I have long believed that civil liberties and national security need not be in conflict, and I hope to work with my colleagues to strike that balance in a responsible and effective manner.

Congress must reauthorize the expiring provisions of the PATRIOT Act before December 31st of this year, and the clock is ticking.

I fear what would happen if December 31st comes and goes and the three expiring provisions effectively do expire.

I do take a little bit of a pride of authorship in the fact that with the Sensenbrenner PATRIOT Act, 15 of the 17 expanded law enforcement provisions either went unchallenged as to their constitutionality in almost 8 years.

I'm very curious at the fact that most of the discussion of the questions and answers has been on national security letters.

I would say that, in many cases, you have vindicated many of the assertions that I made, both as the author of the PATRIOT Act in 2001 as well as the author of the PATRIOT Act reauthorization, which was signed by the President in March of…

You can't have a discussion--and I think no Member of the House should--can be expected to act responsibly, to vote responsibly and intelligently on pending legislation without access to that opinion.

We really all ought to see the Office of Legal Counsel opinion. That is this Administration's view of what due process entails.

We have lived through several years now of secret law from the Office of Legal Counsel. It has been a national disgrace.

Right-minded people such as Dawn Johnson, whose nomination, surprisingly, is still pending in the other body, has worked to reform the Office of Legal Counsel, reform that process and keep it on a very solid, professional footing.

Legislation passed by Mr. Sensenbrenner was also enacted to require States to hold special House elections when extraordinary circumstances cause mass vacancies in the House.