Arlen Specter: “as we begin the debate and discussion on the USA PATRIOT Act, I urge my colleagues to invoke cloture to cut off debate…”

“as we begin the debate and discussion on the USA PATRIOT Act, I urge my colleagues to invoke cloture to cut off debate tomorrow when the vote is scheduled at 2:30, and then proceed to pass the PATRIOT Act. The PATRIOT Act was passed by the Congress and signed into law by the President shortly after September 11, 2001, to provide additional tools for law enforcement, and it was reviewed extensively by the Committee on the Judiciary, which I chair, last year; and the Judiciary Committee came out with a unanimous report, with all 18 members on the committee concurring in the final product. We considered this a unique, if not remarkable event, considering that our Judiciary Committee has people at all positions on the political spectrum. So to have unanimous agreement was, we thought, quite an accomplishment. When the matter came to the floor of the Senate, it was passed by unanimous consent, which again was unique, if not remarkable, in that on a matter as complex and controversial as the PATRIOT Act all of the Senators were in agreement that it should be enacted. We then went to conference with the House of Representatives and, as expected, the House had different views than what the Senate had in mind. But we worked through in a collegial way with Chairman Sensenbrenner and others on the House side and came to a conference report which we submitted to the Senate.…”