[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 19 (Tuesday, February 8, 2011)]
[House]
[Page H519]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


 CONFINE THE DEBATE TO THE PATRIOT ACT ON THE THREE EXPIRING PROVISIONS

  (Mr. SENSENBRENNER asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, a few minutes ago, the distinguished 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) called for not reauthorizing 
temporarily three expiring provisions of the Patriot Act, allegedly 
because the FBI had found civil liberties violations. In his 1-minute 
address, the gentleman from Ohio unfortunately missed the point. He 
used the law on national security letters to show abuses of the Patriot 
Act.
  The Patriot Act did not authorize national security letters. Those 
letters were authorized in 1986 under legislation sponsored by the 
Senator from Vermont, Mr. Leahy, who opposes the Patriot Act and always 
has, but it was his national security letter authorization that the 
abuses were contained in.
  I would hope as we debate the temporary reauthorization of three 
expiring provisions of the Patriot Act that we not paint that act with 
a broad brush, but if there are specific abuses of these three expiring 
provisions, we should confine the debate to them.

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