oppose s twenty two forty eight this bill is deeply flawed in ways that will have a direct impact on the privacy of americans along with several other members of this body i have offered modest amendments that would permitted the government to obtain the intelligence it needs while providing the checks and balances required to safeguard our constitutional rights unfortunately under intense administration pressure marked by inaccurate and misleading scare tactics the senate has buckled and we are left with a very dangerous piece of legislation for president the railroading of congress began last summer when the administration rammed through the so called protect america act besley expanding the government's ability to eavesdrop without a court approved warrant that legislation was rushed through this chamber in a climate of fear fear of terrorist attacks and fear of not appearing sufficiently strong on national security and there was very little understanding of what the legislation actually did but there was mr president one silver lining the bill had a six month sunset of course congress to do its own work and reconsider the approach it took unfortunately was far too exceptions the damage has not been undone this new bill was intended to ensure that the government can collect communications between persons overseas without a warrant and to ensure that the government can collect the communications of terrorists including their communications with people in the united states no one disagrees that the government should have this authority but mr president this bill goes much further author zing widespread surveillance involving innocent americans at home and abroad opponents of the bill in the administration don't want to talk about what this bill actually authorizes instead they repeatedly and any accurately assert efforts to provide checks and balances will impede the government surveillance of terrorists they launch these attacks against the more balanced bill that came out of the judiciary committee and they have attacked and mischaracterize amendments offered on the floor of this body this is fear mongering it is wrong and it has obscured what is really going on here present what does this bill actually authorize first it permits the government to come up with its own procedures  determining who is a target of surveillance it doesn't need advanced approval from the fisa court to ensure that the government's targets are actually foreigners and not americans here in the united states and if the court subsequently determines that the government's procedures are not even reasonably designed designed to wiretap foreigners rather than americans there is there is simply no meaningful consequence all that illegally obtain information on americans or all of them can be retained and used second even if the government is targeting foreigners outside the united states those foreigners need not be terrorists they need not be suspected of any wrongdoing they may not even be a member or agent of some foreign power in fact the government can just collect international communications indiscriminately so long as there is a general foreign intelligence purpose a meaningless qualification that the d n i has testified permits the collection of all communications between the united states and overseas under this bill the government can legally collect all communications every last one between americans here at home and the rest of the world even the sponsor of this bill the chairman of the intelligence committee eg knowledge is that this kind of bulk collection is probably  unconstitutional the director of national intelligence has said it would not only be authorized but quote desirable unquote if technically possible and technology changes fast in this area we have been forewarn senate failed to act now mr president one of the bright spots in this bill is the inclusion of an amendment offered by senators wyden whitehouse and myself in the intelligence committee to prohibit the intentional targeting of an american overseas without a warrant now that's important to predict protection but that a memo does not rule out the indiscriminate vacuuming up of all international communications which would allow the government to collect communications of americans overseas including with friends and family back home without a warrant mr president those communications can be read and used mr president even the administration's illegal warrantless wiretapping program as described when it was publicly confirmed two thousand and five at least at least focused on the communications of particular terrorists what we're talking about is potentially a huge dragnet could sweep up the communications of innocent americans third the senate failed to prohibit the practice of reverse targeting namely wiretapping a person overseas when what the government is really interested in is an american here at home with the foreigner is communicating the underlying bill simply does not stop this practice and if there was any doubt the d n i has publicly said that the bill merely  administration's view that the surveillance of an american is fine so long as the government is technically wiretapping the foreigner even if the d n i have said this is unconstitutional even the d n i has said this is unconstitutional but there's nothing in the bil stop the senate has failed to protect the privacy of americans whose communications will be collected in vast new quantities and the response the administration's mantra has been don't worry we have minimization procedures well mr president minimization procedures  nothing more than unchecked executive branch decisions about what information on americans constitutes quote foreign intelligence unquote as recently declassified documents of again confirm the ability of government officials to find out the  americans and use that information is extremely broad moreover if the administration were correct that minimization procedures have worked in the past they are certainly inadequate as a check against as a check against the vast amounts of americans private information that could be collected under these new authorities president this legislation is particularly troubling because we live in a world in which international communications are increasingly commonplace thirty years ago it was very expensive and not very common for most americans to make an overseas call now particularly with e mail such communications are commonplace millions of ordinary and innocent americans communicate with people overseas for entirely legitimate personal and business reasons parents or children call family members overseas students e mail friends they have met while studying abroad business people communicate with colleagues or clients overseas technological advancements combined with the ever more interconnected world economy have led to an explosion of international context we often hear from those who want to give the government new powers that we just have to bring face up to date with new technology but changes in technology should also cause us to take a close look at the need for greater protections of the privacy of our citizens we're going to give the government broad new powers that will lead to the collection of much more information on innocent america we have a duty to protect their privacy as much as we absolutely can and we can do that we can do that without sacrificing our ability to collect information that will protect our national security mr president the senate has once again fallen for the administration tactics that have become so depressingly familiar trust us they say we don't need you to shell oversight the cards will just get in our way you never know when they might tell us that what we're doing is unconstitutional and we'd prefer to make that decision on our own checks and balances judicial and congressional oversight will impede our ability to fight terrorism and mr president sadly these grossly misleading efforts at intimidation have apparently w and i've been speaking for some time now about my strong opposition to this bill and i haven't even addressed one of the most outrageous elements of the bill and that is the granting of retroactive immunity to companies that allegedly participated in an illegal wiretapping program that lasted for more than five years mr president this grant of automatic immunity is simply unjustified there is already an immunity provision in current law that has been there since the feis a statu with the partition participation of the telecommunications industry in the late one nine hundred seventy s and the law is clear companies have immunity from civil liability when they cooperate with the government requests for assistance as long as they receive a court order or the attorney general certifies that a court order is not required and that all statutory requirements have been met so mr president this is not about whether companies had good intentions it's about whether they complied with this statutory immunity provision which is applied to them for thirty years if the companies follow that law they should get immunity but if they did not follow that law they should not get immunity and a court should make that decision not congress it's that simple congress passed a law laying out when telecom companies get immunity and when they don't for a reason these companies have access to our most private communications so congress has subjected to them subjected them to very precise rules about when they can provide that information to the government if the companies do not follow the law that congress passed they should not be granted a get out of jail free card after the fact president proponents of recorrect munity have said repeatedly that his immunity is necessary if the government's going to have the cooperation of carriers in the future and we do need that cooperation but we also need to make sure that carriers don't cooperate with illegitimate requests we already have a law that tells companies when they should and when they shouldn't cooperate so that they are not placed in the position of having to evaluate independently whether the government's request for help is legitimate instead of allowing the courts to apply that lot of the facts instead of allowing judges to decide whether the companies deserve immunity for acting appropriately this bill sends the message that companies need not worry about complying with questionable government requests in the future because they will simply be bailed out after the fact present this is outrageous even more outrageous is the fact that at these lawsuits are dismissed the courts may never rule on the n s a wiretapping program course this is an ideal outcome ministration it believes it should be able to interpret laws alone without worrying about how congress wrote them or what a judge thinks now for those of us that believe in three independent and co equal branches of government it is a disaster president one thousand nine hundred eighty s congress learned the executive branch had been using its immen powers and the advance of acknowledging to spy on its citizens bypassing faisel congress faced up to the fact that we can't just trust the executive branch including the president the united states to do the right thing that you dish will over site of the power to spy was needed that checks and balances are the best way to ensure liberty and security i spent a great deal of time on the floor of the past several weeks discussing the details of the bill offering amendments and debating the possible effects of the fine print of the statute but this isn't simply mr president about fine print in the end my opposition to this bill comes down to comes down to this this bill is a tragic retreat from the principles that have governed conduct in this sensitive area for thirty years it needlessly sacrifices court oversight and protection of the privacy of innocent americans it is an abdication of this body's duty to stand up for the rule of law we know what's