Lisa Graves Power Quotations

Although the House Judiciary Committee's base bill does not expand the Patriot Act in the unwise and unwarranted way the Senate Intelligence Committee proposed, it can and must be modified to ensure that Patriot powers are focused on terrorists and not ordinary Americans,

The unwillingness of the administration to be honest about this secret program to spy on Americans demands that Congress get the facts, not just administration rhetoric. The truth can be determined without compromising national security. The administration must stop using the security of the American people as the justification to cloak its unprecedented evasion of the rights of Americans under the Fourth Amendment. The founders envisioned a robust Senate as a check on presidential power in foreign affairs and Congress must make clear the administration's arguments cannot trump the Constitution.