Kelly Ayotte: “I also rise in opposition to the amendment offered by Senator Feinstein, and I certainly appreciate the comments of my…”

“I also rise in opposition to the amendment offered by Senator Feinstein, and I certainly appreciate the comments of my colleague from South Carolina. It would lead to an absurd result that if we were in a situation where an American citizen became a member of al-Qaida and from within our country attacked Americans and we could not gather the maximum amount of information from them to make sure we could prevent future attacks against our country--that is what is at issue here. I would like to point out a couple of issues that have not been addressed with respect to Senator Feinstein's amendment. If you look at the language of that amendment, she says that the authority described in this section for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain a person does not include the authority to detain a citizen of the United States without trial until the end of hostilities. I think this provision is going to create some real problems for the executive branch. If I were they, I would be in here raising these issues because it does not distinguish--the language-- between an American citizen who is captured overseas versus an American citizen captured in the United States of America. Let's use the example of Anwar al-Awlaki. Mr. al-Awlaki, a member of al-Qaida, was actually killed by us overseas.…”