wrong with this legislation we know that it authorizes unconstitutional surveillance of mr president jenna from california mr president i rise to speak about the five the bill currently being considered by the senate i believe it is our duty to provide all the tools  fight terrorism and we also have another duty i would say a simultaneous a sworn duty to protect the constitutional rights of our citizens so you have to do  duty to protect the american people give the government the tools it needs to do that due to protect the constitutional rights of americans if we lose those rights then the basic freedoms of our people are at risk i have to say that i believe we have fallen far short we have fallen fire far short of this balance that we always need to look at ever since the beginning of our republic the balance between security and freedom i think we missed it here we missed it here mr president it isn't the government's job to gare our people it's the government's job to protect our people it isn't the government's job to endangered the privacy of law abiding americans but to protect the privacy of law abiding americans now sadly we had a number of amendments to this bill which would've brought that balance that i talked about into being the balance between security and freedom senator feingold had an amendment limiting the use and dissemination of information unlawfully obtained through foreign surveillance on u s citizens his amendment would have protected the ri innocent u s citizens and provided necessary balance to the bill and i was proud to support it because the bill obviously needed some more checks and balances center feingold also had an amendment to provide protection against bulk collection of foreign communications that could include communications of innocent americans again this measure would have provided additional protection for the rights of american citizens and i was proud to support it because i believe we need it again additional checks on enhanced government surveillance authority my colleague and friend from california senator feinstein had an amendment that stated a very principle that five the foreign intelligence surveillance act is the exclusive authority for conducting foreign intelligence surveillance now why is that important it's important because how many times visit ministration argue quote it has inherent authority unquote to conduct warrantless surveillance or that congress somehow gave them the authority when it authorized the use of military force in iraq as ridiculous as that claim was the feinstein amendment was a very important amendment because it would have made it clear that five is the exclusive authority pure and simple now why was that important going forward we don't want to have this it ministration or another one in the future i don't care what party they are from spying on the american people and then saying it's true we didn't really obey pfizer but we thought it was important to go outside the law if we had passed the feinstein amendment we would have clearly stated that five is the law is the law when it comes to surveilling our own people so i think the failure of the feinstein amendment sadly i think it was just one or two votes short of the sixty vote sixty vote hurdle that she had to meet the importance was to say we are not going to lose our freedoms we're going to not allow another administration to spy on us is going to be the one and only law that of pain fear finally there's the issue of immunity immunity for telecommunications companies who cooperated with the administration's warrantless surveillance program now we know that american law did not give these telephone companies the authority to do it they did it but they were somehow persuaded by the administration to go along with them now not every telephone company not every communications company did go along at least once said look we think this is not legal show us the legality here and they stood i think infer support of their consumers here's the problem with granting immunity mr president congress has not been given complete information on this program we don't know the level of involvement by the telephone companies in the telecom companies we need complete information we have incomplete information how can i be a good senator how can i do a good job if i don't have the facts surrounding this whole matter of the warrantless surveillance program and when you put out that immunity you basically stop the court cases and if you stop the court cases we'll never get to the bottom of this and our citizens will never know who was spied on why were they spied on what happened when went wrong what went right how much power did this government try to exercise over its people illegally so granting immunity without fully understanding whether our people were really illegally spied upon and what extent it was  i find that irresponsible irresponsible where is our pride we wrote a law that said the phone companies can't do this and they went ahead and did it not all of them and now we're saying never mind you know president bush and vice president cheney they they write the law they make the decision it's not right it's not american it's anti american it's not what we do in this great country you know president bush says we're sending our troops overseas to fight for freedom and fight for democracy and here at home they asked the telecom companies to break the law they spied on americans we can't find out what they did how they did it the details of the program and we're going to now grant immunity i just can't believe that we didn't do better on that particular amendment that amendment failed but again i was proud to stand with senator dodd senator feingold on it so in closing i just don't believe that this bill strikes the kind of balance that we need to between broadening the government's authority to conduct surveillance and protecting the rights of our citizens we did have many chances today to increase the oversight of the fighter surveillance programs we had many opportunities to hold this administration accountable future administrations accountable while giving them what they needed to go after the bad actors those that would harm us i voted to get bin laden i voted to go to war against al i voted no on the iraq war because that was a diversion i want to get the terrorists who perpetrated nine eleven i want to give any administration the tools they need but i do not want to expose my constituents and the people of the america who are law abiding and caring and all they live for is for their families i don't want to subject them to being spied upon unfortunately those amendments all went down so it is sad for me to say that we have a bill that steps on the right of the freedoms of our people of the law abiding americans in our country and therefore i cannot support it i thank you very much mr president and i yield the floor i note the absence of a quorum and i ask that it be taken equally of both sides in a quorum call we're waiting for a member to come to the floor and speak senators to continuing debate this afternoon on the pfizer legislation the foreign intelligence surveillance act senators have agreed to about five hours of speeches today and could possibly vote on changes to pfizer sending it on to the house we are hearing in fact that senate majority leader harry reid says a vote on final passage could come as early as four o'clock this afternoon congressional quarterly reporting that senators beat back a series of amendments that could have turned the white house against the carefully negotiated bipartisan bill revamping pfizer before voting sixty nine to twenty nine to limit further debate on the bill the legislation which would be enforced for six years appeared headed for passage later today setting up a potentially difficult conference with the house that chamber passed a very different phase a bill last year a temporary fi extension expires february sixteenth as congress begins its presidents day recess and the senate majority leader has already introduced a fifteen day extension to allow time to complete those negotiations but it is not clear whether the white house will agree to another extension again that from c q today senate continues work on five watch it live here on c span to helped the president to illegally spy on millions of americans i've spoken on this issue now for i think in excess of twenty hours and going back to an app wants to go in this issue first came to the floor  december just to recall the at the history of the last couple of months so briefly if i may two committees of the united states senate appropriately had jurisdiction over this map the intelligence committee obviously had jurisdiction o this matter but the judiciary committee as well as jurisdiction over this matter and fact in the house of representatives similarly two committees judiciary intelligence had jurisdiction over this matter the matter being the amendments to the foreign intelligence surveillance ac i've talked at length about the history of that act commended our previous colleagues who served in this body of having crafted a rather ingenious piece of legislation that architecturally created the balance between security and liberty in the wake of the watergate scandal as in the mid one nine hundred seventy s where democrats and republicans came together and said how can we guarantee that we can gather information to keep arse nation safe and secure from those who would do us harm and simultaneously protect the more than two centuries of liberties and rights that americans have come to associate with our constitution the rule of law and this is not an easy matter to present striking that balance that tension that has exist for more than two hundred twenty years in our country of how do we remain say and how do we protect our liberties not easy question and i'd be the first to admit that and so my admiration for those who struggled with it but since one thousand nine hundred seventy eight when the fire is out the foreign intelligence surveillance act courts were established these secret courts a secret court rather the members of which are appointed by the chief justice of the united states supreme court the members of that court are sitting federal judges across the land no one can ever know who these judges are they're anonymous in that sense and they're called upon at a moment's notice to determine whether or not probable cause exists for a warrant information that could prove dual be dangerous for our country but simultaneously to upgrade the legislation so that the new means of gathering information determining who would do us harm were also improving and almost every instance this to present without any exception the amendments and the changes to the foreign intelligence surveillance act were adopted unanimously by members of both political parties here that brings us of course this year with the minutes being offered to this foreign intelligence surveillance act of events occurred either prior to nine eleven or shortly thereafter which of cause the most significant debate regarding this piece of legislation there are those who would argue that in fact this surveillance activity that is the subject of the retroactive immunity actually began prior to the attacks of nine eleven the bulk of the evidence seems to point to the fact that this surveillance began shortly thereafter i would not be standing here is as i said before had this been a momentary lapse in judgment considering the emotions around the attack in our country here i can understand why a president why a telecom industry in the wake of nine eleven would have responded to a request to gather without any rule of law behind it except the word of an american president and apparently the sanctioning by the attorney general of the united states the five the court specifically said in one thousand nine hundred seventy eight that you must have a warrant to do this we can change the laws you know mr president to say that you could