USA FREEDOM Act of 2015--Motion to Proceed
Floor Speech
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Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I was struck by what the Democratic leader said. He laid out the history of this. We are here in a manufactured, unnecessary crisis. It is a manufactured, unnecessary crisis
Last year, by an overwhelming majority, the Senate voted to make improvements to the PATRIOT Act. The legislation made reforms to the provisions that have now been declared illegal. We did that but could not get past a filibuster. We had 58 votes. Normally, you think of 51 votes being enough to pass a bill. The Democratic leader will recall how hard he worked to try to get that bill through. The Republican leader said: No, we will wait until next year. Well, next year came. We have wasted so much time. There has not been a single public hearing. There has not been any action on an alternative to the USA FREEDOM Act.
But, I say to my friend from Nevada, he is absolutely right when he says the House passed the USA FREEDOM Act by a 4 to 1 margin. It was an overwhelming vote, Republicans and Democrats together, to get rid of the illegal parts of the PATRIOT Act, to pass an improvement. We ought to just take up the USA FREEDOM Act and pass it.
If we were allowed to have a straight up-or-down vote in this body, I guarantee you, a majority of Senators--both parties--would vote for it.
So I just wanted to say that while the leader was on the floor.
I now ask for recognition in my own right.
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Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, before I begin my comments on the USA FREEDOM Act, I am going to speak for a moment on a personal matter.
REMEMBERING BEAU BIDEN
Mr. President, Marcelle and I have known Beau Biden since he was a child. I am the longest serving Member of this Senate. When I came here, there was one Senator who was one term senior to me; that was Joe Biden. I knew of the tragedy his family had gone through, and I cherished the times, with his office right near mine, when his sons Beau and Hunter would be there with him. I watched them grow up. I saw Beau Biden become the epitome of what a State's attorney general should be. That is a model all attorneys general throughout the country could have followed. Progressive, worried about improving the law, improving peoples' lives--he did that.
I know how much we appreciated it when we would see him and Hallie at an event, when Marcelle and I would get a chance to talk with them. It was like picking up a conversation that had ended just a few minutes before.
I remember one thing especially about Beau. I was in Iraq during the war. It was a day when it was well over 100 degrees outside. I was being brought to a place where there was going to be a briefing, being zipped into this building. There were a number of soldiers wearing T-shirts, shorts, and sidearms playing ball outside in this 110-, 120-degree heat. As I went to the door, one of them turned around and gave me a big wave with his arm blocking his face. I was not sure who it was. I kind of waved back. Pretty soon, he came to the door. It was Beau Biden. I remember we gave each other a big hug. He was there as a captain in the Delaware Reserves. He was decorated for his service. We talked about what he was doing. He was praising the men and women who worked there. Nothing about anything he might be doing; he was praising everybody else. It was such a refreshing moment being with him, and it was so typical of who he was as a person.
I told him that I have a procedure that if I am in another country and I am with our military, that if there are Vermonters there, I always take their names and I ask them if they have family back home in Vermont. Most of them do. I get their phone number, and as soon as I get back, I call their mother or their father, their husband or their wife, brother or sister, whoever it might be, and say: I saw a member of your family; here is what they are doing; they look well, and all that.
So I told Beau, I said: Look, I have known you since you were a youngster. I will call your father as soon as I can and tell him you are behaving yourself, and you are doing a good job. We laughed at that.
Shortly thereafter, I got on the phone we had available to us to go through the Whitehouse switchboard to reach the Vice President. Then I started to talk about the procedure I have, and Joe Biden started to laugh. He said: I just got an email from Beau that he had seen you there and that I should be expecting a call from you. We talked about what a great job Beau was doing. You could hear the pride in his father's voice. You could hear his pride. It was a pride that was deserved.
I remember Joe saying, when we were first here in the Senate--the two of us--he would be going home every night on the train. Why? Not as much even that the kids needed him, but he needed them.
Finally, when he met Jill, the boys were telling him: You should marry her.
So I grieve for them. Marcelle and I sat there and cried last night when we heard the news. I think, what a wonderful family. I think about a life cut too short--far too short.
Mr. President, I can and will say more later.
Mr. President, on the matter the distinguished Democratic leader was talking about, the USA FREEDOM Act, let's just take it up and pass it. Opponents of this bipartisan, commonsense legislation have run out of excuses. I see this as a manufactured crisis, and it is. This matter should have been taken up and voted on up or down a month ago. There is only one viable and responsible path remaining: Pass the USA FREEDOM Act that passed overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives. Pass it and send it to the President's desk and he will sign it. If we do not pass it, then those parts of the PATRIOT Act that most of us agree on are going to expire at midnight.
The irony of it is that the USA FREEDOM Act of 2015 is a carefully crafted, bipartisan compromise that both protects Americans' privacy and keeps this country safe. Before they were talking about, we are going to keep the country safe but Americans' privacy--not so much. This is a bill that does both.
The legislation would end the NSA's bulk collection of Americans' phone records. It adds significant new reforms to limit government surveillance. It increases transparency and also promotes greater accountability and oversight--something the original PATRIOT Act did not have.
