Mike Lee

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. I thank my friend, Senator Barrasso. I find it interesting that what the Senator has observed on the streets of towns such as Evanston, Cheyenne, and Gillette in Wyoming is backed up by a recent poll conducted by Gallup. That poll shows Americans understand that a lot of money Washington spends is wasted. This Gallup poll shows that the average American believes Washington wastes 51 cents out of every $1 it spends--51 cents. More than half of every dollar that hard- working Americans earn and send to Washington gets wasted. Congress and the President should be working together to target, reform, reduce, and eliminate wasteful spending that the American people are noticing. They should be working to get rid of and reform ineffective programs. Meanwhile, the President is threatening to make cuts to government spending as painful as it can possibly be. Instead of targeting waste, the President is using scare tactics to persuade Americans that cuts have to come first from important services such as law enforcement, national security, border patrol, first responders, and educators. Just today, the administration announced it was going to furlough schoolteachers who educate the children of military families on U.S. military bases, recognizing, of course, that most school systems are operated at the State and local level. They are funded primarily at the State and local level. The administration started focusing on educators who teach on base to military families, suggesting that those teachers would have to be furloughed. Republicans have a better idea. The Senate Budget Committee--and in particular the ranking Republican serving on the Senate Budget Committee--has found that the cost of President Obama's recent golf vacation with Tiger Woods cost Americans an amount of money that, if saved, would have allowed us to prevent the furlough of 341 Federal employees. Can the President cancel a vacation or two in order to avoid some of these furloughs? That is the question that has prompted us to start this information campaign that we refer to as ``Cut this, not that,'' as depicted in this graphic. This graphic shows under ``Cut this,'' golf vacations by the President, and under the ``not that,'' it shows military base teachers. That is what we should be focusing on. That is where we ought to prioritize. We need to identify those areas where there could be a lower priority attached to something we are already spending money on. ``Cut this, not that'' sends a message to the President and the American people that Washington should be setting spending priorities rather than wasting their hard-earned tax dollars. I ask the Senator--through the Chair--how can it be that this administration chooses to cut border law enforcement, first responders, and educators instead of the fraud and waste that is so rampant in the government?

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for leave to engage in a colloquy with Senator Barrasso for a period of time not to exceed 15 minutes.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, the President of the United States has spent the last few weeks campaigning around our great country at taxpayer expense, telling Americans about what he characterizes as the catastrophic impact of the sequester. He said, for example, that the sequester will visit hardship on a whole lot of people. He said it will jeopardize our military readiness, it will eviscerate job-creating investments in education and energy and medical research. He said the ability of emergency responders to help communities respond to and recover from disasters will be disregarded. Border Patrol agents will see their hours reduced. FBI agents will be furloughed. He said Federal prosecutors will have to close cases and simply let criminals go. Air traffic controllers and airport security will see cutbacks, which means more delays at airports across the country. He said thousands of teachers and educators will be laid off and that tens of thousands of parents will have to scramble to find childcare for their kids. And he also continued: Hundreds of thousands of Americans will lose access to primary care and preventive care such as flu vaccinations and cancer screenings. Today we see the predictions of doom and gloom have not come to pass. We have seen that many of these statements have been severely exaggerated, if not disproven. People in my home State of Utah have found the effects of the sequester to be not quite what the President predicted. One of our local Utah news stations reported that ``there were no signs of sequester pain'' at the airports. When asked about sequestration, one Utahn responded: ``If they can't handle a 2 percent reduction in spending then I guess we need to get better and brighter,'' meaning we need to get better and brighter people running our government. Other press reports indicate the administration's doomsday claims have misled the public. The Washington Post reported that the Education Secretary's claims about teacher layoffs turned out simply not to be true. And Politico recently published a story showing the President's claims about some capital staff getting pay cuts to be false. I ask Senator Barrasso, after all these scare tactics over the last 2 weeks, does the President have a credibility problem with the American people when it comes to the sequester?

