Jon Kyl: “this resumes our discussion of the PATRIOT Act, which we were discussing before this little interlude. Since much of the…”

“this resumes our discussion of the PATRIOT Act, which we were discussing before this little interlude. Since much of the attention has been focused on section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, I want to discuss that for a little bit. The Senator from Illinois, for example, was talking about that just before we broke and, specifically, talked about the subject of section 215, which includes financial records, library records. Incidentally, ``library'' is never mentioned in the PATRIOT Act. It is just that library records are included in the general definition of business records. As a result, people have focused on that. So we are going to talk about that for just a little bit. As he pointed out, the standard for a court to issue a warrant is relevance. That is the same standard that is used in all the other civil subpoenas. It is a standard that the courts had begun to impose since we did not have a standard within the law itself. Given the fact that is the standard the courts began to impose--and it is a reasonable standard--we amended that into the law. Part of what passed the Senate unanimously was a relevance standard. So there is nothing wrong with having a relevance standard. I would think those who are weary of the application of the PATRIOT Act would agree this was a good addition. It is an additional safeguard to have a relevant standard. What exactly is section 215? That is what I would like to address.…”