to the challenge of the needs of our world inspire them to do this by making new commitments to you followed by faithful service make them strong and your strength that they will not become weary in doing your will help them to understand that the riches of our lives and this great land have been given to us by your loving providence remind them also that to whom much is given much is expected and that they are accountable to you for their stewardship as they journey through life empower our lawmakers to use their considerable abilities to serve you and humanity we pray in the name of him who gave his life for all o in reciting the pledge of allegiance starflight i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible w liberty and justice for all to the so washington d c january twenty eighth two thousand and eight to the senate and the provisions of rule one paragraph three of the standing rules of the senate i hereby point honorable jim webb i thought of her from the commonwealth of virginia to perform t year ago today the presiding officer gave one of the classic speeches miracle history when a freshman senator responded to the student union message it was a message that was accepted on both sides of the aisle by the people of virginia and everyone in this country and i want to remind the senator what a great public service that he rendered last year in giving this speech mr president we're going to try to get approved very very quickly we are cleared on this side we're waiting to have the republicans clear governor schaefer to be the secretary of agriculture we'd like to get that done the next little it takes me after we do this it takes the white house number of hours to get all the paperwork in order so that he can be sworn in it would be really nice if we could get him to attend the state of the union  will be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or the designees with the final twenty minutes equally divided control between the two leaders with majority leader controlling the final ten minutes at four forty p m the senate will proceed to vote on closure is not involved on the substitute senate would then proceed to a second vote on the most of all closure on the reid amendment to the underlying bill as a reminder there's a four o'clock p m filing deadline for the second degree amendments and nine p m tonight the president will deliver the state of the union address to a joint session of congress senators will gather in the senate chamber and eight twenty p m and then proceed as a body to the hall the house representatives at eight thirty centers are encouraged to attend the second the senate's annual state of the union supper tonight at six thirty p m and asked to eleven this president asked to five five seven for desk and two for second reading report the title of the bill is twenty five fifty seven a bill to extend the protect america act of two thousand and seven into july first two thousand and nine i would object any further proceedings with respect to this bill at this time mr president objection is heard on behalf say that very briefly someone that i've gotten to know over the last number of years died last night at seven o'clock for the leader of the into the church and he has been a phenomenal builder building scores of new temples around the world and as we speak there one church new church building being built every day being dedicated every day that's a lot of construction and i was told last week that the largest single builder of buildings in the united states next to the federal government is the l d s church the church of jesus christ of latter day saints of which there is no good man was the leader he is someone who has tons and very unique things he started something called the perpetual immigration found the not have the members of the church are located outside the united states and millions of members of the church are located in mexico central in south america and he started something as i indicated called perpetual education fund which is a voluntary contribution made from members of the church to help these people who are and of the church educated tens of thousands of people as a result of this are now educated and are now church leaders and community leaders around the world there's so much more that could be said about this good man who is kind and gentle and my everything that's good in mankind and certainly on a personal basis i will miss him greatly to spade that will be cleared shortly and that'll be a confirmation we hopefully can get out of the way at some point this afternoon and it spread and tonight in keeping with all custom the president will speak to congress and the nation about the state of the union every president since george washington is given these periodic updates because the constitution requires them to do so and while the constitution makes no some of our demands of congressional leaders there's no doubt that this year the american people are demanding something from us they're looking for proof that republicans and democrats can come together to get a few things done on their behalf just one week into the session and we faced with a crucial test two issues of vital significance to every american citizen will we reauthorize a terrifying tool that we know is made us safer and will we put money back into the taxpayers hands quickly enough for to have a positive effect on the nation's economy it's not an exaggeration to say that the choices we make on these issues will show the public whether we're serious about protecting them from harm and serious about protecting their wallets so the question is this will we find a way to work together or will we find a way to get out of it and then blame the other side we got off to a good start last thursday millions of americans were absolutely stunned to turn on their television sets and see the democratic speaker of the house the house republican leader standing together on a stage behind the treasury secretary from the bush administration and nodding in agreement about an economic growth package they'd all worked out among themselves it was the kind of sane many people have wondered if they would ever see again for the first time in years the parties have come together in good faith and responded swiftly to a pressing national concern they sense that the nation was impatient for action and so they came up with a lot of things they wanted nor to find common ground they gave up a lot of the things that they wanted  ordered to find common ground house republicans made major sacrifices so did house democrats and now the nations of current and nation's attention turns to us to the senate to see if we're capable of the same thing here's our moment to show that we can a number of senators have expressed a desire to add tens of billions of dollars in spending on contentious programs to this package but we don't have the time for it illogical debates in order for this plan to work congress needs to act and to act at watch which is not the package frankly that i would have put together in my view the best way to stimulate the economy would be to lower marginal rates but neither is it the package my good friend  majority leader would have put together i gather from his public statements he would prefer there be more spending on government programs but the speaker and the house republican leader would also have packaged differently if they had written it on their own they put their differences aside because they know we'll all get nothing if we're not willing to make some serious sacrifices the editorial writers at the washington post urged us friday not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good low and middle income taxpayers certainly agree they're tapping their fingers wondering if we can do it americans are also wondering if we can agree on something as fundamental as our national security and for good reason we saw some worrisome signs last week that some of our friends are looking for a way out of what would be a could be a good bipartisan achievement on reauthorizing the terrorist surveillance program it should remember that three years ago following the lead of the nine eleven commission congress came together to create the office of director of national intelligence approving the bill that established it by a vote of eighty nine to two the director of national intelligence was supposed to be the person who would connect the dots it would make sure intelligence gaps or closed who could look across the entire intelligence landscape and tell us about our vulnerabilities before terrorists discovered them on their own last year he did just that the director of national intelligence came to capitol hill and ask us to either fix the foreign an intelligence surveillance act that allowed us to monitor foreign terrorists overseas or risk weakening this vital intelligence gathering to our friends across the aisle put off action for months before finally passing a temporary revision right up against the august recess then they delayed again last fall pushing us up against the expiration of the temporary extension now they're delaying again there's only one version of a long term extension that agrees with the recommendations of the director of national intelligence and that's the pending compiler bond substitute bill this bill was carefully crafted on a strong bipartisan basis and reported out of the intelligence committee on a vote of thirteen to two it's the only version the director of national intelligence has approved it's the only version the president would sign and therefore it's the only one that has any chance of becoming law before the current extension expires on friday of this week the time to act has long sent passed we need to approve rockefeller bon need to do it this week now some of our friends on the other sad say they won't vote for cloture on the rockefeller bond bill because they couldn't amend it no one should be deceived about this compliant the amendments they want would transform it transform it into a replica of the partisan bill that was reported out of the judiciary committee last fall in other words allowing amendments would guarantee failure some of our friends on the other sad say they want one month extension never mind that we've had ten months to act already no one should be deceived by this complaint either the real reason for the one month extension of course is to give members who vote in favor of the of it political cover they need to vote against rockefeller bond this is another clever way to make the bill fail and some of our friends on the other side say we're wrong to insist that phone carriers who may have cooperated with the government in tracking terrorists be i'm in for a lawsuit the implication is that this is some kind of favor for big business but this advice is coming from the intelligence community not politicians because they know that we could never expect these companies or any others for that matter to cooperate in the future as long as the threat of a lawsuit looms badly some of our friends accuse us of being scaremongers for urging passage now but the terrorist threat has not diminished sense nine eleven it hasn't expired the director of national intelligence assured us it hasn't gone away the memory of nine eleven tells us that hasn't attacks in madrid and london and bali tell us it hasn't and the terrorists themselves tell us it has the threat is real and we can't let success and preventing another another one of these attacks keep us from staying on off and with all the tools and the resources that we have the bottom line is this by voting for cloture on rockefeller pfizer is within our grasp will we come together and embrace a compromise approach that protects us and doesn't force companies to make a false choice between the good of the firm or the good of the country or will we go the partisan route it would be a worrisome sign indeed if the first bill democrats filibuster this year deals with national security we must resist the mistakes of last year and act last week we saw the kind of tough compromises necessary when lawmakers are more concerned about making a difference than making a political point now it's our turn the second session of this congress is young but the choices we make this week will define us and in my view it's a welcome opportunity here in the second week of the session we have a chance to show americans that we can work together on their behalf to solve problems to protect their security and protect their wallets this is a defining moment for the hundred tenth previous order there will be a period of morning business until three pm with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each and with the time equally divided between the two leaders or their designees mr president that are new to this president as the majority leader old and many might think that lasting to ninety seven he passed away as a wasted worn out man that's not true president was energetic and enthusiastic and fully engaged within just a day or two of his passing with my senior colleague senator hatch i've had meetings with him and the other leaders of the church and was always amazed at how well connected he was to read the papers he watched the television he knew what was going on in the world outside the church every bit as much as we did and his memory was phenomenal there are many people who were twenty to thirty years his junior who could not remember current acts current items of news as well as he could so it's appropriate that we take a moment or t to comment on the stewardship and contribution of this great man at the time of his passing we do not mourn for him he has joined his wife his parents and those others who gone before him who may have a little sense of garden what took you so long but he stayed it is job and he committed it he fulfilled his stewardship in an impressive manner and the morning we had at this occasion is mourning for ourselves for the loss we have sustained in seeing this great and good man go on now i've noticed i've men made mention of his energy i should also mention his enthusiasm he had a great zest for life and he was always looking forward to the next activity and the next opportunity and along with his energy and enthusiasm he was a man of humility and humor you were never quite sure when he stood at the pope to speak if he was going to say something that would put you at ease and make you laugh