Mr. LEE. I thank the Senator. It is important for us to recognize that all these observations draw back to one central conclusion, which is that the sequester and wasteful spending we see so rampant throughout our Federal Government is the natural product of the failure by the majority leadership in the Senate to work with Republicans to pass a budget. Last year, in the Senate, Republicans proposed 3 different budgets and received as many as 42 votes. That is 42 more votes than the President's budget received in this body last year or the year before or in the House last year or the year before. The majority party in the Senate--those in charge of this body and elected to lead in this body--have refused even to propose a budget for the country for more than 1,400 days. We have spending priorities. I am sure my friends across the aisle have spending priorities as well. It is time we do the right thing for the American people. We need to sit down and have an open and honest dialog with the American people and with each other. We need to hammer out these ideas and come up with a budget that fairly and accurately represents the priorities of the American people. We need to pass a budget, and I urge my colleagues to do so. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. LEE. Madam President, I rise today to speak in opposition to the nomination of Caitlin Halligan to be a circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The D.C. Circuit is arguably the most important Federal appellate court in our country's judicial system, with primary responsibility to review administrative decisions made by many Federal departments and executive branch agencies. It has also served, in many instances, as a stepping stone of sorts for judges later appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. As a result, the Senate has a longstanding practice of carefully scrutinizing candidates to the D.C. Circuit. When evaluating particular nominees, we also carefully consider the need for additional judges on that very court. In July 2006 President Bush nominated an eminently qualified individual named Peter Keisler to fill a seat on the D.C. Circuit. Mr. Keisler, whom I know personally, is among the finest attorneys in the country and is also among the finest individuals I know. Because of his nonideological approach to the law, Mr. Keisler enjoys broad bipartisan support throughout the legal profession. Despite these unassailable qualifications, Democratic Senators blocked Mr. Keisler's nomination. He did not receive any floor consideration whatsoever, not even a cloture vote, and his nomination languished in the Judiciary Committee. At the time a number of Democratic Senators sent a letter to the Judiciary Committee chairman arguing that a nominee to the D.C. Circuit ``should under no circumstances be considered--much less confirmed--before we first address the very need for that judgeship.'' These Senators specifically argued that the D.C. Circuit's comparatively modest caseload in 2006 did not justify the confirmation of an additional judge to that Court, even though this was a position that by law already existed. More than 6 years have passed, and Ms. Halligan has been nominated once again to that very same seat on the D.C. Circuit--the same seat for which Peter Keisler was nominated--but the court's caseload remains just as minimal as it was then. According to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, the D.C. Circuit caseload is so light that the number of appeals pending per judicial panel is 54 percent less than the average for Federal courts of appeal. With just 359 pending appeals per panel, the D.C. Circuit's average workload is less than half that of other similar appellate courts. The D.C. Circuit caseload has actually decreased since the time Democrats blocked Mr. Keisler. Indeed, since 2005 the total number of appeals filed is down over 13 percent. The total number of appeals pending is down over 10 percent. Some have sought to make much of the fact that since 2005, two of the court's judges have taken senior status, leaving only seven active judges on the D.C. Circuit today. But the court's caseload has declined so much in recent years that even filings per active judge are only slightly higher than they were in 2005. Of course, that does not account for the six senior judges on the D.C. Circuit who continue to hear appeals and offer opinions on a regular basis. Their contribution--the contributions of the senior judges on that court--is such that the actual work for each active judge has declined and the caseload burden for D.C. Circuit judges is less than it was when Democrats blocked Mr. Keisler on the basis of a declining, insufficient caseload. Indeed, the average filings per panel--perhaps the truest measure of the actual workload per judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals--is down almost 6 percent since that time. In each of the last several years, the D.C. Circuit has cancelled regularly scheduled argument dates due to the lack of pending cases. Those who work at the courts suggest that in reality the workload isn't any different today than it has been in the past. According to the Democrats' own standards, and particularly when there are judicial emergencies in other courts across the country, now is not the time to confirm another judge to the D.C. Circuit. It is certainly not the time for us to consider confirming a controversial nominee with a record of extreme views with regard to the law and the Constitution. Make no mistake, Ms. Halligan is not what we would call a consensus nominee. The Senate has already considered and rejected her nomination. Nothing material has changed since that time. Many of my colleagues have discussed a wide range of Ms. Halligan's views, so I will limit myself to one example. In 2003, while serving as Solicitor General for the State of New York, Ms. Halligan approved and signed a legal brief arguing that handgun manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers should be held liable for criminal actions that individuals commit with those guns. Three years later, in 2006, Ms. Halligan filed another brief arguing that handgun manufacturers were guilty of creating a public nuisance. Such arguments amount to an invitation for the courts to engage in sweeping judicial activism. The positions she took are both bewildering and flatly inconsistent with the original understanding of the second amendment rights all Americans enjoy. In conclusion, as measured by the Democrats' own standards and their own prior actions, now is not the time to confirm another judge to the D.C. Circuit, and it is certainly not the time to consider such a controversial nominee for that very important court. The Senate has already spoken and rejected Ms. Halligan's nomination. I urge my colleagues once again to oppose her confirmation.