    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2005, Book I)]
    [June 9, 2005]
    [Pages 959-964]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on the PATRIOT Act in Columbus, Ohio
    June 9, 2005

        Thank you all very much. Thank you. Please be seated. Thanks for the
    warm welcome. It's great to be back in Columbus, Ohio. I remind people
    that my grandfather was raised here in Columbus, Ohio. One time, I
    reminded people when I was in Columbus that my grandfather was raised
    here, my dad's dad--my mother called me; she said, ``Why didn't you tell them my
    father was raised in Dayton?'' [Laughter] I said, ``From this point
    forward I will, Mother.'' [Laughter] My dad's dad was raised in
    Columbus, and my mother's dad was raised in Dayton. [Laughter] It's nice
    to be back.
        I want to thank you all for letting me come by the Ohio State
    Highway Patrol Academy. I appreciate what you do here. I appreciate the
    hard work that you put forth in order to train men and women to be on
    the frontline of serving our communities and our country. I appreciate
    the fact that these are tough times for those who wear the uniform. But
    you've got to understand that the men and women who wear the badge of
    peace--the peacekeepers, the people on the frontlines of keeping our
    community safe--have got the gratitude of the American people. On behalf
    of a grateful nation, thank you for what you do.

        And I appreciate my friend Attorney General Al Gonzales joining me today. Thanks for coming over to
    introduce me. Get back to work. [Laughter]

        I want to thank Governor Taft joining us.
    Governor, I appreciate you being here.

        I want to thank Senator Mike DeWine for
    joining us today. Proud you're here, Senator. Congressman Pat Tiberi--this is his district--Congressman, I
    appreciate you coming. He said, by the way, ``Ohio State is in my
    district.'' He said, ``You tell those Texas Longhorns''--[laughter]--I'm
    not

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    going to tell them what you said. [Laughter] I appreciate Congressman
    Dave Hobson joining us as well.
        I want to thank the State attorney general, Jim Petro, for joining us; U.S. Attorney Greg Lockhart. I want to thank Director Ken Morckel for joining us today. Thank you, Ken, for being
    here. Paul McClellan, State and local
    officials, most of all, people who wear the uniform, I'm proud you're
    here.
        Today when I landed at the airport, I met Dianne Garrett, who is with us today. Dianne has been a volunteer with
    the Whitehall Citizens Police Academy Alumni Association for 8 years.
    She represents thousands of people across our country who are working
    hand in glove with their local law enforcement to make the police
    stations work better. She's a part of the citizen corps. She's a part of
    the emergency response team in Whitehall community.
        The reason I bring up people like Dianne
    is, it's important for us to always remember that the great strength of
    America lies in the hearts and souls of our citizens. The true strength
    of this country lies in the hearts of those who are willing to help
    volunteer to make our communities a more compassionate, decent, and safe
    place. If you want to serve Ohio, if you want to serve America, help
    feed the hungry, find shelter for the homeless, volunteer to help our
    law enforcement do their job. Love a neighbor just like you'd like to be
    loved yourself, and you're making a big contribution to America. Dianne,
    thank you for coming. Go ahead and stand up.
        My most solemn duty as the President is to protect the American
    people. And I'm honored to share that responsibility with you. We have a
    joint responsibility. As sworn officers of the law, you're devoted to
    defending your fellow citizens. Your vigilance is keeping our
    communities safe, and you're serving on the frontlines of the war on
    terror. It's a different kind of war than a war our Nation was used to.
    You know firsthand the nature of the enemy. We face brutal men who
    celebrate murder, who incite suicide, and who would stop at nothing to
    destroy the liberties we cherish. You know that these enemies cannot be
    deterred by negotiations or concessions or appeals to reason. In this
    war, there's only one option, and that option is victory.
        Since September the 11th, 2001, we have gone on the offensive
    against the terrorists. We have dealt the enemy a series of powerful
    blows. The terrorists are on the run, and we'll keep them on the run.
    Yet they're still active; they're still seeking to do us harm. The
    terrorists are patient and determined, and so are we. They're hoping
    we'll get complacent and forget our responsibilities. Once again,
    they're proving that they don't understand our Nation. The United States
    of America will never let down its guard.
        It's a long war, and we have a comprehensive strategy to win it.
    We're taking the fight to the terrorists abroad so we don't have to face
    them here at home. We're denying our enemies sanctuary by making it
    clear that America will not tolerate regimes that harbor or support
    terrorists. We're stopping the terrorists from achieving ideological
    victories they seek by spreading hope and freedom and reform across the
    broader Middle East. By advancing the cause of liberty, we'll lay the
    foundations for peace for generations to come.
        And one of the great honors as the President is to be the Commander
    in Chief of a fantastic United States military, made fantastic by the
    quality and the character of the men and women who wear the uniform.
    Thank you for serving.
        As we wage the war on terror overseas, we'll remember where the war
    began, right here on American soil. In our free and open society, there
    is no such thing as perfect security. To protect our country, we have to
    be right 100 percent of the time. To hurt us, the terrorists have to be
    right only once. So we're working to answer that challenge every day,
    and we're making good progress toward securing the homeland.