even get the warrant after the fact if the emergency was such that you didn't have the opportunity to get the warrant but when after the fact i mean the thereafter that was of course when we would make that action illegal action i would point out mr president some detail last evening for almost three hours on this floor that this was not a selective or focused surveillance merely those who are outside the country or those who are suspected or might be involved in activities that we dangerous to the country this decision to gather information included literally every phone call every fax every e mail every image that went through the sixteen phone companies of our country conducted in a technological way using what they called splitters to literally vacuum clean up everything that came in probably the single largest invasion of privacy in the history of our country  all done without a warrant without a court order of course and we discovered this because of a whistleblower and a report in the media that revealed the program otherwise i suspect it would be going on as i speak without any interruption whatsoever and that the only interruption that occurred i might point out because the argument has been made that these companies were acting out of patriotism that they were collecting this information because that was their patriotic duty to do so i point out that they stopped collecting the data according to one report a few weeks ago when the federal government stopped paying the phone companies for collecting it seems to me that something higher than patriotism was involved here in terms of their determination to be compliant with this request and also point out the surprise and not ever the phone company compl i know the arguments that made it look everyone did it as a common argument we usually had our parents remind us we brought that argument home that everyone was doing it we all remember the answer we received our parents well the argument here almost everyone was doing quest decided not to it when the request was made of them to gather information without a warrant they said give us a court order and will comply a court order was never forthcoming of course and they never participated in the program except indirectly without any knowledge i suspect of what was occurring so this is a present we arrived at this debate beginning in december about whether or not to grant retroactive immunity three other committees that examine this issue all three of the committees in the house and this body had determined that retroactive immunity was not warranted only one committee decided it was but that committee has prevailed over the last several days and weeks and months in this debate and as such now we're confronted with potentially some thirty hours with cloture having that invoked cutting off debate here about this subject matter and given the votes earlier today little or no likelihood this body is going to change its mind on this issue our only hope for those who feel strong those of us who hail strongly about this is that the other body the house of representatives which is taking a very different point of view on this will be able to prevail in that conference between these two bills prevail which will deny retroactive immunity and let me point out here very quickly that denying retroactive immunity does not mean that the phone companies will necessarily be found guilty of doing something wrong all it means this to president is that the co equal branch of government the judicial branch will get a chance to look at whether or not what they did was legal or not i have my own opinions about this that my opinions should not was designed and created to check on the actions of the executive and legislative branch that a term and whether things we did were constitutional legal or not that's why they exist so the debate about whether or not what the companies did or not is not a matter for this body to determine anymore than it is ultimately by the executive branch it's a good issue a branch that should make that determination and yet by the action we've taken this earlier today we are now going to deprive for ever closing the door to determine whether or not the action taken by the phone companies was legal or not sleeping under the carpet close the door set the precedent i might and for some future congresses when confronted with a set of similar facts situations that tension between security and liberty i'm comfortable point to this debate and the conclusion and decide that the congress the united states decided that survives a court was really not needed a warranty that in fact you could collect whatever data information they the medical records maybe financial records maybe personal histories of families that are going to be able to collect it and used because security was at risk according to those who would make that argument so mr president i feel passionately about this issue i care deeply about it it's the first time in my quarter of a century service here that i've engaged in what might be called some extended debate here not because i disagree with it and that the unique role of the senate is provide an opportunity to every single member of this body but in previous cases where i thought extended debate was warranted either others engaged in it or we resolve the matters without having to go to that go that route and this issue here nothing is more important my view than debate the rule of law and the constitution and while there's an urgency that some suggest and all of this i don't think anything is so we're just that we should be willing to abandon the rule of law which is exactly what we've done under the false and phony argument that somehow the methods and means might be exposed there's a long history mr president additional branch of government this country dealing with matters in camera here without revealing state secrets the suggestion an idea that we can't possibly let the courts look at the lead galloping of this is just so false on  it's hardly worthy of an argument to the contrary that judge walker a republican appointee to the federal bench i point out has ridiculed the argument that these matters couldn't go before the judicial branch to review as to whether or not the decision by the executive branch requiring the telecom industry to turn over all of this data to them without a warrant without a court order it was legal or not in fact it's no longer a debate about whether or not it's in the public or not it is and the means they used to do it t echnology has been publicly discussed and debated the idea that we shouldn't review this on the basis somehow because it might reveal methods and means i don't think carries any weight or should anyway with anyone in this body it is it is vision i think to deprive us the opportunity to term and how this happened i further point out this to present that but for the insistence of the chairman of this committee the ranking member and i suspect others the administration wanted to immunize everyone involved with  everyone within the executive branch the white house the justice department and the chairman of the ranking member said that's going too far we're only going to immunize the telecom industry is the other people don't get i mean is a potential legal action but mr president it is instructive what do we learn by that request why did the administration demand of the intelligence committee that everyone associated with this matter be immunized against any further what was behind the motive what was the motive behind that request along the way and isn't it instructive to all of us here that something else must be going on here that such a request would be made once this program was revealed again not because the administration  but because a a blower inside a t n t more than twenty year veteran a technician discovered this program and realized that they were doing something without a warrant in a court order and deserve to be exposed to mr president that's where we are in all of this and again i apologize to my colleagues and others for taking as much time in talking about this but as i mentioned last evening i grew up in a family with a father who was deeply involved in the rule of law he was a prosecutor at the nuremberg trials in one thousand forty five and forty six at a rather unique moment in american history where because of an american president because of a secretary of war because of a supreme court justice and a handful of others america did not yield to the vengeance that certainly would have been understood i think given the atrocities committed by the nazis fifty five million people lost their lives six million jews were incinerated because of hitler and his henchmen five million others for the same fate for their politics religion otherwise why would you possibly give that crowd a trial some of the worst while violators of human rights in recorded history mr president a handful of americans republicans and democrats got together and said no we're different you see we believe in the rule of law in the united states and we believe the rule of law is something that does not as a belong to one nation or sovereignty it belongs to all people reaching back to our own founding documents and talking about the rights the inala the rights of every human being and that the rule of law not the rule of man ought to prevail and so the united states along with our very reluctant allies nuremberg trials which created the moral high ground for the united states and so many ways and as a result twenty one defendants in the first trial that a lawyer and got to present evidence and defend themselves because we founded the rule of law and it was the moral high ground in the basis upon which so much else that was created in the post world war two period international courts the united nations system the nato system the marshall plan all of these institutions sprang from that ground that we helped create in the wake of world war two and the nuremberg trials so i grew up as the president on a dining room table where the rule of law was talked about all the time and the importance of it and this is it that constitution did not belong to a political party belong to  here is going to protect them remember that the law can the law can be applied to others just as equally a great seen america as the president and the movie a man for all seasons where thomas moore is asked by the prosecutor if he wouldn't be willing to cut down all the laws in england to get to the devil and reach it and more responsive and i'm paraphrasing his quote here he said when i've cut down every law in england to get to the devil in the devil comes after me what laws will stand there to protect me and so when i talk about the rule of law here and director act of unity in this case while those who may feel comfort that they're being protected by this decision we've just made to remind themselves that the worm does turn and they may find themselves on the opposite side of this question some day and so when i stand up and talk about the rule of law the constitution it should not be framed in the issue of the hour but rather the principle behind it and that is the rule of on the decision by courts to decide the legality illegality of actions is so deeply embedded in our and our constitution so deeply embedded in the fabric of how we conduct ourselves that it ought not to be the subject of a partisan discussion and debate ought to be embraced by all of us here at a moment like this so mr president i've fought this day with everything i've had in me in a sense that i haven't fought alone many many average americans have have spoken out as well about this about this concern strength that comes from the passions and and eloquence of citizens who don't have to be involved chose to be involved and i thank them for it but today when i speak in this body against this immunity and for the rule of law and speaking for a minority and respecting the rule of law anywhere means respecting it everywhere even