[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 21]
[Senate]
[Pages 29235-29239]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            USA PATRIOT ACT

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, unless the Congress acts, on December 31, 
2005, 16 different provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act will expire.
  Two days ago we had a vote to determine whether a minority in the 
Senate would allow a bipartisan majority the chance to have an up-or-
down vote on the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act. As everyone knows, 
that vote failed. Fifty-two senators voted to close off debate. There 
being a requirement of 60 votes to cut off debate, that threshold was 
not met so we did not reauthorize the PATRIOT Act.
  So here we are with the clock ticking, with America's security at 
risk. We find ourselves in the incredible position of seeing certain 
ordinary law enforcement tools that are used everyday in State and 
Federal courts all across this country will, in about 2 weeks, no 
longer be available in the case of international terrorists or spies or 
cases involving the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
  Perhaps the one provision of the PATRIOT Act that will expire that 
causes most concern is the so called wall. That, of course, is the term 
used to describe what previously--before October of 2001--was a wall 
that separated the sharing of information between our law enforcement 
personnel and our intelligence authorities. It is clear, as the 9/11 
Commission demonstrated, that this wall made us less safe. It was not 
required by the Constitution. It was not required by any provisions 
passed by this Senate and signed by the President. It was simply a 
choice made by the Department of Justice to prevent the sharing of 
information.
  We learned from the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and its 
investigation, as well as from by the terrible events of September 11, 
the 9/11 Commission concluded this wall, which was not constitutionally 
required, prevented the sharing of information between law enforcement 
and intelligence authorities and this prohibition contributed to the 
terrible events on September 11.

[[Page 29236]]

  It was imperative the Congress act as quickly and as carefully as 
possible to remove any impediments that were not otherwise mandated by 
the Constitution from investigating and preventing future terrorist 
attacks against this country.
  Those who have opposed this up-or-down vote in the Senate with regard 
to the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act are asking us to make a false 
choice. In other words, they are saying if the PATRIOT Act is 
reauthorized, somehow Americans' civil liberties will be in jeopardy. 
They are asking us--or telling us--that we have to choose between our 
national security and our civil liberties. That, to repeat, is a false 
choice.
  The fact is, we can have a balanced reauthorization of the PATRIOT 
Act that will protect America from future terrorist attacks. We can 
continue to disrupt the terrorist cells both here at home and abroad 
that endanger us and protect our civil liberties at the same time.
  This country was founded upon a belief in individual freedom and the 
protection of individuals against the overwhelming power of the 
Government. And we have, for more than 200 years, written into our 
laws--not to mention the Constitution--various protections to make sure 
our civil liberties and our individual freedoms are protected.
  But the No. 1 responsibility of the Federal Government is to keep us 
safe. There is no other responsibility that comes anywhere close to 
that imperative. That is why I believe the PATRIOT Act must be 
reauthorized, and if we fail to act before these provisions expire on 
December 31, 2005, we will not have met our responsibilities. Indeed, 
we will have contributed to making this country much more dangerous 
than it would otherwise be.
  Now, as we recall, after the terrible events of September 11, 
Congress, for 6 weeks, debated the original passage of the PATRIOT Act 
and, in a vote of 98 to 1, passed the PATRIOT Act. It provided that 
these 16 provisions would expire at the end of this year. The vote to 
enact this legislation was 98 to 1 in the Senate, after 6 weeks of 
debate. In the House, the vote was 365 to 66, again not quite as 
overwhelming as in the Senate, but it was a lopsided vote in favor of 
passing the PATRIOT Act. And it was signed into law on October 26, 
2001.
  Now, I have been surprised at how much misunderstanding there is 
surrounding the PATRIOT Act, how much outright mythology and 
disinformation there has been by those who are not just concerned about 
civil liberties, but those who are actually engaging in almost paranoid 
delusions about what it is that the PATRIOT Act provides in terms of 
the authorities to combat and to break up terrorist activities.
  The fact is, anyone who has been involved with or even remotely 
acquainted with our criminal justice system knows and will recognize 
that the provisions of the PATRIOT Act merely extended to national 
security cases many of the tools that are used every day in courts all 
across the Nation and throughout the States. So this breathlessness, 
this sense of the existence of conspiracy theories, about the Federal 
Government deciding to suspend the civil liberties of the American 
people in pursuit of terrorists, is pure fantasy.
