Jim Sensenbrenner: “Mr. Speaker, we have got a problem in this country: We are under attack. There are almost 3,000 people that died on…”

“Mr. Speaker, we have got a problem in this country: We are under attack. There are almost 3,000 people that died on 9/11, and we have had to change our entire philosophy on how to deal with this threat. Before 9/11, we treated terrorist acts as a criminal act. And with a criminal act, a crime occurs and people are killed, and we send out the police to investigate. Hopefully, they get enough evidence to indict someone, and then the U.S. Attorney's offices will try them and hopefully obtain a conviction, and the judge sentences them, hopefully, for a long, long time. 9/11 proved we can't do that any more, because there are thousands of lives that are at risk. In this age of suicide bombings and suicide attacks, the people who would be prosecuted usually die in the commission of that terrorist act and take thousands of souls, innocent souls along with them. That is why we have to bring up to date a law that was written in the mid-1970s, and we have done this in a constitutional manner. What we have heard from the other side of the aisle is, no, this isn't good enough and that the perfect is that the enemy of the good. Well, Mr. Speaker, if the perfect defeats the good, then bad will prevail. And if there is, God forbid, another terrorist attack, the blood will be on our hands for not doing the right thing. This bill should be passed.”