Ron Wyden

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, consistent with Senate Standing Orders and my policy of publishing in the Congressional Record a statement whenever I place a hold on legislation, I am announcing my intention to object to any unanimous consent request to proceed to S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act. In December of last year I placed a hold on similar legislation, commonly called COICA, because I felt the costs of the legislation far outweighed the benefits. After careful analysis of the Protect IP Act, or PIPA, I am compelled to draw the same conclusion. I understand and agree with the goal of the legislation, to protect intellectual property and combat commerce in counterfeit goods, but I am not willing to muzzle speech and stifle innovation and economic growth to achieve this objective. At the expense of legitimate commerce, PIPA's prescription takes an overreaching approach to policing the Internet when a more balanced and targeted approach would be more effective. The collateral damage of this approach is speech, innovation and the very integrity of the Internet. The Internet represents the shipping lane of the 21st century. It is increasingly in America's economic interest to ensure that the Internet is a viable means for American innovation, commerce, and the advancement of our ideals that empower people all around the world. By ceding control of the Internet to corporations through a private right of action, and to government agencies that do not sufficiently understand and value the Internet, PIPA represents a threat our economic future and to our international objectives. Until the many issues that I and others have raised with this legislation are addressed, I will object to a unanimous consent request to proceed to the legislation.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read three times and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, and any statements relating to the matter be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I have enormous respect for my special friend from California, the distinguished chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee. I have literally sat next to her for more than a decade. We agree on virtually all of these issues, but this is an area where we have had a difference of opinion. I have said I wouldn't support a long-term reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act without significant reforms, particularly in this area. I am especially troubled by the fact that the U.S. Government's official interpretation of the PATRIOT Act is secret, and I believe a significant gap has developed now between what the public thinks the law says and what the government secretly claims it says. That is why I and my colleagues from Oregon and Colorado and New Mexico have proposed an amendment that would make these legal interpretations public.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am going to talk for just a couple of minutes about the issue of secret law that Senator Udall and I, as we are both members of the Intelligence Committee, have been working on for quite some time. Then I am going to yield to our friend, the distinguished chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Feinstein, for a colloquy. What this issue is all about is this: I believe there are two PATRIOT Acts in America. The first is the text of the law itself, and the second is the government's secret interpretation of what they believe the law means. As an example, several years ago Americans woke up to learn that the Bush administration had been secretly claiming for years that warrantless wiretapping was legal. This disclosure greatly undermined the public's trust in the Department of Justice and our national intelligence agencies, and it took Congress and the executive branch years to sort out the situation. I believe the American people will also be extremely surprised when they learn how the PATRIOT Act is secretly being interpreted, and I believe one consequence will be an erosion of public confidence that makes it more difficult for our critically important national intelligence agencies to function effectively. As someone who served on the Intelligence Committee for 10 years, sitting right next to Senator Feinstein, I don't want to see that happen. Let me yield now to Senator Udall. He will also have brief remarks, and any colleagues who want to speak, and then Senator Feinstein will lead us in the discussion of how we will be moving forward. So I yield to Senator Udall who has been an invaluable member on the Intelligence Committee. He and I have worked on this since the day he joined our committee, and I am so appreciative of his involvement.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls has long been a leader in America's effort to develop geothermal energy, and it's also a power in men's basketball, winning national titles in 2004 and 2008. Now, it is the national champion in women's softball. It is the first women's team to win a national championship at OIT, but I am sure it won't be the last. The Hustlin' Owls entered the national tournament ranked 18th in the Nation. They came out 1st in the Nation. They were led by a stellar performance from their pitcher and MVP, Jackie Imhof. In the final game, she pitched a shutout, allowing only four hits and striking out seven. Through the tournament, Imhof was 6-1 with an amazing earned run average 0f 0.59. Imhof and two other teammates, catcher Kayde Schaefer and shortstop Shauna Collins, made the all tournament team. Congratulations to coach Greg Stewart and the Hustlin' Owls of OIT. Clearly, they are doing something right at Oregon Institute of Technology.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, President, I rise today to introduce the Enforcing Orders and Reducing Circumvention and Evasion Act, or the ENFORCE Act, of 2011. For almost a century, Democratic and Republican Administrations have promoted and protected America's anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws. These laws recognize the reality that foreign competitors don't always play by the rules. Some employ unfair and unscrupulous trade practices that put American businesses at a serious disadvantage. So, when it comes to ensuring that American businesses and workers have a level playing field to compete, anti-dumping and countervailing duty laws are the first line of defense. But it is not enough to just pass these laws; they need to be enforced. Duties don't work unless they are assessed and collected. But just like some people cheat their way out of taxes, the same is true for foreign supplies and dishonest importers who evade and flout the anti-dumping and countervailing duties that protect American business and workers from grievous economic harm. These suppliers and importers are what I call trade cheats. You see, under U.S. trade laws, when a certain import is found to be unfairly traded, that is, it benefits from government subsidies or is sold below market prices, the U.S. Department of Commerce imposes additional duties on these imports. These duties, we call them anti- dumping and countervailing duties, or AD/CVD, ensure that American producers are only asked to compete on a playing field that is level. But we have these trade cheats out there. They cheat American taxpayers out of the revenue that is supposed to be collected on imports, and which is needed to reduce the budget deficit, and