  I want to talk about the provisions that are being discussed so I 
think at least those who are listening can understand there has been 
careful thought and careful negotiations between the House and the 
Senate and there has been an awful lot of effort put into trying to 
strike the right balance.
  But what the critics are asking us to do is engage in a willing 
suspension of disbelief. It is almost unthinkable to me that here we 
are, some 4 years after the terrible events of September 11th, debating 
these common sense tools almost as if some have forgotten the lessons 
we learned and lessons we should remember for the rest of our lives.
  I was not here in Washington on September 11. I was merely a 
candidate for the Senate and the attorney general of my State in Texas 
at the time. I was in Austin, Texas when those planes hit the World 
Trade Center. We all recoiled in shock and in horror at those terrible 
events. But I remember, since I have been here in Washington, the 
number of occasions where we have had warnings of intrusions into the 
airspace around this Capitol, where people here were running out of the 
Capitol, some in tears, out of fear that we were going to have another 
attack here at the Capitol.
  As we know, but for the brave acts of some passengers on an airplane 
who caused that plane to crash in Pennsylvania, it could have been that 
plane was meant for the White House or the U.S. Capitol, which would 
have resulted in tremendous additional loss of human life.
  So it is amazing to me--and I guess in some ways it is a sign of the 
times--that our memories are so short and that we need to be reminded 
about the seriousness of the threat that still remains. We need not let 
our guard down, instead we need to continue to do everything that is 
humanly possible to protect the American people against future 
terrorist attacks.
  I know there are some who scoff at it and ridicule the threat, but I 
would ask them to go back and to read the newspaper accounts, to see 
the video replays of the terrible events of September 11, and then to 
reconsider. Those who fear that Government has turned into ``big 
brother'' and is simply invading our bedrooms and our libraries and our 
personal lives in ways that would shock all of us are engaging in, I 
think, a fantasy.
  When you look at the facts--and I would suggest facts are stubborn 
things--we ought to look at the facts and the provisions that are being 
debated and then ask ourselves: Aren't these the kinds of tools we 
would want our law enforcement personnel to have to keep us safe?
  I think the American people--when they understand, as they will 
before this debate has concluded, what is at stake here--would want us 
to act responsibly to extend and continue to provide these ordinary 
sorts of law enforcement tools to national security cases.
  There is no doubt in my mind that a bipartisan majority of the Senate 
would pass this reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act if allowed to do so. 
But, indeed, what we are seeing is a filibuster by a willful minority 
that is blocking a bipartisan majority from even having the right to 
cast that vote. I recognize there are some people who have sincere 
beliefs that reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act is not the right thing 
to do. While I strenuously disagree with them--and I would welcome a 
chance to debate with them here on the Senate floor the wisdom of that 
decision--I respect their right to hold that opinion. But I do not 
respect the minority when they block a bipartisan majority from having 
the chance to vote on tools that, if not extended, will leave this 
country vulnerable to attack.
  Again, I am confident that if we had a vote a bipartisan majority of 
the Senate would see fit to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act and continue 
these important protections for the American people. But we find 
ourselves with the clock ticking, time running out, and America 
potentially endangered, if on December 31, 2005 these important 
provisions expire because we in the Senate did not act. A direct 
consequence of this action, or inaction, will endanger our country.
  I would ask my colleagues: What has changed since that 98-to-1 vote 
in the Senate when, in October 2001, after 6 weeks of debate, the 
PATRIOT Act was passed? Are there reports of rampant abuses of the 
PATRIOT Act? No. Are there examples where Members can come to the floor 
and explain to us, that this is too much power for the Government to 
have, or that somehow we have an imbalance in the power given to the 
Government, and that we need to strike a right and better balance?
  The fact is, Mr. President, all of the skeptics have is speculation, 
conspiracy theories, and outright fantasy when it comes to the 
potential of abuse under any of these provisions of the PATRIOT Act. I 
am convinced that the chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the 
Senate, Senator Specter, and the conferees in the House and Senate have 
done their very best given the nature of negotiations and compromise to

[[Page 29237]]

strike the best balance between civil liberties and the protection of 
the American people. It would be a failure of responsibility and duty 
for us not to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act.
  But I ask again, what has changed since September 11, 2001? What has 
changed since October of 2001 to now lead some of our colleagues to say 
that these provisions are unimportant, are not useful, or are no longer 
needed? Has the threat of international terrorism receded? Has it gone 
away?
