Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I don't want to weaken the Patriot Act. I want to repeal it.
After careful deliberation, I voted today to reauthorize the Patriot Act.
The Patriot Act allows and provides a basis for an exchange of information.
Imagine a libertarian president challenging Congress to repeal the PATRIOT Act.
Nearly 75,000 Demand Progress members have urged Congress to fix the Patriot Act.
The Patriot Act is essential to our continued success in the war on terror here at home.
I believe the Patriot Act strikes the right balance needed to protect our freedom and security.
NAFTA and GATT have about as much to do with free trade as the Patriot Act has to do with liberty.
I was a federal prosecutor when we exercised powers under the Patriot Act or under the FISA court.
One of the first items of Congressional business in 2006 will be an effort to renew the USA Patriot Act.
I will not counter the insanity of the PATRIOT Act with an overblown fear of my rights being taken away.
The Patriot Act addresses various subjects. Some sections are beneficial and enhance our national security.
The Patriot Act unleashed the FBI to search your email, travel and credit records without even a suspicion of wrongdoing.
No one in their right mind can say to me with a straight face that the Patriot Act has not aggregated the Fourth Amendment.
Today it is becoming harder to speak out, with the inception of the Patriot Act, the president has legislated free speech to be a crime.
Since 9/11, the U.S.A. Patriot Act has torn down the invisible wall that was perceived as preventing the FBI and CIA from sharing information.
This thing called Patriot Act, through which we abdicated a lot of our civil rights to defend the country against terrorism, it's a four-year story.
I think it's dawning on some Democrats that obstructing the Patriot Act, like they've been obstructing everything else, is bad for them politically.
Congress passed the deeply flawed Patriot Act and authorized the invasion of Iraq. It even gave its retroactive approval to warrantless wiretapping.
For too long, opponents of the PATRIOT Act have transformed this law into a grossly distorted caricature that bears no relation to the legislation itself.
In the last four years under the Patriot Act, we have seen a great increase in the ability of law enforcement officials to investigate and track terrorists.
Since we enacted the PATRIOT Act almost three years ago, there has been tremendous public debate about its breadth and implications on due process and privacy.
The Patriot Act, passed overwhelmingly but hastily after 9/11, allows the FBI to obtain telecommunication, financial, and credit records without a court order.
The PATRIOT Act brought down the wall separating intelligence agencies from law enforcement and other entities charged with protecting the Nation from terrorism.
In a sad twist of fate, the bill to reauthorize the Patriot Act was debated on the floor of the House of Representatives the same day that terrorists struck again.
I really think the Patriot Act violates our Constitution. It was, it is, an illegal act. The Congress, the Senate and the president cannot change the Constitution.
People talk about the Patriot Act that was passed immediately in the wake of September 11. What the Patriot Act did was break down the walls between the various agencies.
While the debate on the Patriot Act is far from over, it is important that all Americans continue in this dialogue and work together to ensure greater security for our nation.
Thanks in part to the Patriot Act, the federal government has been able to demand some details of your online activities from service providers - and not to tell you about it.
I realize there are a lot of folks in my political party who disagree with me on this, but I think the Patriot Act is an important law enforcement tool, and it makes our country safer.
Decisive action has been taken on the home front with passage of the USA Patriot Act, which has strengthened the hand of law enforcement agencies to stop terrorists before they can act.
You'd think after 8 years of things called 'The Patriot Act' and 'No Child Left Behind' they would know that we have figured out the 'Call it what it ain't' PR ploy by now, but... um... no.
In a country where Americans sense, quite genuinely, that their freedoms have been taken away by the government - as in the U.S. Patriot Act, as in NSA surveillance - people feel powerless.
I would have never signed the Patriot Act. I would have never signed the National Defense Authorization Act allowing for arrests and detainment of you and me as U.S. citizens without being charged.
Since its enactment in the weeks following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the tools in the Patriot Act have been used by law enforcement to stop more than 400 terrorist threats to our families and communities.
Sherrod Brown, in the House, was one of 66 members of the House to vote against the Patriot Act, and he continues to vote against the Patriot Act, to deny our law enforcement the tools they need to go against terror.
I remember Congressman Conyers voting against the PATRIOT Act, voting against the Iraq War when it was unpopular to. That tremendous amount of courage that comes with that kind of leadership, I mean, that's what we need.
Prior to the PATRIOT Act, the ability of government agencies to share information with each other was limited, which kept investigators from fully understanding what terrorists might be planning and to prevent their attacks.
The Patriot Act removed major legal barriers that prevented the law enforcement, intelligence, and national defense communities from talking and coordinating their work to protect the American people and our national security.
We are expected to believe that anyone who objects to the Department of Homeland Security or the USA Patriot Act is a terrorist, and that the only way to preserve our freedom is to hand it over to the government for safekeeping.
The Patriot Act is ludicrous. Terrorists have proved that they are interested in total genocide, not subtle little hacks of the U.S. infrastructure, yet the government wants a blank search warrant to spy and snoop on everyone's communications.
We will use all lawful tools at our disposal, and that includes authorities under the renewed PATRIOT Act. We firmly believe that our intelligence gathering tools must enable us to collect the information we need to protect the American people.
How will we defend ourselves if the Patriot Act expires? Well, perhaps we could just rely on the Constitution and demonstrate exactly how traditional judicial warrants can gather all the info we need - and how bulk collection really hasn't worked.
Prior to the passage of the Patriot Act, it was very difficult - often impossible - for us to share information with the Central Intelligence Agency, with NSA, with the other intelligence agencies, and likewise, for them to share information with us.
The original PATRIOT Act greatly increased our nation's ability to share intelligence information, made better use of technology, and provided terrorism investigators tools that have long been available in cases involving illegal drugs and organized crime.
Every American, regardless of their background, has the right to live free of unwarranted government intrusion. Repealing the worst provisions of the Patriot Act will reign in this gross abuse of power and restore to everyone our basic Constitutional rights.
After we were hit on September 11, 2001, we were in a state of national shock. Less than six weeks later, on October 26 2001, the U.S.A. Patriot Act was passed by a Congress that had little chance to debate it; many said that they scarcely had time to read it.
I call it the 'House of Reprehensibles.' We don't have any real political resistance to this growth of the domestic state across the board. So I'm much more focused on that than on the Patriot Act, which is a real effort, however inept, to deal with a real problem.
The 'Patriot Act,' 'Enhancing domestic security,' and 'Protect America' all sound great - until you realize that they're catch phrases for programs that contain roving wire taps without a warrant and the collection and sale of your personal information to the U.S. government.
Since 2001, the Patriot Act has provided the means to detect and disrupt terrorist threats against the U.S. Prior to enactment of the law, major legal barriers prevented intelligence, national defense, and law enforcement agencies from working together and sharing information.