PATRIOT ACT OF 2001 -- (House of Representatives - October 12, 2001

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, we recognize that the chairman of the full committee tried hard to preserve some of our process; but powers beyond, it seem to me, his control have given us the least democratic process for debating questions fundamental to democracy I have ever seen.

But I want to get to substance while continuing to deplore this outrageous and unfair procedure whereby the product that we voted on in committee cannot even be offered. No amendments. No amendments.

But I want to explain what the substantive problem is. What we decided to do in committee, correctly, was to give to the law enforcement officials all the expanded powers they asked for, because we want to be protected. And electronic evolution requires an evolution in the powers. But we simultaneously tried to put into effect a full set of safeguards to minimize the chance that human beings, fallible ones, would abuse the powers.

The problem is that the bill before us today preserves the fullness of the powers, but substantially weakens the safeguards against the misuse of the powers. The major safeguard was the sunset. Knowing that within 2 years they would have to come back for a renewal of these powers was the best way to build into the bureaucracy respect and avoid abuse. A 5-year sunset greatly diminishes that. They can figure, hey, we have got a couple of years and if we come in in the fifth year and we can say, Well, there weren't any problems lately, that is one thing.

This bill may well not, in fact, be the final bill. It could go to conference with the Senate, which has no sunset at all and that sunset may recede into the sunset. We also created an Assistant Inspector General and called it an Assistant Inspector General for the purposes of trying to monitor this. That office has been downgraded.

We are trying to do something very delicate. We are trying to empower law enforcement and simultaneously put constraints on them. A bill that gives the full powers and weakens the constraints is an inadequate bill.