Political Quotes

“Yes, with one caveat. There is a line of thinking that we should be using Federal courts exclusively, that military commissions are not appropriate in any circumstance, and that we should be using the law enforcement model once we deal with an al-Qaida operative, particularly here in the United States. What we are saying in this legislation is that the battlefield includes our own homeland. So that argument being made by the ACLU, I think, will bear that because most Americans feel we are not dealing with somebody who robbed a liquor store. These people present a military threat, and we should be able to gather intelligence in a lawful way. The administration's concern was, are we overstepping Executive power. I have, quite frankly, said I am concerned about that. Peter was concerned about that; Dave was concerned about that; I have been concerned about that because I don't believe you can have 535 attorneys general or commanders in chief. What we did to accommodate that concern is what the Senator from Arizona said, we started out with a military custody requirement that can be waived and the procedures to be waived are in the hands of the executive branch. As Senator Levin has indicated, this, to me, is very flexible and is so flexible that I feel very good about it.…”