Christopher Shays: “I have 70 constituents who lost their rights on September 11; and to hear this debate, I am not sure we seem to care…”

“I have 70 constituents who lost their rights on September 11; and to hear this debate, I am not sure we seem to care about that. Something told me on September 11 that we had received a wake-up call from hell, and that wake-up call from hell indicated we have to detect and prevent, because the old Cold War philosophy of contain and react and mutually assured destruction went out the window. On an appropriations bill, we are trying to amend the PATRIOT Act because some librarians find it offensive that we may want to go in and find out who a terrorist talks with when they use a computer, and we are going to have another amendment that basically says we need to tell them first that we think they are a terrorist. If we are going to detect and prevent, we have to break into these cells, and the only alternative left if we see this amendment pass is that we would then have to go before a grand jury and state our case, without probable cause, I might add, but state our case when we are talking about significant national security issues.”