they cheat American producers out of business that may otherwise be theirs. In short, the trade cheats steal American jobs and America's treasure. The trade cheats are increasingly, and brazenly, employing a variety of schemes to evade AD/CVD orders. Sometimes, they hustle their merchandise through foreign ports to claim that it originates from somewhere it doesn't. Other times, the trade cheats will provide fraudulent information' to government authorities at American ports of entry, or they engage in schemes to mislabel and misrepresent imports. In recognizing this problem, I convened a hearing in the subcommittee on international trade, customs and global competitiveness entitled ``Enforcing America's Trade Laws in the Face of Customs Fraud and Duty Evasion'' in May of this year. At this hearing we heard from Senators of both political parties and companies from across this nation about their concerns regarding this lack of enforcement. Others launched their own investigation into the matter. My own staff on the Finance Subcommittee on Trade, Customs and Competitiveness learned that if often takes Customs and Border Protection, CBP, nearly a year to ask its sister agencies for investigatory help when it is needed and when CBP does refer a case to an outside agency they don't follow-up to ensure that it gets handled. It generally takes several years for the government to conclude an investigation into evasion and reassess the appropriate duties that should have been collected. Customs and Border Protection, is the nation's frontline defense against unfair trade and is responsible for enforcing U.S. trade remedy laws and collecting AD/CV duties. Yet, if you listen to the concerns of domestic producers, like those who testified at my hearing, timely and effective enforcement of AD/CVD orders remains problematic and AD/CV duty evasion continues, seemingly unabated. While Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and CBP are dragging their feet to enforce our trade laws, this country's domestic manufacturers are being hammered by foreign trade cheats. It is not like the cheaters wait around to get caught and pay their fines, they disappear long before the so called government watchdogs arrive. ICE and CBP are the two principal American government agencies that are supposed to police this beat. In my view, one of them, CBP, treats allegations of duty evasion like junk mail. The other, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has been more visible on the issue of alleged illegal movie downloads than taking steps to protect tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs that are threatened by unfair trade. Such lollygagging is not only hurting our domestic producer, it is hurting our country's treasury. U.S. industry sources estimate that approximately $91 million in AD/CV duties that were supposed to be applied to just four steel products went uncollected as a result of evasion in 2009. This is an amount equal to 30 percent of all AD/CV duties CBP collected that year. With 300 current AD/CVD orders in place on countless products from over 40 countries, the potential for AD/CV duty evasion is vast, and hundreds of millions of AD/CV duties may be unaccounted for. Every penny counts and we have an obligation to the American businesses, and the workers they rely on, to do a better job. The bill I am introducing today, with Senators Snowe, McCaskill, Blunt, Brown from Ohio, Portman, and Schumer, will go a long way toward empowering the federal government to do a better job to combat the trade cheats and enforce U.S. trade laws. I would like to highlight just a few of the main provisions. First, the ENFORCE Act would formalize a process by which allegations of evasion are acted on. Because CBP primarily relies on the private sector to identify evasion of AD/CVD, the ENFORCE Act would formalize that process by allowing stakeholders to file a petition alleging evasion and require CBP to initiate an investigation pursuant to the petition within 10 days. Second, our bill would establish a rapid-response timeline by which CBP would investigate allegations of evasion. The ENFORCE Act would give the CBP 90 days, after an investigation of evasion begins, to make a preliminary determination into whether there is a reason to believe an importer is evading an AD/CVD order. So if an affirmative preliminary determination is made, AD/CV duties would be required to be collected in cash until the investigation is concluded and any entries of subject merchandise would not be liquidated by CBP in order to ensure that the correct amount of duties owed can be collected. CBP would also be required to make a final determination as to whether merchandise subject to an investigation under the bill entered into the U.S. through an evasion scheme within 120 days after CBP has issued a preliminary determination. Flexibilities are added to these timelines for cases that are complex. All of this would put an end to the lollygagging that our domestic producers would desperately like to see ended. Third, the ENFORCE Act would help facilitate information sharing. Our bill would establish clear instruction and guidelines to promote appropriate information sharing among the various agencies to better combat evasion and protect consumers from unsafe goods. Everyone knows that the more information law enforcement agencies have, the better they are able to do their jobs. Last and certainly not least, our bill would establish accountability. CBP's broad mandate to facilitate trade, enforce trade remedy laws, and protect national security often leads to inconsistent efforts to combat evasion of the trade remedy laws. The ENFORCE Act would require CBP to provide annual reports to us here in Congress about the effectiveness of its enforcement efforts and the job it is required to do to protect American producers from the harm of unfairly traded imports. As you can see, this bill presents a common-sense strategy to combat trade cheating and the evasion of antidumping and countervailing duty collection. Enforcing U.S. trade laws and combating unfair trade practices must be a central pillar of an economic and trade policy that is designed to promote economic growth and job expansion, especially as we continue to recover from a recession. I want to take a moment to recognize and thank some terrific colleagues of mine in the Senate that are joining me in introducing this legislation. I thank you, and your staff, for your help and for your efforts. I would also like to thank the Retail Industry Leaders Association, the Committee to Support U.S. Trade Laws, and the Coalition to Enforce Antidumping & Countervailing Duty Orders for their valuable input. I look forward to more of their input going forward. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate and with my friends in the House of Representatives to build support for this initiative and to take action on behalf of American producers. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 25, 2011, in room 418 of the Russell Senate Office Building beginning at 10 a.m.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 25, 2011, at 10 a.m. in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Building.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on May 25, 2011, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Holding Criminals Accountable: Extending Criminal Jurisdiction to Government Contractors and Employees Abroad.''

