Carl Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I wonder if we can amend the unanimous consent agreement. There is nobody that I know of on this side at the moment who wants to speak in support of the amendment, so I am wondering if it would be agreeable to the ranking member to have two Members on his side go and then two Members on our side, should that occur.

Mr. LEVIN. In that case, I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEVIN. I don't want you to agree if you think it is not fair.

Mr. LEVIN. I am in opposition to the amendment. I want to be fair.

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, first, let me thank Senator Whitehouse for the extraordinary effort he has made to go after counterfeit parts. We have incorporated his legislation in our legislation. It is a critically important part of our legislation. But his leadership has been early, often, and strong on this issue, and we commend and thank him for it. Hopefully, when this amendment gets passed, there will be a recognition of the critical role the Senator from Rhode Island played. It is an ongoing saga to stop counterfeiting coming in, mainly from China. This is a major effort to stem that flow.

Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, I wonder if the Senator from California might offer those amendments right now and call them up so we can get a vote on them. We are trying to vote on amendments, and I am wondering if she could call up one of those amendments, we could debate it, and then vote on it.

Mr. LEVIN. Which amendment is the larger one?

Mr. LEVIN. Is that one of the three?

Mr. LEVIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. LEVIN. The Christmas Day Bomber, I believe he was taken off that plane in Detroit, he was interrogated by the FBI; is that correct?

Mr. LEVIN. That is exactly what we provide in this amendment. That is the question Senator McCain just asked: If this administration or any administration decides that they want to provide the civilians with opportunity to interrogate, for whatever length of time they want, they are going to set the procedures under this language in our bill; is that not correct? The President will determine the procedures. If he wants those procedures to be civilian control until some point, that is going to be up to the President. We may disagree with that or not.

Mr. LEVIN. There are Members of our body who very strongly disagree with that.

Mr. LEVIN. But that is not who is going to decide. We are not going to make the decision that the person is going to be given or not given civilian interrogation. That decision is going to be made by a President who sets the procedures for interrogation and will decide whether to provide a waiver; is that correct?

Mr. LEVIN. I would think it would be a very bad policy.

Mr. LEVIN. Not necessarily. I think there are occasions where the civilian interrogation may be actually more workable.

Mr. LEVIN. That is correct--indefinitely. But how long that lasts is a procedure the President is going to determine.

Mr. LEVIN. Under military custody, yes.

Mr. LEVIN. That is correct, providing flexibility which we should provide in order for the executive branch to have what they want, which is the flexibility. There, I think, many of our colleagues believe there is too much flexibility. But whether that is right or----

Mr. LEVIN. But whether they are right or wrong, the facts are in this bill there is flexibility. It is carefully laid out. The President will lay out the procedures and notify the Congress of those procedures. But the point is, we do provide the very flexibility that the President of the United States has sought. We give them that flexibility, and it seems to me for the characterization of this bill to be that there is no flexibility, that somebody must go into military detention, is inaccurate. We ought to debate policy, but we should not debate what the words of a bill are. One other thing. Is it not correct that when it is said, as the Senator from California did, that this provision has unprecedented and new authority for indefinite detention of American citizens without trial, that as a matter of fact we had in section 1031, in the bill filed months ago, language which would have exempted American citizens? It was the administration that wrote 1031 the way it is now and has approved of that language; is that not correct?

Mr. LEVIN. I am sorry?

Mr. LEVIN. That is correct.

Mr. LEVIN. The Senator is correct. The Senator has led the way to have this kind of additional protection for those prisoners. There is greater protection in this bill because of that review process than there is without this bill.

Mr. LEVIN. If I could, one other question, because the Senator is an expert on this subject. Is it also not true for the first time in terms of determining whether a person is, in fact, somebody who needs to be detained under the law of war--for the first time when that determination is made, that person is entitled to a lawyer and entitled to a military judge?

Mr. LEVIN. And it is the law for the first time; is that not correct?

Mr. LEVIN. Would the Senator yield?