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a special class of people who are critical to the success of any U.S. Senator. During the recent Super Bowl game, one advertisement stood out among all the others. It was an advertisement based on a tribute taken from the great American Paul Harvey. It was entitled ``So God Made a Farmer.'' While I respect and admire farmers greatly, especially those I know from Utah, I am also certain that my colleagues in this Chamber will agree that when it comes to this institution, we can rightly change that statement ever so slightly to say, ``So God Made a Chief of Staff.'' My first chief of staff Spencer Stokes is returning to Utah. He is also returning to his family and to private life after 2 extraordinary years serving me in my office. I offer this in tribute to him and to all great chiefs of staff who labor here on Capitol Hill. When God looked down on the Senate, He realized that Senators alone could never keep things running and He said, I need a caretaker. So God made a chief of staff. He needed someone whose first thought in the morning and last thought at night would be about helping and serving a Senator; who would rise before dawn and organize the day, set the strategy, deal with the thick and thin of things, and steer the Senator away from bad meetings, bad policy, and bad people; someone who would work all day in and out of the office, would skip holidays, birthdays, and parties in pursuit of their service, who would stay past midnight waiting for a vote, and then be willing to get up at the crack of dawn the next morning to do it all again. So God made a chief of staff. He needed someone with thick skin, strong will, and at the same time a soft touch; strong enough to herd cats, yet gentle enough to comfort a grieving constituent or staff member; someone to call BS, tame the cantankerous bureaucracy of government, creatively solve problems big and small, and patiently listen to a hostile constituent with an axe to grind, and then tell that same constituent to come back again real soon--and mean it. So God made a chief of staff. God said, I need someone who can shape a staff, shine shoes, horse trade for furniture and office space, navigate a litany of ethics and rules requirements, and play the role of cruise director for countless constituent tours of Washington, DC; someone who will put in a full 40 hours by Tuesday at noon, and then put in another 72 hours on top of that by the end of the week. So God made a chief of staff. He had to have someone willing to sprint at double speed to stay ahead of a news story, and yet stop on a dime and pivot to help the real people of this country, no matter the consequences, no matter the circumstances, and regardless of what the press might be doing at the moment. He needed someone who, when the Senator becomes surrounded by ``yes'' men is willing to say humbly yet firmly and resolutely, ``No, sir.'' So God made a chief of staff. He said, I need somebody strong enough to catch arrows, take heat, endure withering criticism, and patiently listen to angry voices; somebody who is just fine with little prominence, praise, prestige, or perks, and who above all is fiercely loyal and forever has the Senator's back. So God made a chief of staff. I am fairly certain that when God looked down on a newly elected Senator from Utah during the final months of 2010, He knew that any old chief of staff wouldn't do. So, in my case, he actually chose a farmer--a turkey farmer, to be specific--from Bothwell, UT, named Spencer Stokes. Spencer has been a truly outstanding chief of staff. Doing the heavy lifting and providing the Herculean effort required to set up an office and build a staff from scratch proved to be Spencer's forte. It proved to be easy for him--or at least he made it look easy. He has an eye for detail like no other, though we occasionally need to remind him to ``zoom out.'' Straight chairs in the conference room, straight desks, and even straight ties all set the stage for straight talk about issues and policy and serving constituents. Spencer's love of Utah and its people is unequaled. As a first order of business, he set out to make my office something of an embassy for my State. So when you walk into our office, you are actually walking quite literally into Utah. From the art on the walls to the naming of the conference rooms, from our legendary JELL-O Wednesday to the staff reading of the smalltown Utah newspapers each week--everything leads to an experience in our office, and everything in our office is an experience of Utah. Spencer will long be remembered and appreciated for his handwritten notes, the best night tour in DC--a true story--bringing people together, confetti cannons, Utah fry sauce, lots of laughter, and a tireless commitment to make bad things good and good things even better. From Spencer's perspective, there are no small players in this great institution that is the Senate. He did not just preach that philosophy, he lived it every single day he was here. As a testament to that, we noted that when we asked him to provide a list of all the people he wanted invited to his farewell party, at the top of Spencer's list there were people who were not necessarily of high status. No, the top of the list was reserved for the people who really make this place go: cashiers and cooks, security personnel, guides and junior staff from nearly every corner of this building. I salute Spencer Stokes for his service to this Nation, to this institution, and to the people of Utah. I salute Spencer for his service to me and my family. I will forever be thankful that God made a chief of staff and especially thankful for a particularly extraordinary chief of staff, Spencer Stokes.