The Patriot Act

THE PATRIOT ACT

TORTURE

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I salute Senator JOHN MCCAIN. He achieved something this week which is historic. He achieved an agreement with the Bush administration on the issue of torture. That took a lot of hard work on his part. He took a 90-9 vote in the Senate with him to the White House, meeting with the President's representatives.

What Senator McCain was seeking is something fundamental. He wanted to reaffirm in law the fact that the United States would still stand by its word and by its values, that we would not engage in torture even though we are in this new age of terrorism and threat to America. He said: This is less about the enemy than it is about us, who we are and what we stand for.

I can recall during the debate on this issue, Senator McCain took the floor and gave one of the best speeches I have heard in this Chamber, a speech only he could give. As a former prisoner of war, a Navy pilot shot down over Vietnam, he was a victim of torture. No one else in this Chamber, fortunately, can speak to it as he spoke to it. But in speaking to it, he reminded us that torture is not American. It is not a good means of interrogating prisoners or coming up with information to make America safer. There was a lengthy debate about whether his provision would be included in the final legislation. Fortunately, the White House has agreed to include it.

I was happy to cosponsor that legislation. I have been raising this issue for the last several years. I know how controversial it can be. A few months ago I had the spotlight focused on me for some comments made at this same desk. But I believe that the issue of torture is one that we have to face forthrightly.

Last week I was traveling in northern Africa and visited with one of our ambassadors. He is an ambassador to one of the Muslim nations. We talked about the challenges he faces with our involvement in Iraq. He said: The controversy about our involvement in Iraq paled in comparison to the controversy in his country about America's role when it came to torture. He said: It is hard for the Muslim population and Arab populations to understand why the United States would abandon a long-term, multidecade commitment not to engage in torture once they were involved in a war involving Arabs and Muslims. He reminded me--and I didn't need to be reminded--that we issue a human rights scorecard each year from the Department of State. Some of the questions we ask of countries around the world are: have you incarcerated someone without charges? Are you holding them indefinitely? Are you torturing them? If the answers are affirmative, we give them low marks.

Today, obviously, those countries are asking whether the Americans live by the same standards they are imposing on others. JOHN MCCAIN's leadership, along with Senator JOHN WARNER, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, resulted in an important agreement to restate the most basic and bedrock principle, that America will not engage in torture. We will not engage in cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of prisoners: First, because it is not American; second, because it invites the same treatment on our soldiers and Americans; and third, because it doesn't work. We have found time and again, if you torture a person they will say anything to make the torture stop. That doesn't give you good information to make America safe. Let me salute Senator McCain for his leadership.

EAVESDROPPING ON AMERICANS

Mr. President, I am troubled by the reports in the New York Times and Washington Post today that this administration, since 9/11, has been engaged in a practice which I thought had been clearly prohibited in America. That is the eavesdropping on individual American citizens, those in America, by major agencies such as the National Security Agency. This all started some 30 years ago during President Nixon's administration. It was an administration which created an enemies list. If your name was on that list, be careful; J. Edgar Hoover would be looking into every aspect of your life that he could. You might be audited by the Internal Revenue Service and you would be carefully watched and monitored.

We decided that wasn't a good thing for any President to do. We made it clear that if you had good reason to eavesdrop on an American in the commission of a crime, involvement in terrorist activity, that was one thing. But to say you could do it with impunity, without any legal approval, that was unacceptable.

Now we find it has been done for several years and several thousand Americans have been the subject of this wiretapping and eavesdropping.

Mr. President, that is a troubling development. It says that this administration has decided when it comes to basic rights of Americans, they are above the law, not accountable; they don't have to go through the courts, don't have to follow the ordinary judicial process. That is something that Congress has to stand up and fight. We have to make it clear that even in the age of terrorism, basic freedoms and liberties of Americans have to be respected.

I hope that as soon as we return from this holiday break the appropriate committees will initiate investigations, determine what has occurred, whether it has gone too far. I sincerely hope, on a bipartisan basis, that my colleagues will rally to once again assert the fundamentals when it comes to the right of privacy in America. We want to be safe in America but not at the cost of our freedom. That, unfortunately, has become an issue because of these most recent disclosures.

http://thomas.loc.gov/