Cliff Stearns: “I would just say to this side, this bill has gone through so many iterations, and so many times we have looked at this.…”

“I would just say to this side, this bill has gone through so many iterations, and so many times we have looked at this. It includes 30 additional civil liberties safeguards. And, you know, I admit that your fighting against this bill has probably improved it a little bit. But at this point, we have done so much to help it. I think it is a very good bill. I commend the author, Mr. Sensenbrenner, for his patience all during this process. These new civil liberty safeguards include allowing recipients of search requests or national security letters to seek legal counsel for appealing the decision to the FISA court and mandated reporting to the public and Congress on the use of national security letters, data- mining and delayed-notice search warrants. This is a vigilant protector of civil rights and national security, and it is the right balance. It is critical that we pass this bill today. I would say in passing that part of the PATRIOT Act was a cargo amendment that I included. I thank the chairman for allowing me to do that. In Florida alone, local and State agencies joined together and developed a unified strategy for prevention and enforcement against cargo theft, resulting in about a 25 percent decrease in cargo thefts. Unfortunately, my colleagues, the FBI estimates, and these are only estimates because we do not have any way to track this information, overall national loss from cargo theft remains at almost $6 billion annually.…”