  I looked on the Internet before I came here for a listing, because I 
wanted to make sure I had all of them, of suspected al-Qaida terrorist 
attacks across the globe since September of 2001.
  In December 2001, a man tried to detonate a shoe bomb on a flight 
from Paris to Miami. I believe his name is Richard Reid. There was an 
explosion in April of 2002 at an historic synagogue in Tunisia that 
left 21 dead, including 14 German tourists. In May of 2002, a car 
exploded outside a hotel in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 14, including 11 
French citizens. In June 2002, a bomb exploded outside the American 
consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 12 people. In October 2002, a 
boat crashed into an oil tanker off the Yemen coast killing a single 
individual. Then there were the nightclub bombings in Bali, Indonesia, 
that killed 202 people, mostly Australian citizens, in October of 2002.
  Then there was a suicide attack in Mombasa, Kenya, killing 16 in 
November of 2002. In May of 2003, suicide bombers killed 34, including 
8 Americans at housing compounds for westerners in Riyadh, Saudi 
Arabia. In May 2003, 4 bombs killed 33 people, targeting Jewish, 
Spanish, and Belgian sites in Casablanca, Morocco. In August 2003, 
suicide car bombers killed 12 people and injured 150 more at the 
Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia. In November 2003, explosions 
rocked a Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, housing compound killing 17. In November 
2003, suicide car bombers simultaneously attacked two synagogues in 
Istanbul, killing 25 and injuring hundreds more. In November 2003, 
truck bombs detonated at a London bank and British consulate in 
Istanbul, Turkey, killed 26. In March 2004, 10 bombs on 4 trains 
exploded almost simultaneously during the morning rush hour in Madrid, 
Spain, killing 202 and injuring more than 1,400 people. In May 2004, 
terrorists attacked a Saudi oil company office in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, 
killing 22.
  In June 2004, terrorists kidnaped and executed American Paul Johnson, 
Jr., in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Then in September 2004, car bombs outside 
the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, killed 9. In December 
2004, terrorists entered the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 
killing 9. In July 2005, bombs exploded on 3 trains and a bus in 
London, England, killing 52. In October 2005, 22 were killed by 3 
suicide bombs, again in Bali, Indonesia. Then most recently in November 
2005, 57 were killed at 3 American hotels in Amman, Jordan, including 
at a wedding party.
  Mr. President, I go through this list not to just bore my listeners 
but rather to recount in horrific detail the threat that still exists 
to America and American citizens and people all around the world by 
international terrorists. These are examples of what could happen on 
our own soil again if we let our guard down as we did before September 
11.
  Just to remind my colleagues what we have been able to do because we 
have been on our guard, because we have the PATRIOT Act, because we 
have equipped our law enforcement and intelligence personnel with the 
tools necessary to identify and investigate and disrupt terrorist 
activities, because we have been on the offensive in Afghanistan and 
Iraq disrupting the ability of terrorists to train, recruit, and then 
export their terrorist activities, because we have done all of those 
things, America has not sustained another terrorist attack on our own 
soil since September 11, 2001. But it is far from certain that it will 
not happen again.
  Some have said it is a matter of when, not if, America will be hit 
again. But, thank goodness, because of the diligent efforts of men and 
women in our law enforcement agencies, in our intelligence agencies, 
the men and women in our military, and so many other people working 
together diligently, we have protected Americans on our own soil. There 
have been at least 10 serious al-Qaida plots disrupted, including 3 al-
Qaida plots to attack inside the United States since September 11.
  In mid 2002, the United States disrupted a plot to attack targets on 
the west coast of the United States using hijacked airplanes. The 
plotters included at least one major operational planner involved in 
the events of September 11. In mid 2003, the United States and a 
partner disrupted a plot to attack targets on the east coast of the 
United States using hijacked commercial airplanes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Texas has 
expired.
  Mr. CORNYN. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 15 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CORNYN. Then there is the Jose Padilla plot in May 2002. The 
United States disrupted a plot that involved blowing up an apartment 
building in the United States using a dirty bomb or a radiation 
dispersal device. In mid 2004, the United States and our partners 
disrupted a plot that involved urban targets in the United Kingdom. 
