Kelly Ayotte: “I rise today in support of the National Defense Authorization Act. In particular, I wish to speak briefly about the…”

“I rise today in support of the National Defense Authorization Act. In particular, I wish to speak briefly about the detainee provisions contained in the conference report. I have spoken many times over the last few months about this issue, but due to the importance of these issues--and I think because of some of the unfortunate mischaracterizations we have heard about the bipartisan compromise that passed this body already overwhelmingly and came out of the Armed Services Committee overwhelmingly--I wanted to come to the floor to make some closing points on this. I would like to start with this proposition: No member of al-Qaida, no terrorist, should ever hear the words ``you have the right to remain silent.'' That fundamental principle is at the heart of the issue we confronted in the Armed Services Committee in addressing the detainee provisions that are contained within the Defense authorization report. The central issue is, how do we best gather intelligence to protect our country from future attacks? It is common sense that if we tell a terrorist they have the right to remain silent, they may exercise that right.…”