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        We've enhanced security at coastlines and borders and ports of
    entry, and we have more work to do. We've strengthened protections at
    our airports and chemical plants and highways and bridges and tunnels.
    And we got more work to do. We've made terrorism the top priority for
    law enforcement, and we've provided unprecedented resources to help
    folks like yourselves do their jobs.
        Since 2001, we've more than tripled spending on homeland security;
    we've increased funding more than tenfold for the first-responders who
    protect our homeland. Law enforcement officers stand between our people
    and great danger, and we're making sure you have the tools necessary to
    do your job.
        We've also improved our ability to track terrorists inside the
    United States. A vital part of that effort is called the USA PATRIOT
    Act. The PATRIOT Act closed dangerous gaps in America's law enforcement
    and intelligence capabilities, gaps the terrorists exploited when they
    attacked us on September the 11th. Both Houses of Congress passed the
    PATRIOT Act by overwhelming bipartisan majorities. Ninety-eight out of
    100 United States Senators voted for the act. That's what we call
    bipartisanship. The PATRIOT Act was the clear, considered response of a
    nation at war, and I was proud to sign that piece of legislation.
        Over the past 3\1/2\ years, America's law enforcement and
    intelligence personnel have proved that the PATRIOT Act works, that it
    was an important piece of legislation. Since September the 11th, Federal
    terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against more than 400
    suspects, and more than half of those charged have been convicted.
    Federal, State, and local law enforcement have used the PATRIOT Act to
    break up terror cells in New York and Oregon and Virginia and in
    Florida. We prosecuted terrorist operatives and supporters in
    California, in Texas, in New Jersey, in Illinois, and North Carolina and
    Ohio. These efforts have not always made the headlines, but they've made
    communities safer. The PATRIOT Act has accomplished exactly what it was
    designed to do: It has protected American liberty and saved American
    lives.
        The problem is, at the end of this year, 16 critical provisions of
    the PATRIOT Act are scheduled to expire. Some people call these ``sunset
    provisions.'' That's a good name, because letting that--those provisions
    expire would leave law enforcement in the dark. All 16 provisions are
    practical, important, and they are constitutional. Congress needs to
    renew them all, and this time, Congress needs to make the provisions
    permanent.
        We need to renew the PATRIOT Act because it strengthens our national
    security in four important ways. First, we need to renew the critical
    provisions of the PATRIOT Act that authorize better sharing of
    information between law enforcement and intelligence. Before the PATRIOT
    Act, criminal investigators were separated from intelligence officers by
    a legal and bureaucratic wall. A Federal prosecutor who investigated Usama bin Laden in the 1990s explained the challenge this way: ``We
    could talk to citizens, local police officers, foreign police officers;
    we could even talk to Al Qaida members. But there was one group of
    people we were not permitted to talk to, the FBI agents across the
    street from us assigned to parallel intelligence investigations of Usama
    Bin Laden and Al Qaida. That was a wall.''
        Finding our enemies in the war on terror is tough enough; law
    enforcement officers should not be denied vital information their own
    colleagues already have. The PATRIOT Act helped tear down this wall, and
    now law enforcement and intelligence officers are sharing information
    and working together and bringing terrorists to justice.
        In many terrorism cases, information sharing has made the difference
    between success and failure. And you have an example right here in
    Columbus, Ohio. Two years ago, a truck driver was charged with

