To Senator Feinstein, I do believe the second provision is where we want to be, at least from my point of view. To my colleagues, I never intended by 1031 to change the law imposing a greater burden on American citizens or more exposure to…

How much time do we have? The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eight minutes. You were allotted 3 minutes.

I would say why I wanted to do that. I want to be able to say--and not to my political advantage. But I want to be able to tell people post-Abu Ghraib, post-early Guantanamo Bay, we have cleaned up our act. We are trying to get the balance…

In this case where somebody is worried about being picked up by a rogue executive branch because they went to the wrong political rally, they don't have to worry very long, because our Federal courts have the right and the obligation to…

May I add something. I want to respond to one of my good friends, Senator Paul, who said, Well, that is all good, but sometimes in democracies you let in very bad people and I don't want to give broad power to the executive branch that…

One of the things you learn in military law school is the Posse Comitatus Act, because if a military member or a unit is asked to assist in a law enforcement function, that is prohibited in this country. Why is that? We don't want to…

No one is going to be put in jail because they disagree with Lindsey Graham or Barack Obama. We are trying to fight a war. I would say something even more basic. It is in my political interest, quite frankly, being from South Carolina--a…

Right. Well, let's keep talking about it because the more we talk about it the more interesting the whole concept becomes. The last time I looked, there were no civilian jails overseas. So when we capture a terrorist overseas, the only…

Well, my belief is that most Americans would want our military being able to combat al-Qaida at home as much as they would abroad. I think most Americans would be very upset to hear that the military has no real role in combatting al-Qaida…

Wouldn't it be kind of hard to explain to our constituents that our top lawyers in the Pentagon and CIA said today that once an American citizen decides to help al-Qaida they can be killed in a drone attack, but the Congress somehow says…

So in a situation where an American citizen goes to Pakistan and gets radicalized in a madrasah, gets on a plane and flies back to Dulles Airport, gets off the plane and takes up arms against his fellow citizens, then goes to the mall and…

Our military has said they do not want that authority. They want to deal with enemy combatants when it comes to military commission trials. But our military CI and FBI have all understood their power to detain for intelligence-gathering…

And executed. The Senator from Michigan and I have said, along with our colleagues, that military commissions cannot be used to try American citizens.

Yes. And the In re Quirin case, which Hamdi cited and affirmed, was a fact pattern that went as follows: We had German saboteurs, some living in America before they went back to Germany--I think one or two may have been an American…

Does the Senator agree with me that in prior wars American citizens have been involved in aiding the enemy of their time?

If I may just add--not only is that the effect, that would be a change in law because the Senator agrees with me that in other conflicts, prior to the one we are in today, American citizens, unfortunately, have been involved in aiding the…

Does the Senator believe America is part of the battlefield in our global war on terror?

Not only would I agree that 1032 and 1031--the compromise language about statement of authority to detain and military detaining as a presumption--has nothing to do with the choice of venue, there are people on my side who are champing at…