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, today I would like to address a provision of the Violence Against Women Act, S. 47, that is of great concern. Title IX of VAWA provides tribal courts with special jurisdiction over non-Indians who are charged with crimes of domestic violence. While title IX requires tribal courts availing themselves of this special jurisdiction to provide the non-Indian defendant ``all other rights whose protection is necessary under the Constitution,'' I am concerned that such proceedings have the potential to deprive U.S. citizens of crucial due process rights, especially without further connection to the existing Federal court system. First, title IX currently requires a defendant to be tried by an impartial jury drawn from sources that ``reflect a fair cross section of the community.'' We are always concerned that the population from which a jury is drawn not result in bias against a defendant who may not be part of the same race, culture, or religion as the jurors. While the population of many Indian lands consists of a wide variety of both Indians and non-Indians, many parts of Indian country are populated by Indians who have close ties to one another but limited interaction with non-Indians. I believe we must seek to minimize the potential for bias against non-Indian defendants under such circumstances. Second, in State and Federal courts, the defendant has several options with which to challenge the validity of the court's rulings. Under the special jurisdiction laid out in title IX, the defendant lacks both the ability to remove his case to Federal court when appropriate and the ability to appeal a decision to a Federal appeals court. While many tribal courts have proven to be as consistent and fair as traditional courts, the possibility of removal and appeal is key to the oversight that U.S. citizens rightfully expect in criminal proceedings. For these reasons I respectfully urge my colleagues to oppose S. 47.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk. I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I stand today and urge my colleagues' support for my amendment to this bill. I appreciate the eloquent arguments made by my friend and colleague, the Senator from New York, a moment ago. She is correct to point out that people have suffered as a result of this storm. My heart goes out to them. Anytime my fellow Americans find themselves in a position of need, we want to address that situation very carefully and make sure we do the right thing, make sure people are not overlooked. As we do that, and especially as we do something such as that in the way we are being asked to do it here, we must also consider how our actions here might have other implications down the road. We have to stop and consider that we are more than $16 trillion in debt and we are adding to that debt at a rate of more than $1 trillion every single year. The amount of money we spend in interest on our national debt now stands at a little over $200 billion a year and is expected to grow significantly in the next few years, such that by the end of this decade--perhaps much sooner--we are likely to be paying close to $1 trillion a year just to pay the interest on our national debt. It is because of considerations such as these that we put in place certain spending caps, in connection with the Budget Control Act, in the summer of 2011. It is for this same reason I am asking that we consider capping this, subjecting this same amount, this money we are being asked to spend here, to the same caps. In other words, what I am suggesting is that we find a way to offset our spending for this bill by stretching it out over the next 9 years, capping what we spend. All we have to do to offset what we are being asked to spend here is to cut our discretionary spending by one-half of 1 percent over the next 9 years. As we look at our economic realities, as we look at the fact it is going to be very difficult in coming years to fund everything we need to do through the Federal Government, this is the approach we have to take with regard to new spending. If we are being asked to spend money, no matter how important the cause, to the tune of more than $50 billion in one fell swoop, I think we owe it to the good people of the United States of America, the good people who depend on so many things the Federal Government does--things as wide ranging as defense at one end of the spectrum and entitlements at the other end of the spectrum and everything in between--we owe it to them to consider how our actions today might forestall, might complicate, might impair our ability to fund those programs down the road. It is for this reason I think we need to offset this spending. We can do it by cutting only one-half of 1 percent of our discretionary spending over the next 9 years. For that reason I urge each of my colleagues to support this amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. LEE. I call up my amendment.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, in just a moment I will be offering an amendment to S. Res. 15. The purpose of this amendment is to protect this institution as the world's greatest deliberative legislative body. The hallmark characteristics of this body that make it distinct, that make it both great and deliberative, include the fact that as individual Senators we are supposed to have the right to participate in an open and robust debate that includes an open amendment process. This is historically one of the things that has defined this institution. It is naturally the outgrowth of the fact that pursuant to article V of the Constitution, each State of the Union is entitled to equal representation in the Senate. So as we are talking tonight, we have to remember that we are not talking about the rights of the minority or the majority. We are talking about the rights of each individual Senator having been duly elected by the voters in his or her State. I have a concern that some of the implications of S. Res. 15 could undermine this characteristic of the Senate. In other words, S. Res. 15, while crafted with the very best of intentions, could be applied at some point so as to undermine this right of each and every Senator to offer an amendment. What my amendment does is to guarantee that once this procedure, the procedure under the standing order created by S. Res. 15--once it has been invoked, every Senator in this body would have the right to file, postcloture, a germane amendment to the pending legislation. I think the history, the custom, and the tradition of this body and all the things that have made this body great require nothing less than that. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment once we bring it up. I yield my time.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, it is important that we begin the long overdue process of reforming the way the Federal Government responds to catastrophic disasters. Too often Federal disaster relief has been reactive, bureaucratic, arbitrary, and billions of dollars are spent. Sometimes that happens with little or no accountability. Resources go unused, goals are not met, and redtape delays recovery. In the end, it seems Washington focuses sometimes solely on the price tag rather than on the people we are trying to help. The current model assumes that politicians and bureaucrats in Washington are best suited to decide where, when, and how best to allocate resources during an emergency, but common sense and decades of experience tell us otherwise. It is the people on the ground--local officials and emergency responders, of course, but also individuals, families, and voluntary organizations--who are best equipped to help communities respond and recover from disasters. As I looked into these issues, it became clear to me that even as the Federal Government has distributed billions for recovery with the right hand, regulations and bureaucracy have choked the recovery process with the left hand. Our recovery policy needs to be both more flexible and more consistent. Flood victims on the east coast deal with the same issues as flood victims in the gulf. Yet they are often faced with different rules and requirements. Federal policy should be clarified so that local officials and private citizens understand the process before a disaster occurs rather than having to deal with it and figure it out after the fact. My amendment would create permanent, substantive regulatory reforms to assist victims of all disasters. It would create no new Federal program or taxpayer burden. It would instead remove redtape and provide temporary but immediate regulatory relief for disaster victims and relief volunteers. It would make it easier for a family to access savings to begin immediate recovery. It would temporarily waive certain regulatory burdens for people providing essential services after a disaster. It would expedite shipping to ensure we can get critical materials to areas affected by a disaster. Most importantly, my amendment would make these reforms automatic so that communities could begin rebuilding immediately and without having to wait for Washington, DC, to act. These are important and I believe overdue reforms, and they represent a good first step toward improving our approach to disaster relief. I am pleased with the positive response this proposal has received so far, although I understand that some of my colleagues have concerns that a few of these substantive changes merit additional discussion and consideration. I believe these reforms ought to be permanent fixtures of Federal emergency response policy, and ideally they should be part of a more comprehensive package to overhaul how we respond to Federal disasters. I have spoken with my good friend Senator Hatch, the ranking member of the Finance Committee--the committee in which many of these reforms will and should properly be debated. He has expressed an interest in working with me on these reforms in the new Congress. I look forward to and encourage all of my colleagues to join me in a serious and meaningful dialog about these critical issues. Amendment No. 3373, as Modified, Withdrawn Mr. President, with that understanding, I withdraw my amendment because I am confident that a broader discussion will be good for the country and will result in reforms that will eliminate waste, facilitate quicker recovery, and deliver assistance to Americans most severely affected by disasters.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we call up amendment No. 3373, as modified.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, no one disputes the vital importance of our national security. Indeed, in Federalist No. 41, James Madison noted that ``[s]ecurity against foreign danger is one of the primitive objects of civil society,'' and he emphasized that such security ``is an avowed and essential object of the American Union.'' Government officials have a solemn duty, particularly in the age of global terrorism, to help ensure that the American people are safe and secure. Yet at the same time, the government also exists to do a lot more than just promote security. Its most fundamental purpose is to protect our natural and inalienable liberties. Safeguarding individual rights and liberties is the bedrock of American Government. In the words of our Nation's founding document, the Declaration of Independence, it is ``to secure these rights [that] Governments are instituted among Men.'' In our quest for ever-greater security, we must be mindful not to sacrifice the very rights and liberties that make our safety valuable. As Benjamin Franklin put it, ``Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.'' I worry that in seeking to achieve temporary safety, some of the authorities we have given the government under FISA may compromise essential rights and liberties. In particular, I am concerned about the government's ability, without a warrant, to search through FISA materials for communications involving individual American citizens. I worry that this authority is inconsistent with and diminishes the essential constitutional right each of us has ``to be secure . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures.'' We do not know the precise number of communications involving American citizens that the government collects, stores, and analyzes under section 702 of FISA. Whether this number is large or small, I believe we must enforce meaningful protections for circumstances when the government searches through its database of captured communications looking for information on individual American citizens; otherwise, by means of these so-called backdoor searches, the government may conduct significant warrantless surveillance of American persons. I believe this current practice is inconsistent with core fourth amendment privacy protections and needs to be reformed. During consideration of FISA in the Judiciary Committee, Senator Durbin and I offered a bipartisan amendment to address this very problem. The language of our amendment is identical to that offered by Senators Wyden and Udall during consideration of FISA by