[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 19001-19003]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                   UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--S. 1510

  Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, we have been negotiating in good faith 
on both sides of the aisle all day long. As you know, there have been 
Republican objections to moving directly to the airport security bill. 
We are still in that postcloture period where the 30 hours are being 
consumed as we attempt to address the need to move directly to the 
bill. Tomorrow at 5 o'clock, we will have that opportunity. It was my 
hope, in consultation with Senator Lott, that we could move in the 
interim to the counterterrorism bill. So much work and effort and 
negotiation has gone into getting us to this point that it was my hope, 
in the interest of expediting consideration of this bill, that we would 
have the opportunity to take it up, and it would be my hope we could 
take it up tonight, work through the day tomorrow, and then have a vote 
on final passage tomorrow.
  I ask unanimous consent that at 10 o'clock tomorrow, the Senate turn 
to consideration of S. 1510, the antiterrorism bill; that the time 
between then and 5 o'clock be equally divided between Senator Leahy and 
Senator Hatch; that the only amendment in order be a managers' 
amendment to be cleared by both managers, with 30 minutes of Republican 
time under the control of Senator Specter; that at 5 p.m. tomorrow, the 
bill be read the third time, and the Senate vote without any 
intervening action or debate on final passage. Further, upon 
disposition of S. 1510, the Senate immediately vote on the motion to 
proceed to S. 1447.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I understand and certainly appreciate the urgency of 
this bill. It is very important we give the Department of Justice and 
our intelligence agencies the tools they need to combat and prevent 
terrorism, but it is also crucial that civil liberties in this country 
be preserved. Otherwise, I am afraid the terrorists win this battle 
without firing another shot.
  It is our constitutional duty in this body to preserve and protect 
the Constitution of the United States. Our freedoms in part are what 
the terrorists hate about us. We cannot be expected to limit those 
freedoms without careful study and debate, and I do know--and the 
majority leader, of course, is right--how hard the leaders, the 
chairman, and the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee have been 
working on this measure, and I appreciate all they have done. But there 
has not been an open process in the Judiciary Committee, much less the 
full Senate, for Senators to have an opportunity to raise concerns 
about how far this bill goes in giving powers to law enforcement to 
wiretap or investigate law-abiding U.S. citizens.
  As of the end of last week, we were told the bill would probably come 
up on Thursday of this week. Today the request is made to bring it up 
immediately under extremely restrictive terms for debate that would not 
allow any opportunity for amendments other than the one the majority 
leader mentioned.
  Senators must have the opportunity to read and debate this 200-plus 
page bill and offer amendments. It does not have to take weeks or even 
days, but it cannot be done before most Senators have even had a chance 
to read and understand the far-reaching changes this bill makes on our 
laws.
  Madam President, I reserve the right to object. I do not wish to 
object, but in order to give due attention to the serious 
constitutional issues before us, and in the interest of moving forward 
on this important legislation, I ask unanimous consent that the 
leader's request be modified to allow this Senator to offer four 
relevant amendments with each to be debated for an hour equally 
divided.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Will the Senator from Wisconsin be prepared to insert 
the text of the amendments in the Record this evening?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I will not be able to do it this evening, but I will be 
able to do it tomorrow.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, that is exactly the problem we have had 
with the Senator from Wisconsin and others over the course of the last 
several days. There is a desire on the part of Senators to amend the 
bill but no amendments are available. I cannot agree to amendments I 
have not seen, obviously, and I think it is asking a good deal of all 
the Senate that we reserve opportunities for him to offer amendments 
without having the opportunity to see the amendments themselves. Of 
course, I have to object to that.
  I am very disappointed. This bill has been on the calendar now for 
some time. It has been available for all Senators to review. We have 
had the opportunity to discuss it in caucus now on several occasions.
  It has been available for discussion, certainly for further 
consideration, as Senators have had the opportunity to talk to the 
distinguished Chair, with me, and with others. So I am understandably 
concerned about the request of the Senator from Wisconsin. Obviously, I 
am not able to agree to it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request of the 
majority leader?
  The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, reserving the right to object, and I will 
not object to the request of the leader because I agree with it, but I 
want Senators to know an enormous amount of time has gone into this 
bill. We have been trying to consult with Senators on the Judiciary 
Committee and outside the Judiciary Committee as we have gone forward. 
We have consulted with Republicans, Democrats, the White House, and 
with the Department of Justice. I have tried to keep the distinguished 
majority leader informed each step of the way, and I know Senator Hatch 
has done the same with the distinguished Republican leader.
  We put the bill in last week.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. LEAHY. Of course.
  Mr. REID. Is it not true that the Senator and Senator Hatch and the 
staffs have spent hundreds of hours on the bill in the last 5 weeks? Is 
that a fair statement, hundreds of hours?

