Jim Sensenbrenner: “I support this amendment. I do not think that there should be a delayed notification warrant excuse for unduly delaying…”

“I support this amendment. I do not think that there should be a delayed notification warrant excuse for unduly delaying a trial, but we have heard an awful lot about delayed notification warrants here. Let me again repeat the fact that delayed notification warrants were not created by the PATRIOT Act when it was passed 3\1/2\ years ago. It was existing law for drug-trafficking and racketeering investigations, and the PATRIOT Act only expanded it to include terrorism investigations. Mr. Chairman, I would like to give Members today a very vivid pictorial example on how these warrants work. Using a delayed notification search warrant, the DEA and other Federal agents entered a home along the border between Washington State and Canada on July 2, 2005, because there was information that the first-ever tunnel under the border between Canada and the United States has being used for drug trafficking. What did they find? They found a very sophisticated tunnel, and took a picture of it. There were various camera devices and listening devices that the agents put into this tunnel, and they ended up finding that the tunnel had been used to transport 93 pounds of marijuana from Canada into the United States. This is a picture of the U.S. entrance to the tunnel on our side of the border, very close to Canada. It probably is best described as the U.S. exit. But on the Canadian side of the border the entrance to the tunnel was in a building.…”