John Conyers: “if only what my good friend, the chairman, said was accurate, we would not be here to ask that this measure be turned…”

“if only what my good friend, the chairman, said was accurate, we would not be here to ask that this measure be turned down and that we pass a 3-month extension, as I have proposed and is in legislative form, so that the PATRIOT Act and intelligence reform would not be stymied. It is like coming to a meeting and we have forgotten all the things that most of the Members on my side of the aisle on the Judiciary Committee agreed with is wrong with the PATRIOT Act, but that we have ignored the fact that many other organizations are not for the PATRIOT Act. Now, what safeguards are being preserved is very interesting for me because the opponents of the PATRIOT Act, including seven States that have passed resolutions opposing parts of the PATRIOT Act and a number of communities that have done so, represent over 62 million Americans.…”