the Select Committee on Intelligence. The amendment clarifies that section 702 does not permit the government to search its database of FISA materials to identify communications of a particular U.S. person. In effect, it would require the government to obtain a warrant before performing such queries involving an American person's communications. The amendment is limited in scope. It excludes from the warrant requirement instances where the government has obtained an emergency authorization, circumstances when the life or physical safety of the American person targeted by the search is in danger and the search is for the purpose of assisting that same person, and in instances where the person has consented to the search. Moreover, the warrant requirement would apply only to deliberate searches for American communications and would not prevent the government from reviewing, analyzing, or disseminating any American communications collected under FISA and discovered through other types of analysis. FISA rightly requires that the government obtain a warrant anytime it seeks to conduct direct surveillance on a U.S. person. Indirect surveillance of U.S. persons by means of backdoor searches should be no different. No one disputes that the government may have a legitimate need to search its FISA database for information about a U.S. person, but there is no legitimate reason why the government ought not first obtain a warrant, while articulating and justifying the need for its intrusion on the privacy of U.S. persons. Our constitutional values demand nothing less. Unfortunately, we will not be voting on such an amendment later today, so our reauthorization of FISA will include a grant of authority for the government to perform backdoor searches, seeking information on individual American citizens without a warrant. I believe such searches are inconsistent with fundamental fourth amendment principles. For this reason, I cannot support the FISA reauthorization, and I urge my colleagues to oppose the bill in its current form. I would like next to speak about a few amendments I think would make some improvements to this legislation, nonetheless. I would like to first speak on the Merkley-Lee amendment, which would require declassification of significant FISA Court opinions. The FISA Court is authorized to oversee requests for surveillance both inside and outside of the United States. Given the sensitive nature of these requests, it is necessarily a secret court, a court whose rulings, orders, and other deliberations are and remain classified. Yet, although much of the court's work must properly be kept confidential, it must not operate without meaningful oversight. Beyond the straightforward application of the law to specific and sometimes highly classified circumstances, FISA Court rulings may include substantive interpretations of governing legal authorities. As is true in every court called on to construe statutory text, FISA Court interpretations and applications are influential in determining the contours of the government's surveillance authorities. Unlike specific sources of information or particular methods of surveillance collection, which are properly classified in many instances, I believe the FISA Court's substantive legal interpretation of statutory authorities should be made public. A hallmark of the rule of law which is a bedrock principle upon which our Nation is founded is that the requirements of law must be made publicly available--available for review, available for the scrutiny of the average American. The Merkley-Lee amendment establishes a cautious and reasonable process for declassification consistent with the rule of law. Its procedures are limited in three key respects: First, the pathway for declassification applies only to the most important decisions that include significant instruction or interpretation of the law. Second, declassification must proceed in a manner consistent with the protection of national security, intelligence sources and methods, and other properly classified and sensitive information. Third, the process contemplates instances where the Attorney General determines declassification is not possible in a manner that protects national security. In such cases, the process requires only an unclassified summary opinion or a report on the opinion that happened to remain classified. This modest and bipartisan amendment will help ensure that we are governed by the rule of law, that government activities are made by applying legal standards known to the public, and that we remain, in John Adams' famous formulation, ``a government of laws and not of men.'' I would like next to speak on the Wyden amendment to require a report on the privacy impact of FISA surveillance. The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 gave the government broad authority to surveil phone calls and e- mails of people reasonably believed to be foreigners outside the United States. Despite the intent that this authority be directed at noncitizens who are located abroad at the moment the surveillance is collected, officials have acknowledged that communications by Americans may be swept up in the government collection of those same materials. I believe it is critical for both Congress and the public to have access to information about the impact of these FISA authorities on the privacy of individual Americans. Only with such knowledge can we reasonably assess whether existing privacy protections are sufficient or whether reforms might be needed. Yet senior intelligence officials have declined to provide in a public forum the necessary information to such discussion and such analysis. In particular, it is essential that we learn the extent to which Americans' communications are collected under FISA, whether this includes any wholly domestic communications, and whether government officials subsequently searched through those communications and conducted warrantless searches of phone calls and e-mails related to specific American persons. This modest compromise in this modest, commonsense amendment requires the Director of National Intelligence to provide this information and report back to Congress regarding the privacy impact of the FISA Amendments Act. Given the sensitive nature of this information, our amendment provides for necessary redactions to protect core national security interests that would be important to our country and help keep us safe. Providing