when it means we don't when the rule of law says that we haven't already cannot stand forever and ever made our case that all the fire and as we stand down in a sense and wait for another day in a different set of circumstances i'll say this though i've seen some dark days in this chamber in my mind one of the worst was september twenty eighth two thousand and seven that was the day the senate voted to strip a v s corpus and tolerate torture today  february twelfth two thousand and eight is nearly as dark in my view today the united states senate voted to ensure secrecy and to exempt corporations from the rule of law frank you have seen a lot of darkness and read in the recent years and as one of our traditions of constitutional government one after another has been attacked at each new attack millions of americans have stood up in outrage millions more have answered with patience one might fault them for that mr president but i don't more than two centuries of democratic traditions have nurtured that patience and it speaks well of our democratic faith that so many take the rule of law in america as a given that millions have not yet noticed the rule of law falling that is because it has so far to citizens take up that act of work a minority will i have faith that it will itself a majority some point but today was not that day and so the united states senate has signed its name t silencing of our courts is officially sanctioned sanctioned secrecy without a majority of us even laying eyes on the secret papers that are supposed to prove the president's case retroactive immunity is a disgrace in itself in the last month i believe we proved that the under doubt but it is even more disgraceful and all that it represents to present it is the mindset that the church committee summed up so eloquently three decades ago and i quote them is to present the view that the traditional american principles of justice and fair play have no place in our struggle against the enemies of freedom that you created the next only in secrecy of the one nine hundred seventy s and the church committee wrote those words in part as a rebuke to our predecessors i this chamber who for years let secrecy and executive abuses of mind but today those words take out a new meaning today they review comes a shame us for our lack of faith that we can at the same time keep our country safe and our constitution home in the twenty first century vision of the church committee is convenes to investigate the abuses of the past years how will it judge it what will it say about us when they look back on our actions when it read to the records of our debate around the world how do we protest when stories of secret prisons and outsourced torture became impossible to deny how did we resist and on february twelfth two thousand and eight when iran's to put corporations explicitly outside the law and accept at face value the argument that some are literally too rich to be sued how did we both all of those questions mr president coming for us all of them and more and in the quiet of his their own conscience each senator knows what the answer believe that each assault against the rule of law was an accident that it was isolated or deluding ourselves if the past is any guide it will be another one and hope as they say springs eternal i hope we will stand up to and perhaps we'll have the chance to do so very soon as you know mr president house of representatives has passed a version of this bill without retroactive immunity as i mentioned a few moments ago it will be the job of the conference between the house of representatives and united states sen to reconcile the two versions of this bill and therefore i stand down i want to implore the members of that committee in the strongest terms i can find this script retroactive immunity from this bill once and for all remember this is about more than a few telephone calls a few companies a few lawsuits if the supporters of retroactive immunity keep this small they when in truth the issue we've debated for the last three months the issue that will finally come to a head at this conference committee is so much more mr president at stake is our latest answer to the defining question the rule of law or the rule of men that question never goes away and as long as they're free societies generations of leaders will struggle mightily to answer and each generation must answer for itself just because our founders answered it correctly doesn't mean that they are bound by their choice and that as in all decisions we are entirely free the whole burden this instance falls on us but we can take counsel we can listen to those who came to for us made the right choices mr president even when our nation's very survival was at risk they knew that the rule of law was far more rooted in our character than any one man's lawless i don't think that's changed at all i'm secure in the fate today as i will sit down in my part of this conversation for now but when the question of the rule of law or the rule of men comes up again which it surely will as later latest maybe day to the end of this week when the underlying bill comes out of conference i'll be proud to stand up once more if in fact it comes back with retroactive immunity i will not release my opportunity to speak out against  travesty this denial of the rule of law in favor of the rule of men to present to you the floor and that the absence of a co the senator from washington is recognized thank you mr president i want to thank the senator for from connecticut for his steadfast leadership on this issue he has been on the senate floor more than any other member articulating the reasons why this legislation is harmful to america the america that we have sought in the balance of our fourth amendment rights and he has been articulate from the beginning about not just how this impacts impact us now but why we have fought so hard as a country to preserve these basic rights and how they are protected within our constitution so i thank the senator from connecticut for his leadership and when he says he is not giving up i know he means that i know he will be back on this issue and every opportunity mr president i rise to join this debate and i'm disappointed by today's events of turning down very important amendments that i think would have improved this legislation i say that because i too have  been i guess over many years interested and involved in this issue in a bright idea of capacities but certainly my state and the residents of my state care passionately about their rights to privacy and it seems very clear to me anyway and i'm sure to many americans that this administration has done a lot to blur the line between what is known as foreign intelligence gathering and spying on u s citizens now this legislation could have today protected the rights of u s citizens by passing many of the amendments that were proposed by my colleague senator senator feingold but we turned those down instead what has been a delicate balance in the united states to protect the rights of privacy is of us citizens is going to be further roted with this legislation that is that we've had a very balanced three legs to a stool we did not allow the courts to own a telecom company we did not allow the government to override a court each one of those protected the information of u s citizens if the someone wanted access to information about a u s citizen through a telecom company they had to go to the court prove their case for probable cause and then do the investigation we didn't allow the government to have a blank check or to have blank to forty we kept those three legs to the stool now there's been many times as my colleagues have stated over the past many years and i would say on both sides of the aisle administrations where people have lost sight of these protective privacies by u s citizens and have tried to engage in various tactics that really i think a road at what are our basic challenges by that i mean we all know we want to protect the united states but how good is this approach if the end result is that everyone thinks that there is a backdoor to our operating system backdoor to our computer systems a backdoor to our telecommunication system who will want to do business in the united states if what they think has been a secure system is only secure unless the u s government wants to have access to it now these are very important checks and balances and it is those checks and balances that i think are the principle of what are our constitutional rights in our country a senator cannot pick or choose what laws they follow and neither should the president nor telecom companies specifically i want to touch on the lawsuit that the electronic frontier foundation filed against a large telecom company accusing it of violating faisel on behalf of a class of its customers if this retroactive immunity is granted to telecom providers the lawsuit will be dismissed and the public will never get a glimpse of what really has happened the issue of the federal government telecoms probably violating fice yes this issue has come to light in part of what has been a whistleblower attempt by a brave individual but it has shed light on something we need to know a lot more about and that is according to media reports and internal eighteen thousand documents by this whistleblower mark klein the telecom company allegedly splits off a copy of all internet traffic e mails i m's web browsing everything to a secure room under the control of the n s a where sophisticated data mining equipment monitors all of the communications in real time what we want to know is under what authority and what process this is going on and how are u s citizens and their information protected this process is a major change in how we do electronic surveillance surveillance used to be very specific investigators would pick a target and then the intercept when the communication was intercepted that target and intercept was  processed but now it appears that the administration is using this advanced technology to move to wholesale surveillance where everything is intercepted and then the investigators shift through shift through all of the information to pick up their targets now this is different than what we've been doing and i think is a big challenge for us as a country because the argument we hear over and over is that we are trying to protect our country but i will say that we will not have people communicating and doing business here if in fact that communication is constantly being eroded or threatened by the back door of the u s government the electronic freedom the electronic frontier foundation once a court to be able to decide whether the new model of surveillance can be legal and used under fire or the fourth amendment and letting the courts decide this question is critical to the checks and balances critical to ensuring congress and the privacy laws and the fourth amendment that we all respect these are the issues i believe that must be reviewed by the courts and i think passing this legislation amps what is critical judicial review and undermines the fundamental principles of checks and balances in our system i know mr president that these are challenging times but we have to remember our constitution and to remember what is affective policy and to go into what could be wholesale data mining really does get to a point of a roading the rights of us citizens everybody in america wants to be more safe and we want to use this technology to the best of our advantages i think using them to the best of our advantages can be done and people can work collaboratively to do that but the model that has worked for our country has included the courts it is included not allowing one entity to own unilateral control of information it has been a check and balance and so i encourage my colleagues to make sure we remember the fourth amendment and we remember our u s right to privacy as well and considering this akaka a quorum call are waiting for a member to come to the