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 25, 2011, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``How to Save Taxpayer Dollars: Case Studies of Duplication in the Federal Government.''

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 25, 2011, at 2:30 p.m., in room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 25, 2011, at 10 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``The U.S.-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement.''

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs' Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance, and Investment, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 25, 2011, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Derivative Clearinghouses: Opportunities and Challenges.''

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the subcommittee on seapower of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 25, 2011, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs' Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 25, 2011, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Assessing Efforts to Eliminate Improper Payments.''

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Growth of the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on May 25, 2011, at 2 p.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Spread of Tax Fraud by Identity Theft: A Threat to Taxpayers, A Drain on the Public Treasury.''

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2 p.m. today, Senator Paul be recognized for up to 1 hour for debate only; that following Senator Paul's remarks, the Senate then proceed to a period of morning business for debate only until 5 p.m., with the time equally divided between the two leaders or their designees; further, that the final 5 minutes be reserved for the majority leader or his designee.

Mr. WYDEN. My colleague has made a very eloquent case with respect to how this hammers the people who need oil on a daily basis--farmers and truckers and restaurants. The Senator from Washington juxtaposed their position compared to the speculators. Those people have a lot higher tax rate, for example, than do the speculators. So there is one advantage after another that the speculators have over the people about whom my colleague and I are concerned. Is it the understanding of my colleague that the next best step to help those people and small businesses who need oil on a daily basis is to get the CFTC out of the regulatory swamp and to enact these position limits?

Mr. WYDEN. I thank my colleague. I think it is critically important that the Senate know we are going to keep the heat on, on this issue. Senator Cantwell and I have tried to point out that the agency is dragging its feet. They could use their existing authority. We think the kind of shellacking the American consumers and our small businesses are taking is not right. We are going to continue this fight until they get the consumer protections they deserve. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I and Senator Cantwell be recognized now as in morning business.

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, Senator Cantwell and I were joined on May 11 by 15 other Senators who wrote to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to request that agency, which has a key role in consumer protection, take immediate action to impose position limits on crude oil futures. We asked that they would act by Monday, May 23. Position limits are limits on the number of contracts that a financial speculator can buy or sell at any given time. It is extremely important that consumers have this protection so we do not see these speculators increasingly dominate the market. As the Presiding Officer knows, we have a lot of folks who need gas to get to work and get to school. We have trucking companies that depend on affordable fuel. We have restaurants that need fuel. They are all getting clobbered today. Financial speculators who do not buy oil or consume oil are constantly pulling more of the oil out of the commodities market. What is so troubling about the approach of this key agency is they pretty much said they are not going to do anything soon. We have no sense of urgency. It is not a priority for them to try to tackle this issue. In fact, they are not even going to use their interim authority. They will not even use the interim authority they said they were going to use last year to protect the consumer at this crucial time. This is particularly unfortunate because somehow they have reached the judgment that the only thing they ought to be moving on is to try to set limits as they relate to commodities generally. I can tell you, my phone is not ringing off the hook about the question of cocoa prices. The American people are not up in arms about what is going on in the cocoa market today. They are concerned about the fact they are getting clobbered on gas pricing. The fact is, 40 percent of the oil futures market is now dominated by financial speculators, and it is way past time for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to act to tamp down excess speculation and its impact on higher prices. Senator Cantwell serves with me on the Senate Energy Committee. She has been a leader on this issue. She has constantly tried to blow the whistle on this practice of speculation. It is not the only reason gasoline prices are so high, but it clearly is a significant factor. If the financial speculators are taking so much of the oil and future oil out of the market to essentially hold this dominant position, that means there is going to be fewer opportunities for that person who is trying to get gas at the pump, the person who runs the restaurant, the trucking company, and why it is so important that we have position limits. This is a crucial consumer issue. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's refusal to act quickly is especially upsetting because this agency knows better. They know better. Yet they wrote to Senator Cantwell and me and Senator Collins and colleagues that they were not going to do much of anything anytime soon. In January of 2010, after holding three public meetings on fuel prices, the agency proposed to set position limits on four key energy commodities: crude oil, natural gas, gasoline, and heating oil. At the time, crude was around $75 a barrel. Congress was so concerned about the need to control financial speculation that it expanded the agency's authority to set speculation limits last July as part of the financial reform legislation. That legislation specifically directed the agency to set limits on nonagricultural commodities such as crude oil within 180 days of enactment. That date has long passed. So rather than getting started on crucial protections for American consumers and businesses, the agency withdrew its January 2010 position limit proposal for energy commodities and basically started all over. It is inexplicable, in my view, that they would not even use their interim authority to take steps to help the consumer who is certainly going to be concerned about gasoline prices as we move into this Memorial Day weekend. This past January, instead of issuing a final rule within the 180 days called for by the financial reform legislation, they issued another proposed rule. While it is certainly true Congress gave the agency expanded authority to set limits on multiple speculation holdings in the financial reform bill and not just future contracts, the result is there is not any limits at all. That is the bottom line for the consumer today. Under the schedule proposed by the agency in January's recent proposed rule, final position limits are not going to be imposed until the first quarter of 2012, almost a year from now. That is what it is going to take based on the signals the agency is sending today, and at least one of the Commissioners at the agency, Bart Chilton, has pointed out that this is really contrary to the deadlines in the financial reform law. We know most Americans walking on Main Street have not heard of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, but that certainly does not diminish its role in overseeing the commodities markets. That is why I have been pleased to join with Senator Cantwell and other colleagues to continue to press this agency to get out of the regulatory swamp and take steps to go to bat for the consumer and wring the excess speculation out of the oil market sooner rather than later. The agency was directed by the Congress to set speculation limits on more than two dozen commodities. As I have indicated, I am sure setting position limits on commodities such as cocoa is important, but cocoa is not driving the American economy the way oil is every single day. Americans use about 19 million barrels of oil a day, and two-thirds of the price of a gallon of gas is the cost of the crude oil used to make it. So setting limits on speculation on crude oil is going to have an impact on the price at the pump. The American people and our economy cannot afford to pay the hundreds of millions of dollars a month in additional fuel prices that come out of their wallets while they wait for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to act. The agency ought to get about doing what it proposed more than 16 months ago, and that is rein in speculation, the speculation that is driving up the prices at the pump. The agency ought to do it now, before more Americans face financial hardship. The country is obviously entering into the peak summer driving season. That is why I and Senator Cantwell and Senator Collins urged the agency to move, and move now. I wanted to outline the agency's history of foot dragging. I see we are joined now by Senator Cantwell, who has been our leader in this cause. I say to my colleague, I so appreciate her leadership. This most recent response that we received from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission shows once again no sense of urgency, no sense of priority, not even a willingness to use the interim authority that they could use to go to bat for the American consumer. I want it understood I am going to do everything I can to be the Senator's partner in this cause until we get these position limits set and get these basic protections that our consumers deserve. Mr. President, I yield the floor now that Senator Cantwell is here.

