madam speaker , there is no question that congress must give law enforcement the tools it needs to prevent terrorist attacks against the american people .  when the congress approved the patriot act 4 years ago , we recognized that the serious nature of the threat required giving law enforcement broad new powers to help prevent it .  there is also no question that the house and senate should not allow the patriot act to expire on december 31 .  indeed , nearly all of the 166 provisions of the patriot act are already the permanent law of the land .  four years ago , the bush administration and the leadership of the house rushed the original patriot act through the house without full debate or the chance to make improvements to the bill .  there is no need to rush an imperfect bill through the house today simply to accommodate a 6-week holiday recess .  while the conference report makes a number of improvements to the measure the house approved last summer , further improvement is needed .  in particular , i am disappointed that the bill before us does not include language to change how first-responder grants are allocated .  we need to make the formula risk-based .  just last week , the bipartisan members of the former 9/11 commission awarded congress and the bush administration a grade of f for our failure to distribute homeland security funds on the basis of risk .  the 9/11 commission made this recommendation 17 months ago .  how can we continue to justify a first responder grant formula that awards wyoming $ 37.94 per capita while michigan -- a key border state -- receives just $ 7.87 per capita ?  if we 're not going to fix this problem now , then when will we make this change ?  in a number of other areas , the senate-passed version of the bill included key safeguards that were removed from the conference report .  in particular , the senate bill contained important protections relating to the business and library records provisions of the act that have been so controversial with our constituents .  the senate-passed bill required the government to show that the records sought by the government have some connection to a suspected terrorist or spy .  the standard contained in the conference report is much weaker .  it would allow the government to compel the production of business or library records merely by showing that the records are `` relevant '' to a terrorism investigation .  in addition , unlike the senate-passed bill , the conference report fails to protect the records of innocent americans collected by means of national security letters .  the fbi now issues more than 30 , 000 national security letters a year to obtain consumer records from communications companies , financial institutions , and other companies .  these national security letters are issued without the approval of a judge and permanently bar recipients from telling anyone besides their lawyer that they have been served .  unlike the senate-passed bill , the conference report does not provide for meaningful judicial review of the national security letter nondisclosure requirement .  under the bill before the house , the records collected under national security letters can be kept forever and even used for data-mining .  we need better privacy safeguards in this area .  i will vote against passage of this legislation today because i am convinced that we can write a better bill that safeguards both our vital security interests and basic american liberties .  to that end , i have cosponsored legislation that calls for a three-month extension of the current patriot act to give congress additional time to perfect this legislation .  we should take the time we need to do the job right .  