These plots involved using explosives against a variety of sites. Then 
there was a plot in Karachi, a plot at Heathrow Airport in London, 
another UK plot in 2004, another Arabian Gulf shipping plot, one in the 
Straits of Hormuz in 2002, and a tourist site targeted by al-Qaida. In 
2003 there have been at least 10 disrupted terrorist attacks as a 
result of the concerted efforts of our law enforcement and intelligence 
personnel, at least 3 on American soil since September 2001.
  I ask my colleagues who are blocking the vote on the renewal and 
reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act: What could they possibly be 
thinking to believe that we ought to voluntarily relinquish the tools 
that have in part made it possible to keep us safe and to protect 
Americans from these terrorist attacks?
  I know, Mr. President, there are others in the Chamber who want to 
speak on this or related issues. I want to close on one last red 
herring that has been raised.
  As the New York Times reported, the President of the United States 
has authorized, after counseling with the Department of Justice and 
various legal authorities, as well as consulting with Congress on up to 
12 occasions, the use of intercepted messages from the National 
Security Agency as part of our ongoing counterterrorism efforts. The 
New York Times suggested that this was a secret way to threaten the 
civil liberties of Americans. The fact is, as is now being revealed, 
Congress was consulted at least 12 times since September 11th about the 
President's authorization of these interceptions of communications, 
interceptions which were not solely within the United States but were 
from known links to international terrorism in the United States and 
known links with international terrorism overseas.
  It is perhaps not a coincidence that just before the vote on cloture 
on the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act, the New York Times released 
this story. Indeed, at least two Senators--I heard with my own ears--
cited this article as a reason why they voted to not allow a bipartisan 
majority to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act. As it turns out, the author of 
this article had turned in a book to his publisher 3 months ago. The 
paper failed to reveal that the story was tied to a book release and 
sale by the author James Risen. The title of the book is ``State of 
War, the Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration.'' It is 
about to be published by the Free Press in the coming weeks.
  It is a crying shame that America's safety is endangered by the 
potential expiration of the PATRIOT Act in part because a newspaper has 
seen fit to release, on the night before the vote on the 
reauthorization of the Act, and as

[[Page 29238]]

part of a marketing campaign for selling the book, something that is 
blatantly misrepresentative of the facts and appears to be an attempt 
to strike terror or perhaps paranoia into Senators and others out of 
some unrealistic and inaccurate concern for invasion of civil 
liberties.
  It is appropriate that Congress have hearings to look into this, but 
the fact is, the President and his administration have briefed high 
ranking Members of Congress on 12 occasions since this so-called secret 
program of intercepting communications between known terrorist contacts 
in the United States and overseas occurred.
  When I came to Washington to serve in the Senate almost 3 years ago, 
someone jokingly referred to it as a logic-free zone where perception 
is reality. We all got a good laugh out of that. But the hysteria over 
the USA PATRIOT Act and the fact that people have, in too many 
instances, not focused on the hard-fought attempts to balance our 
security with civil liberty concerns by hammering out thoughtful and 
useful provisions is a disservice to the American people. It is not a 
typical policy disagreement that we sometimes have about taxes or some 
other issue. This is one that has the grave potential of endangering 
American lives because we know the terrorist threat exists. This threat 
continues to this day.
  September 11, while it was 4 years ago, is not an isolated event, as 
the listing I provided details. Terrorists will, if we let our guard 
down, hit us again. Then I ask: Where will the blame lie? If we have 
failed to do everything within our power to protect the American 
people, we will have failed to discharge our duty in this body.
  I hope our colleagues who are blocking a bipartisan majority from 
casting a vote to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act which will prevent the 
expiration of these 16 provisions will reconsider their decision. It is 
unthinkable to me that anyone would allow these provisions to expire. I 
realize there are differences of opinion. I am happy to have this 
debate. I understand that people have conscientiously held opinions 
that are different than mine about the importance of this Act, but to 
block a bipartisan majority from having the chance to vote is 
incredible.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. CORNYN. I will.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank Senator Cornyn for his discussion of this 
important issue. If the people of America were to hear what he said and 
consider those issues thoughtfully, their fears would be greatly 
relieved. I am convinced there is nothing in this legislation that in 
any way jeopardizes the liberties we have.
  The Senator from Texas served as attorney general for the State of 
Texas. He served on the Supreme Court of the State of Texas. He brings 
good judgment and legal understanding to the Senate. I urge my 
colleagues to listen to him.