[[Page 19002]]


  Mr. LEAHY. I tell my friend from Nevada not only is it a fair 
statement, but I am painfully aware of all of those hours. In fact, I 
got up at 3 this morning in Vermont to come back in time to be prepared 
to go forward to discuss the bill, to have a full discussion today or 
tomorrow, if need be, so that Senators could ask questions and they 
could either vote for it or against it. I say to my friend, the senior 
Senator from Nevada, throughout those nights and days, a lot of times I 
would leave about 1 a.m. and the staff would still be there at 4 a.m. 
or 5 a.m. We made a number of changes. Nobody is more protective of the 
rights of individuals than I, and considerably more than that, I feel 
very strongly in agreement with Benjamin Franklin's comment when he 
literally had his neck on the line when he said people who would trade 
their liberty for security deserve neither.
  We are trying to get that balance between liberty and security. Is it 
a perfect bill? No. Could we pass a perfect bill? I doubt it very much. 
Is it far better than when it was originally proposed by the 
administration as far as being protective of civil liberties? I believe 
it is.
  Mr. REID. I ask my friend one more question. I know that one of 
Senator Leahy's key staff members had a long-standing dinner 
engagement, and he had to dress in the car prior to taking 2 hours off 
on a Saturday night for dinner because he had worked all Friday night, 
all Saturday, and he finished dinner and was going back to work.
  Mr. LEAHY. I have asked him about those 2 hours he took off during 
that 48 hours.
  Mr. REID. I ask the Senator this question: During this process, has 
the Senator's staff been available to my staff and any other Senator 
who had a question about what was being done with that legislation?
  Mr. LEAHY. We have had calls from Senators on and off the committee. 
The Senator from Nevada is absolutely right, to answer his question. We 
have been available to everybody. Since the bombing, I have been able 
to go back a couple of times to Vermont, mainly to tell Vermonters what 
has happened. I do not know the number of faxes and calls I had from 
Senators around the country who had questions, and we tried to get 
answers to them. I sometimes get e-mails at 2 a.m., going back and 
forth. So I do not know any Senator who could say they have not had an 
opportunity.
  The Senator from South Dakota is absolutely right; as I said, I have 
tried to keep him briefed. I know Senator Hatch tried to keep Senator 
Lott briefed. I say to my friend from Wisconsin, is it moving faster 
than I would like to see such legislation move? Yes. Are we facing 
other threats in this country today? I believe we are.
  I also might say this bill does not answer all of those threats. We 
will at some appropriate time go back and look at the number of things 
that were probably overlooked by the Department of Justice or the FBI 
or others, things that might have prevented the bombings in the first 
place that were overlooked, things that have been gathered under the 
current law.
  Having said all of that, and notwithstanding the fact the current law 
was not used as well as it should have been by the Department of 
Justice and others, we have made some improvements, but the House has 
also made changes.
  I ask my friend from Nevada, who is the distinguished deputy majority 
leader, would it not be his assumption that ultimately the final 
version of this bill will come out of that conference between the 
Senate and the House? But we cannot get to conference until we get the 
bill off the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate majority leader has the floor.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, I again propound the unanimous consent 
request.
  Mr. LOTT. Reserving the right to object, Madam President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate minority leader.
  Mr. LOTT. I will not object, but I do wish to commend Senator Daschle 
for working to make it possible to move this antiterrorism bill 
forward. I also commend Senator Leahy. Two weeks ago, it looked as if 
it was hopelessly balled up and an agreement or compromise was not 
going to be worked out. There was a lot of give and take, and Senator 
Leahy hung in there. Even though some people were being critical of 
him, he did not let it deter him. He stuck with it and came up with a 
very strong bill, a delicately balanced bill. He worked with the 
administration. He worked with his colleague on the other side of the 
aisle, and I think compliments are due all around.
  Is it a perfect bill? No. I have people on our side of the aisle who 
believe it is still not nearly strong enough, and Senators who would 
like to have an opportunity to offer amendments that would make it even 
stronger from the standpoint of how we deal with the necessary 
information we need, wiretaps, and from a law enforcement standpoint, 
but this was a way for us to deal with this critical issue.
  I do not make a blanket indictment. I do worry about, Heaven forbid, 
something further happening that we could have avoided if we had had 
these tools at our disposal. We still have to get through the Senate, 
get through the House, get into conference, and get this bill done. We 
are talking about, if we get this done tomorrow or the next day, still 
probably a week.
  So I urge my colleagues on both sides, let us work together. An 
example has been set, and I am proud of what the Senate has done. I am 
proud of what the committee has done and is willing to do. I hope the 
rest of us will take advantage of the opportunity to follow that 
leadership.
  I wanted to get that on the record. I will not object, Madam 
President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Madam President, reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. We can certainly continue these discussions, but I want 
to say it is certainly not the case that I have not shared the concerns 
I have, I would say, concerning the amendments we have talked about, 
the actual areas, and shared them with the leadership. We certainly 
could have the text of all of these amendments by 10 tomorrow morning. 
In other words, the language would be available before the bill even 
comes up. That strikes me as sufficient notice usually in the Senate.
  I do not think it is a fair complaint to say we cannot agree to these 
reasonable requests simply because of the extra language written out at 
this point.
  Madam President, at this point, unless other Members wish to address 
this issue, I will object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. DASCHLE. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, if the Senator from Mississippi seeks 
recognition, obviously I yield to the distinguished Senator.
  Mr. LOTT. Madam President, I was hoping to have a brief opportunity 
to speak about the magnificent leadership of Senator Mike Mansfield, 
but I will be glad to withhold on that.
  Mr. LEAHY. I will say to the minority leader, Mike Mansfield is a man 
who was my mentor and I will be speaking about him tomorrow after the 
memorial service. But I say to the distinguished leader, he was my 
leader when I came to the Senate, and I think he probably had as much 
involvement in teaching me how to be a Senator as anybody. I will speak 
further on that at another time.
  I hope Senators would work with the distinguished majority leader and 
the distinguished Republican leader to help us schedule this 
legislation. I have tried to be accommodating, getting up at 3 o'clock 
this morning in Vermont to try to get back.
  Do I love this bill? Of course I don't love this bill, Madam 
President. But neither does the distinguished Republican leader. 
Neither does the distinguished ranking member. There is nobody in here 
who does. It is impossible to craft a bill of this nature that 
everybody is going to like.

