madam speaker , i thank the gentleman from michigan for the time . 
madam speaker , i am opposed to the reauthorization of the patriot act . 
first , i do not believe many of the so-called law enforcement tools will make us any safer . 
i am probably one of a few members of congress who has been spied on by his own government . 
during the civil rights movement , an agency in the mississippi state government called the state sovereignty commission kept files on me and countless other people working for change . 
i might add that none of us did anything illegal other than just convene and talk about how we would change our state . 
from this experience , i have known that , when government has the authority to spy on its own people , it is almost always and will misuse that power . 
nothing good will come from many of the tools in the patriot act , and i fear that it will lead to more misuse of power . 
it is too broad an authorization to continue to give the government these powers , such as to search the library records or to place roving wiretaps without a warrant that at least should say what phone is being tapped . 
i am also opposed to the conference report because it fails to include the provision in the house bill that would allocate more homeland security funds based on risk . 
the 9/11 commission explicitly recommended that homeland security funds be allocated based on risk . 
the Ð9/11 commission members recently said that if the house funding measures were passed , congress would have received an a grade instead of an f on fulfilling its recommendation . 
we must focus our scarce homeland security resources on areas that are most at risk of terrorist attack . 
we can not yield to politics . 
we must fulfill the commission 's recommendation by passing the house proposal . 
without that measure in this patriot act reauthorization , i can not support it . 
