USA Patriot Terrorism Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2005--Conference Report

USA PATRIOT TERRORISM PREVENTION REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2005--CONFERENCE REPORT

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the PATRIOT Act.

Like many of my colleagues, I am confronted with a very difficult decision. There are rarely easy answers in the Senate and today is no exception. The healthy debate we have had in this body over the last few days has been vigorous and valuable.

Today, we have a solemn obligation to protect our Nation from those who may bring terror into our homes. At the same time, we have a responsibility to respect our rights and honor our privacy. These principles are not mutually exclusive: we can and must achieve both.

This is one of the most significant pieces of legislation shaping our ability to resist and eliminate terrorist activity on our home front. Our actions today will have tremendous consequences in the lives of all Americans in months, years, and decades ahead.

I am proud that in the rush and passions surrounding this bill, I have worked with my colleagues to insist on a serious, patient, and transparent debate in the Senate as we strive to find the right balance between protecting our civil liberties and fighting terrorism.

Despite my reservations and after great deliberation, I support reauthorization today.

I believe that we must not allow the PATRIOT Act to expire. With new provisions and improved meaningful oversight secured at last, empower our national leaders and policy makers with the accountability, wisdom, and prudence to use this legislation's powers in a way that does not undermine the freedoms we seek to protect.

Under provisions of this conference report, the Federal Government must now provide public information on its use of intelligence gathering tools like national security letters and FISA warrants. What is more, this legislation provides for formal audits of these programs. We must play close attention in order to learn lessons of the past and prevent abuse in the future.

I will join my colleagues in strongly pursuing additional sunset provisions I believe should have been included in this bill, to give Congress the opportunity to reassess whether these tools are yielding the intended results in the war on terror.

We have already made some critical reforms to implement meaningful oversight. We have managed to get some of the most controversial provisions to sunset in another 4 years, despite the administration's desire to make them permanent. We have started with sunsets on the roving wiretaps and record requests from businesses and libraries. They are not enough, but they are a start.

Because of an important vote we took yesterday, we have removed America's libraries from the purview of national security letters. We're allowing recipients of records requests to challenge the gag orders on the requests and have removed disclosure requirements for the names of attorneys assisting with those challenges. We are seeing improvements on disclosure for ``sneak and peek'' warrants.

But I want to be clear, new powers must not be allowed to chip away at traditional privacy rights. We must closely watch how law enforcement uses these tools and be prepared to confront all abuses.

I believe that many provisions of the bill, particularly those sections dealing with electronic eavesdropping and computer trespass, remain seriously flawed and may infringe on civil liberties. And that is why I will continue our work to improve these protections even as we implement them.

At a time when we are making permanent broad powers for our law enforcement and intelligence communities without the full traditional safeguards of judicial review and congressional oversight my concerns have been exacerbated, truthfully, by the administration's explicit attempts to go around both the courts and the Congress with their wiretapping and secret listening posts.

So as the FBI and other agencies continue to expand and evolve, so will their powers. We will continue to ask who should be watching the watchers in oversight.

There is clearly more work to be done--Chairman ARLEN SPECTER and Ranking Member PAT LEAHY have worked together and are introducing legislation that addresses many of my outstanding concerns. I will be on that bill--we have made meaningful reforms.

I also want to thank Senator FEINGOLD for his continued dogged support for reform of this bill. I want him to know that I stand with him in the battle to gain further reforms.

Also included in this conference report is some good news for port security. Sadly, there is not the funding that we have repeatedly asked for from this administration--but at least new criminal penalties for smuggling goods through ports. There are tools to help crackdown further on money laundering overseas by terrorist organizations.

Finally, I am very pleased that the conference report includes essential and long overdue resources to combat our Nation's surging methamphetamine epidemic.

Meth, as a problem in our communities, will not simply disappear on its own. We must make it a top priority and work to end it together. That's why I had introduced similar legislation to address meth use, manufacture, and sale, and create a law regulating the commercially available products used to make meth, such as pseudoephedrine.

And that's why I am so glad to see the Combat Meth Act included in today's legislation. I was proud to cosponsor this legislation when Senators TALENT and FEINSTEIN introduced it, and I am pleased that it will be signed into law, providing comprehensive reforms and critical resources. The legislation enforces strict regulations and keeps records so that meth producers can't get their hands on those key ingredients. When a similar type of law was enacted in Oklahoma, it reduced meth lab busts in the state by 80 percent.

This legislation also provides valuable resources to State and local governments for law enforcement officials investigating and shutting down labs, investigating violent meth-related crimes, educating the public, and caring for children affected by the drug's scourge. The bill also confronts international meth trafficking new reporting and certification procedures.

My State, Washington, is sixth in the country in meth production. In 2004, 1337 meth lab sites were discovered in Washington State. That same year, 220 fatalities were linked to the drug. And we are first in the country, when it comes to the number of children found on raided sites. It is clear this is neither a small problem not an isolated one.

But these aren't just numbers. They are parents and children, individual people with terrible stories of struggle and addiction. Acting here and now, to fight this epidemic, we can provide the resources to and protect our Nation's families and communities.

The events of September 11 have changed our country and its people forever. We were attacked on our own soil. Thousands have died; thousands were injured. Very simply, we must do all that we can to stop terrorism by finding and ending terrorist activities here and abroad. Our challenge is to do this without compromising the values that make Americans so unique. They are the same values that have allowed our Nation to become great: respect for personal autonomy and the rights of the individual; and tolerance of all regardless of race or religion.

They are the values that have always guided our Nation's leaders. It was Benjamin Franklin who said essentially:

Make sure we have our liberties. Make sure we protect the people from ourselves. Those who would give up their essential liberties for security deserve neither and get neither.

We must defend both.

We must maintain and take full advantage of meaningful oversight to ensure power is never abused. While I will vote for this bill, I will also continue to work to improve this bill. I will continue to be vigilant and urge those working defend and secure our Nation to use these powers wisely and with great deliberation.

http://thomas.loc.gov/