Mr. WYDEN. Would my colleague yield for a question?

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask the Senate to join me in honoring the 20th anniversary of the Gang Resistance Education and Training--GREAT-- Program and to commend law enforcement agencies across the nation for their dedication to educating America's youth in gang resistance. Founded in 1991 with the support of Congress, the GREAT Program is a school-based curriculum led by law enforcement officers to instruct students on effective ways to avoid gang involvement and prevent youth violence and delinquent behavior. This program provides elementary and middle school students with the information and skills necessary to say no to gangs, to resolve conflict without the use of violence, and to set positive goals for themselves--helping America's youth take important steps in creating a future for themselves that does not include gangs or violence. With western roots, the first GREAT classes were taught in Phoenix, AZ, in September of 1991. Over the past 20 years, GREAT has trained more than 12,000 law enforcement officers and nearly 6 million children have been educated in gang resistance and violence prevention. The program has also built key partnerships with nationally recognized organizations, such as the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and the National Association of Police Athletic Leagues. These partnerships encourage positive relationships among the community, parents, schools, and law enforcement officers and help America's students build positive ties with law enforcement officers. In March of 1994, my home State of Oregon received its first GREAT classes at Parkrose Middle School in Northeast Portland. Since its inception in Oregon, Portland Police Bureau officers have taught over 1,400 GREAT classes with nearly 43,000 graduating students. Portland Police Bureau officers have strengthened families to by participating in the GREAT families program, which has educated over 80 families integrating nearly 300 family members. Additionally, I would like to recognize that the Portland Police Bureau was chosen by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms as headquarters for the GREAT Program's Western Region, which is one of five regional training sites. I am proud to honor the GREAT Program's 20th anniversary, the thousands of lives it has touched, and share its ongoing commitment to strengthening our communities through youth-violence prevention.

