Reaction Of Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vt
Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee
To President Bush’s Call
To Renew The USA PATRIOT Act
January 21, 2004

“I welcome the President’s call to revisit our homeland security laws, but rather than blindly reauthorize the sweeping legislation without a much-needed review, it is important to conduct a vigorous, bipartisan examination of the PATRIOT Act, focused on balancing the need to address the threat of terrorism and the need to protect our constitutional freedoms.

"The very purpose of the sunset was to provide Congress the opportunity to revisit these new laws and learn from the experiences and public debate that was sure to follow PATRIOT’s passage.  So far, the Administration has resisted full oversight of how it is using these laws.  Oversight questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee have sometimes gone unanswered for not days or weeks or months, but more than a year.

"I’m hopeful the President’s desire to revisit the PATRIOT Act represents a genuine interest in a full and open debate on these important privacy and security issues and not a political calculation in his re-election campaign."

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