[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Page 7823]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            USA PATRIOT ACT

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, today I wish to speak on a critical 
national security issue: the importance of renewing the authority for 
essential anti-terrorism tools which is set to expire by the time 
Congress returns to Washington after Memorial Day.
  Every single Member of this body remembers where he or she was on 
September 11, 2001. I was here in the Senate. I remember evacuating the 
Capitol and the office building. I remember standing on the lawn 
outside, wondering if a plane was headed toward this very building.
  That terrible day gave us a taste of what terrorists want to visit 
upon our country. We realized that these fanatics would stop at nothing 
to kill innocent men, women, and children and to bring our country to 
its knees.
  Knowing the threat this country faced, we resolved not to let 
bureaucratic red tape hinder the ability of our law enforcement and 
intelligence communities to keep us safe. As the ranking member of the 
Judiciary Committee, I joined with colleagues of both parties as well 
as the Bush administration to craft the USA PATRIOT Act, which passed 
the Senate 98 to 1. The PATRIOT Act and its subsequent reauthorizations 
have proven critical to our ability to investigate terrorist threats 
and prevent another mass-casualty attack on the homeland.
  Let me make one matter perfectly clear: we continue to face a very 
serious terrorist threat. The evil that struck us on September 11 has 
metastasized and continues to present a clear and present danger to the 
national security of the United States. As the American people's 
elected representatives, it is our primary duty to keep this country 
safe. Accordingly, we must continue to provide the necessary tools to 
the law enforcement and intelligence communities that have helped keep 
this Nation safe for the past 14 years.
  Unfortunately, some of these tools have become quite controversial, 
despite the repeated showing of strong bipartisan support for them. The 
collection of telephone metadata under section 215 has drawn particular 
criticisms and worrisome calls for ``reform.'' I find this development 
enormously concerning.
  Consider what President Obama himself had to say about our need for 
such a capability:

       The program grew out of a desire to address a gap 
     identified after 9/11. One of the       9/11 hijackers, 
     Khalid al-Mihdhar, made a phone call from San Diego to a 
     known al-Qaeda safe house in Yemen. NSA saw that call, but it 
     could not see that the call was coming from an individual 
     already in the United States. The telephone metadata program 
     under Section 215 was designed to map the communications of 
     terrorists so we could see who they may be in contact with as 
     quickly as possible.

  The President was absolutely right. The collection of telephone 
metadata in bulk facilitates our mapping of terrorist networks and our 
ability to disrupt terrorist plots. Contrary to the wild fantasies that 
critics frequently spout, this collection does not meaningfully intrude 
on our privacy. It does not involve the NSA listening in on anyone's 
calls. It is simply a very important means of finding a proverbial 
needle in a haystack. We should reauthorize this authority without 
delay.
  A number of my colleagues have taken a different approach, taking up 
the cause of the so-called USA FREEDOM Act to ``reform'' our 
counterterrorism efforts. I find the name of this bill ironic, in the 
sense that their legislation aims to restore a freedom that was never 
under threat while sacrificing critical tools that secure our freedom.
  For instance, under this legislation, metadata would no longer be 
collected by the government but instead retained by private 
communications corporations. While this idea may seem initially 
appealing, I have strong reservations about such an approach. Their 
proposal contains no requirement for these companies to maintain this 
data for any length of time. Without such a requirement, the 
effectiveness of a search would obviously be compromised.
  This is hardly my only concern. Consider also the provision of the 
so-called FREEDOM Act that would create a body of outside experts to 
advise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on the government's 
warrant applications. Such an unprecedented move would cause serious 
constitutional concerns and could undermine the adversarial system 
which is at the core of the judicial branch.
  For these and many other reasons, I cannot support the so-called 
FREEDOM Act. While I would prefer to pass a long-term extension of our 
current authorities, I will support a short-term extension to 
facilitate the search for a long-term solution. I urge my colleagues in 
both Houses to support this effort.

                          ____________________