Madam President, I rise today to begin to filibuster John Brennan's nomination for the CIA. I will speak until I can no longer speak. I will speak as long as it takes until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is…

Mr. President, my response to that is yes. In fact, I have actually voted for several of the President's nominations. My trying to draw attention to this issue is because I believe it is an incredibly fundamental issue; that is, how we…

Absolutely. At this point, I will entertain comments from Senator Cruz and a question. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). The Senator from Texas.

Yes, I am aware of that. I think we have a transcript of some of the conversation from this morning.

Absolutely. I think that is where the crux comes down to this, talking about having an imminent standard. This is part of the problem in the sense he doesn't want to talk about it. If we are going to do something so dramatic as to no…

Mr. President, I think it is a good point. I think also a point to be made is that one resolution to this impasse would be to have a resolution come forward from the Senate saying exactly that; that our understanding is--and this has been…

Mr. President, I am hopeful that we have drawn attention to this issue; that this issue won't fade away; that the President will tomorrow come up with a response. I would like nothing more than to facilitate the voting and the continuation…

Mr. President, that is the only direct response I have gotten. I have also read the testimony from the Judiciary Committee where the Senator from Texas cross-examined the Attorney General, who responded indirectly to my question by saying…

Mr. President, in late January we sent a letter to John Brennan, the nominee for the CIA, asking a bunch of questions. Included among those questions was, Can you kill an American in America with a drone strike? We got no response and no…

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oregon for coming to the floor and being a champion for the Bill of Rights. We get a lot of grief in Washington about a lack of civility--people yelling and screaming at each other. In my dealings…

Mr. President, I think it is an excellent question and really gets to the root of the whole problem we are talking about because we are talking about people who may not all be good people. They may be bad people and they may be plotting to…

Mr. President, I would like to say that I appreciate the remarks of the Senator from Texas. If the filibuster goes on long enough, we would like to hear a recitation of William Barrett Travis's last words at the Alamo. We had to memorize…