madam speaker , i am really disappointed that the gentleman from california ( mr. rohrabacher ) xz4003430 , whom i consider to be my friend , has said that the extensive oversight and the 12 hearings that the judiciary committee has done on a bipartisan basis is irrelevant . 
because what he is saying is that the results of that oversight and the results of those hearings really do not make any difference when we are dealing with the extension of the patriot act . 
i think they do . 
because if you accept the argument that he has made , then the congress should never do oversight because the results of the oversight are not going to make any difference in the policy . 
to repeat myself , first , the inspector general has not found a civil liberties violation . 
secondly , of the 16 provisions where law enforcement powers were expanded , there were no allegations of misuse by the justice department in 14 of those 16 provisions . 
and when we had the hearings before the judiciary committee subcommittee on crime , the minority had at least one and , in some cases , two witnesses that could come in and present any information that they wanted to present . 
now , the way we make sure that there is not government overreaching in our system of government is to give the courts the power to declare unconstitutional overreaching by government agencies . 
the fourth amendment is alive and well , and the supreme court of the united states will never allow the congress or state legislatures to ignore the provisions of the fourth amendment . 
there has been not one of the 16 expanded powers in the patriot act , signed by president bush in october of 2001 , that has been declared unconstitutional . 
there has been no declaration of unconstitutionality of any of those powers . 
but what has been declared unconstitutional was a provision on national security letters that was put in the patriot act as a renumbering , but which was enacted as a result of a bill that originated in the other body in 1986 . 
that bill was signed by president ronald reagan . 
to the gentleman from california , you are wrong . 
madam speaker , i reserve the balance of my time . 