Mr. WYDEN

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, before my colleague leaves the Chamber, I wished to tell him what a welcome addition he has been to the Intelligence Committee. I have served on that committee for 10 years. We have had excellent chairs--first, Senator Roberts, then Senator Rockefeller, Senator Feinstein. So we continue to try to look for bipartisan support for trying to strike that balance between collective security and individual liberty. I am struck both by the clarity of your statement and the fact that those who are going to vote on these amendments and the American people who are listening in tonight ought to be able to get, in a straightforward, easy-to-access fashion, how the executive branch is currently interpreting the PATRIOT Act. The fact is, law professors give assignments to their students to write analyses of the PATRIOT Act. The Congressional Research Service actually has an analysis out. But it is not possible to get the official interpretation of how the U.S. Government frames this law as far as the operations are so essential for our country. The Senator has laid it out very well. It is a pleasure to serve with him on the Intelligence Committee. Mr. President, let me sum up with what this issue has come down to, to me. These are dangerous times. If you go into the Intelligence Committee several times a week, as Senator Udall and I do, you come away with the indisputable judgment that there are threats to the well-being of this country, that there are people who do not wish our citizens well. In these dangerous times, the sources and methods of our antiterror operations absolutely must be kept secret. That is fundamental to the work of the intelligence community--keeping the sources and methods of those who serve us so gallantly secret and ensuring that they are as safe as possible. But while we protect those sources and methods, the laws that authorize them should not be kept secret from the American people. That is what this is all about--whether the laws that authorize the operations that are so essential, which have been passed by the Congress--that their interpretation should be kept secret from the American people. I call it ``secret law.'' I want to say to this body, yes, we need secret operations, but secret law is bad for our democracy. It will undermine the confidence the American people have in our intelligence operations. You might recall that it was only a few years ago, during the Bush administration, that they secretly reinterpreted the warrantless wiretapping statutes to say that it was possible to wiretap our people without a warrant. When it came out, it took years to sort that out, with the executive branch and the Congress working together. I don't want to see that happen again. So that is why I have joined Senator Udall in these amendments, and we hope we can get bipartisan support for what we are trying to do and especially ensure that the official interpretation of the PATRIOT Act, an important intelligent statute, is made public to the American people, and I think it can be done in a way without jeopardizing our sources and methods. One of the reasons Senator Udall, I, and others feel so strongly about this is--and Senator Udall touched on this--that this is a time when Congress should finally say we are not just going to keep kicking the can down the road. That is what has been done again and again over the last decade. The PATRIOT Act was passed a decade ago, during a period of understandable fear, having suffered in our Nation the greatest terrorist attack in our history. So the PATRIOT Act was born out of those great fears. It seems to me that now is the time to revisit that and ensure that a better job is done of striking the balance between fighting terror and protecting individual liberty. Unfortunately, every time over the last decade there has been an effort to do just that--revisit this and strike a better balance--we have had the same pattern; we have said we just have to get it done quickly and we really don't have any time to consider, for example, the thoughtful ideas Senator Udall has mentioned. I just don't think it is time now to once again put off a real debate on the PATRIOT Act for yet another always-distant day. There is an irony about what this is all about, and that is that Senators are going to want to consider the amendments of Senator Udall--and I believe Senator Paul is here, and others who care strongly about this. It is awfully hard to have a thoughtful debate on these specific amendments, whether it is the Leahy amendment, the Paul amendment, the Udall amendment, or the ones we have together, if, in fact, you cannot figure out how the executive branch is interpreting the law. An open and informed debate on the PATRIOT Act requires that we get beyond the fact that the executive branch relies on the secret legal interpretations to support their work, and Members of the Senate try to figure out what those interpretations are. Here are the rules. If a U.S. Senator wants to go to the Intelligence Committee--and I think Senator Udall touched on this--the Senator can go there and get a briefing. Many Members of Congress, however, don't have staff members who are cleared for those kinds of briefings. Under Senate rules, it is not possible for Senators to come down here and discuss what they may have picked up in one of those classified briefings. I just don't think, with respect to the legal interpretation, that is what the American people believe we ought to be doing. The American people want secret operations protected. They understand what sources and methods are all about and that we have to have secrecy, for example, for those in the intelligence community to get the information we need about sleeper cells and terrorist groups and threats we learn about in the Intelligence Committee. But that is very different from keeping these legal interpretations