I have been listening to the debate on spending and taxes and our debt and deficit. I come to the floor this morning with a few visual aids and charts and graphs to try to dispel some of the myths I have been hearing. The first myth I…

As we watch every terrorist act, the aftermath of that, people start doing a postmortem on that, and they go, well, we had this information, why did we not put two and two together and prevent the attack.

Promoting privacy and civil liberties has been a priority during my tenure in the U.S. Senate, and I will continue focusing on this issue until the end of the year.

How many different rules, regulations, laws in the Federal Government run counter to each other when it comes to privacy?

It is also highly complex.

So, when we turn people who are trying to help us into suspects, it builds exactly kind of distrust that we are trying to prevent and I would argue hinders investigations going forward.

Are you finding DHS to be very helpful from that standpoint?

Mr. Wilshusen, you testified about the concept of limiting the information the Federal Government obtains and basically limiting the time that it is kept.

Has the expectation of privacy changed?

This is obviously not an acceptable timeline.

This has been a very interesting discussion and, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. This is a good hearing.

Protecting Americans' privacy is a bipartisan issue that I hope my colleagues will continue to advance in the years to come.

the right to a personal life. That is really the fundamental piece here is that it is very difficult to explore new ideas.

We can limit what the government does with it but there is no way that we can limit anything beyond the pieces of the government that we control.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think this is very timely. The full Senate now is taking up the cybersecurity bill.

The challenge, I think, right now is to enable that personal development not by having to self-edit because of the fear of going to a Muslim Web site.

In terms of our outreach to DHS prior to this event and to other agencies, it was limited.

It drives me nuts that I cannot get information.

But in terms of limiting the increase of cost, certainly from my standpoint, introducing free market principles into health care would be one of those things.

In terms of trying to limit the increase in costs, and I think that's about all you can really do in health care, unfortunately.

How do you manage this $3.8 trillion a year beast?

I appreciate that. We are working with CRS right now trying to--I am trying to get my head around the problem.

What about subtracting? What is the process?

The health care law, it was supposedly funded for 10 years by about half a trillion dollars in taxes, fees and penalties, and about a half a trillion dollars, $500 billion, in reductions to Medicare and Medicaid, Medicare Advantage.