because that happened much more often than it did with some others who were a little more serious in their message his messages were always serious but they always had that touch of humor the last message we heard from him to speaking to the entire world in general and to the church specifically was in last his sermon last october i'm sure he did not know that that would be his final sermon to the members of the church but it started out again with a touch of hinkley humor he noted as he stood to speak that singers will sing the same song over and over again as people ask them to perform orchestras will play the same symphony all over and over again but speakers are always expected to say something new and he said that bothered him a little and he was going to repeat a sermon he had given before or after we had smiled that is early early comments we heard a lecture on anger he talked about the toxic effect of anger and how we should do our very best both in our personal lives and our professional lives and if i may here in the senate in national diet dialogues to do away with a sense of anger i've just returned from the annual session in davos switzerland where i heard a lot of people who could benefit from that sermon as there was a lot of anger that people had towards other governments and other government officials i will not in any way attempt to capsulize what president hinckley had to say about anger except to demonstrate that this was his benediction prior to his d to the members of his church telling them not to be angry with their families not to be angry in their communities and not to be angry with the world a former apostle of the lord jesus christ paul spoke in his letter to the corinthians about the three most important attributes of a christian faith hope and hinckley spoke of these same attributes and lived them in his life but he put them if you will in modern terms optimism confidence and love a sermon telling us not to be angry with our fellow man is a fitting capstone stewardship of this man it is a modern way of saying all term charity or the pure love of c others said he has no one here on this earth and others that he would like to know who have to make this country the greatest country in the world and many other countries as well so i stand deep sympathy to the family and wonderful wonderful family members we know them their terrific people president hinckley was as ecumenical as a person can be he led a worldwide church the fifth largest church in america the church of jesus christ of latter day saints and he he basically taught all of us to understand that all religions are good and that we should work together i don't think there's been a humanitarian mission or should i say i don't think there's been a major disaster anywhere in the world where the church of jesus christ of latter day saints nicknamed the mormons has not cooperated with catholic charities and other christian  charities have done so much and he made sure that our members thirteen million strong around the world participated in a humanitarian concerns in fact we have thousands of humanitarian missionaries all over this world many of them older people who are retired or given eighteen months of their time or even more some less to be able to bring humanitarian help the people all over the world and this man led that he was a great business leader you can imagine how important was it we had a man like this run this very very important worldwide church center better mention that sense of humor you hardly heard a set of remarks by president hinckley where he didn't very wittily make his point even better than he would have if they were just on the stern and and tough he was never really stern and tough and message really really was essential he was always kind i my wife we personally love him and we're going to miss and very very much he traveled all over the world i've traveled all over the world and generally i've done on military planes with military liaison helping us carrying our bags doing everything that possibly could make it a reasonable trip and i came back beat every time almost the in every case wanted to kiss the ground but i get back here in fact in every case he travelled extensively all over the world how most a million muslims in that regard i'd like to pay tribute to jon huntsman sr who made it possible in his later years for him to have a a very very good airplane but i think extended his life for a longer period of time for the benefit of mankind all over this world was a wonderful thing he had a love for all human beings and expressed that love not only through his his words but also through his actions i might add that as a senator or read mentioned that he established the perpetual education fund where members of our faith donate millions of dollars every year to help unfortunate young people in these foreign lands to be able to go to school and raise their educational level so that they can become leaders in their own country and so they can make great contributions in their own country i think one of the most inspired programs i've ever seen and we have thousands and thousands of young men and women who now are leaders in their catholic teachers doctors lawyers and others all because of the vision of this great man who we call a and mention that his travels he dedicated dozens and dozens of temples the most of any president of the church all over the world and throughout the us people mormons by nickname those temples search for him the important to us because we played marriages so sacred that it is for all eternity not just for this life but all eternity and frankly we try to live that way and and many many do the important to us and he went all over the world doing that well all i can say there's a lot more i'd like to say but i'm going to put the rest of my remarks in the record but i can truthfully say that this is a man i loved this is a man who was a profound influence on i know senator bennett and me and so many millions of others he was a man who got along with leaders of other things he was a man who taught us that we must respect everybody and i have to say he stood for everything comparison i've been to this laura numerous occasions to aggressively support the immunity provisions from the intelligence committees fides of modernization bill i cannot understate my passion for this issue i am  that the lawsuits facing telecom providers those who did and their classified constitute a grave threat to national security the potential risks from inadvertent disclosure of classified information cannot be understa the potential damage to our intelligence sources and methods from allowing these lawsuits to go forward as this is substantial unfortunately the more we delay this legislation the more likely it is that our sensitive intelligence methods will be exposed and not just expose to the american people but to al qaeda and thousands of other terrorists and enemies around the world remember the very point of these lawsuits is to prove plaintiffs claims by disclosing classified information t discovery process let's think about this do we really want any person to be able to make accusations that are under hearsay and then be given the ability to jeopardize the intelligence community's sources methods by demanding discovery during frivolous litigation we simply cannot do this we should never reveal our mogens agency's technical capabilities who they work with who they target or what their strengths and weaknesses are we on the intelligence committees have that assignment because we are expected to honor the classified nature of those matters the reasons why should be obvious to all of us here's an example that illustrates this point if criminals are running drugs northbound along i ninety five they may have an idea that they will encounter police checkpoints but they need to transport the drugs so they will balance this wrist but what if they know for sure that there is a checkpoint and a specific state what if they then find out that the checkpoint is at a specific mile markers will they change their routes and methods you better believe they will they're not stupid and neither is al qaeda is a really makes sense for us to broadcast across the globe over the internet how we work do we want to replace the uncertainty of how we track terrorists with this stablish fa confirmations or denials of the allegations in the lawsuits will certainly reveal certain intelligence agency sources and methods even when the proceedings are in camera or ex parte this risk is still apparent i can't stress this point identity of any company that may or may not have cooperated with the government with the terrorist surveillance program is highly classified accusations and hearsay do not confirm any relationship the very activities these cases seek to disclose would reveal whether a company has or hasn't assisted the government in addition any verdict in the case would likely provide the same type of information and replacing the government for these companies in the in the litigation does not solve the problem our enemies have tough decisions to make regarding how they communicate they can't stay silent forever and they have to the need to communicate against the chances that their communications innocent intercepted we know that they are carefully watching us and following every proceeding to see how our government collects information if they think they see a weakness in our collection capabilities they will certainly try to take advantage of it make no mistake al qaeda and the other terrorist organizations would benefit tremendously from learning the identity of any company that assisted the government following the attacks of nine eleven a few of my colleagues and many on the outside or  outside media have highlighted accusations from a former telecom employee his name is mark klein mr klein claims that he has proved that computers diverted domestic electronic communications from the phone company directly to the n s a the national security agency in fact his accusations play a major role in one of the lawsuits currently facing a telecom provider and keep in mind these telecom providers acted patriotically in complying with the highest ranked highest the orders of the government now it is important to note the government chose not to classify klein's declarations or exhibits in one of the losses the government could have but it didn't so klein's court documents are public due to the ongoing litigation i do not want to speak directly to his claims but i will highlight a statement that was made by an official representing the government during a court proceeding and one of the lawsuits against the telecom provider this statement was from the assistant attorney general on june twenty third two thousand and six in front of judge vaughn walker here's what was said about the decision not to classify klein's declarations this is the government's statements regarding mark klein quote we i have not asserted a privilege over th declarations or exhibits mr klein and marcus never had access to any of the relevant classified information here and with all respect to them through no fault or f of their own they don't know anything unquote think of that think of it they're betting the losses on these guys and they don't know anything i can't understate the importance of this quote it has never been mentioned during this debate no further commentary on it is really needed but i think its meaning is extremely important when senators and the public way the relevancy and reliability of klein's accusations i'm particularly hopeful that three of my distinguished colleagues who have highlighted klein's claims on this floor are aware of these statements from the government i hope we all realize that klein's accusations highlight only one side of the story and he has no basis for making them also want to draw attention to a claim repeatedly made on this floor the fos declaration that the immunity provision in this bill will quote close the courthouse door unquote these claims seek to convey the false impression that the immunity provision in this bill will halt all litigation regarding or relating to the terrorist surveillance or surveillance program or t s p this is absolutely phones there are no fewer than seven lawsuits currently pending against government officials that are related to the t s p the immunity provision in this bill will not repeat that will not affect any of those cases versus george w bush boozy versus george w bush henderson versus keith alexander schubert versus george w bush tooley versus george w bush finally it is imperative for us to understand that our national security is greatly dependent on the cooperation of telecom providers we can't do it by ourselves and yet many foreign governments are in quite the opposite situation one which gives them an advantage in certain electronic interceptions many foreign telecoms are run by their respective host government many others have government officials with controlling authority these countries don't have to worry about telecom cooperation they can simply force the telecoms to comply we have chosen not to have that system in our great nation rather we rely on the voluntary assistance of telecommunications providers when these companies are asked to assist the intelligence community based on a program authorized by the president and based on assurances from the highest levels of government that the program has been determined to be lawful they should be able to rely on these representations for those who argue that we need a compromise let me be clear we already have a compromise the government wanted more than what is represented in this bill and they didn't get it the chairman of the senate select committee on intelligence stated the following in the intelligence committee report quote the intelligence committee did not endorse the immunity provision lightly it was the informed judgment of the committee after months in which we carefully reviewed the facts of the matter the intelligence reach the intelligence committee reached the conclusion that the immunity remedy was appropriate in this case after holding numerous hearings and briefings on the subject and conducting a thorough examination of the letter sent by the s government to the telecommunications companies unquote the immunity provisions in this bill are limited in scope not everyone's going to be happy with