National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012

Floor Speech

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Ms. AYOTTE. Madam President, I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by the Senator from California, amendment No. 1125. I would start with this: We have heard repeatedly--not only from the Senator from California but also from the Senator from Illinois--about the number of cases in our civilian system where we have tried terrorists versus the number of military commissions.

I think there is one thing that needs to be clarified upfront here; that one of the first acts the President took when he came into office was to actually suspend all military commissions for about 2 years. So to compare the number of cases in our civilian system versus the number of military commission trials we have had is a false comparison when we suspended these trials for over 2 years. I want to say that upfront.

But I think the chart the Senator shows actually misses the point of why we have this amendment before us; that is, we need to gather intelligence. When we have captured a member of al-Qaida who is planning an attack against the United States of America, the first goal has to be, obviously, getting that person away from where he can threaten us again to kill Americans, but also, just as importantly, to gather intelligence to protect America. The criminal justice system is set up to see that justice is served in a particular case, not to see that we have the maximum tools in the hands of our intelligence officials to gather information.

Yet it seems to me that if you look in the context of Senator Feinstein's amendment 1126 that we have already talked about on the floor, she wants to limit the administration. The case law of our Supreme Court that is going back to World War II would take us before 9/11. And heaven forbid if we had an American citizen who was one of the participants in an incident such as we had occur on our soil on 9/11. Our military would not be permitted to hold that person and to question them to get the maximum amount of information and protect our country.

With respect to this amendment she has pending before the Senate, 1125, I want to point out that the amendment would lead to a very absurd result. Essentially what it would say is if you are a member of al-Qaida, planning or committing an attack against the United States of America, a foreigner, and you make it to our soil, as the 9/11 conspirators did who committed that horrible attack on our country, then you cannot be held in military custody. There is no mandatory military custody under those circumstances. Yet we will hold you in mandatory military custody if you are found overseas. So, in other words, please, their goal is unfortunately to come to the homeland, to come to our country to attack us here, and in our country we need the authority to, in the first instance--the presumption should be to hold those individuals in military custody so that we are not reading them Miranda rights. To tell a terrorist: You have the right to remain silent is counter to what we need to do to protect Americans and make sure that--for example, I will use the Christmas Day Bomber as an example because it has been cited so many times here on this floor.

That day, when he was found on the plane, after 50 minutes of questioning, he was read his Miranda rights and he invoked his Miranda rights and remained silent. It was only 5 weeks later after we tracked down his parents and convinced him to cooperate that he actually provided more information.

We are very fortunate that he was only involved in one event, that it was not a 9/11-type event where there were multiple events on American soil planned. But what if after that 50 minutes we waited 5 weeks to get more information, yet there had been more events coming that day? That is what is at issue here. Let's bring ourselves back to September 11. What if we had caught the individuals who were on one of those planes before it took off on 9/11? What if in that instance we would not hold those members of al-Qaida in military custody that instant to make sure that we could get the maximum amount of information from them to hopefully, God forbid, prevent the lifting off of the other flights and what happened on that horrible day in our country's history?

I have to believe that if we were standing here immediately after the events of 9/11, I do not think we would be debating this amendment, deciding whether if you make it to our homeland we will not hold you in military custody in the first instance, to find out how much information you have, to make sure you are not part of multiple attacks on the United States of America.

If the amendment of the Senator from California passes, what kind of message are we sending to members of al-Qaida, foreigners who are planning attacks against the United States of America? We are laying out, unfortunately in my view, a welcome mat to say: If you make to it America, you will not be held in military custody. But if you attack us overseas, then you will be held in military custody. Why would we create a dual standard where we should be prioritizing protecting our homeland, protecting the United States of America? This leads to an absurd result.

I would hope my colleagues would reject the Senator's amendment to say that only those members of al-Qaida who do not make it to our homeland to attack us right here on our soil will be held in the first instance in mandatory military custody. Because our goal has to be here to protect Americans and to make sure we do not create a dual standard where if you are captured over there, we are going to hold you in military custody, but if you are captured and if you make it here, you are going to be getting greater rights, we will process you in the civilian system, and we will tell you you have the right to remain silent. We should not be telling terrorists they have the right to remain silent. We should be protecting Americans. If we were to pass this amendment, it would create an absurd standard where you get greater rights when are you here on our soil. I think that makes us less safe.

I would urge my colleagues to reject both of the Senator's amendments, both 1126 that would deny the executive branch the authority to hold them----

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Ms. AYOTTE. Madam President, I would ask my colleagues to reject 1126 as well, which would take away the authority of the executive branch as allowed by our Supreme Court and would make us less safe in this country as well as 1125. We have to protect America and make sure we get the maximum information to prevent future attacks on this country.

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