floor and speak on pfizer the senators have agreed to about five hours of speeches this afternoon and could possibly vote on changes to the foreign intelligence surveillance act sending it over to the house we have heard in fact from senator majority senate majority leader harry reid that a vote on final passage could come as early as four o'clock and from the hill this afternoon the senate beat back a series of democratic amendments tuesday on a bill overhauling surveillance law signaling a difficult conference with the house the senate is considering an overhaul of the one thousand nine hundred seventy eight five foreign intelligence surveillance act that includes retroactive immunity for the telecommunications firms that took part in the bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program the democratic rittenhouse bill does not contain any immunity provision the carrier's face around forty lawsuits related to the program and the white house has repeatedly stated that it will veto any bill that does not include immunity the senate rejected on a vote of thirty one to sixty seven an amendment by chris dodd that would have stricken the immunity language completely from the bill another amendment a measure sponsored by arlen specter of pennsylvania that would have substituted the government as a defendant in the lawsuits also failed by a vote of thirty to sixty eight again pfizer is the business of the day on the the senate has been working on fizer legislation the foreign intelligence surveillance act today getting through a number of amendments and a cloture vote earlier now into about five hours of speeches congressional quarterly reports that senators beat back a series of amendments that could have turned the white house against the carefully negotiated bipartisan bill revamping the foreign intelligence surveillance act before voting sixty nine to twenty nine to limit further debate on the bill the legislation which would be in force for six years appeared headed for passage later in the day today setting up a potentially difficult conference with the house that chamber passed a very different phase a bill last year a temporary files extension expires february sixteenth as congress begins its presidents day recess senate majority leader harry reid has already introduced a fifteen day extension to allow time to complete those negotiations but it's not clear whether the white house will agree to another extension again that's from the senator from vermont controls twenty minutes thank you mr president my time then the foreign intelligence surveillance act peiser which were debating is intended to protect our national security thoughts were intended to protect the privacy and civil liberties of americans but the law was passed protect the rights of americans after the excesses of an earlier time hope that the senate will act improve the bill reported by the us quite committee on intelligence it has not i don't to say that would incorporate improvements including the house passed restore act and the bill reported by the committee it has not i hope that the administration would work with us it has not instead having gotten exactly the bill they want and the way they want it from the intelligence comm prices dozens of times over the last thirty years and have dated more than a dozen ways even since september eleventh two thousand and one but instead of working in a bipartisan fashion lockstep against every individual amendment and improvement worse the republican leadership has stalled action on the measure for weeks they continue to insist it's their way or no way and sadly with the acquiesces of even some on this side of the aisle they controlled the debate the bill and the plan a result of the salat working together we could done so much better that i look forward to working with the house to make improvements needed this measure before i can support the process has been in large part a repeat of that which led to the so called protect america act last summer and that ill conceived measure was rushed through the senate and that was fear fear and intimid administration and nobody was willing to slow up or not to say why would they break their word first time i'd seen that happen in such a measure i provided sweeping new powers to the government to engage in surveillance without a warrant of international calls to and from the united states involving americans and it provided no meaningful protection for the privacy and civil liberties of americans who are on we saw those who wiretapped people because they didn't like what they said they disagreed with the administration they actually raise questions about the vietnam war they did things that americans are used to be happy to do problems but also protect america's privacy and liberties we all want to protect our security we all want the ability to go after those who would do this country harm and we took care of a problem they told us about but just before the august recess we got a call a say the director of national intelligence  administration's word and then mass variations decide instead to ram through its version of the so called protect america act with excessive grants of government authority without accountability and checks and balances and after almost six years of breaking the law and violate by set the secret warmers wiretapping programs that was rob a number of us supported the better balance alternative and so we voted against the protect america act was a tactic by the administration passed by the senate and ironically the reason we're even voting on it is that the press found how the administration is breaking the law even though they are required by statute to tell leaders in congress what they were doing which was a clear violation of the law they failed to do that unfortunately we still have some rain months of a free press in this country and they found it out committee we held open hearings and countless briefings and meetings to consider new surveillance legislation including classified meetings we considered legislative language a number of open business beings of the committee communications with little in the way a meaningful court supervision now i support surveillance targeting foreign threats i want to make sure that we protect american liberties that after all we fought a revolutionary war to protect and the civil war and two world wars and not just give it away because some people around here get cold feet when threatened by the administration attorney general me a case is said is domination here in the protecting civil liberties and people's confidence of those liberties are protected as a part of protecting national security i agree with them about that retroactive immunity to telecommunication carriers for their warrantless surveillance activities from two thousand and one through earlier this year contrary devices and a violation of privacy rights of americans the administration violated by some by conducting warrantless surveillance for more than five years they got caught frankly that they hadn't gotten caught they'd probably still be doing it and when the public found out about the president's illegal surveillance of americans the administration telephone companies were sued by citizens of leave their pride a c and their rights were violated so now the administration is trying to get this congress to terminate those lawsuits and madam president don't anybody believe the crocodile tears of this administration say they're doing it to protect these telecom companies this is after all the same in ministration those telephone companies millions of dollars for wire jam for they would even pay their bills now the only reason they want this is to protect those in the administration who broke the law they don't want anybody to find out which members of the department of justice so warranted the law in writing cockup many legal opinions the first year law student would see through they want to find those who in the white house find a way to break the law and will do it they want to insulate themselves from accountability and i'm not going to support such an end run around accountability when a president the administration knows these laws may be the only way it's ever going to be called to account for to read by children alice in wonderland now read my grandchildren alice in wonderland but there's this sad like alice in wonderland jack goldsmith who came in briefly conservative republican to head the justice department's office of legal counsel described the program as quote a legal mess this is administration doesn't want to court to have a chance to look at this legal mess and retroactive immunity of a sure not that they're protecting telephone companies but that they cover their own backside they want to protect themselves and the rule of law is fundamentally important in our system and s protect the rights of americans from one lawful surveillance i do not believe the congress can or should seek to take those rights and those claims from those already hard that i continue to work with senator spect as senators feinstein white house to try to craft more effective alternatives to retroactive immunity are saying it they will protect the telephone companies will put the administration in their shoes let them substitute porthole know we don't really care about the telephone companies or the administration we care about you finding out we did it legally and how we violated the laws and constitution of this country accommodation they don't want to be held accountable and they have enough senators who will protect them so they won't be held accountable not to the congress or it's more important these are the american people and  urging such access and i would support it of course to evadne all response the administration's ignored the requests for all we know we're doing around here we might actually make them stand up accountability whether scooter libby or anyone outs no accountability will protect those who break the law on our behalf and that drug very different conclusions from s has been working diligently for us as the chairman of the judiciary committee and now as is ranking member to tain judicial review of the legality of the warrantless wiretapping of americans from two thousand and one into last year provide a measure of accountability i believe the protect the rule was important and i believe in protecting the rights of americans one law for surveillance i do not really the congress can or should seek to take those rights those claims from those already hard and moreover ending ongoing litigation eliminates perhaps the only viable avenue of accountability for the government illegal actions i say again i oppose retroactive immunity should be a measure of accountability for administration's actions in the years following nine eleven and it is simply a is i don't believe a senator is i don't believe anybody is again keep in mind as i said earlier why we have by said congress passed the law only after we discovered to hoover spied on americans who objected and spoke out against the war in vietnam i jacked and spoke out against the war they had not were spied on the same way for dinner and to speak out against an action which ironically madam president an april of one nine hundred seventy five we voted by a one vote margin and the armed services committee to stop the war in vietnam a year later it was hard to find anybody in this body who had supported all obviously during all not i wonder if we're going to look back that same way some day and ask are we so frightened by nine eleven that we're willing to throw away everything this country pipe or everything has made this country great through ou history we can protect america's rights make it protect those things our poor fathers bought a revolution to attain it we've bought a civil war to protect leap back to world wars to cement we could protect ourselves  we don't protect ourselves if we don't protect our rights and are we going to throw it away because a group of a