John Kerry: “I listened carefully, as others have, to the distinguished Senator from Arizona. I guess we certainly all agree with his…”

“I listened carefully, as others have, to the distinguished Senator from Arizona. I guess we certainly all agree with his last statement about dealing with the evil of terrorism. We are all united in that effort, and all of us are pledged to do so according to the resolution we passed in the aftermath of 9/11, giving the President extraordinary power and authority to respond to those attacks. We are united in our efforts to deal with terrorism. What we are not evidently as united on is our efforts to protect the Constitution of the United States of America, to protect the rights of individual Americans. On that there is a division between the House and the Senate. I remind my colleague from Arizona, I think it was a couple of hours ago when he was talking about this subject, that he talked about how we don't want to see the PATRIOT Act further degraded; in other words, somehow implying that if we go back to what we passed in the Senate unanimously, we would somehow be degrading the PATRIOT Act. We were admonished not to ``hide behind the filibuster,'' that somehow people are hiding behind the filibuster which is the same thing as voting against the PATRIOT Act. With all due respect, I never heard a more absurd or insulting argument to the rules of the Senate and to the nature of the Senate.…”