[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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