them and that's the whole point i for one wanted to see more protections for companies and government officials in this bill but i'm willing to accept the compromise and my colleagues should be willing to do the same we're not all getting what we want we're getting what the public has to have what the public needs we've been working on legislation to since at least april of two thousand and seven i'm extremely proud of the bipartisan efforts that led to this bill in the intelligence committee where all of the investigations were made where the intelligence was protected we found a balance let's show the confidence and result of vote on this compromise not back away from it i will support cloture on the rockefeller bond substitute a member and i urge my colleagues to do the same and in that regard i pray that my colleagues will listen to the distinguished ranking member of the intelligence committee senator bond who has played a significantly proper and important role in helping to get this bill through the committee here on the floor this is a major major bill of protection for our country and i attribute much of the success of it to senator rockefeller the chairman of the committee and senator bond the ranking member who has been both of whom have been startling leaders on this i hope it's not  true that anybody in this body will support some of the amendments that may be brought to the floor because we have looked at this thing backwards all over the place w president i ask that we vote against cloture and support the leaders on this  speaks he speaks from not only a great deal of knowledge but study we are grateful for his assistance and i commend this is a tremendous asset to this body in many ways but none more so in the recognition to speak briefly in opposition to the motion to vote close to the amendment which i have file d goes to the heart of the issue on removing liability from the telephone companies to impose retroactive immunity of any amendment which i have of disgust on the floor of the united states senate would substitute the government for the party defend it where the government would have the same defenses no more no less for example the telephone companies do not have the defense of governmental immunity and the government when substitute would not have the defense of governmental immunity the telephone companies can plead state secrets to say to fo we have gone through a long session last year where the argument was weighed repeatedly and persuasively not to invoke cloture the argument advanced on this side of the aisle in order to give a members on this side of the aisle an opportunity to propose their amendments now we have the refer situation sought to be applied and it is my hope that this body will reject the cloture motion there has been very little time spent on this very important subject in this body and when you have a matter of the importance of retroactive immunity or you're going to shut off the courts of the united states for airing cases that are already pending there ought to be time for consideration of amendment like the one which  provision of separation of powers which is the cornerstone of the constitution and we have found regrettably that it has been an adequate to have congressional supervision the administration resisting and the inevitable argument of politics when the core issues an order is a federal court did last week for a report on the destruction of documents seeking to find out what happened on the destruction of the c documents the court can't be charged with politics and we find in we're sewell and in other litigation matters of the judicial branch has been affected in maintaining the separation of power i consulted with a parliamentarian and asked why our amendment was ruled the advisory ruling given as non germane and the answer i was given was because there was no specific statement in the underlying bill on governmental liability in pursuing the issue with a parliamentarian i then said i'm going to say to change the rules seems to me peculiar if not absurd that my amen the specter white house amendment would not de jure remain under the common meaning of the english language and i said suppose we change the rules to provide that it was relevant and the answer i got and i don't want to misquote anybody was that yeah that would stand the test of relevancy as he put it in a more permissive standard so then i checked the definition of relevant in the webster's international dictionary and it says bearing upon are and i've never seen one as close to the core point as putting the government as a substitute for the telephone companies but somehow it's not jeremiah so i want to put my colleagues on notice  the time i don't know how much time the senator is going to continue to use but want to make certain that i have the opportunity that was previously ordered for the fifteen minutes in the s i think that it is really important to have a ruling the vote by this body on whether we're going to apply retroactive immunity to the telephone companies that i've sat on the floor lastly i would  adopted that i will support retroactive immunity i think it's a bad practice but i think that bad as i practice is it would be worse to cut off of the information which our intelligence community thinks we need i think it is impose the cutting off of the judicial system for checks and balances i think that ought to be adopted and further to comment on the hard to understand definition of a  when the dictionary defines it as being relevant and at the dictionary defines relevant as being geraint with a parliamentarian giving us supplemental opinion that if the standard was relevance it would be appropriate to have  economy and the need for an economic stimulus package i want to talk just for a moment about this because i think it's important for us to understand what's happening to our economy and i know that there are some who think that the field of economic some field with precision and elegance and that we are dealing with the ship of state and if we could just find our way to the engine room and find all the knobs and gauges and dials and levers and just turn them the right way and one b y and then vestment tax credit and bonus depreciation all these issues that somehow will get the ship of state moving again of course that's not what is at stake at all there isn't an engine room with knobs and dials and gauges there's the field of economics which i have said previously is a lot like psychology pumped up with helium so we talk a lot about knowing what's going on and the fact is we're going to now do a stimulus package because there's a notion that there isn't a problem with the economy well there's more than just a problem there's a very serious problem with this economy you take a look at the stock market which is a barometer of confidence up and down like a yo yo mostly down the housing market has cratered with construction of new homes in apartments in two thousand and seven down twenty five percent that's one of the giant job engines in our economy the housing market unemployment rate jumped by about one point four million workers the trade deficit recently hit a fourteen month high oil prices are still way up retail sales the worst in years so we have a very serious problem now the federal reserve board took bold action last monday and that's unusual for the federal reserve board because you know they all were gray suits and wire rimmed glasses and seldom do anything that's very bold but on monday they did they cut interest rates by three quarters of one percent so the expectation is because the it is taking action to be very concerned about the state of the economy then we should take action in fiscal policy and so there's talk about a stimulus and frankly i think that stimulus is fine i don't think it does all that much but the absence of doing something on the senate side or the side of congress would send the wrong signal so psychologically it's important that we work on a stimulus we're talking about a stimulus that's probably one percent of our economy so it's not exactly going to jumpstart the american economy but if all we do is a stimulus package and continue to ignore the fundamentals the things that are structurally wrong in this economy that is not just cause the economy to be in some trouble but because the american people and people all around the world to look at us and say you know something you're just off track you're not addressing the things that really matter and this is unsustainable if we don't do something to address those things we will not solve the basic problem of our economy so we talked just about that number one a fiscal policy a reckless fiscal policy i mean in recent years think of it that this administration inherited a budget surplus then got hit with a recession a war a war in afghanistan a war in iraq a war on terrorism a whole series of hurricane katrina serious events well many of us said to the president don't propose that we spend sir process that don't yet exist must be a bit conservative and he said katie bar the door let's have very big tax cuts most of it for wealthy americans and he pushed through the congress i didn't vote for but he did and what happened was we began to run up these huge deficits because of all these unexpected circumstances that we were confronting so now what we have had in recent years is we send soldiers off to war and the president says the congress we're sending soldiers to go fight but we don't intend to pay for i want the congress to provide emergency spending in order to pay for all that and we just added to the death last year he asked for one hundred ninety six billion dollars that's in this fiscal year that is sixteen billion dollars a month four billion dollars a week none of it paid for all add to the debt as if to say to the soldiers you go fight when you come home we'll have you and your kids pay the bills that is a fiscal policy that is completely off balance we're going to borrow about six hundred billion dollars this year that's how much will be added to the death oh i know that's not what they say the deficit is but they say the deficits lower because they're taking all the so security surplus from the trust funds and using it to show a lower deficit we're going to borrow about six hundred billion dollars a year to sustain the budget policies of this administration add to that a seven to eight hundred billion dollars a year trade deficit two billion dollars a day every single day and you're talking about a combined reading here in our budget and trade policies of almost one point three trillion dollars almost ten percent of the american economy think of that that's unsustainable now add to that a reckless fiscal policy and a trade policy in which we are hemorrhaging red ink and exploiting american jobs add to that regulators who were asleep on the job people who came to government really didn't want to regulate and so the sub prime loans scandal occurred right under their noses and we all heard the adverse events turn on television you heard the ads couldn't escape the notice of regulators surely they had said have you been bankrupt you have trouble getting credit you've been missing your house payments come to us we got a new loan for you will we'll give you a new home mortgage and so they did and so teaser rates at two percent an unbelievable circumstance everybody was making lots of money the brokers were making millions the mortgage banks were making a lot of money and then they were packing these these mortgage loans the good ones with the bad ones just like they used to axe sausage with meat and sawdust it fills sausages with some sawdust as filler back in the old days well during unregulated times just like packing sawdust into sausage is what these folks did as a took good loans and bad loans package them up sliced them up and then they securitize them and sent it out and sold them and everybody was happy and everybody was fat and everybody was making a lot of money until it all came home to roost and a whole lot of folks couldn't make housing payments and so what we've found with the the circumstance with the sub prime loans scandal is that two point two million families with subprime loans will lose their homes to foreclosure seven point two million families with subprime mortgages have an outstanding mortgage value of one point three trillion dollars and when those interest rates reset a whole lot of won't be able to pay the bills to keep their homes all of this happened under the nose of regulators who came to government not wanting to regulate and it caused severe damage to our country now add to that it reckless fiscal policy a trade deficit in which we are hemorrhaging in red ink and shipping jobs overseas and a scandal in the home mortgage industry that caused enormous damage to our country made a lot of folks rich in the short term victimized a lot of others add to that the unbelievable speculation that's going on in hedge funds most all of it outside of the view of regulators have funds are about one point two to one point five trillion dollars in value but that doesn't describe their importance to the economy they are heavily leveraged and in fact that one point two to one point try five trillion dollars of hedge funds is engaged in one half of all the trades every day on the new york stock exchange and they're engaged in among other things credit default swaps there's forty three trillion dollars of something called credit default swaps derivatives with notional values of forty three t dollars there are so much unbelievable speculation with dramatic amounts of leverage in hedge funds and derivatives that it is scary and nobody knows what's going on because it's outside the view of regulators and that's the way they want to keep it mr president we'll talk about stimulus we'll talk about short term measures but if we don't deal with these issues of fiscal policy that is way off track a trade policy that is an abject failure regulators who have no interest in regulating and so scandals develop and mature right under their noses if we don't deal with the underlying causes here this country is not going to recover our economy is not going to thrive and grow it's fine to do a stimulus package of one percent i don't object to that will borrow the money from china likely to do it perhaps put some money in the hands of people who go to wal mart and buy goods from china for