  Senator Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee and certainly a 
person who has been a champion of civil liberties all his career, has 
said that the bill we passed in this body by unanimous consent which 
went to conference in order to work out differences with the House, 
came back with 80 percent the provisions contained in the Senate bill 
untouched, and very few changes in favor of the House version.
  I ask the Senator from Texas, the bill we passed here by unanimous 
consent, is that not the same bill he and I worked on in the Judiciary 
Committee and that came out of the committee unanimously by an 18-to-0 
vote after full discussion about those issues?
  Mr. CORNYN. The Senator from Alabama is absolutely correct. He serves 
with great distinction on the Senate Judiciary Committee, as does the 
current occupant of the Chair. We all know that it is not the most 
cohesive committee in the Senate. As a matter of fact, we have some 
pretty serious disagreements about important policy issues. But on the 
PATRIOT Act, under Senator Specter's guidance, with the ranking member, 
Senator Leahy, we were able to reach unanimity and pass the PATRIOT Act 
out of the Judiciary Committee. That would not happen, given the legal 
minds and the great advocates we have on the Judiciary Committee, if it 
were not a good bill. To now suggest, as some have, that this has not 
been well thought through, that it is not carefully done, flies in the 
face of the facts.
  If I may, Mr. President, through the Chair, I ask my friend from 
Alabama, who has been a distinguished U.S. attorney, served as attorney 
general of his State before coming to the Senate, and has a lot of 
experience in law enforcement, are the provisions of the PATRIOT Act 
that are being debated involving wiretaps and production of business 
records and delayed notice search warrants, are these the sort of 
ordinary tools that are available to prosecutors in State and Federal 
courts in regular, ordinary, vanilla criminal cases?
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator from Texas. He is exactly correct. 
As a former attorney general of Texas, he knows that every county 
attorney in America can go to a county judge and issue a subpoena for 
bank records, for medical records, for telephone toll records, for 
motel records, for library records, and for bookstore records.
  That is done every day and the standard is simply whether those 
records are relevant to an investigation that the Attorney General or 
district attorney in any county in America is conducting. That is the 
way the system works. People act as if issuance of a subpoena for 
somebody's records is a violation of a constitutional rights. That is 
beyond my understanding.
  So I certainly agree. In fact, with regard to a group of records, the 
power of the FBI to investigate terrorists, in some ways, is far less 
than that of a county attorney. A 215 order includes health records, 
library records, bookstore records--I hate to laugh, but--for which you 
have to go to a court and get approval before they are issued. The 
local district attorney issue this type of order if he is investigating 
somebody for failure to pay county taxes.
  I want to ask the Senator about this. One distinguished Senator 
yesterday on the floor of the Senate declared that an FBI agent could 
write up a warrant and go out to search your house. With regard to the 
two categories of records I have mentioned, I add for the Record that 
these are records not in the possession of a potential defendant or 
terrorist; these are records in the possession of a bank or a telephone 
company; they are not personal records. But with regards to personal 
records where the district attorneys in every county and any U.S. 
Attorney has to get a search warrant and has to have it approved by a 
judge, and in the case of the FBI, a Federal judge, they have to submit 
facts under oath to justify the search, and those searches go to a 
person's home, their automobile, or areas in which they have dominion 
and control. My question to the Senator is whether he is aware of 
anything in this legislation that in any way would undermine the 
standard and burden on investigators before they get a search warrant 
of somebody's private property?
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I say to the Senator from Alabama he is 
precisely correct. One of the things that has been carefully taken into 
consideration in this legislation is to make sure whoever the 
individual is or whoever's rights are at issue, that there is an 
opportunity to go to a judge--in this case, the Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Court, a specialized court with jurisdiction over national 
security cases--and to ask an impartial judge to intervene.
  But some of our colleagues, it seems, have these fantasies about 
rogue law enforcement personnel with nothing better to do than running 
roughshod over the rights of American citizens. These are serious 
professionals. I know my colleague from Alabama, being a former U.S. 
attorney, has worked closely with the FBI and other Federal law 
enforcement officials. I ask him--and then I will certainly yield the 
floor to him for any other remarks he cares to make--is there any basis 
to this idea that Federal law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI and 
the intelligence agencies, have nothing better to do or have so little 
disregard for our laws

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and Constitution that they look for opportunities to trample on the 
rights of innocent American citizens?
