Kelly Ayotte: “I would say to my colleague from South Carolina, when he spoke on the floor he captured the most important part of this…”

“I would say to my colleague from South Carolina, when he spoke on the floor he captured the most important part of this; that is, without the amendment we have been debating, we do not even give our military, law enforcement, intelligence officials the ability to decide which system is best in each incident. Rightly so, when you are in our country, when you are an American citizen, you are given your Miranda rights. You are told: You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to have a lawyer. We need to make sure we do not create a distinction where if you are captured abroad, you are treated one way--and we are giving our officials maximum flexibility to gather as much information as possible to protect our country--but if you make it here, the rules are different, and we do not give the officials who are set to protect us every day, both from a military and law enforcement end, the flexibility they need to gather maximum intelligence. It would just be an absurd result to treat it differently. It would almost encourage: Come to America--unfortunately--to attack us because you will actually be given greater rights if the attack occurs here.”