The bill is the product of countless hours of painstaking negotiations with key Members--both Republicans and Democrats--in the House and the Senate, men and women I respect so much because they want to do what is best for the country. We have negotiated with the NSA, the FBI, the Justice Department, privacy and civil liberties groups, the technology industry, and other key stakeholders. We brought everybody together. When we began, we wondered if that would be possible. We did it. That is why the USA FREEDOM Act has such strong support, including from groups as diverse as the National Rifle Association and the Center for American Progress.
This broad consensus is what we saw by the overwhelming support it received in the House. They passed the USA FREEDOM Act by a vote of 338 to 88. Some in this country say that no branch of government could have a vote that strong to say the Sun rises in the east. Certainly there has been no major piece of legislation in years where we have seen a vote such as that--338 to 88.
But now a minority in the Senate has now twice blocked the USA FREEDOM Act from even getting a debate on the Senate floor. We were sent here not to vote maybe but to vote yes or no.
Last November, even though we had had all kinds of committee hearings on this, we heard complaints that there had not been enough of a committee process on the bill and that the Senate should wait to address Section 215 under the new Republican leadership. So the Republican leader led a successful filibuster against a bill which still had a majority of Members in this body voting for it. But what has happened in this Congress? Not a single public hearing on this issue; no committee process. And then last weekend, the Senate was blocked from even debating the House-passed bill and considering amendments.
Opponents of reform have failed to introduce any legislative alternative to the bipartisan USA FREEDOM Act, the bill which reforms many problems of the PATRIOT Act. They have come up with no legislative alternative other than a clean extension, which we know has no chance of becoming law. Of course, it makes no difference because at midnight it stops being the law.
The time for excuses and inaction has passed. The American people and the intelligence community professionals who strive to protect them deserve better.
We have a few hours remaining to work things out and pass the USA FREEDOM Act, but there is no room for error. There is very little time. Again, I said it is a manufactured crisis. The deadline to act is midnight tonight. The House will not return to the Capitol until tomorrow, after the deadline has passed. We could talk about passing a 100-year extension if we wanted; it makes no difference because the time will have passed. So if the Senate does not pass the House-passed USA FREEDOM Act or if we amend it in any way, the authorities are going to expire.
I have said repeatedly--and my cosponsor of the USA FREEDOM Act, Senator Lee, agrees with me--that we would like to have a debate on our bill and consider amendments. Because opponents of reform have run out the clock and jammed the Senate, we are not left with very much time.
Let's get this done today. If we pass the USA FREEDOM Act, the President could sign it tonight and the intelligence community could move forward with the certainty it needs to protect the American people.
Some may argue that if you had a short-term extension--which, of course, we do not have--they have said: Well, maybe we could work out some kind of a compromise bill. But let there be no misunderstanding: The USA FREEDOM Act is a solid, carefully negotiated compromise. For all those Senators on either side of the aisle who have not spent the hours and hours and hours, as Senator Lee and I and our staffs have spent, maybe they do not know the work that went into this--again, how you get groups from the left to the right supporting it.
It would be irresponsible to kick the can down the road once again, relying on the false hope that the House will agree to pass a short-term extension--something they said they will not do--and that we will somehow be able to agree on a half-baked alternative that has yet to be introduced in either body and most assuredly would not pass the House.
So do not be fooled or tempted by the promise of a short-term extension. That would guarantee nothing. Well, wait a minute. I take that back. Passing a short-term extension does guarantee something: It guarantees the expiration of these authorities at midnight tonight. It guarantees more uncertainty, more litigation, more risk for the intelligence community, and a repeat of the chaotic brinksmanship later on down the road with another manufactured crisis.
I know there are some who worry that the bill does not go far enough when it comes to reform. Well, then where were they in coming up with a better idea? If this passes, the USA FREEDOM Act would be the most significant set of reforms to government surveillance since the PATRIOT Act was enacted. The reason we are here to even debate it is that then-majority leader Dick Armey in the House and I put in sunset provisions. So we will have to show responsibility and vote, as the House did by a 4-to-1 margin.
Our bill--Senator Lee's and my bill--would not just end the NSA's bulk collection under Section 215, it would add new transparency and oversight reforms to other surveillance authorities, and it would be a solid foundation upon which we could build our future reform efforts.
I have been in the Senate for more than 40 years. I have learned that when there is a chance to make real progress, we ought to seize it. But I also know we cannot let this be the end of our fight for greater privacy protections, transparency, and accountability. I remain committed to fighting that fight on behalf of Vermonters and all Americans.
So the choices before us this evening are clear: Either let these authorities expire completely or pass the USA FREEDOM Act. There is no more time for political maneuvering or fearmongering or scare tactics. It is time for us to do our jobs--to debate and then to vote. Don't duck the vote. Vote up or down on the bill the House gave us. Stand up and be counted either for or against it. As Senators, let's have the courage to do that.
The USA FREEDOM Act is a reasonable, responsible way forward, and we should pass it tonight. But don't duck behind not doing anything and pretend that is a solution. I don't think there is a single American, Republican or Democrat, who would believe that was a responsible solution.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
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