group of terrorists i'm not going to this senator is not going to let it show the american can protect the cherished rights of freedom there's a part of america makes this country different than all others those are the rights and freedoms to protect the past generations those of the rights and freedoms allow america to have a future we don't protect them and what we leave to our children and grandchildren and stand up for american values was not be afraid to preserve our freedoms of protecting our national security i'm president i have to in the balance of my time who you know or or is senator from virginia west virginia debate we are in fact ready to hopefully pass the five the bill is been an extremely important debate over important issues critical to the nation's security as i discussed  beginning of the debate the guiding principle in bringing this bill to the senate floor was to modernize our ability to collect communications intelligence against foreign targets without compromising the constitutional and statutory privacy protections afforded to all americans in my mind we have achieved this goal so no vine to work or bond vice chairman bond and i worked very hard in the intelligence committee to produce a balanced and bipartisan bill and one can say whatever one wants the thirteen to two is thirteen to two i think we can be proud of the improvements that we have made to the bill each step of the way since actually last september but in fact it really goes all the way back almost a year in the end the bill we're about to pass i hope strengthens our national security and represents a very significant improvement over the protect america act passed last summer let me man just a few of the provisions that we have included in the bill for protecting the rights of americans here in the united states and overseas we require an individual pfizer order for the targeting of of u s persons believed to be located outside the united states any time the collection is conducted inside the united states we have also put in place for the first time a procedure requiring a pfizer court approval for collection of the united states persons outside of the united states  circumstances that would require a warrant if undertaken within the united states this has never before existed it now exists in the five a law if we do in fact pass it we have increased the role of the pfizer court other significant ways starting with the new requirement that the pfizer court approve the minimisation procedures that are essential to the treatment of information concerning americans authorized under this act and thanks to alone can approve we also adopted new requirements to give congress visibility into how the new collection authority is being implemented from the feingold amendment on fi documents to the new requirements for reporting by the attorney general and the director of national intelligence just as we have worked on a bipartisan basis here in the senate in order to achieve the strongest possible bill i believe now the time to work with our colleagues in the house of representatives to a true achieve the true bipartisan by carol that i look forward to that dialogue with our house colleagues i would note that there are additional measures that i support which may make this legislation even stronger among these would be the expects passivity amendment of senator feinstein that received a strong by bipartisan majority vote this morning i think it was fifty seven votes i commend her for all of her work that she has done on this critical issue and on other parts of the bill and i will fight like heck for her in the conference committee if we are to happen we will continue to work with her and with vice chairman bond to see if there's any way to bridge the differences on in the bipartisan manner that has dominated our negotiations throughout this procedure in causing it would not have been possible to have reached this point without the hard work at the staff of the intelligence and judiciary committees as well as the leadership staff from the intelligence committee i think andy johnson the chief of staff lewis tucker melvin recognize the steadfast support and work of the committee's vice chairman senator bond the intelligence committee is not easy its work is not easy and when it comes on the floor it's more difficult because it's there's a certain kind of eggs to civvy which is not appreciated by some members but is sort of the way it works chairman vice chairman bond has been doggedness effort to move this whole thing forward he is formidable and his pursuit of intelligence and his insistence that it be made available to the committee and to the appropriate committees and he is flexible and his willingness to find compromises to keep our bodies bipartisan coalition together i really hope this does pass i think its landmark legislation i don't think all will see it that way at the very beginning and that's ok because what we do is not so much of the moment but for the longer term so that there may be disagreements on amir's on the munity but on the other hand there can be no disagreements on the national security of the united states and immunity has been tailored to different lot of people don't know that or maybe made up their minds of the beginning or maybe we did but whatever we did what we thought was the right thing to do and one of the great things about being in this body is no matter what people say and what people think if you do what you think is right you're serving your country matter read and earlier today the senate voted to invoke cloture on the bad partisan rockfeller bond bill it was a close vote rather it was a strong bipartisan show of support for this really important piece of legislation the protect america act expires at the end of this week that is saturday feb sixteenth twenty one the house democrats that read written to the speaker speaker pelosi saying they fully support the rockefeller bond bill if it is not changed substantially and it was not change and they are urge her the speaker that quickly consider the bill in order to get a bill signed into law before the protect america february i have here a copy madam president of the letter signed by twenty one democrats so called blue dog democrats in the house i ask consent that it appear in the record at this rate and without direction now madam president it's clear that not only does the rockefeller bond bill enjoy bipartisan majority support in the senate it also enjoys bap partisan majority support in the house this bill protects the country it is a bill that will be signed by the president united states so we're making a law here we need to focus on completing action on this legislation and get it to the president before the protect america act expires as to further delays back in august our democratic colleagues said that an additional six months was needed to get this right in the fall they said we need just a little more time last month they said give us another fifteen days and we can wrap this thing up at this point no member of this body can reasonably state that this piece of legislation was hastily or unfairly considered it it's been the product of six months work intense work on on behalf of senator rockefeller bond we do not need yet another extension yet another delay we need to focus on getting our work done i'm confident that with the help of our friends on the other side of the aisle we can get a second bipartisan accomplishment to the president in his many weeks tomorrow he will sign the stimulus package an important bipartisan accomplishment later in the week he could conceivably be in a position to sign this important piece of bipartisan legislation so i would encourage my colleagues in the house and senate to redouble their efforts toward this and that would show the american people that congress can indeed function on a bipartisan basis on important issues before the country so madam president make a number of very very tough votes we made some good changes in the bell bill and i want to thank particularly senators wyden senator feinstein senator white we update the foreign intelligence surveillance act changes in technology and resulted in the files of court rulings that impeded the use of the electronic surveillance against terrorists overseas came to head to head in may two thousand and seven when there was a ruling causing significant gaps in our intelligence collection against foreign terrorists the summer of two thousand and seven amid growing concern of increased to sure threats to our security in light of these gaps congress asked was asked by the d n i to act and congress in august passed the protect america act short term fat fix it did what it was supposed to but it was lacking in one important aspect it did not provide civil liability protection to those private partners who assisted the intelligence community following passage of the p a chairman rockefeller and i immediately set to work to come up with a bipartisan permanent solution we worked closely with the intelligence community in the end many hearings briefings debate visits to the facility we did pass it on a thirteen to two vote rican clued that the electronic communication service providers who assisted the president t s p acted in good faith and deserve civil liability protection from prevalence of losses as indicated by the chairman of the committee this bill goes farther than any legislation in history  protecting the privacy intrusive u s persons mostly americans whose communications may be acquired incidentally through this foreign targeting for the first time in history it requires a fison court to approve targeting of u s persons american citizens overseas to obtain foreign intelligence information this is a serious man a president of delicate compromises both sides had to give many of us  would prefer to have had all litigation relating to the t s p a terminated i said d and i originally requested but in the again we agreed for reasons set forth on the on the floor of the cases against government officials and all criminal cases could go forward others believe that the court should not approve targeting of americans abroad particularly when the same protections are not afforded in ordinary criminal cases but in the spirit of compromise we created a process that allows sufficient flexibility on addressing privacy concerns and then i'm proud to say we've accomplished our collective goals making sure we have a bill with clear authorities for foreign targets w strong protection for americans and other u s persons and with civil liability protection for those providers who may have assisted the president's terrorist surveillance program we've heard a lot of debate over the past several weeks and a number of amendments that i believe have been provided to prove harmful some would have shut down or should merely impeded intelligence collection against foreign terrorists that's one of the reasons that we work so closely with the intelligence community to ascertain what could be done to increase protections without harming their their ability to collect we now have a solid bill the d n i will support and the president could sign into law madam president i urge my colleagues this bill the house with a strong bipartisan vote it gives our intelligence operators and law enforcement officials the tools they need to conduct surveillance of foreign terrorists in foreign countries trying to conduct attacks against united states our troops and our allies it's a balance we need to protect our civil liberties without handcuffing our intelligence but facials i hope we can do the right thing pass a bill that i thank all of my colleagues who help but jordie leader i want the record to reflect that any of my remarks where i disagree with the bill before the senate in no way reflects upon the chairman of the committee i have known jay rockefeller for several decades and i have not known any better public servants servants and jay rockefeller he rockefeller got into government for