Patrick Leahy: “After that terrible day of September 11, we began looking at our laws, and what we might do. Unfortunately, at first…”

“After that terrible day of September 11, we began looking at our laws, and what we might do. Unfortunately, at first, rhetoric overcame reality. We had a proposal sent up, and we were asked to pass it within a day or so. Fortunately for the country, and actually ironically beneficial to both the President and the Attorney General who asked for such legislation, we took time to look at it, we took time to read it, and we took time to remove those parts that were unconstitutional and those parts that would have actually hurt liberties of all Americans. I say that because I think of what Benjamin Franklin was quoted as saying at a time when he literally had his neck on the line, where he would have been hanged if our revolution had failed. He said: A people who would give up their liberty for security deserve neither. What we have tried to do in this legislation is to balance the liberties we enjoy as Americans and those liberties that have made us the greatest democracy in history but at the same time to enhance our security so we can maintain that democracy and maintain the leadership we have given the rest of the world. We completed our work 6 weeks after the September 11 attacks. I compare this to what happened after the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. It took a year to complete the legislation after that. We have done this in 6 weeks. But there has been a lot of cooperation.…”