all i know but psychologically i think it's fine to create a fiscal policy initiative that complements what they're doing at the fed with monetary policy but that will not solve the underlying problems in our economy we have deep abiding problems and fiscal policy trade policy and regulatory failure that is deep and that is abiding and this congress and this president have a responsibility to address them talking about stimulus and just talking about stimulus means that we have not addressed that which will move this ship of state forward in the future creating expansion opportunities and jobs and economic health  the only way we do that is to stare truth in the eye and understand what's causing the problems in this country and how to fix it there's an old saying on wall street i was told by a friend that you can't tell who's swimming naked until the tide goes out well tides gone out and now we're going to see some sites that aren't very pretty and it has to do with speculation and a whole series of things that we have to correct and my hope is that starting this evening at the state of the union address and following that  at last at long long last we might see a president and a congress work together to face the truth about fiscal policy and trade policy and inept regulation that has put this country in some significant difficulty in trouble we need to have a future that manifests that trouble forever if we take bold action and courageous action to understand what's wrong and what the menu of items are that we need to do to fix it i think we can have a much better and brighter economic future in this country and i want to be a part of that work and i know many of my colleagues do as well so let's hope the first step to do that begins this evening at the joint session of united states congress at the state of the union address mr president and that the senate proceed with the nomination that the nomination be confirmed and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table that any statements relating to the nomination appear at the appropriate place in the record that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action and the senate return to legislative session my understanding is this was cleared on both sides i'm particularly proud to make this request the former governor schaefer is distinguished the former governor from our state and it's a great honor for our fine thing we appreciate the support on both sides of the aisle we obviously need a good strong secretary of agriculture and we are pleased to see this body move forward so i do not final twenty minutes equally divided between the two leaders with the majority leader controlling the final ten minutes friends that are from west virginia this present i rise to oppose the vote to invoke cloture on the i have no choice but to vote against cloture in order to preserve the rights of my colleagues to have their amendments to this landmark legislation considered it's been a very weird process the final legislation before the senate has been taken in effect hostage in a transparent attempt to score political points off of national security the white house has decided once again that scaring the american people ministrations practice of placing politics above national security when it serves the poll driven agenda of its of advisors has become an addiction in this white house even when the senate is on the verge of producing much needed national security legislation that the president supports and wants the addictive political cravings that of course through the administrations body for the past seven years can once again as is often the case addictions produce behavior that is both irrational and in this case more unfortunately self destructive in this case the white house has misguidedly calculated that it is worth jeopardizing passage of a bill which they support which strengthens the collection of foreign intelligence in order to obtain a short term objection of you know some purpose which they want the white house is gambling with the safety of americans and the continued cooperation of the companies that we rely on to aid in our efforts to protect our country it's time for the senate's take a stand and reject these reprehensible tactic the senate intelligence committee took enormous care to craft legislation that would give our intelligence community greater latitude to conduct surveillance of foreign targets while not compromising the constitutional statutory protections afforded to americans both here and overseas senator kit bond and i worked extremely closely on that as we did as i will explain with many others it is a solid bill and with some limited changes i believe can be a better bill limited changes i might add that will in no way impede or in any way intrude upon the collection of the intelligence that we need every step of the way during the process of producing this bill and this was something that gave me great satisfaction we worked in a consultative way with the administration these discussions have always been in good faith we've talked as professionals so to speak trying to work out a hard problem that most people don't pay a lot of attention to but which has enormous consequences for our country and we have done it in good faith the very good faith that the actions of the white house now threatens to unravel from when the intelligence committee called on the administration to propose a fison modernization bill last spring chairman i did that to the many many committee hearings that followed the section by section line by line word by word consultation too numerous to count that we had with lawyers and intelligence experts from the justice department from the national security agency from the office of the director of national intelligence to outside experts we have worked in faith with the administration to achieve against frankly considerable odds the unthinkable to it a bipartisan bill dealing with the issues of profound complexity that has the endorsement of not only the president but also of the intelligence community professionals that will be the ones to carry out this surveillance they want this bill the committee included in its pfizer a bill that narrowly crafted provision that would provide immunity for telecommunications companies that participated in the present warrantless surveillance program after september eleventh and into the program was placed  court authorization last january we rejected the administration's proposed open ended language in refining in defining a very tailored immunity language we rejected their open ended language to extend immunity to government officials that was taken out call if there was wrongdoing somewhere don't make the assumption automatically without thinking this thing through deeply that it came from a private sector and it is opposed public officials i realize that this is a controversial controversial matter with many of my colleagues particularly on my side of the aisle but i regret the games that are being played on both sides by those senators who are prepared to filibuster the bill due to their opposition to it a narrow muti bill and the administration which wishes to prevent the senate from considering any alternative amendments to the m immunity provision we should debate the liability bill full senate should be allowed to consider alternative amendments and i say this that i think the vice chairman would agree with me out of an abundance of confidence that the committee position will ultimately be sustained by the house eventually be placed on the president's desk for his signature if allowed the senate can complete action on the fires a goal in a matter of a few days unlike many bills the senate considers where the number of members that can be disposed of can approach or exceed one hundred or one hundred fifty or seventy five passage of the five the bill will probably i would say involve relatively modest number of amendments and very manageable number of amendments i asked made that number would be somewhere in the twelve to fifteen amendment range probably fewer than some of these amendments i would support as needed is an improvement to the bill of the committee teligent committee many i would oppose because of my concern that we do the careful balance this is a stitch piece of work between collection of intelligence for the national security and the rights and privacy of individuals and i will oppose anything that undoes that the amendments that are likely to pass with a majority vote at least in my view such as the feinstein excess extra sudha explicit with the bill and the card and sunset amendments are further refinements of provisions already in the intelligence committee's bill those that would undercut these authorities to be able to do collection i'm confident would go down to defeat but the republican leadership under orders from the white house objected to these amendments being considered and voted on and the bill passed before the february first expiration of the temporary unflawed protection protect america as passed last august so that's where we're going to be unless we can resolve this here in the senate which we could do by the end of the week why why has the white house used instruction as tactic to prevent the senate from passing the size a bill that that is declared acceptable the president says he wants the intelligence committee bill passed as soon as possible and he said as recently as last friday that he understands that there members will have to be brought up and voted on before the senate can pass the bill that is after all the way the senate why then are they preventing the senate from voting on the limited number of amendments before us and passing the belt a bill that they want why a bill that has everything to do with the future of our country our national security and a bill which will not soon come to again if we don't achieve success in these coming days the majority leader has repeatedly offered the proposal to extend the federally first expiration date in the current stopped at law thirty days to allow sufficient time to complete our work on the legislation but each time this thirty day extension consent request was sought it was killed by the republican leadership under orders from the white house why in the world would a temporary extension be objectionable to a president who is on record as saying he doesn't want the law the current law to expire without a more lasting fires of modernization bill in place and yet in one of the most astounding alice in wonderland moments i've ever witnessed in my time in the senate the white house announced last week that the president would veto a thirty day extension of the current foreign collection authority is passed by congress so let's recap the president wants the pfizer bill passed by the senate but he has sent the decree down to the republican leadership that they are to prevent its prompt passage prompt passage we have to have the president does not want the current six month protect america act to expire this friday he does not want that to happen but he has stated he would veto any extension and thereby ensure that it well expires what more evidence is needed to demonstrate the irrational and self destructive political america against terrorism the white house has decided to exercise frankly its own form of political terrorism and has taken the size of bill hostage from the beginning the administration has demonstrated a deep seated contempt for the role of congress in authorizing and monitoring intelligence activities whether it is the national security agency's warrantless surveillance program or the central intelligence agency secret detention interrogation program the white house for over five years walled off the congress and the courts from conducting the sort of meaningful oversight and checks and balances that are essential to making sure that our intelligence programs are on sound legal operational footing to make matters worse the administration has successfully used to be action and delaying tactic over the past three years to keep the intelligence authorization bill from being passed and signed into law the there isn't there's no possible way that i have overestimating the importance of this bill mr president but it's hard to explain everybody can grasp onto the immunity issue  lead to one side or the other often without sufficient thought but the bill as a whole mashed as a whole like an appalachian quilt is a thing of beauty can be improved and should be patched nevertheless i urge my colleagues to oppose the republican cloture motion on the pfizer bill so that we can reassert something called the role of congress that we must play on these and other important national security matters oversight is what we do we don't write a lot of bills but we do oversight and over the years that's been that's lapsed so it's ups and downs but it is not welcome in the current atmosphere i urge my colleagues to oppose the republican cloture motion so that we can consider on their merits the limited manageable number of amendments to the bill and in the process push bipartisan pfizer reform across the finish line i know vice chairman bond and others are ready to get back to business and start disposing of amendment and i feel confident of the he and i as managers of this bill will work closely as we have and as we did in the committee to ensure that we do no unintended harm to this bill in the matters of collection of intelligence or any other unbalancing of a of  this appalachian kraftwerk so there's still time in the sun to work its way on the pfizer bill and pass it before the weeks a be divided that i be allocated fifteen minutes and that i be notified when my fifteen minutes are up then and at the appropriate time that the senator from texas will be recognized for fifteen minutes and then after intervening discussion from the other side that senator from georgia or senator chambliss be recognized for five and i would reserve the remainder of the amendments act of two thousand and seven as my friend the chairman said it was passed by the senate intelligence committee with overwhelming bipartisan support it's garnered their support of the director of national scoring political points i haven't heard from the white house anything other than they want to have this bill passed we have sought to protect the rights of republican members on the minority matter is we could pass perhaps