secret. In my view, the current situation is simply unacceptable. The American people recognize that their government can better protect national security if it sometimes is allowed to operate in secrecy. They certainly don't expect the executive branch to publish every detail about how intelligence is collected. Certainly, Americans never expected George Washington to tell them about his plans for observing troop movement at Yorktown. But Americans have always expected their government to operate within the boundaries of publicly understood law. As voters, they certainly have a right to know how the law is being interpreted so that the American people can ratify or reject decisions made on their behalf. To put it another way, Americans know their government will sometimes conduct secret operations, but they don't believe the government ought to be writing secret law. The reason we have felt so strongly about this issue of secret law is that it violates the trust Americans place in their government and it undermines public confidence in government agencies and institutions, making it harder to operate effectively. I was on the Intelligence Committee, before Senator Udall joined us, when Americans were pretty much stunned to learn the Bush administration had been secretly claiming for years that warrantless wiretapping was legal. My own view was that disclosure significantly undermined the public trust in the Department of Justice and our national intelligence agencies. Our phones were ringing off the hook for days when the American people learned about it. The Congress and executive branch had to retrench and figure out how to sort it out. I certainly believe the public will be surprised again when they learn about some of the interpretations of the PATRIOT Act. Government officials cannot hope to indefinitely prevent the American people from learning the truth. This is going to come out, colleagues. It is going to come out at some point, just as it came out during the Bush administration about warrantless wiretapping. It is going to come out. It is not going to be helpful to the kind of dialog we want to have with the American people, an open and honest dialog, to just continue this practice of secret law. The reason I am offering or seeking to offer this amendment with Senator Udall, Senator Merkley, and other colleagues with respect to changing the practice of secret law is that we have raised this issue numerous times--on the Senate floor, in correspondence, in meetings with senior administration officials--and I have been joined in the past by other Senators, and we talked about it with respect to the problem in the news media. But the problem persists and the gap between the public's understanding of the PATRIOT Act and the government's secret interpretation of it remains today. Once information has been labeled ``secret,'' there is a strong bureaucratic tendency--it almost gets in the bureaucratic chromosomes to keep it secret and not revisit the original decision. So what Senator Udall and I and colleagues seek to do is correct this problem. We seek to offer an amendment that states that it is entirely appropriate for particular intelligence collection techniques to be kept secret but that the laws that authorize these techniques should not be kept secret and should instead be transparent to the public. We seek to offer an amendment that states that U.S. Government officials should not secretly reinterpret public laws and statutes in a manner that is inconsistent with the public's understanding of these laws or describe the execution of these laws in a way that misinforms or misleads the public. So under this proposal, the Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence would--and we note this--provide a classified report to the congressional intelligence committees. It makes it clear that intelligence collection continues to go forward, and our amendment would simply require the Attorney General to publicly lay out the legal basis for the intelligence activities described in the report. The amendment specifically directs the Attorney General not to describe specific collection, programs, or activities, but simply to fully describe the legal interpretations and analyses necessary to understand the government's official interpretation of the law. Let me close--I see colleagues waiting to speak--and say that we can have honest and legitimate disagreements about exactly how broad intelligence collection authorities ought to be, and members of the public do not expect to know all of the details about how those authorities are used, but I hope each Senator would agree that the law itself should not be kept secret and that the government should always be open and honest with the American people about what the law means. All that Senator Udall and I seek to do, along with other colleagues, is to restore some of that openness and honesty in an area where it is now needed. I hope colleagues on the floor of the Senate and in the Obama administration will join in that effort.

Mr. WYDEN. It seems to me the Senator has laid out the case for why there needs to be a thoughtful debate about the PATRIOT Act and what is necessary to strike the key balance between fighting terrorism ferociously and protecting our liberties. I am interested in what my colleague thinks about the proposition of how you have a thoughtful debate on these issues, when there is secret law where, in effect, the interpretation of the law, as it stands today, is kept secret. So here we are, Senators on the floor, and we have colleagues of both political parties wanting to participate. Certainly, if you are an American, you are in Oregon or Colorado, you are listening in, you want to be part of this discussion. But yet the executive branch keeps secret how they are interpreting the law. What is the Senator's sense about how we have a thoughtful debate if that continues?