Congress with answers to these critical questions should be a relatively uncontroversial exercise. It should be a no-brainer. Only with such information can we do our job of ensuring a proper balance between intelligence efforts on the one hand and the protection of fundamental individual rights and liberties on the other hand. Finally, I would like to speak on the Paul amendment, the Fourth Amendment Preservation and Protection Act. The fourth amendment protects the right of the people to be secure in their persons, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures. At its core the Constitution protects our right to be free from unwarranted government intrusion in our affairs absent probable cause, which the government must set forth with specificity to a court in an application for a warrant. It is undisputed that absent exigent circumstances, consent, or a warrant, the government may not intrude upon a person's home and search through his papers and personal effects. But we no longer keep our most sensitive information solely in the form of physical papers, physical documents, and other tangible things. The explosion of data sharing and data storage has made our economy more responsive and more efficient, but it also creates the potential for government abuse. Congress has a fundamental responsibility to protect the individual liberties of Americans by ensuring that the Constitution's core fourth amendment protections are not eroded by the operation of changed circumstances, by new techniques that are made possible and in some cases made necessary by new technology. But Congress has failed to do this. Some court rulings have likewise fallen short of protecting the full scope, the full spirit of the fourth amendment as it applies to our world of complex data sharing. Courts have attempted in good faith to determine whether individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in different kinds of information that they might share with third parties, sometimes online, but the results of many of these rulings are a varied and unpredictable legal landscape in which many do not know and cannot figure out whether they can rely on the fourth amendment to protect sensitive information they routinely share with others for a limited business purpose. Congress needs to act to preserve the fourth amendment's protections as they apply to everyday uses, including routine use of the Internet, use of credit cards, libraries, and banks. Absent such protections, individuals may in time grow wary of sharing information with third parties. I am cognizant that this area of the law is complex. It is full of changes. It is full of instances in which we have to undertake a very delicate balancing act. Nevertheless, much work remains to be done to ensure that the fourth amendment protections are here and that they are real and that they benefit Americans and they do so in a way that does not interfere with legitimate law enforcement and national security activities. We must not shy away from the task simply because it is hard. It is daunting, but it is possible and it is necessary. Congress must act to preserve Americans' constitutional right to be secure in their persons, their papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken.) The Senator from Montana.

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, Nelson Mandela said, ``Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.'' In Utah, Weber State University President Ann Millner has lead the charge to increase, improve and enhance higher education opportunities for anyone who has sought them. After 10 years of distinguished service she is stepping down from her post and I rise to honor her today. Before being selected president of the university, Ann served Weber in a variety of capacities including vice president for university relations, associate dean of continuing education, assistant vice president for community partnerships and director of outreach education in the school of allied health services. President Millner brought with her a well-rounded resume of leadership in education gained at several different universities. She served as education coordinator of the medical technology program at Vanderbilt University, instructional developer in medical technology at Thomas Jefferson University, a lecturer at the school of health professions, Southwest Texas State University, and associate director of continuing education at the Edmonda campus of Gwynedd-Mercy College. Ann has given her career to the pursuit of improving educational opportunities around the country and that motivation has been central to her administration at Weber. In 2002, Ann was selected as president of the university from a pool of 55 possible candidates. Regent George Mantes said, ``In selecting a president of Weber State University we looked for someone who could lead a university that serves over 17,000 students and who would also be seen as a community leader for Northern Utah. We had terrific people to choose from and feel confident that in selecting Dr. Millner we have found the right person to fill both of these important roles.'' Mr. Mantes and the selection committee's confidence in President Millner has paid off. Under her leadership Weber State University opened a new campus in Davis and enrollment increased from 17,000 to 25,000. The university has added a number of new programs, certificates, baccalaureate and graduate degrees including seven masters degree programs and countless online course work which all serve to both enhance and expand the educational opportunities offered to students. Weber has gained particular acclaim for its growing engineering Computer and Electronics Engineering Technology department, which focuses on training students in the innovations and technologies of the future. In 2010 President Millner announced the ``Dream Weber Program,'' one of the many scholarship and outreach programs her administration developed to make higher education a possibility for those who would otherwise not have the opportunity. The new and upgraded facilities on Weber's campus stand as a powerful symbol of the legacy President Millner leaves behind. In addition to an entire new campus in Weber, President Millner oversaw the construction of the Hurst Center for Lifelong Learning, a two-story facility dedicated to helping provide students with opportunities to continue education. She also oversaw the