a number of amendments that could destroy the structure of the bill that we presented and put us in the position where it would not get the sixty votes needed to pass so my simple suggestion is that we move forward excepting some amendments and there amendments on both sides i agree with the chairman that can be accepted maybe we could even accept them without a vote or accept votes on others  at a simple majority of fifty votes fifty one vote majority and then have on the controversial certain controversial ones we may have to have sixty votes but we are ready to move forward  we are not the ones who have this bill up very briefly in april the director of national intelligence admiral mcconnell and i refer to him as the d n i sent a bill to the se intelligence committee said it is out of date it has to be updated he came before us and divided may i ask that we do something nothing happened came before the full senate actually in closed session all senators invited that was in june explain why how urgent it was and how we were being left deaf and blind to communication of terrorists nothing happened it was at the end of that session going into the august recess that he proposed a temporary shortened version pfizer which became the pfizer pfizer amendments became the protect america act and i was pleased to provide that in the support that in the senate it passed the house was signed we came back in september knowing we had to work together on a bipartisan basis and the senate intelligence committee its staff worked very hard on a bipartisan basis produced a bill i think very good bill it was the ultimate compromise there were some on both sides who were selling but not rebellious but we got the job done provided the tools intelligence committee needed and significantly expanded the protection of american civil liberties and privacy rights down the bill sat on the floor in october finally came to the floor december seventeenth and a number on the majority side spoke out against the civil liability protection afforded providers who allegedly assisted with the government with the president's terrorist surveillance program or t s prison provisions in the intelligence committee bill but spoke in favor of what regrettably was a partisan judiciary committee substitute the debates good for democracy but only if it's based on facts unfortunately during the december filibuster we heard a number of allegations accusations and even meshed misrepresentation about the committees bill and the t s p some of those comments will be repeated here today our intelligence committee community professionals must have the tools they need to protect us this is not time to pass legislation that will make people feel good or will score political points we must pass of the all that the d n i will that the president will sign that should be our goal distorting the truth will not help us get there solo record must be set straight and there some of the myths we've heard what are the facts we were told that a quote new and aggressive unquote interpretation of article two authority was used to justify the t s p i just present there is nothing new or aggressive about relying on the president's article two authority in the context of foreign intelligence surveillance court includes clude ing the pfizer court of review in the two thousand and two in ratio case and the fourth circuit in the trunk case have long recognized distinctions between domestic and foreign surveillance and the president's constitutional authority to conduct foreign intelligence surveillance nor is was the t s p quote an invitation to lawlessness unquote to argue that the president has inherent constitutional authority to wiretap without a court order the constitution is the highest law of the land and trumps any statute in one thousand nine hundred seventy eight when congress recognized the tension between five and the presidents in a four inherent authority under article two they said that they noted that warrantless surveillance for foreign intelligence gathering has been an integral part of our nation's with foreign intelligence during world war two our warrantless surveillance of german and japanese militaries and the breaking of their code preserves our democracy see more recently the clinton administration conducted a warrantless search of the residence of convicted spy all ridge aides the intelligence committee conducted a comprehensive bipartisan review good t s p there is no evidence to substantiate the claims that the american administration began its warrantless surveillance before september eleventh or that the t s p covered domestic calls between neighbors friends and loved ones as the president stated that t s p collected international calls involving members of al qaeda for many months critics have argued that t s p should have been conducted under fire as an argument needs to be laid to rest a decision by fives the court last spring proved that the t s p could not have been done under fire as it existed the court decision resulted in significant intelligence gaps which led to the passage of the protect america act i was not there but i understand this matter was discussed by the president with the top leaders of this body and the other body as well as the intelligence committee and was told at that time they would not be possible to move to read draft and change the old files a law in time to collect these critical information that they hope to gather before type attacks occurred immediately following september eleventh well  liability protection for those carriers who allegedly assisted the government with the t s p lies at the heart of this legislation the president did what he had to do under article two and our country was safer  and our country was safer because some of the carriers alleged to participated acted and alliance in good faith on orders of the attorney general transmitting the president's order and the intelligence community in his original pfizer modernization request in april of zero seven the d n i asked for for liability protection for all those allegedly involved now some members of attack d n i mcconnell's integrity calling him quote an accidental truthteller unquote and accusing him of backing out agreements made under the p a these comments are not only unjustified wanted and unfair they're counterproductive throughout this debate d n i and other intelligence professionals have given us unbiased advice and technical assistance they have assisted democrats and republicans we need to focus on the task at hand not engage in personal attacks against a man who has served his country no honorably in the military in the intelligence community and continues to do so as head of the community now some members downplayed the need for liability protection they argue that carriers are they have statutory immunity and that continued litigation will not harm providers our intelligence efforts mr president these statements reflect a startling lack of knowledge about our intelligence collection which is dangers to the continued operation of our gathering first the companies cannot prove they are entitled to statutory immunity because their government us must assert state secrets to protect their intelligence collection methods second bot it's true the existence of the t s p has been revealed there are still fortunately a few details about the program that have not each day that the lawsuits continue with the prospect of civil discovery there you come new risk that sensitive details about our intelligence sources and methods would really will be revealed and general hayden stated a year and a half ago the disclosure of the p s p has had a significant impact on intelligence gathering he said of terrorists we're applying the darwinian theory where only capturing the dumb ones we should not give terrorists additional insight through continued t s p litigation further our intelligence and law enforcement agencies rely on the willingness of providers to cooperate in emergencies with the kidnapping of a child when court orders are not required yet some carriers have already told us that if they do not get liability protection they will not be able to risk their business their reputation by continuing to help without court orders that would be devastating to our intelligence collection our committee weighed all these arguments for and against labadee protection we concluded by a twelve three bipartisan vote that civil liability for protecting for providers and only providers not government officials was not only fair it was the only way to safeguard  intelligence sources and methods and to ensure their continued cooperation by the providers substitution is not a solution since it would allow civil discovery to provide to proceed against providers intelligence gathering the intelligence community advised us through the testimony and gave us a document that these companies acted in good faith and we in the committee agreed with them the providers who may have participated relied upon representation is from the highest levels of government there is no need to create a statutory mechanism for a court whether it be the as a quarter any other to second guess this determination allowing the court to do so would throw uncertainty into an area where the committee's attend is clear the ongoing civil litigation against providers must and on this last point the term amnesty was tossed around in december but that incorrectly assumes that alleged carriers did something illegal these carriers don't need amnesty they did nothing wrong a desirable liability protection amish pleasures i mentioned earlier that day and i said it will support the intelligence committees bill with two revisions that some members and says there are fatal flaws we've heard number one that there are no consequences if the of these arguments is false the bill that came out of our committee goes farther than ever before in providing a meaningful role for courts and congress in overseeing acquisitions of foreign intelligence the five a court will review the targeting and minimization procedures to ensure they comply with the law if the court finds any deficiency it can order the government to correct the deficiency or cease acquisition there is nothing i repeat nothing in this bill that w warrantless wiretapping of americans and violation of title three criminal wiretaps or fison explicit prohibitions against reverse targeting and the targeting of a person inside the united states without a court order americans abroad are given fison court protections the acquisitions must also comply with the fourth amendment these are major new protections for americans yet in spite of these measures protections that we have never seen before in the world of foreign targeting we have been told that the intelligence community will still target innocent americans listening to calls between parents and children overseas between students and their friends studying abroad that's absolute nonsense intelligence committee bill only loud targeting of persons outside the us to obtain foreign intelligence information this is not a dragnet of surveillance we're not listening to quote completely innocent people overseas unquote as some have claimed the targets must be foreign targets suspected terrorists are terrorist committing terrorist group members and the attorney general and the d n i must certify that a significant purpose of the acquisition is to obtain foreign intelligence information for example of a foreign target is believed to be an agent or a member of al qaida and all communications will be intercepted only americans who communicate with that target will have those specific conversations monitored if those same conversations start out to be purely innocent they will be minimized or suppressed even if the communication contains foreign intelligence information unlikely in many instances that the identity identity of any u s person will be master protected and any intelligence reporting americans privacy rights are protected up to the point where they're actually gate engaging in a terrorist operation mr president i see that my time is running out and i will reserve the balance of my time and i will i will give the rest of this a rest of my remarks and a later time thank you press center from wisconsin president should be doing is considering in voting on the amendments that i and my colleagues tried to bring up last week and other amendments that have been improved proposed to improve this badly flawed bill but the minority doesn't think we should have the right to actually legislator they expect this body just to rubber stamp that bill i'm afraid that i have to say mr president the conduct of the minority has been very disturbing on this they insisted for weeks that it is absolutely critical to finish the fight for legislation by february first even going so far as to object repeatedly to efforts by the majority leader to extend for just one month the protect america act a law they rammed through this chamber in august and they still don't want to give us another month so that the senate can carefully consider changes to it so the majority leader brought to the floor the intelligence committee bill the legislation that the minority wanted to consider and urge the senate to stay in session through the weekend to complete work on it now i criticised the majority leader for bringing the intelligence committee bill to the floor because i thought that the senate should be working for the much better bill reported by the judiciary committee of which i also served but i would have thought that the minority would be pleased by the majority leader's decision so what do they don't want a response they have obstructed all efforts to actually work on this bill they won't allow me to get a vote on the one of them is that i have offered an amendment co sponsored by senator hagel and they won't one they are the ones that are arguing that the february deadline is so critical they seem to think that scare tactics peddled by the administration officials like the vice president will be enough to pressure the senate and just just letting them have their way i certainly hope they are wrong mr president as you well know this legislation is in serious need of fixing it authorizes widespread surveillance involving americans at home and abroad yes it does by what the senator from missouri just said it certainly does do that i have a number