madam speaker , i support this patriot act conference report , and appreciate the time and effort chairman sensenbrenner has put into bringing it to the floor . 
we know americans will continue to be a terrorist target as long as we stand for freedom and democracy . 
that lesson was learned on september 11 , 2001 . 
we must do everything legally possible to protect americans from attack . 
this conference report helps law enforcement officials prevent , investigate , and prosecute acts of terror . 
the original patriot act was a long overdue measure that enhanced our ability to gather crucial intelligence information on the global terrorist network . 
it passed by a margin of 98-1 in the senate and 357-66 in the house . 
but certain provisions of the patriot act expire at the end of this year . 
this conference report renews many of those provisions and improves on the original legislation . 
it makes permanent the ability of law enforcement officials and intelligence officials to communicate about on-going investigations . 
it also makes permanent provisions that allow the government to do its job by obtaining warrants and gathering information during terrorism investigations . 
america is a safer country today than before september 11 , 2001 , because of the patriot act . 
over 200 people in the united states have been charged with crimes tied to international terrorist investigations and have been convicted or have pled guilty because of the patriot act . 
law enforcement and intelligence agencies must continue to have the powers they need to protect all americans . 
i urge my colleagues to support this conference report . 
also , i am placing in the record an op-ed that appeared in the washington times on december 13 , titled `` preserving the patriot act. '' preserving the patriot act the proverbial rubber is about to meet the road . 
this week , the u.s. congress will determine if the u.s.a . 
patriot act -- the most important domestic security legislation since september 11 , 2001 -- will be re-enacted in slightly weakened form or allowed to lapse in a number of its key provisions . 
since the consequences of the latter would be manifestly detrimental to the war for the free world , legislators opposed to the act have offered to extend it for a short period -- a gambit they hope will allow them to dumb it down still further . 
but make no mistake : additional delay and more negotiations will not improve either the bill or the national security . 
to the contrary , they likely would jeopardize both . 
that would be particularly true if the patriot act 's most vociferous critics on the left and their less numerous ( and most unlikely ) bedfellows on the right get their way . 
they tend to characterize the act as an assault on the basic freedoms enshrined in the bill of rights and have sought far-reaching changes in the tools it provides law enforcement to detect and prevent terrorist plots inside the united states . 
in reality , the patriot act is an eminently sensible overhaul of the government 's antiquated counterterror arsenal , an overhaul that reflects the realization we can not hope to fight a 21st-century war using 20th-century legal instruments . 
consider two elements critics have most insistently demanded be repealed : ( 1 ) the socalled `` library records '' provision ( section 215 ) and ( 2 ) the authorization of what have been derided as `` sneak-and-peek '' search warrants ( sec . 
213 ) . 
the dust-up over government access to library information is truly a manufactured controversy . 
for one thing , libraries are not mentioned anywhere in the pertinent patriot act provision . 
moreover , law enforcement has been authorized for decades in ordinary criminal cases to subpoena library records ( along with any other business records ) . 
this has not had any noticeable effect on americans ' reading habits . 
the patriot act only made business records ( including those of libraries ) available on roughly the same terms in national security cases as they have long been in criminal cases . 
the reason should be obvious : it makes no sense to enshrine libraries as safe havens for terrorist planning . 
in fact , as we now know , many of the september 11 hijackers used american and european libraries to prepare the run-up to the attacks . 
relevant literature , including bomb manuals and jihadist materials , have been staples of terrorism prosecutions for more than a decade . 
privacy extremists of organizations like the american civil liberties union ( aclu ) nevertheless have reacted to the patriot act 's much-needed business records law as if the gestapo had seized office in the united states . 
similarly , the patriot act did not -- as its critics would have us believe -- create new and unsavory `` sneak-and-peek '' warrants . 
it does , however , allow agents to search premises but delay notification of the search to subjects of a terrorism investigation . 
the patriot act 's notification provision is no different in principle from the legal notice previously required to persons intercepted in a court-ordered wiretap . 
in such situations , notification of the target has routinely been delayed for weeks or months after the eavesdropping ends . 
doing so can be absolutely critical to the arrest and prosecution of suspected perpetrators : delayed notification allows the government to complete its investigation without giving the subjects a heads-up that would certainly cause them to flee or destroy evidence . 
the patriot act , in the so-called `` sneak-and-peek '' arena , established consistent standards federal courts must follow in determining whether to permit delayed notification . 
previously , a hodgepodge of different rules were applied in various jurisdictions . 
this is precisely the sort of fairness and equal protection congress should provide -- yet , it has been criticized sharply for doing so in the patriot act . 
on both the business records and delayed notification sections of the patriot act ( among others ) , the stance of the american civil liberties union and like-minded critics seems to have an ulterior motive . 
they not only oppose such legislation in the patriot act . 
they appear intent on reopening settled case law on use of these authorities on crimes unrelated to terror . 
congress should not encourage , let alone facilitate , such efforts by holding open the patriot act for further revision and adulteration . 
the original patriot act as a whole infringed only modestly on our civil liberties and did not meaningfully intrude on the privacy rights of law-abiding americans . 
we need to keep in mind , moreover , that if its precautions fail to prevent some future terrorist attack , we are likely to see impassioned demands for greater security measures at the expense of our freedoms . 
since few , if any of us relish that prospect , we need to ensure the patriot act retains its core provisions and authorities -- and remains an effective tool for securing the home front in the war for the free world . 
