Orrin Hatch: “In more than 4 years since the September 11, 2001, attack on the United States, the PATRIOT Act has helped to protect…”

“In more than 4 years since the September 11, 2001, attack on the United States, the PATRIOT Act has helped to protect our homeland from subsequent terrorist attack. Reauthorizing this effective piece of legislation is an important victory in the continued war on terror. The PATRIOT Act safeguards freedoms of American citizens while aggressively curtailing the opportunities terrorists have to strike. We have added many provisions designed to ensure that our civil liberties remain unaffected despite the fact that civil libertarians were completely unable to point to one incident or provide any example of abuses under the original PATRIOT Act. As everybody knows, that act was negotiated in the Judiciary Committee when I was chairman, and I had a lot to do with it, along with Senator Leahy and others. We found that the original PATRIOT Act functioned very well in the protection of our country. The PATRIOT Act has enjoyed robust public support in Utah since its inception. According to Dan Jones and Associates, our leading pollster in Utah, every time the firm has polled Utahns in the last 4 years, 60 percent or more have voiced approval of the antiterrorism measure. A poll of U.S. citizens reported that more than 60 percent of Americans believed that the Government should do more to protect this country from attack.…”