Statement Of Patrick Leahy,
Ranking Member, Judiciary Committee
On The Conference Report On H.R. 3199,
The USA PATRIOT Improvement And Reauthorization Act Of 2005
December 16, 2005

As Senator Salazar noted, yesterday was the anniversary of the adoption of the Bill of Rights to the Constitution.  Yesterday morning the Senate engaged in debate in which we are seeking to protect and preserve those rights as we consider how best to revise and reauthorize the USA PATRIOT Act.  I thank Senators Sununu, Feinstein, Craig, Wyden, Salazar, Feingold and Obama for their thoughtful remarks and their willingness to work in a bipartisan way, in the best tradition of the United States Senate, to get these important issues right.

This is a vital debate.  The terrorist threat to America’s security is very real, and it is vital that we arm the government with the tools needed to protect Americans’ security.  At the same time, however, the threat to civil liberties is also very real in America today. 

Today’s New York Times reports that over the past three years, under a secret order signed by President Bush, the government has been monitoring the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of people inside the United States, without court approval.  This warrant-less eavesdropping program is not authorized by the PATRIOT Act or by any act of Congress.  According to the reports, it is being conducted under a secret presidential order, based on classified legal opinions by the same Justice Department lawyers who argued that the President could order the use of torture.

This debate is not about whether the Government should have the tools it needs to protect the American people.  Of course it should.  That is why I co-authored the PATRIOT Act four years ago, and that is why that Act passed with broad bipartisan support.  When I voted for the PATRIOT Act, I did not think it was an ideal piece of legislation, and I knew that it would need careful oversight and, in due course, reform.  But I was in favor of most of the PATRIOT Act four years ago, which is why I voted for it, and I am in favor of most of the PATRIOT Act now, which is why I voted for the bipartisan Senate bill in July.

Nor is this debate about whether the PATRIOT Act should suddenly expire.  Of course it should not.  That is why Senators from both parties have offered a bill to extend it in its present form for three months in order to give us time to either return to the bipartisan compromise that we reached when we passed the Senate bill or to reach a new bipartisan compromise.  Our goal is to mend the PATRIOT Act, not to end it.  None of us wants it to expire, and those who threaten to let it expire rather than fix it are playing a dangerous game.

Rather, this is a debate about how to reconcile two shared and fundamental goals -- ensuring the safety of the American people and protecting their liberty by means of a system of checks and balances that keeps the Government -- their Government -- accountable.  Those goals are not the goals of any particular party or ideology; they are shared American goals.

How to balance security with liberty and Government accountability was the most fundamental dilemma with which the Framers of our Constitution wrestled, and how to adjust that balance in the post-9/11 world is the most fundamental dilemma before this Congress.   

No one should doubt that those who vote for cloture on the conference report care deeply about the liberty of the American people -- and no one should doubt that those of us who vote against cloture are devoted to protecting both the security and liberty of the American people.

 

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