[[Page 19003]]

  Does it protect us for all time from terrorism? Of course it does 
not. As I said earlier, I suspect we had information prior to September 
11 in our files at the Justice Department that might have led to the 
apprehension and the stopping of the terrorists. That was information 
and intelligence that was acquired properly under the current laws. 
Will this protect us by itself? No. Will it give us some tools we don't 
have? Yes. This can be done in such a way that we ask ourselves, are we 
willing to try some of this for a while? Put constitutional 
limitations.
  I think the distinguished Senator from Mississippi knows I am very 
truthful when I say I will have some very serious and, I would hope, 
bipartisan oversight hearings of abuse of the law as we go along. This 
is not a liberal or conservative piece of legislation. We have liberals 
and conservatives and moderates who have areas of concerns. We all do 
because we protect and respect our privacy. I come from a State where 
privacy is paramount to everybody. It is one thing that unites every 
one of us, no matter our political background.
  But we cannot tell what is going to be the final bill until we 
consider it. We have to pass something out of the Senate. The House has 
to pass something. They have been working extraordinarily hard, Madam 
President, both Chairman Sensenbrenner and Ranking Member Conyers. Why 
not see what we can come up with? The committee of conference will be 
the final package. If I don't like the final package, I will be the 
first to vote against it. But I suspect we will come up with something. 
We will probably have some very late nights that will be worthwhile.
  I thank my friend from Mississippi and my friend from South Dakota 
for trying to bring this bill up. I will stand ready. I don't have to 
leave at 3 o'clock anymore this week to be here. I am here. Although I 
might say, if anybody could know how absolutely beautiful it is in 
Vermont at this time of year, with the best foliage we have had in 25 
years, maybe we should move the Senate up there. It depends on the good 
graces of my friend from Mississippi.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LOTT. I thank Senator Leahy for his work. We have clearly come up 
with a superior bill to the one being moved in the House, but the House 
is also moving forward. I know Senator Smith of New Hampshire has an 
amendment he wanted to offer, too. Every Senator has the right to 
object. We should not be critical of a Senator exercising that right.
  But I think there is urgency on this legislation. I hope, I say to 
Senator Leahy, we will continue to work to see if we can clear this 
bill and get it considered tomorrow. If we don't, there is a danger 
that the aviation security bill will tangle up the rest of the week and 
we might not be able to get to this bill until next week.
  I think the American people have appreciated the way we have worked 
together, shoulder to shoulder, regardless of party. We are all feeling 
a great need to pull together with patriotism while protecting 
fundamental rights. I hope we can continue to do that. We will be glad 
to work with Senators Leahy and Daschle to see that happens.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. Brownback pertaining to the introduction of S. 
1521 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced 
Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. BROWNBACK. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Cantwell). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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