the right reason we know that the rockefeller name is magic that he could have led a life of leisure doing many different things but he chose public service went to west virginia for working for him as a vista volunteer fell in love with the people of the poor people of west virginia and his work since then to improve the lives of the people west virginia and has done a wonderful job doing that from the secretary of state governor and now as a longtime senator there are just certain things in this legislation i disagree with but i repeat as a public servant there's not one better or i doubt there ever has been a jay rockefeller he has devoted his life to service in this intelligence committee a senate life he devotes night and day not only to working in that committee room where there's no exposure to the public gets no publicity for doing this he does it because he believes the right thing for the country and then of course i receive calls from him and well after hours of concern that he has dealing with something that bills of foreign intelligence kennedy white house and feingold to improve title one of the bill there's concerns of procedures that we use to conduct this kind of surveillance in the future and that's good that's an improvement but the senate rejected measures streicher modify various parts of title under approved title one and rejected all amendments to strike or modify title two concerning immunity for telecommunications companies it may have broken the law by biting white house requests for w wiretaps on american citizens i believe that the white house and any companies who broke the law must be held accountable in their unyielding efforts to expand presidential powers president bush and vice president cheney cr system to conduct wiretapping including american citizens outside the bounds of longstanding federal law as i have said before and has been written books have been written on it the president as soon as we passed the first patriot act where he joined with us and celebrating the passage that basically ignored it and went ahead and did whatever we want to do anyway because he was told by his white house staff that he above the law he didn't have to follow the law that we passed the president could have taken a single step any time of requesting new authority from congress all he would had to have done is come and talk to us we've been willing to listen to him and very likely done anything he wanted to do after all congress has repeatedly amended the foreign intelligence surveillance act to reflect new technology and the legitimate needs of the intelligence community but whether out of convenience incompetence or outright disdain for the rule of law th bush cheney administration chose to ignore congress and ignore the constitution the white house should bear responsibility it is reckless disdain for the rule of law but it also appears that many companies followed the administration's orders without regard to our laws our privacy or even basic common sense i have always i have said and always will support giving our intelligence community the tools they need to collect intelligence on terrorists and other targets we have to do that we always have and always will need the help of the private sector to protect our country that's clear and companies comply with legal and constitutional  intelligent law enforcement activities they certainly have no reason to fear but the requirements and obligations they have protecting the rights of american citizen protecting constitution under face of are perfectly clear very clear and president according to press reports at least one company a qwest communications company refused the white house request to participate in this program the others had opportunity to do the same as far as we know they chose not to they didn't fall of the example of qwest if the senate had voted today to reject amnesty we would have sent a message that no one is above accountability and above the law if we had rejected amnesty we have sent a message that fighting terrorism does not require us to sacrifice our basic fundamental rights so i was disappointed the senate rejected today amendments opposing immunity but even though their efforts were unsuccessful are unprincipled because that certainly isn't the case there just a basic disagreement but i felt i needed to they needed to applaud and commend these two men for how hard they worked in making a point i believe they stood up to the administration w certainly need standing up to these stood for accountability despite today's votes are of no doubt in my mind that history will prove that they were right millions of americans joins us now for win or lose their voices were heard and their efforts really made a difference if the senate votes for final patches advice of the day which i suspect was clearly be the case we must decide what comes next because a mere fact we've passed something today in the house passed something previously doesn't mean we have anything to send to the president present two weeks ago in the run up to the state of the union address said we heard it time and time again that the president the vice president senate republicans believe it was  bill which was critical to our national security but then miss madam president but then republicans spent most of the time since then refusing to allow any votes on slow walking the bill as part of a strategy to jam the house and that's what's happened i have to suggest that they deserve a pin on their look tell because a accomplish what they set out to do a week and a half ago as february first sunset to protect their american act approach we passed a fifteen day extension this would have allowed two weeks for negotiations with the house which even then would have been rushed but we could have a least had some meaningful meetings those won't take place because unfortunately white house has been convinced that if they drag this process out long enough they will not be enough time to go should bill without the white house  convince they can force the house to pass exactly the bill they want i believe it's wrong for the white house to do this now i believe it's unfair to the house of representatives but due to months of life how a house foot dragging relevant house committees only just gotten documents related to immunity and that's a fact they need some time to review and analyze and we must not let this critical issue be resolved by the house white house trying to force the house to do something that they didn't want to do like happened last august i plan to ask after this legislation passes today consent for an extension in order to allow sufficient time for negotiation with the house my friend the distinguished republican leader has already said there will be no extensions given i hope that that's not the case with this extra time the conference committee can make further improvements this critical bill why do we need to improve the bill richard clarke a national security advisor to president reagan a senior bush and president clinton said it well i'm not bad and i quote pfizer has and still works as a most valuable mechanism for monitoring our enemies in order to defeat the violent islamic extremists in the even human rights we need not give up the civil liberties constitutional rights and protections that generations of americans have fought to achieve and to madam president bush cheney white house continues to sell us a false choice false choice between security and liberty i reject that choice this is america where americans we can and must have both liberty and security my understanding we're going to vote on final passage question now occurs on the passage of as two two four eight as amended mrs boxer mr brown coburn mr cochran mr coleman ms collins mr conrad mr cork mr corn and mr cragg mr mr durban mrs feinstein mr ground mr grassley mr gregg mr hagel mr harkin mr hatch mr sanders mr schumer mr sessions mr shelby mr smith  mr webb mr white house mr wicker mr w senators voting in the affirmative bond conrad mccain rockefeller and vetter senators voting in the negative reid of nevada and schumer mr fein gold mr feingold mr tester mr tester no by mr stevens mr stevens sure in a way mr no way  seventeen h r thirty seven seventy three an act to man the foreign intelligence surveillance act of nineteen seventy eight and for other purposes under the previous order all after the enacting clause is stricken in the text  in the bill as amended is considered read the third time and passed the most into reconsider made and laid on the table and passage of as two two four eight did and that bill returned to the calendar chairman rockefeller the members of the committee on both sides are very able staff and a lot of hard work by particularly by members of the committee but by many members who are not on the committee who took their time to learn what the electronic surveillance capabilities are to learn what guidelines and protections there are to attack the privacy rights and constitutional and that we can send it to the president this has been a very long procedure the chairman just pointed out we've been working on this almost a year we worked very hard and after the after the august recess come up with a good bill i know we had some very very warmly and vigorously argued amendments but the fact that these  would make it difficult for the intelligence community collect intelligence necessary to protect our interests our allies our troops abroad and i was here at home a significant bipartisan majority to approve  again my sincere thanks to the leadership on both sides for allowing us to get to this and to get to this important measure we hope we will have a conference report if necessary or a measure from the house that we can pass before the end of the week so madam president sincere thanks to members on both sides and particularly great staffs on both sides just make the point you know once again we just passed this bill sixty eight to twenty nine in its initial form which was preserved on the senate floor it came out of the intelligence committee thirteen to two this is the rockefeller bond bipartisan overwhelming overwhelmingly supported bill coming out of the senate the current law does not expire until saturday it is still my hope that the house particularly when you consider the fact that twenty one house democrats so called blue dog democrats indicated to the speaker in writing that they would like to see the senate bill passed the rockefeller bond bill taken up and passed by the house i think it's just premature for an extension madam president i think there's still at least a chance the house might conclude that we've done a terrific piece of work here and today a group of courageous individuals came together to form the national association for the advancement of colored people here nineteen zero nine was the centennial of abraham lincoln's birth fewer than fifty years removed from the signing  emancipation proclamation by the president and the carnage of the civil war the promise and price of that struggle must have still been fresh on the minds of many many americans the call for the lincoln to mancipation kang conference in  nine with designed to take stock of the progress since the end of the civil war the conclusion of the sixty organizers among them the mayor of toledo ohio and the president of western reserve university in cleveland the conclusion was that lincoln would have been disheartened by the nation's failure to secure equality of law and equality of opportunity without respect to color lay things rampant jim crow discrimination conducted with the blessing of the united states supreme court the country was plagued by race riots and lynchings in every region even in lincoln's hometown of springfield illinois the founder the n a c p understood that i true our equality was to be had the spirit of the abolitionist must be revived so long as the north remained silent about conditions in the south it was supplying tacit approval they wrote discrimination