Dianne Feinstein

I thank you for holding this open hearing to discuss the Committee's draft legislation to reauthorize and amend the PATRIOT Act

It is my hope that this will allow Justice and FBI employees to spend more time conducting intelligence investigations than passing papers through the bureaucracy.

I have found that the implementation has been reasonable in scope and tailored to the needs of our intelligence and law enforcement communities.

Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman.

If you were to change it, how would you change it?

I have really been hard-pressed to find any signs of bad use or overuse.

Congress should modify section 6001 to provide a presumption that an individual who is involved in international terrorism is acting for a foreign power.

This committee should review carefully actual applications for secret searches or surveillances under the new power provided by section 6001

I want the Senator to know it is my intention to vote for her amendment. I obviously did not want it on this bill, but since it is, it is my intention to vote for it. Amendment No. 395 (Purpose: To express the sense of the Senate that text…

Yes, that is fine. I will not take long. I will just put the amendment in. I will not ask for a vote tonight.

What I would like to do is put forward an amendment. I gather there will be no more votes tonight.

Yes. If I may, Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Maryland. I ask unanimous consent--

This has been and is today a huge problem. Additionally, there is another problem on our southern border, if the Senator would give me a minute, and that is, other than Mexicans crossing the border being picked up illegally. I think it was…

Finally, I just want to give you a challenge. There is a lot of marijuana being grown in national parks.

Thanks for being on top of it. I appreciate it.

The thrust of the bill was that no private property owner be displaced, no eminent domain.

Will you commit to allowing the return of the previous water facilities under this temporary grazing permit?

I believe that the Park Service should make every effort to allow the existing ranchers who wish to do so to continue to ranch within the confines of the bill's language.

I wrote the bill specifically with the intent that the existing grazing would continue at the existing level.

So far you are batting 1,000. Let us see if it continues.

I want you to know that I share the chairman's concerns about the rural and community fire funding.

Senator Schumer's amendment is a critical amendment. Essentially, when this body in 1994 passed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, we said that individuals should be able to go into clinics without being obstructed. The law was…

Today 144 million Americans have credit cards and they are charging more debt than they have in the past. Let me give one example of that. Credit card debt between 2001 and 2002 increased 8½ percent. Between 1997 and 2002, it increased 36…

See, the problem is, when we were in Jordan, and the head of the police training program sat down with us, they didn't know how many were actually in the field, because this was never vetted.

Last question. Because I was, in December, in Baghdad with Senator Biden, and then in Jordan at the training program with Senator Biden, who has very specific ideas on the number of security and police that have been trained.