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    providing support to Al Qaida. His capture came after an investigation
    that relied on the PATRIOT Act and on contributions from more than a
    dozen agencies in the Southern Ohio Joint Terrorism Task Force. And
    members of that task force are with us today. I want to thank you for
    your contribution to the safety of America, and you'll understand this
    story I'm about to tell.
        For several years, Iyman Faris posed as a
    law-abiding resident of Columbus. But in 2000, he traveled to
    Afghanistan and met Usama bin Laden at an Al
    Qaida training camp. Faris helped the terrorists research airplanes and
    handle cash and purchase supplies. In 2002, he met Khalid Sheikh
    Mohammed, the mastermind of the
    September the 11th attacks, and he agreed to take part in an Al Qaida
    plot to destroy a New York City bridge.
        After Faris returned to the United States,
    Federal investigators used the PATRIOT Act to follow his trail. They
    used new information-sharing provisions to piece together details about
    his time in Afghanistan and his plan to launch an attack on the United
    States. They used the PATRIOT Act to discover that Faris had cased
    possible targets in New York and that he'd reported his findings to Al
    Qaida. In the spring of 2003, the FBI confronted Faris and presented the
    case they had built against him. The case against him was so strong that
    Faris chose to cooperate, and he spent the next several weeks telling
    authorities about his Al Qaida association. Faris pled guilty to the
    charges against him. And today, instead of planning terror attacks
    against the American people, Iyman Faris is sitting in an American
    prison.
        The agents and prosecutors who used the PATRIOT Act to put
    Faris behind bars did superb work, and they know
    what a difference information sharing made. Here is what one FBI agent
    said--he said, ``The Faris case would not have happened without sharing
    information.'' That information sharing was made possible by the PATRIOT
    Act. Another investigator on the case said, ``We never would have had
    the lead to begin with.'' You have proved that good teamwork is critical
    in protecting America. For the sake of our national security, Congress
    must not rebuild a wall between law enforcement and intelligence.
        Second, we need to renew the critical provisions of the PATRIOT Act
    that allow investigators to use the same tools against terrorists that
    they already use against other criminals. Before the PATRIOT Act, it was
    easier to track the phone contacts of a drug dealer than the phone
    contacts of an enemy operative. Before the PATRIOT Act, it was easier to
    get the credit card receipts of a tax cheat than an Al Qaida bankroller.
    Before the PATRIOT Act, agents could use wiretaps to investigate a
    person committing mail fraud but not to investigate a foreign terrorist.
    The PATRIOT Act corrected all these pointless double standards, and
    America is safer as a result.
        One tool that has been especially important to law enforcement is
    called a roving wiretap. Roving wiretaps allow investigators to follow
    suspects who frequently change their means of communications. These
    wiretaps must be approved by a judge, and they have been used for years
    to catch drug dealers and other criminals. Yet before the PATRIOT Act,
    agents investigating terrorists had to get a separate authorization for
    each phone they wanted to tap. That means terrorists could elude law
    enforcement by simply purchasing a new cell phone. The PATRIOT Act fixed
    the problem by allowing terrorism investigators to use the same wiretaps
    that were already being using against drug kingpins and mob bosses. The
    theory here is straightforward: If we have good tools to fight street
    crime and fraud, law enforcement should have the same tools to fight
    terrorism.
        Third, we need to renew the critical provisions of the PATRIOT Act
    that updated the law to meet high-tech threats like computer espionage
    and cyberterrorism. Before the PATRIOT Act, Internet providers who

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    notified Federal authorities about threatening e-mails ran the risk of
    getting sued. The PATRIOT Act modernized the law to protect Internet
    companies who voluntarily disclose information to save lives.
        It's commonsense reform, and it's delivered results. In April 2004,
    a man sent an e-mail to an Islamic center in
    El Paso and threatened to burn the mosque to the ground in 3 days.
    Before the PATRIOT Act, the FBI could have spent a week or more waiting
    for the information they needed. Thanks to the PATRIOT Act, an Internet
    provider was able to provide the information quickly and without fear of
    a lawsuit, and the FBI arrested the man before he could fulfill his
    threat.
        Terrorists are using every advantage they can to inflict harm.
    Terrorists are using every advantage of 21st century technology, and
    Congress needs to ensure that our law enforcement can use that same
    advantage as well.
        Finally, we need to renew the critical provisions of the PATRIOT Act
    that protect our civil liberties. The PATRIOT Act was written with clear
    safeguards to ensure the law is applied fairly. The judicial branch has
    a strong oversight role. Law enforcement officers need a Federal judge's
    permission to wiretap a foreign terrorist's phone, a Federal judge's
    permission to track his calls, or a Federal judge's permission to search
    his property. Officers must meet strict standards to use any of these
    tools, and these standards are fully consistent with the Constitution of
    the United States.
        Congress also oversees the application of the PATRIOT Act. Congress
    has recently created a Federal board to ensure that the PATRIOT Act and
    other laws respect privacy and civil liberties, and I'll soon name five
    talented Americans to serve on that board. Attorney General
    Gonzales delivers regular reports on the
    PATRIOT Act to the House and the Senate. And the Department of Justice
    has answered hundreds of questions from Members of Congress. One
    Senator, Dianne Feinstein of California,
    has worked with civil rights groups to monitor my administration's use
    of the PATRIOT Act. Here's what she said, ``We've scrubbed the area, and
    I have no reported abuses.'' Remember that the next time you hear
    someone make an unfair criticism of this important, good law. The
    PATRIOT Act has not diminished American liberties; the PATRIOT Act has
    helped to defend American liberties.
        Every day the men and women of law enforcement use the PATRIOT Act
    to keep America safe. It's the nature of your job that many of your most
    important achievements must remain secret. Americans will always be
    grateful for the risks you take and for the determination you bring to
    this high calling--you have done your job. Now those of us in Washington
    have to do our job. The House and Senate are moving forward with the
    process to renew the PATRIOT Act. My message to Congress is clear: The
    terrorist threats against us will not expire at the end of the year, and
    neither should the protections of the PATRIOT Act.
        I want to thank you for letting me come and talk about this
    important piece of legislation. I want to thank you for being on the
    frontlines of securing this country. May God bless you and your
    families, and may God continue to bless our Nation. Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:22 a.m. at the Ohio State Highway Patrol
    Academy. In his remarks, he referred to Gov. Bob Taft of Ohio; Kenneth
    L. Morckel, director, Ohio Department of Public Safety; Col. Paul D.
    McClellan, superintendent, Ohio State Highway Patrol; Patrick J.
    Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois and
    Department of Justice CIA leak investigation Special Prosecutor; and
    Usama bin Laden, leader of the Al Qaida terrorist organization.

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