Kelly Ayotte: “I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by the Senator from California, amendment No. 1125. I would start with…”

“I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by the Senator from California, amendment No. 1125. I would start with this: We have heard repeatedly--not only from the Senator from California but also from the Senator from Illinois--about the number of cases in our civilian system where we have tried terrorists versus the number of military commissions. I think there is one thing that needs to be clarified upfront here; that one of the first acts the President took when he came into office was to actually suspend all military commissions for about 2 years. So to compare the number of cases in our civilian system versus the number of military commission trials we have had is a false comparison when we suspended these trials for over 2 years. I want to say that upfront. But I think the chart the Senator shows actually misses the point of why we have this amendment before us; that is, we need to gather intelligence. When we have captured a member of al-Qaida who is planning an attack against the United States of America, the first goal has to be, obviously, getting that person away from where he can threaten us again to kill Americans, but also, just as importantly, to gather intelligence to protect America. The criminal justice system is set up to see that justice is served in a particular case, not to see that we have the maximum tools in the hands of our intelligence officials to gather information.…”