once permitted cannot be bridled recent history shows that in forging chains for the negroes the white voters are forging chains for themselves they met they organized they spoke out a century the n a c p has led the way in the fight for equality continually working to ensure political and educational and social and economic equality for persons of all races whether it was the fight to desegregate public schools or to secure equal voting rights or the passing of the one nine hundred sixty four civil rights act the n a c p s remained at the forefront of the struggle for justice even when this body the senate didn't do the right did not do the right thing  p continued to fight for equal rights and equal opportunity this is a struggle that continues today discrimination in housing is continued the legacy of segregation in many of our neighborhoods and many of our schools discrimination in housing finance has led to disproportionate numbers of african american and latino borrowers being stuck with predatory loans that are falling into disclosure at record rates black young people are more likely than their peers to attend a failing school a new wave of barriers to voting rights has appeared in the form of vote caging of deceptive practices of unreasonable voter i d laws i saw some of those in the one nine hundred eighty s as ohio secretary of state they happened in new jersey they happened louisiana they happened in the north they happened in the south they're still happening these barriers in too many cases the voting rights african americans make up about thirteen percent of our but account for over fifty percent of the prison population in times such as these the in a c p is needed more than ever fortunately in my home state of ohio and across the nation and a c p chapters continue their fight for justice and equality in and lorraine and mansfield and toledo and cleveland and columbus they continue that fight the ohio in a c p prison program is changing lives in helping to rehabilitate hundreds of inmates and a c p members across the state register voters and run afterschool programs the cincinnati c p chapter is holding public forum forums to foster a better relationship between the community and the police department through programs like these  communities are stronger our neighborhoods are stronger our nation is stronger as a life member of the n a c p i'm proud to support its efforts to protect our rights and to increase opportunities for all americans as the founders observed ninety nine years ago this freedom and democracy its story about something that occurred a hundred years ago in one thousand nine hundred eight the russian novelist leo tolstoy had been entertaining some caucasus tribesmen for hours with tales of alexander the great julius caesar when he finished one of the tribes chiefs stood up and asked tolstoy to speak to him about the greatest of all heroes a man who spoke with a voice of thunder laughed like a sunrise and his deeds were strong rock tell them the chief implored about abraham lincoln tolstoy would later write quote that little incident proves how largely the name of lincoln is worshiped throughout the world he was not a great general like washington or napoleon he was not such a skillful statesman as gladstone or frederick the great but a supremacy expresses itself altogether in his peculiar moral power and in the greatness of his character this past weekend was also the official opening of the two year bicentennial celebration of the abraham lincoln bicentennial of his birth in harlan county kentucky where lincoln was born into bitter poverty lincoln scholars in ad gathered to discuss and celebrate lincoln's life and legacy this evening in springfield illinois the abraham lincoln association will hold its annual meeting to wants again reflect on the life of abraham lincoln in his hometown i want to express my personal thanks to judge tommy turner who has worked tirelessly with so many dedicated kentucky ends to put together today's kickoff in harlan county first lady laura bush was to a spoke at the kick off but unfortunately the icy weather forced postponement it'll be rescheduled she'll be returning to the abraham lincoln birthplace national historic site in hodgenville kentucky president lincoln kept a place in his heart for kentucky all of his life there must be a special place for kentucky in the lincoln bicentennial celebration i would also think my colleague senator jim bunning of kentucky who's a member of the abraham lincoln bicentennial commission i know a hard he worked to make this kickoff a success in his home state over the next two years hundreds of special events and celebrations to be held in cities and towns across america to remind of all of us of who lincoln was and what he meant and still means to america and the world cannot co ordinating many defense will be this abraham lincoln bicentennial commission which i'm honored to co chair with harold holt sir a noted lincoln scholar from new york and my fellow illinois and congressman ray la hood ready to serve special credit because it was his idea to create this commission to honor america in a little noise favorite son in our land of lincoln abraham lincoln for twelve years before i was elected the senate i had the privilege of holding the same seat that lincoln once reconcile their noble ideals with the ignoble practice of slavery abraham lincoln helped give meaning to our national creed of liberty and justice for all he steered america through the most profound moral crisis in our history and the bloodiest war in history his leadership save the union and his vision redefined what it meant to be an american the goal of the abraham lincoln bicentennial commission is to help more americans and people around the world to gain a better understanding of this complex and  man we want to foster a resolve among americans from all backgrounds to continue the work of abraham lincoln i think the gettysburg address may be the greatest speech i have ever read memorized it in grade school refer to it so many times and realize in an economy of words abraham lincoln speaking almost impromptu really captured a great meaning for so many americans he challenged all of us to rededicate our lives quote to the unfinished work close quote for which the brave men and living in debt it sacrificed so much on the hollowed ground of battle in gettysburg pennsylvania how much of the work true democracy remains unfinished day how can we summon as lincoln said the better angels of our nature to meet the challenges of our time those of the scotians the abraham lincoln bicentennial commission hopes to foster as america prepares to celebrate the bicentennial of the birth of its greatest president i encourage encourage everyone to go to the commission's web site w w w dot lincoln bicentennial dot com w w w dot lincoln bicentennial dot com learn more about lincoln and about how your community can plan to celebrate his birthday president lincoln's adopted hometown of springfield is also my adopted hometown live there almost forty years now if you've ever been there you know that around every corner in downtown springfield is another powerful reminder of a blank in the small house of the corner of a from jackson the only home lincoln ever owned is just a block away from my senate office is a law office right near the old state capitol is an amazing place still restored and visited by so  many because of its meaning in his daily life as an ordinary lawyer in central illinois the old state capitol building where he warned prophetically that a house divided could not stand this beautiful building was restored in one nine hundred seventy six as part of our bicentennial and the old state capitol is one of my favorites and my state of illinois my special thanks to a good friend of mine an architect named earl wallace henderson are a wallace a nurse in the third who was called on to do a magnificent job of restoring and remodeling that old state capitol and now just a couple blocks away my pride and joy as an elected official from springfield illinois the abraham lincoln presidential library museum is just three years old but mr president it's already the most visited presidential library in america i love that place i go to a lot of museums and presidential museums i don't know of another one though that really captures the spirit of a president so effectively and lures children in for beautiful exhibits and movies that they don't forget kids walk out of the abraham lincoln museum with their moms and dads and say can we go back it warms my heart every time i hear of the record numbers of people were visiting he was also in springfield the twenty eight year old lincoln a member of the state legislature delivered a speech that still speaks powerfully to us today we know it is the lyceum address lincoln was told to speak about whatever he liked he chose as a subject the perpetuation of our political institutions he expressed a concern that would later be echoed many times what would happen to america when its founding fathers and those who fought to gain our liberty were gone how could we sustain america if new generations had no new leaders to inspire them with the original ideas of our republic until then the truth and terrible cost of america's revolution could always be seen in lincoln wondered in the form of a husband a father a son or a brother a living history was to be found in every family in the limbs mangled in the scars of wounds received but lincoln went on to say but those histories are now gone they were the pillars of liberty and now they have crumbled away that temple must fall unless we their descendants supply their place with other pillars i'd like to think that lincoln would be relieved of the could see this great nation today we are one hundred seventy years further removed from our founders than we were when the young lincoln spoke those words at the lyceum but america is still filled with patriots who know and are willing to defend our founding principles there are many of us and we are vastly more diverse than the americans of lincoln's time but there is still in us a deep and passionate longing to be one nation one people undivided we saw glimpses of that desire in the dark days after nine eleven sometimes we wondered if we could ever recover that sense of national unity and purpose but look what is happening today there is a deep longing in america today to transcend old divisions in order to meet our new challenges it is a longing that goes far beyond political parties and labels all kinds we've not forget forgotten the principles on which our nation was founded are we forgotten the lessons abraham lincoln taught us our unity is our strength and together we can overcome any challenge we can finish the unfinished work of america and become a more perfect union senate resolution four forty eight making minority party appointments for the one hundred congress without objection the senate proceeds of the measure i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to the preamble agreed to the motion agree reconsider b amended on the table is their objection without objection so ordered this president asking them as consent of the senate completes business today it stand adjourned until nine thirty a m wednesday february thirteenth the following the prayer and pledge the journal proceedings be approved to date the morning  deemed expire at the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day the senate proceed to a period of mourning business with one arm to be only equally divided prior to a closure vote on the conference report to accompany h r twenty eighty two the intelligence authorization act for fiscal year two thousand and eight is their objection without objection so ordered mr president tomorrow the first vote of the day is expected to occur shortly after ten thirty a m on the motion to invoke cloture on the intelligence authorization conference report if there is no further business to come nine thirty a m tomorrow