Patrick Leahy: “Kenneth Starr, the former independent counsel and Solicitor General for the first President Bush, wrote that the…”

“Kenneth Starr, the former independent counsel and Solicitor General for the first President Bush, wrote that the Constitution's conditions for suspending habeas corpus have not been met and that doing it would be problematic. The post-9/11 world requires us to make adjustments. In the original PATRIOT Act five years ago, we made adjustments to accommodate the needs of the Executive, and more recently, we sought to fine-tune those adjustments. I think some of those adjustments sacrificed civil liberties unnecessarily, but I also believe that many provisions in the PATRIOT Act were appropriate. I wrote many of the provisions of the PATRIOT Act, and I voted for it. This bill is of an entirely different nature. The PATRIOT Act took a cautious approach to civil liberties and while it may have gone too far in some areas, this bill goes so much further than that. It takes an entirely dismissive and cavalier approach to basic human rights and to our Constitution.”