[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 24 (Tuesday, February 15, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E225]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 EXTENDING COUNTERTERRORISM AUTHORITIES

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                          HON. LYNN C. WOOLSEY

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, February 14, 2011

  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, the new majority in the House has told us 
that the decisions they make will be guided by two things. First, 
loyalty to the Constitution. And second, a belief that the government 
is too large and too intrusive.
  Well, here is their chance to act on those principles. The PATRIOT 
Act provisions we're voting on today represent Big Brother at its 
creepiest and most invasive. They are a clear violation of the 4th 
Amendment's ``right of the people to be secure in their persons, 
houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and 
seizures.''
  Its been close to a decade now that we've lived under the PATRIOT 
Act. For close to a decade, we've been told that our individual 
freedoms needed to take a backseat. For close to a decade, we've been 
told that our civil liberties must be shredded in the name of a so-
called war on terrorism. We've been told that the national security 
imperatives of the moment are so great--and so different than any we've 
faced in our history--that we must submit to roving wiretaps, that we 
must empower the government to obtain ``any tangible thing'' related to 
a terrorism investigation.
  ``Any tangible thing''--that gives the government pretty broad 
discretion to ferret out just about whatever it is that they want. It 
is an invitation to overreach and abuse.
  Meanwhile, it's not at all clear that the PATRIOT Act has made us 
safer. I believe it has stifled freedom more than it has advanced it. 
There is a real incoherence to an approach that says we have to do 
violence to our values in order to protect them. Benjamin Franklin's 
words are just as powerful today as they were more than 200 years ago: 
``Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little 
security will deserve neither and lose both.''
  I was impressed that so many members of the majority, in particular 
those just elected, voted against this measure when it came up on the 
suspension calendar earlier this week. I strongly urge them to do so 
again, and I hope they will be joined by more of their Republican 
colleagues who claim such a passionate belief in modest government. Or 
do they want to be known as the party that believes we should be 
tapping Americans' phones but not giving them affordable health care?
  I believe we must let these provisions expire. And let's not stop 
there. Let's move toward a fuller debate about civil liberties and 
national security, one that revises and ultimately repeals the PATRIOT 
Act once and for all. This law is Constitutional graffiti. Patriotism 
means affirming and celebrating the values that have given America its 
strength and vitality for more than two centuries. A bill that violates 
several constitutional amendments has no business calling itself the 
PATRIOT Act.

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