of amendments i want to offer both to ensure that the feisty court has more authority to oversee these authorities and to guarantee americans their fourth amendment rights but i cannot even get a vote on the one simple straightforward and extremely modest amendment that i offered last week mr president this demonstrates just how brazen these tactics are this bipartisan amendment would merely require that the government provide copies of important court orders and pleading for review to the committees of jurisdiction in a classified setting so that members of congress can understand how feisty has been interpreted and is being appl you would think this would just be as they say a no brainer and yet the minority will not even consent to a vote on that but at least that one amendment is pending and will get a vote eventually if the republicans succeed in cutting off debate on this legislation the senate will not be able to vote on any other amendments including the amendment that senator dodd and i would like to offer to deny retroactive immunity to telecom companies that allegedly cooperated with the administration's illegal wiretapping companies that allegedly cooperated with an illegal program and why are we in this situation because the minority the administration think that they are entitled to just ram the deeply flawed intelligence committee bill through the se without any changes seems that they are worried that the senate might actually pass some of the very reasonable amendments that i and others would like to offer if they give us a chance to do so or perhaps they're just trying to sabotage the bill and then figure out a way to blame that outcome democrat mr president no senator no senator should go along with these cynical strong arm tactics we have to stand up the administration and stand up for our rights i strongly urge my colleagues to oppose culture invoking cloture on this bill would be an abdication of our responsibility to consider legislation that will have a huge impact on the american people for years to come floor taxes this president i don't know why any member of the united states senate would object to proceed yours that we would employ within the bounds of the law to listen to communications be terrorists in order to detect and deter further terrorist attacks on our own soil or against americans or our allies that's what this legislation does and unfortunately mr president i think we're beginning to see a a dangerous trend on the part of the united states senate never failing to put off to morrow what we could and should do today this legislation has been considered for an awful awful long time as we all know in a bipartisan vote of the senate intelligence committee thirteen to two in october this legislation was voted out of the intelligence committee and a carefully crafted attempt to consult with the director of national intelligence the head of the central intelligence agency and all other members of the intelligence community that might be impacted by this legislation there's been opportunity after opportunity for input by members of the united states senate into this legislation but yet we hear today that the those on the floor of the senate are saying well let's not vote on this legislation now let's kick the ball down the road another month so we can have the same debate the same discussion that we've been having for lo these many months leading up to this point is to present the only reason we are where we are today is because we're running able to get a link the extension of the foreign intelligence surveillance act in august because by those on the other side who are complaining about this legislation again today we were only able to pass this legislation till december and then another extension was granted until february the first when this protect america act expires of its own terms mr president i would hope that this body would act continue to act in the strong bipartisan manner in which it is this legend's committee has voted this bill out of the intelligence committee by a vote of thirteen to two and i appreciate the fact that this body tabled the judiciary committee's partisan substitute and sent a signal that bipartisanship and consensus may once again become ascendant in matters of national security in the united states senate i think we would have we would see that as a welcome development and at a time when we're talking about an economic stimulus package and seeing cooperation from the speaker and the minority leader in the house the president ited states on matters affecting the economy why can't we get that same sort of bipartisan cooperation on matters affecting national security today the senate is poised to move this critical national search era the legislation one step closer to the president's desk today's vote will tell us much more about whether the senate is ready to set aside partisanship and willing to get the job done is to present members of this body will remember december we had to pass an omnibus appropriation bill that affected all discretionary spending of the u s federal government because we had been unable to pass eleven out of the twelve appropriation bills that it was our responsibility to pass this congress unfortunate the se as it has a unfortunate recent tendency to put off things to morrow that we should and could be doing today and we should not let that happen here we need to finish this legislation to give members of chance to debate it and then to vote i don't favor each and every provision included in the bipartisan compromise that is sponsored by chairman rockefeller and vice chairman bond but i do appreciate the act is a carefully crafted compromise it is a bipartisan compromise it's the product of extensive consultation and it goshi a sion with the experts in our intelligence and defense communities and other words this legislation reflects the valuable and necessary input of the very minute women who are currently intercepting phone calls text messages and e mails between al qaida and the operatives those who wish to do america and america's interests harm the senate has two choices today mr president as the deadline for action rapidly approaches on february the first on the one hand we can show the american people that it least when it comes to matters of national security it's possible to put partisanship aside and to get the job done in a bipartisan way the other choice which the majority leader has proposed is that we ask the american people for an extension if we kick the can down the road for another month only to find ourselves back in precisely the same posture that we're in today with no issues resolved with the same old debates to be rehashed when we ought to finish the job today and follow the path of maximum responsibility i asked my colleagues what excuse could there possibly be to put the tough choices off for another month what justifies asking the american people for more time to get the job done when we know what the choices are and we have simply to make those choices by our vote today we've had six months since the protect america was passed in august of last year to get the job done and that's in that time this legislation has been subjected to scrutiny by two senate committees and there's been significant time debating this legislation on the floor the fact of matter is there is no acceptable excuse to failing to do our duty to do our job the excuses offered for delay are as compelling as the old schoolhouse claim that you know  dog ate my homework i couldn't get it done i say no more excuses no more extensions it's time for congress to come together in a bipartisan fashion in the national security interests of the united states it's specious to say that there is no consequence to another extension and it's the height of irresponsibility to argue that delay is the only responsible choice as america's elected leaders we have a responsibility to keep america safe we cannot simply close our eyes and wish away the terrorist threat it's easy this many years after september the eleventh to be lulled into a false sense of security as time texas further away from that terrible attack on american soil but it's undeniable that the threat from al qaeda and islamic extremists remains in the face of the very real threat of radical islamic terror congress must be resolute and we must eschew attempts to split along bardas in the partisan lines and must embrace bipartisan solutions to our not very real national security problem that's what a vote on this senate intelligence committee bill would reflect a bipartisan solution to a national security challenge that's why it defies credibility to argue that the responsible thing to do is to put the job off for another month the majority leader's plea for an extension implies that the only two choices we have are on one hand an extension for one month and on the other hand no bill it all neither of those is a responsible choice and fact there's a third option and that the option is for the senate to pass a consensus bill that has the bipartisan support of the chairman and vice chairman of the intelligence committee and a bipartisan majority of the senate experts and intelligence community and the president the united states let's be clear about what an extension means an extension means further delay means putting off tough choices it means not only to do so in a time of war but in a time of economic f when we have other work we need to be doing on the floor of the senate that's being taken up unnecessarily by repeating the same arguments over and over again without any conclusion it also means that congress has lacked the courage to relieve some of america's leading companies from the burdens and costs of litigation arising from their cooperation in the war on terror let us remember mr president that the telecommunications companies that may have cooperated with our government at the request of our president and on top of the certification of the attorney general the chief law enforcement officer that what they were being asked to do was within the law to be can to continue to subject them to litigation or doing their civic duty to incur ongoing expense and inconvenience and to risk information that is sensitive to our security coming out during the process is simply not a responsible option some in congress apparently think that these companies should have second guessed the legal representations made by the president and the attorney general in the days and weeks and months following the nine eleven attacks some in congress have argued that the companies had a duty not to cooperate a duty to refuse to assist this nation's intelligence community with tracking terrorists during wartime that is unfortunately how far we have come in this and how off the mark some have come to these companies like every good citizen who cooperates with their government to try to keep america secure and in good faith deserves the protection that we're being asked to give them in this legislation these costly lawsuits have not only put in jeopardy the future cooperation of these firms but also leave critical national security concerns potentially exposed to the discovery process and civil litigation it may be popular in some quarters to bash corporate america but that rhetoric is sorely misplaced in this debate the men and women who manage these companies made a good faith decision to do their patriotic duty to help their government to track terrorists and to save american lives and they should not be punished for it they should be thanked for their cooperation well mr president for congress to allow these birds and losses to continue this long is unfortunate and unjust indeed but for congress to continue to put off the tough choices and leave these companies in legal limbo is not only unfortunate an unjust it's also irresponsible now's the time for congress to decide the question no more excuses no more delays no more extensions to do today the senate can choose a path forward a bipartisan path on critical national security measures and i urge all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to work together to move this time is running out on congressional action to fix faisel the protect america act which congress passed in august to close gaps in our foreign intelligence collection expires this friday feb one two thousand and eight prior to  congressional action in august and held his community was unable to collect viable foreign intelligence without the prior approval of a court and i emphasize in that foreign intelligence this will be the case again if we do not make permanent these changes before august if i intelligence community wanted to direct surveillance and an al qaeda member located in pakistan who is communicating with a terrorist an operative terrorist protect america act temporarily fix the intelligence community's legal gaps the director of national intelligence highlighted some of the critical intelligence gained under the protect america act including inside an understanding leading to disruption of planter's attacks efforts of an individual to become a suicide operative instructions to a foreign terrorist associate about entering the united states efforts by terrorist to train guns  ammunition terrorist facilitator plans to travel to europe identifying information regarding foreign terrorist operatives plans for future terrorist attacks and movements of key extremists to evade a t with the protect america act set to expire congress must act swear before a call collectors are faced with losing this kind of valuable intelligence as a result of inaction by a congress although the protect america act enable the intelligence community to continue its important work congress would be derelict in its duties to merely extend the expiration of this act the senate intelligence committee has been reviewing and drafting f l legislation since april of last year last fall the committee considered and pass the bill that is now before us in december the bill came to the senate floor for consideration of some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle delayed its consideration we are now faced after almost ten months of thorough consideration with the ability to pass legislation that will improve our intelligence collection and which contains located inside the united states and a prohibition on reverse targeting of u s persons which the protect america act does not suffice