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator. That is such a good question. I 
worked very closely on a daily basis with FBI agents for 15 years as a 
Federal prosecutor. Some of those agents remain good friends of mine. 
They are people of high integrity and discipline. They follow the 
rules. Sometimes they shake their heads in wonderment at the 
regulations we place on them as they are out trying to protect America. 
But they comply day after day with whatever rule it is. In fact, I 
guess some people may have thought when we created a wall between the 
CIA and the FBI, that if information were important, agents would not 
pay much attention to that wall, and would share the information 
anyway. Surely the CIA would tell the FBI if they have information that 
a dangerous cell may be operating in the U.S.; surely they would tell 
them. But we prohibited it. There was a wall and this legislation tore 
it down. Before this wall was torn down, they did not share any 
information, regardless of how important it may have been.
  I was on a show with a distinguished Member of this Senate who made 
the comment that the people of his State didn't want the FBI patrolling 
near their homes and searching their houses and getting delayed 
warrants and staying in their houses and all these other things. I 
talked to the Attorney General Gonzales today. He said two-tenths of 1 
percent--2 out of 1,000 warrants issued in this country, are delayed 
warrants. There probably hasn't been one issued in his State since the 
act was passed 4 years ago. The last thing the FBI would want to do is 
violate the law, risk their careers, or waste their resources prowling 
into the houses of Americans. To get a delayed notice warrant or any 
warrant of this kind, they have to go to the court in advance. Then 
they have to have additional proof if they want to delay the notice to 
the person whose residence has been searched.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may have 
2 additional minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank Senator Cornyn from Texas for his steadfast 
work on this issue. He is an extremely hard-working Senator. He gets 
these facts right. He is an extremely skilled lawyer and has a great 
legal mind. I hope the people will listen to his remarks.
  We have gone through this bill. This bill was carefully drafted the 
first time we voted on it. It came out of the Senate 4 years ago with 
only one ``no'' vote. We have had 4 years of experience with it. It is 
going to expire the end of this calendar year. We passed our version of 
reauthorization by unanimous consent in this body. Our Senate Judiciary 
Committee, which has some of the most civil libertarian lawyers in the 
Senate--in the country, for that matter--passed it out unanimously. I 
am shocked, surprised, and utterly disappointed that we went to 
conference--where we maintained position after position on our bill and 
the House conceded time and time again on their bill, to the extent 
that about 80 percent of the differing provisions were decided in favor 
of the Senate--and now have this unbelievable filibuster that blocked a 
bill which had so much bipartisan support, from coming up and being 
considered and given a vote.
  I thank the Chair. I see the distinguished ranking Member of the 
Senate Armed Services Committee on the floor, Senator Levin. I am 
delighted to yield to him at this time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan is recognized.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and my friend from 
Alabama.
  One quick comment on the PATRIOT Act. Of course, everybody in this 
body wants to renew the PATRIOT Act. That is not the issue. The issue 
is the contents of that act and whether this body ought to have an 
opportunity to debate some of the differences between the version that 
came back to us from conference and the one that left the Senate. There 
are significant differences.
  There is a bipartisan group that opposes the PATRIOT Act in its 
current form. We all want to extend that act so there is no gap. Nobody 
wants a gap in coverage. Everybody agrees it should be extended. The 
question is, should it be extended for a short period of time to give 
those of us who have questions and doubts about some of the provisions 
that came back from conference that were not in the Senate version an 
opportunity to debate and hopefully change some of those versions.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield just 1 second on 
that point?
  Mr. LEVIN. Sure.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I urge him to examine the legislation and to examine 
the changes that are made. I know some have said they are significant. 
With the Senator's legal skills and ability to analyze, I think he will 
find they are not nearly as significant as some say. As a matter of 
fact, most are very small. I believe he will feel comfortable in the 
end once again voting for this legislation.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Alabama. I have, 
indeed, studied the version that has come back from conference. The 
differences are significant, indeed. They are very significant, so much 
so that some of the more conservative Members of this body have joined 
in a decision that we should have an opportunity to debate the PATRIOT 
Act conference report before it is enacted. We all want to extend it to 
give us that opportunity. But this is not a Democratic or Republican 
opposition; it is a bipartisan group of Senators who have studied the 
conference report and have significant differences with it, and I am 
one of those Senators.

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