David Obey: “our Founding Fathers created the Bill of Rights not so they would be there in easy, convenient times; but so they would…”

“our Founding Fathers created the Bill of Rights not so they would be there in easy, convenient times; but so they would be enforceable in tough times. This is one of those tough times. We have had a bipartisan bill developed in the Committee on the Judiciary, and Members have been able to ask questions about that for a number of days. We were all feeling pretty comfortable with it. But now in a last ditch action, that bill has essentially been thrown out and now we have a back-room quick fix going on, and I venture to say that virtually no one in this Chamber outside of perhaps a few people on the committee have any idea what is in the bill. Why should we care? It is only the Constitution. It is only individual liberty at stake. Mr. Speaker, we have a 140-page bill coming at us. There is no section-by-section analysis, so we do not have any idea what is in the bill. We are going to be asked to vote blind, and we will be blind. This bill ought to be delayed until Monday. Instead, what we ought to have on the floor right now is the bill that passed the Senate 100 to nothing on airline security.”