amendments act makes clear that the  required for intentionally targeting u s persons abroad and requires that any collection be consistent with the fourth amendment most importantly the feis amendments act contains retrospective telecommunication carriers who may have assisted the government in protecting american labs extending the protect america act does not ensure the continued n s a cooperation of those who may have assisted the government with the terror surveillance program after september eleventh the government often needs assistance from the private sector in order to protect national security telecommunication carriers may provide the government access to communication contents and records pursuant to many federal processes including judicial warrant subpoenas title three orders faisel orders attorney general certifications administrative subpoenas national security letters and o ther statutory authorization zz in return they should be able to rely on the government's assurances that the assistance they provide is lawful and necessary for our national security in smith versus n the u s court of appeals for the district of columbia suggested that the government's request to wiretap a home telephone was illegal yet they dismissed the telephone company from any lab military because of the assurances they received from the government a reasonable expectation of legality and their limited technical role in assisting the government and surveillance an issue aided by the government as precedent suggests america's telecommunication car should not be subjected to costly legal battles and potentially frivolous cases yet ones which could expose intelligence sources and methods harming our national security merely for the good faith assistance to the government is necessary and responsible for congress to provide our telecommunications carriers with lab military relief arge my colleagues to support cloture on the rockefeller bond substitute amendment and oppose a simple extension of the protect america act senator rockefeller and bond have worked hard and long hours to make sure that we get it right in this bill that came out of the intelligence committee after many many hours of negotiating debate and hard work and it would be a shame to see this bill not come to fruition not pass us by the at this point in time our intelligence community needs the t president i was talking about some of the proposed amendments and some of the questions that have arisen about this bill there are some who would demand that a court order be obtained anytime a call involves a u s citizen but anyone who understands pfizer or intelligence collection knows that that's operationally impossible for thirty years the intelligence community has used minim procedures when inadvertently intercepted calls to or from non targeted u s persons and so far we are totally unaware of any abuses of this system the that work well they work well when the information was being collected by radio with out of files a court order and they continue to work well because the well trained people who run the n s a operations who are overseen by multiple layers of supervisors inspectors general and attorneys from the department of justice there is no way to know when a terrorist suspect places a call from a location in the middle east whether that person we where he is going to call someone in his country or neighboring country or the u s so if you say that you can  if it goes to a u s person what in of effect you're saying is you can intercept that call because you don't know where that calls going so it means that there will have to be an order for every foreign terrorist surveillance conducted by the n s a and that is totally unworkable we have seen that before that shut the system down and it's unsound policy to require a pfizer court order if a terrorist target abroad calls a u s person that may be the most important call to intercept to protect us from a terrorist attack at any time and time matters that we really mean that but at the caucus not be understood intercepted a massive court filing is prepared and reviewed by government lawyers and operators submitted to the fires a court who must first review the application and supporting amendments i would hope that our enemies are not stupid they would figure out very quickly that they could slow down and bring our intelligence community to a halt simply by placing periodic cause to the united states now there are some who believe that the fires and framework in place  enough to keep us safe and that we don't need the intelligence committee bill i find that comment disturbing it is the fison framework that created significant intelligence gaps threatening the security of our nation it's only because we passed the protect america act that those gaps were closed well mr president i've already spoken about the problems with the judiciary committee bill i want to address some concerns that some ideas raised about the foreign intelligence surveillance court as a court or a fish because we will call it i think our bill out of the intelligence committees try to strike the appropriate balance between providing tools needed to collect intelligence and a meaningful oversight role for congress and the fish there's a lot of misperceptions out there about the court for example as mentioned previously  who suggest the court should decide whether the providers acted in good faith before immunity is granted we were told that this makes sense because the court quote sits twenty four seven and this is all they do they would act in by unquote that's just not acting the fish does not sit twenty four hours a day seven days a week is composed of u s judges from u s district court the country who have their own full case loads and  come to washington d c on a rotating basis simply as a as a enabling legislation says to issue fisk orders as a result it would be very difficult to get them to sit together moreover given the court's organization  facilities it's simply not set up to preside over litigation we were told that this is why that this court was set up at the legislative history and the measures itself and here we just want to advise the senator from missouri that you're going into the time that was reserved for the republican leader president i would close and urge that our colleagues adopt cloture so admiration for the work done by senator rockefeller the committee and senator bond now this is not an easy matter in the intelligence committee has serious work to do and much of what they've done here i agree with and that's why my objections here you'll hear this afternoon are more focused on one aspect of this legislation rather than the cumulative effort on the part of the committee is made but let me also address and i can't be out that the issue will be voting on short and that is cloture because that is a critical issue for all of us aside from the question what are you agree or disagree with various amendments or even the bill we find ourselves in the midst of a parliamentary nightmare in a sense in many ways an event sort of in this position now for almost two months getting them back to a december so much hinges of course on the bill before that america's terrorist surveillance policy well into the next presidential term and beyond the period of six years adopted or even the four years it's been suggested by senator cardin and others depending on the outcome of this debate this legislation has the power to bring that surveillance under the rule of law or to confirm the presence or urge to be a law in his own it has the power to bring the facts of warrantless spying to light and to public scrutiny or to lock down those facts is the property of only the powerful has the power obviously as well to declare that the same law applies to all of us regardless of economic circumstances well connected or not or to set the precedent that some corporations are far too rich far too affluent to be sued that immunity can effectively be can be brought against them whenever wherever you come down on these choices and i know that those of us here have different opinions on that you certainly cannot be neutral in my view none of us can be neutral on a matter like this is one of the most important and contentious pieces of legislation that we will debate in this session or i would argue in any session of congress and yet the senate is frozen today i've objected passionately as my colleagues know director act of immunity but i did not shut out the debate republicans have fro this body since debate began not only last week but actually going back even further and they unwittingly created a perfect microcosm of retroactive immunity right here in this body because both flow from the same impulse setting down the organs of government in this case in the legislation the courts are now because of the procedural nightmare we find ourselves in the united states senate when you are afraid of course you won't get your own way that's why president bush wants his favorite corporation say from lawsuits it would appear that is why the minority party wants this bill say for any and all amendments saved from serious and thoughtful discussion as the committee chair myself as i pointed out the other day i wish i had the privilege that's being requested here by the minority i sometimes wish the bills we passed out of committee with sweep through this body and i came to the floor without a single amendment but that's not how this body works never intended to work that way certainly not how the founders intended it to work now amendments are not entitle to pass but they aren't tied to a fair hearing impaired debate and a fair vote and already can objected strenuously want but it must do so fairly i accept that principle even when it does not go my way even an immunity itself i understand that a minority can abstain forever is it too much do it for the republicans to extend the same courtesy on a bill as important as this one it would be ridiculous to curtail debate to shut out new ideas or rush to a conclusion without even extending the protect america act for a month to give us the time we need because whether you agree with them or not and some i disagree with my south the amendments offered by my democratic colleagues are serious proposals and deserving of serious consideration shouldn't we debate for instance whether or not this new surveillance new surveillance regime autist a inflexible the next presidential term and into the one after that shouldn't we debate whether or not we're going to categorically outlaw unconstitutional reverse targeting or indiscriminate vacuum cleaner collected shouldn't we debate with the president whether or not congress even gets to see the secret rulings of the pfizer courts those are some of the few of the well intentioned proposals that we need to consider before we vote on this bill but across the board the republican answer to those question is absolutely not in every single instance no debate no votes mr president i disagree and i will vote against cloture because we haven't done our job yet he is allowed to vote against cloture because i cannot support the bill as it now stands as my colleagues i think know first the legislation contains the mcgrady's provisions for corporate immunity and i've already made my objection immunity and many many times over the last number of dates it puts the president's chosen few above the law in my view it endorses possibly illegal spying on americans and it strikes a harsh blow against the rule of law i'll continue to fight retroactive immunity with all the strength that any one senator can muster in all of this but i also strongly object to many of the intelligence gathering portions of the bill as well as supporting that i'm included here this bill reduces court oversight of my nearly to the point of symbolism colossal the targeting of americans on false pretenses it opens up new twisted rationale for warrantless wiretapping which is exactly what it ought to prevent it could allow bulk collection of communications of millions of americans as soon as the as administration whether this when our future one has the wherewithal to build such an enormous dragnet and it sets all of these deeply flawed provisions in stone for six years depriving us of the flexibility that we need to fight terrorists for all of those present as well i will vote against against cloture later this afternoon the night the president come to congress to speak to us and to the american people about the state of our union i hope you'll use that opportunity to realize that the senate needs more time to do its guns constitutional duty to debate and consider this important legislation however i'm concerned that he will instead continue to threaten to veto this legislation unless it includes retroactive immunity for the telecommunications industry the president has said that this bill is essential to protecting the american people from enemies who attacked our country that's a quotation so why is he trying to stop it why does he promised to veto it why should he throw it all the way to protect a few corporations  i fear that if we give this in this present what he wants we risk within the whisking weaken the rule of law and place the rights of some of the president's favorite corporations over the rights of ordinary american citizens i would hope that my colleagues would join those of us here who oppose cloture today on the subsidy amendment allow the senate the time it needs to debate and prove pfizer this issue is far too important security of our nation to our civil liberties and to do otherwise as we all know stated over and over again is an historic tension  legislation three decades ago created the means by which that balance could be struck allowing us to do what's necessary to protect us against those who would do us harm while simultaneously guarantee that those rights and liberties we enjoy as americans would be this been a few months even a year in the wake of nine eleven had this administration had a record of by and large supporting the rule of law i would not stand here and demand that we not include retroactive immunity under those circumstance but mr president there has been a pattern of behavior by this administration from the very outset we now know that these warrantless wiretaps began in january or february of two thousand and one not in the wake of nine eleven so even prior to the tragic events