ladies and gentlemen of the house , let me say from the outset that every member of this body wants to make sure that law enforcement officials have the tools they need to protect the american people from terrorism . 
i also know that all of us want to make sure that we protect our civil liberties and freedoms as we fight terrorists anywhere in the world and in this country as well . 
i support the majority of the 166 provisions of the patriot act . 
in fact , in the first original patriot act , i helped write many of them in a version of the bill that passed the committee on the judiciary 36-0 , but a bill we never saw after it left the committee on the judiciary . 
it was replaced in the middle of the night in the committee on rules . 
i did it , i wrote the provisions because i believe as technology changes , our laws need to keep up and change as well . 
i believe our law enforcement officials need to be able to talk with one another and connect the dots to prevent terrorist attacks . 
in some sense this is not really about the patriot act , the debate that is going on here , or even most of the 16 provisions scheduled to sunset this year . 
it is about four areas that are subject to abuse and need greater checks and balances , and i would like to suggest what they are . 
first , the business records , 215 , allows the fbi to obtain any record considered relevant to an investigation . 
this includes library books , medical records , and bookstore purchases . 
the provision has been difficult to oversee since targets of fbi investigations under the law are not permitted to tell anybody about it , even their lawyer . 
the department of justice and the chairman of the committee on the judiciary say that this provision has never been used on libraries and bookstores . 
however , the american library association has reported that more than 200 requests for library records have been made since september 11 . 
now , concerning national security letters , the second very serious issue here , which allows the fbi to obtain financial , telephone , internet and other records relevant to any intelligence investigation without judicial approval . 
again , this is for any intelligence investigation , which means it does not even have to deal with terrorism , or even a crime . 
like section 215 , recipients are forever prevented from telling anyone they received a letter under penalty of law . 
thank goodness a new york federal court struck down this provision as unconstitutional . 
shame on an administration that keeps using it anyway . 
third , under section 213 , the government can sneak and peek into your business , your office , your car , your home , anywhere , even if there is no emergency . 
this means the government can break into your home and search it without telling you . 
it was not in the bill originally reported by the committee on the judiciary and was slipped in by the department of justice or the administration when the bill was first written a few years back . 
this provision has been subject to exceedingly widespread abuse . 
it has been used more than 240 times , and it has been delayed sometimes for over a year before anybody can be told what happened , that they were broken into , they were burglarized , they had things taken out of their home . 
worse yet , only 10 percent of these uses had anything to do with terrorism , which is the whole purpose of the patriot act . 
finally , it is clear to me that we need to have additional sunsets in this legislation . 
what is wrong with sunsets ? 
that is why we are here , because the bill is being sunsetted in more than a dozen ways . 
if we have learned anything over the last 4 years , the only thing that makes the administration give us any information on oversight on the use of these new powers was the sunset provision . 
we have also learned of abuses during our oversight that has led to us making modifications . 
given this history , it simply makes no sense to make these provisions permanent or near permanent . 
and 10 years is not a sunset ; 10 years is semi-permanent . 
the lessons of september 11 and london , and even today in london , are that if we allow law enforcement to do their work free of political interference , give them adequate resources and modern technologies , we can protect our citizens without intruding on our liberties . 
we all fight terrorism , but we need to fight it the right way consistent with our constitution and in a manner that serves as a model for the rest of the world . 
i believe that the committee-passed legislation that is on the floor right now does not meet that test . 
as such , it does not warrant passage until it is corrected . 
mr. chairman , i reserve the balance of my time . 
