Orrin Hatch: “Congress has been working on FISA modernization since April of 2007. That is over 425 days ago. It is simply amazing to…”

“Congress has been working on FISA modernization since April of 2007. That is over 425 days ago. It is simply amazing to me that it would take this long. As I have often said, the Constitution of the United States was written in about 115 days, and that included travel time on horseback for the Founding Fathers. We have spent plenty of time on this issue. So why is it taking so long? Should this issue be controversial? I can only surmise that the delay is due to the ominous sounding terrorist surveillance program. That is the program where the President had the audacity to allow the intelligence community to listen to international communications where at least one person was suspected to be a member of al-Qaida--the same al-Qaida who killed nearly 3,000 innocent American civilians on September 11; the same al-Qaida who since that day has committed attacks in Istanbul, Algiers, Karachi, Islamabad, Casablanca, London, Madrid, Mombasa, the Gulf of Aden, Riyadh, Tunisia, Amman, and Bali; the same al-Qaida whose mission statement can be summed up in three words: ``Death to America.'' This is the group the President targeted. He wanted an early warning system to help prevent future attacks--a terrorist smoke detector, if you will. We often are reminded that we are fighting against an unconventional enemy, one that has asymmetrical advantages against us. Al-Qaida is not a nation state and adheres to no treaties or principles on the conduct of war.”