Political Quotes

“let me just rise today in strong support of this amendment and thank the sponsors, especially the gentleman from Vermont for his leadership on this issue. Last year the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) came to my district where hundreds came to express opposition to this provision of the very onerous legislation that we are talking about before us today. Under section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, the FBI has the power to search for any tangible things, including books, records, papers, documents, and other items, in any location after showing minimal justification. This punishes all Americans and really has nothing to do with tracking down terrorists. This amendment would allow the FBI to follow the procedures already in current law to obtain warrants to retrieve records for terrorist-related or criminal investigations. But come on. Families should not be afraid to check out children's books for fear that they may be investigated for collaborating with terrorists. This amendment would restore and protect the privacy which is afforded to us by our first amendment, the rights of library and book store patrons which were in place before the USA PATRIOT Act. Those that did not know this was written in in the dark of the night, this was written in, we now know. Today we have a chance to get back the rights guaranteed by our Founding Fathers.”