mr. chairman , i thank the gentleman for yielding me this time .  mr. chairman , we live in a democracy where we respect checks and balances .  the patriot act is part of a pattern of lacking checks and balances .  military tribunals , not part of the patriot act but part of a pattern of reduced checks and balances .  military tribunals were presented with no public trials , no presumption of innocence , no guilt beyond a reasonable doubt .  secret evidence could be used , no judicial review .  part of that pattern is the enemy combatant where the administration designates someone as an enemy combatant , can arrest them and hold them indefinitely without charges , never having an opportunity to contest the allegations .  we have seen material witnesses , people arrested under the material witness laws , held indefinitely , no charges .  that is the context that we are considering the patriot act .  those are not in the patriot act , but we are considering the patriot act in that context .  we considered a bill on the same day of the second bombing in great britain with no money for port security , no money to secure our rails or bus transportation , no money for first responders .  mr. chairman , i oppose this bill , frankly not so much for what is in the bill but for what is not in the bill , what we are not going to do today .  we can have plenty of privacy without threatening security , and we missed an opportunity to require standards for wiretaps and `` sneak and peak '' searches .  we missed an opportunity to require probable cause of a crime before invading people 's privacy .  we missed the opportunity to limit these provisions and extraordinary powers to terrorism .  ninety percent of the `` sneak and peak '' searches have nothing to do with terrorism .  remember that when the government invades one 's privacy , it is not robots and computers ; it is government employees who may be neighbors looking at one 's medical records , listening to their private conversations , sneaking and peaking into their homes without their knowledge or consent .  the patriot act gives broad expansive powers to government agents to invade privacy .  the major check on any abuse in the act has been the sunset provisions .  provisions will expire if they are abused .  during our deliberations , we got a lot of cooperation on those provisions that are sunsetting .  when asked information on those , we got the information .  some of it came in right before the hearing , but because of the sunset we got a lot of cooperation .  because of the sunset we found no abuses in the libraries .  that is because of the sunset .  although government agencies have gone to at least 200 libraries for information , that has not been abused because they know if they abused it they would lose the benefit of that provision .  medical records have not been abused .  there has not been any unnecessary sharing of sensitive information of a personal nature .  we have not run criminal investigations without probable cause using the provisions of the patriot act .  they could have , because of the broad discretion in the bill , but they did not , because of the sunset .  without the sunset provision , the abuse could take place .  fourteen of the 16 sunset provisions are removed , and the two that are left , 10-year sunsets , which will get us through this administration , clean through the next presidential term and most of the way through the next .  mr. chairman , we need to defeat this bill , go back to the committee on the judiciary and establish a much better piece of legislation that will protect our privacy and ensure our safety .  