mr. speaker , i thank the gentleman for yielding me time .  mr. speaker , reauthorizing the patriot act before it expires on december 31 is literally a matter of life or death because it is helping us to win the war on terrorism .  since we passed the patriot act in 2001 , we have convicted 212 terrorists , and we have frozen $ 136 million in terrorist assets .  passing the patriot act is purely a matter of common sense .  is it not common sense that we give law enforcement the same tools to go after terrorists as they now have to go after mafia dons and drug dealers ?  is it not common sense that we can now share data between the intelligence community and the law enforcement community ?  is it not common sense that we can now track deadly terrorists even though they cross jurisdictional lines or switch cell phones ?  now , some members of congress want to postpone this legislation or even filibuster it .  the worst thing that these critics can say about the patriot act is that supposedly law-abiding citizens will have their book store and library habits monitored .  that is a totally bogus allegation .  in reality , a prosecutor seeking this information must go before a federal judge , get a court order and prove that it is a matter of international terrorism .  now , how many times has that happened since we first passed the patriot act in 2001 ?  exactly zero according to the u.s. attorney general .  i urge my colleagues to vote yes on the patriot act and yes on the underlying rule .  