opening of Wildcat Village, a residential housing facility that serves over 500 students with a fun, low-cost housing experience. She also oversaw the construction and opening of Elizabeth Hall, a state-of-the-art classroom building which features multimedia capabilities, writing and tutoring centers and enough classroom space to offer more classes than any other building on campus. These three buildings exemplify some of President Millner's major accomplishments during her presidency: to increase focus on education as a lifelong pursuit, to increase educational opportunities and to enhance educational experiences with cutting-edge technologies and facilities. President Millner brought with her a vision of the collaborative relationship the university would have with the surrounding northern Utah community. In 2008, Weber State received the Carnegie Foundation's Classification for Community Engagement, an award recognizing the collaboration ``between educational institutions and local, state, regional, national and local communities for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources.'' Under her leadership, Weber State University also has taken part in the Utah Science, Technology and Research (USTAR) Initiative, which brings local businesses and industries together with educational institutions to ``help commercialize high potential inventions, enhance the climate for innovation and entrepreneurism and stimulate the creation of local enterprises.'' The initiative provides students with the opportunity to gain first-hand business experience and has had a tremendous positive impact on the regional economy. In the statement announcing her resignation, Ann quoted William James: ``The best use of life is to invest it in something that will outlast it.'' She followed by saying ``the work you are doing at this university will long outlast our time here. Our students, their families, and generations to come--all will be changed by what you are doing and what the university will continue to do in the future!'' While Ann may have been addressing her remarks to the students, they are certainly just as applicable to her own efforts. Ann's tremendous vision and leadership has catapulted Weber State University to national recognition and a growing reputation for educational excellence. Sharon and I thank her for her service and for the charge she has led to increase the quality and reach of education within the great State of Utah.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Madam President, today I wish to honor one of Utah's finest, MG Brian Tarbet, the Adjutant General of the Utah National Guard. After 12 years of leadership with the Utah National Guard and 39 years of highly decorated service in the United States Military, General Tarbet is retiring, closing a transformative chapter in Utah's history. General Tarbet's military career began in the U.S. Army Reserve in 1973, where he served on active duty until 1975 and then joined the Army National Guard in 1976. From 1976 he served in the 142nd Military Intelligence Battalion and was then appointed Commander of the 300th Military Intelligence Linguist Brigade in 1993. He led the 97th Troop Command in 1996 and from September of 2001 he directed the mobilization, deployment and redeployment of virtually all units of the Utah Army and Air National Guard in support of the Global War on Terrorism. The Utah National Guard has units that specialize in intelligence, special forces and aviation which have been particularly important to the War on Terrorism, and in 2003-2004, 80 percent of Utah's reserve units were mobilized or on alert, which was among the highest in the National Guard. The Guard also provided assistance in the gulf coast in 2005 to the victims of hurricanes Rita and Katrina and to the U.S.-Mexico border in support of Customs and Border protection operations. General Tarbet's awards and achievements include the Legion of Merit, Meritorious Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, Army Reserve Components Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal, Armed Forces Reserve Medal, the Army Service Ribbon, the Army Reserve Components Overseas Training Ribbon, Utah Medal of Merit, Utah Joint Commendation Medal, Utah Achievement Ribbon, Utah Joint Staff Service Ribbon, Utah State Partnership Program Service Ribbon, Utah Service Ribbon, Utah Emergency Service Ribbon, and the 2002 Winter Olympic Games Service Ribbon. In 2002, just months after the September 11th terrorist attacks, Salt Lake City was slated to host the Winter Olympic games. Security was a tremendous concern with talk of cancelling the games altogether. With the entire nation on high alert, General Tarbet commanded 4,500 National Guardsmen from 25 States in the security operation. The games were a tremendous success, and the security was lauded for its effectiveness and unobtrusiveness. The games served as a triumphant American moment at a time when the nation needed it most. The good will of the Utah National Guard extends far beyond the borders of our own State, and guided the men and women of the Guard to places where their service was needed most. Winston Churchill said, ``The price of greatness is responsibility.'' General Tarbet has seen more than his fair share of difficult tasks and responsibilities and has performed each admirably. I believe every soldier who has had the opportunity to serve under his charge would agree that he has been a leader of unprecedented character. The greatest commendation came from one of Tarbet's own soldiers, who said, ``Major General Tarbet is loved by his soldiers. He has served us with impeccable integrity, courage and common sense during a very tumultuous and unprecedented time.'' Sharon and I thank Major General Tarbet for his service and wish him and his wife Mary all the best as they enter the next chapter of their lives.

Mr. LEE

Mr. LEE. Whatever the United States ratifies----

Mr. LEE. What table is it at which we have no seat because we have not ratified this treaty? What is it that we cannot do by having the most aggressive laws, the most robust laws protecting Americans with disabilities that we somehow achieve simply because we ratify this? If, in fact, that does nothing more than embrace that set of laws that we have actually passed, and if, in fact, as my friend says, this does nothing, then why do we ratify it?

Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.