FISA

Floor Speech

FISA -- (Senate - February 25, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank the minority leader of the Senate, Senator McConnell, for making that statement, but I would like to amend it. I would like to add something he failed to add and failed to advise the Senate.

We offered to extend the terrorist surveillance law. We said there shouldn't be any gap in terms of the efforts of the United States to monitor these conversations. We made a repeated effort on the floor of the Senate to extend the law. Each and every time we offered to extend the law, an objection was heard from either Senator McConnell or another person on the Republican side. It appears this is not about the security advantage of the United States in fighting terrorism but about some political advantage that if this law appears to lapse, they believe they can make some political gain, I guess. That is the only thing I can deduce is their reason; otherwise, they would have extended this important law, but the decision was made by the Republican leadership not to extend the law. I don't know why. We tried. We will continue to try, and we will continue to try to work out an agreement between the House and the Senate to make certain America is safe.

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