of september eleventh two thousand and one this administration began a pattern of seeking warrantless wiretaps on average american citizens here without the court orders provided under the foreign intelligence surveillance act but of course  pattern of behavior by the administration and i don't think i need necessarily enumerate the examples of that pattern beginning with abu ghraib and secret prisons and rendition habeas corpus the u s attorney's office the list goes on and on and on and on i can't onto those mistakes as the rest but they are more than just mistakes they are tragic a tragic examples of this administration's trampling all over the rule of law what we can do and what we can do in the coming days collectively democrats and republicans is pacifies a bill much of which is included in the work of senator rockefeller and senator obama will be some objections obviously and some amendments will be offered but to president we're now only a few days away from the expiration of the protect america act days away from a situation in which the intelligence community will be unable to freely monitor new terrorist targets overseas and we're flirting with disaster and the american people deserve to know how we got in this predicament so let me review it ten months ago the national director of national intelligence ask us to reform the foreign intelligence surveillance act our friends on the other side waited until july to take up a bill that agreed with his recommendations it wasn't until august that congress finally answered his pleas by authorizing for six months the overseas surveillance of foreign terrorist targets was a protection protect america act when our friends on the other side got back on the august break they vowed to quickly address what they did crowd as the shortcomings they protect they were intending as they were intended to along with the executive branch which of course was necessary everyone involved acted with determination deliberation and considerable skill and the process lasted for months it involved numerous hearings briefings and negotiation sessions and the final product was a model of bipartisanship an accommodation across the senate al and with the white house that committee vote was in fifteen to nothing but around here thirteen to two it's almost as impressive but what was perhaps even more impressive is the fact that such a broad coalition of players that come together to meet the minimum standards required of any legislation that replaces the protect america act something that allows the intelligence community to operate without unreasonable and counterproductive restrictions which protects phone carriers from frivolous lawsuits so you try helping helping the a hunt for terrorists and which is guaranteed to be signed into law all of those things are contained in the bond rockefeller rockefeller bond proposal unfortunately it wasn't until just before the christmas break that our friends decided it even turned back to this vital issue and even then we had to listen to a filibuster against buys a reform then when we began this session are democratic colleagues delayed consideration of pfizer reform again by moving to the indian health care bill instead so here we are once again pushed up against a looming deadline during last week's consideration of the pfizer reauthorization the majority said it would not consider sixty vote threshold for votes did not offer time agreement nor did it make any effort to limit the number of amendments and short the senate faces a legislative log jam that ensures that we will let the february first deadline come and go without making a reasonable effort to enact a law now it should have turned out this way the administration to go shoot it in good faith with a democratic majority on the committee that has the technical operational expertise to handle the subject and in the course of painstaking the administration made tough concessions to our democratic colleagues it did this in order to arrive at a fair bipartisan result that would allow it to continue to protect the homeland now that work is being brushed aside the menu of amendments to the intelligence committee bill is little more than an effort to renegotiate this hard won deal and effort to deconstruct the bipartisan intelligence committee bill and reconstruct a minute by minute in the divisive judiciary committee bill that was tabled by a strong bipartisan majority that bill will not repeat will not become law reconstructing the judiciary bill is a pointless exercise and with own fab days until the protect america act expires it's an exercise we did not have the luxury to engage in we can get serious and pass the bipartisan intelligence committee product or we can waste time voting on poison pill amendments that weaken the bill and that will prevent it from becoming law i would urge our colleagues to make the right choice to vote for cloture so that we can continue to protect the homeland against cloture on the thirty day extension we cannot delay this important legislation for another month and of course the president will not sign a thirty day extension that said if we can't complete this bill republicans will not allow this critical program to expire and will offer a short term extension if necessary so mr president to be perfectly clear urge that cloture that there be a yes vote on cloture on the bill no vote on cloture on the thirty day extension amendment to the bill which actually would not achieve a thirty day extension anyway but i think it is a place that we don't want to go on record as having supported because the president wants an et anyway and in the next few days we will consider what kind of short term options might be appropriate to let us get back to this very important piece of legislation so painstakingly put together by the expert leadership of senator rockefeller and senator bond with that  the majority leader i would ask jugglers recognize i followed you as my friends for keeping everyone waiting but it has been long just a matter a minute or so as president and just a few hours president bush will stand cross the way in the house chamber and deliver his final state of the union address this will be his eighth state of the union address from what i've heard in my meetings with the press earlier today who met with him it's a fair bet that in this speech you'll continue the drumbe vice president cheney last week by trying to scare the american people into believing that if he does not get his way on the face of bill now before us america's national security will be gravely jeopardized i've said on more than one occasion in recent days that we face a faltering economy here at home and a failing foreign policy abroad so i call upon all of us democrats and republicans to rise above partisanship i've also said on more than one occasion that we extend our hand to the president and congressional republicans and ask them to join with us genuine spirit of bipartisanship in my twenty years i'm sorry going on twenty six years mr president i've never seen anything quite as cynical and counterproductive as a republican approach to f gave the example my last statement there was a catch twenty two the president put a sense the american people deserve to know that when president bush talks about the foreign intelligence legislation tonight he's doing little more than shooting for cheap political points and we should reject any statements he makes about this members of congress from both parties have legitimate policy disagreements on face of both parties some of us believe that history proves the need for more protections against government abuse others support the law the way it stands now that's appropriate people have different views and opinions on important part of our legislation and our laws in our country but all of us members of congress democrats and republicans want to wage an effective fight against terror all of us democrats republicans want to give our intelligence professionals the tools they need to win this fight against terror without compromising the privacy of law abiding americans both intelligence committees bill and the judiciary committee bill authorize the same surveillance tools our intelligence community needs democrats or republicans stand together all the terrorism fighting components of this bill some democrats including me support the additional privacy protections in the judicial committee bill others are satisfied with the directions in the intelligence committee bill again people are entitled to their opinions mr president but all of us believe that the senate should have an opportunity to vote on these important questions there was a nice piece written on the op ed today talking about how the republicans uptalk a long time all we want  vote if there were ever a time where they should follow their own advice it's now an up or down vote many democrats including chairman rockefeller who has worked so hard on this are going to oppose cloture on the substance because they object we object to the heavy handed tactics we have saw in this legislation this past week republican leader filed cloture on this bill i've been on the floor for just a few hours cloture was talk about trying to figure out what is in the mind of someone who's trying to talk that way let's remember a temporary extension would guarantee all the terrorism fighting tools remain in effect there's absolutely no policy or security problem with an extension all it would do is give us more time to work toward working this out in an uninterrupted basis there is no reasonable to gives an extension before the president to veto one except for political posturing none of us want the current law to expire none of us want that to expire except cheney and bush but if it doesn't expire because  republican tactics surveillance will not and even if they stop us from extending the bill it won't and the surveillance one and all surveillance orders issued under the law we passed last august the protect america act are effective for a year so they will continue until at least august of two thousand and eight of two thousand and this year i'm sorry august of this year even in the last resort of the current law expires our intelligence professionals can get surveillance orders from the fights the law as allowed to expire doing so would send the wrong message but it still is going to allow the collection of this information the safeguards in place ensure that our war on terror will not be adversely affected anyone who says otherwise from the president on down is not being truthful why do democrats seek an extension we believe that bipartisanship is appropriate and possible the economic stimulus package shows us what circumstances are difficult we can work together republican leadership's actions on this fine i said debate and not given us reason for confidence their interest in working with us but we owe it to the american people to give them every opportunity to do so we have requested a thirty day extension repeatedly i have done repeatedly each time the republicans have said no compromise mr president is a two way street bipartisanship is a two way street as i said last week we're willing to pass an extension of current law for two weeks thirty days eighteen months fourteen months fifteen months whatever our colleagues but we need to pass an extension now for going sure that the law doesn't expire and i've explained if it expires what happens house is going out of session shortly they have a retreat this week after tomorrow already democrats have a new several amendments to strengthen the bill senator feingold sought to vote on his amendment provide fines of court documents to offer mehmet sunset the legislation four years rather than six years even that mr president was blocked from even having a vote sooner kenny offered an amendment providing for a report by the inspector clear that vice is the exclusive means by which the executive branch may conduct surveillance blocked by the republicans whether these amendments pass or not we should be allowed to have votes on them no one was saying the senate do we take up bills all the time reported to us by committees this is a little more complicated because we had two committees there's really not often concurrent jurisdiction but there was here what is an eighth grade student could figure out amendments just expect us to follow along centers in time to vote on their amendments now no if someone stalling and you know we don't we've all been through all that if there has it comes a time when you shut off the debate but there is none of that here and with the republicans blocking the amendments i've talked about we haven't gotten to the crucial issue of immunity mispresent i asked i'll use leader time now to please my kind let's not forget the question of retroactive immunity wouldn't be easy for us if president bush had ignored congress an established his own process outside the law but from taking responsiblity for his action the president bullies and threatens a congress he's supposed to important is program is and how it must continue i say to him now that he must consider and reconsider his political posture and ask his colleagues in the cent to support an extension especially when he's going to come and say how much he wants to work on a bipartisan basis we're a deliberative body was set up that way by the founding fathers let us deliberate i urge my colleagues to oppose cloture on the substitute so that the senate can return to considering improving this bill we must pass a bill that gives o authorities the tools they need while protecting the privacy of all americans i urge my colleagues to support the extension so that we can sure that current authority doesn't expire while congress works to pass a new and stronger objection to hearing no objection so water well you know imus consent the mandatory quorum call was waived the question is this is the sense of the senate the debate on amendment number thirty nine eleven offered by the senator from west virginia mr rockefeller senator from missouri mr bond ask two two four eight a bill to amend the foreign intelligence surveillance act nine hundred seventy eight to modernize and streamline the provisions of that act and for other purposes shall be brought to a close the azan naser mandatory under the role the cler intersession tester mr thi and obama greg i just meant mr smith  to nelson of nebraska i mr brown no