use, upon demand, with no recourse. It is a criminal 
act under the PATRIOT Act for them to tell anyone else about the 
Government's demands, even to consult with an attorney.
  Under an Executive order which President Bush signed 2 years ago, all 
that private-personal information remains permanently in the 
Government's files and can be shared with other Government agencies 
even after the suspect has been determined to be completely innocent.
  The new PATRIOT Act, which 100 Senators unanimously supported last 
July, would not prevent the Federal Government from demanding that 
information on some 30,000 businesses, universities, and individuals 
every year in order to combat terrorism. It would only provide minimal 
legal rights of independent judicial review of those demands when some 
innocent person, business, library, or university believes the Federal 
Government has gone too far.

  No one wants to prevent the Federal Government from stopping 
terrorists or preventing terrorist acts against the United States. We 
do want to prevent some people, however well intended they believe they 
are, from going too far. Secret torture prisons in other countries is 
going too far. Spying on Americans is going too far. Denying due 
process, even the right to consult with an attorney, for innocent 
Americans, is going too far.
  Former Republican Congressman Robert Barr said it well:

       Enough of this business of justifying everything as 
     necessary for the war on terror. Either the Constitution and 
     the laws of this country mean something or they don't. It's 
     truly frightening what is going on in this country.

  Thank you, Congressman Barr.
  Those in the Senate who believe the Constitution and our laws enacted 
under it still mean something, we are trying to get the PATRIOT Act 
before we make it permanent, and we deserve our right to do so. It is 
an inversion and a perversion of the values of this great Nation when 
it becomes legitimate to set up illegal torture prisons in other 
countries or to conduct illegal spying in this country but illegitimate 
for the Senate to carry out its own due process.
  This Senate must not adjourn for this year until we either extend the 
existing PATRIOT Act or pass a new one acceptable to a broad bipartisan 
majority of this Senate. Anyone who prevents Members from doing one or 
the other is placing their personal politics ahead of the protection of 
the American people. That would be dangerous and destructive personal 
politics. That is why we must vote on a 3-month extension of the 
existing PATRIOT Act or a new conference report before we adjourn this 
year.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

[[Page S14014]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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