Barney Frank: “In my remaining minute, I understand, I will say that my good friend from Pennsylvania I think is probably not…”

“In my remaining minute, I understand, I will say that my good friend from Pennsylvania I think is probably not distressed that we are talking about something that is not the heart of the bill. But the fact is, I will close by this, we are talking about it here because this is the only enforceable way to put restraints on the President. And I will tell you why I think it is important. Chaplain Yee at Guantanamo, Burton Mayfield in Oregon, Wen Ho Lee under the Clinton administration, there are, sadly, cases of entirely innocent individuals who were prosecuted and gone after. I don't think the President is ill intended here. And I think the law enforcement people are the good guys; I just don't think they are the perfect guys. So I want to give them power, but I want to subject that to some check beforehand and some process afterwards. And that is what we are saying here. We are fully in favor of empowering law enforcement, but we do not want them to be exclusive in the exercise of that power. And asking that they go before a judge to justify it when they are going to be wiretapping an American seems to us to be reasonable and to do no harm to America. And to repeat my answer to the gentleman from California: the opponents of this amendment are the proponents of the view that the President's power should be entirely unchecked, and that is dangerous.”