[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 2] [Senate] [Pages 1988-1989] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]USA PATRIOT ACT Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, within the hour, we will cast our votes on whether to proceed on the debate on the extension of the PATRIOT Act, which I intend to vote for, both to proceed and then finally for that act. I rise this morning to reflect on my strong support for the PATRIOT Act and also express some of my frustration with those who have questioned its use with regard to our civil liberties. I was born in the United States of America in 1944. I am 61 years old. The inalienable rights endowed by our Creator that our forefathers built this Government on, of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, have been the cornerstones of my life. They are the foundation of all our civil liberties. They allowed me to pursue a business career, a marriage, the raising of a family, the educating of children, and allowed me to proceed to the highest office I could have possibly ever imagined: a Member of the Senate. Because of God's blessings and the blessings of this country, last week I was blessed with two grandchildren, born 61 years after I was but into a country that still is founded on the cornerstones of the great civil liberties of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But Sarah Katherine and Riley Dianne, my two granddaughters, were born into a totally different world--the same country but a different world. Today, terror is our enemy, and it uses the civil liberties that we cherish to attempt to do us harm; in fact, to destroy us. In fact, the freedom of access to communication, to employment, to travel, even to our borders, are the tools and the weapons of those who would do our civil liberties harm and in fact take them away. Because of this, do we give up our civil liberties? Absolutely not. But because of this, we must watch, listen, and pursue our enemies with the technologies of the 21st century. The PATRIOT Act does not threaten our civil liberties. It is our insurance policy to preserve them. We obviously must be diligent with anything we give Government, in terms of a tool or a power to communicate or to watch or to surveil. But do we turn our back on everything we cherish and that has made us great out of fear we might lose it when, in fact, it is our obligation to protect it? We are in the ultimate war between good and evil. Our enemy today, terror, is unlike any enemy we have ever had. All our previous enemies wanted what we had--our resources, our wealth, our ingenuity, our entrepreneurship, our natural resources, our money, our wealth. Terror doesn't want that. Terror doesn't want what we have. Terror doesn't want us to have what we have. They don't want me to be able to speak freely in this body and speak my mind, or my constituents in Georgia to do the same, even if what they say is diametrically opposed to me. They don't want me to freely carry a weapon and defend myself. They don't want a free press that can publish and write its opinion. They don't want any of the inalienable rights and the guarantees and the civil liberties that we have because [[Page 1989]] they know it stands against the tyranny and the control and the suppression that their radical views have brought to a part of the world. This place you and I call home and the rest of the world calls America is a very special place. You don't find anybody trying to break out of the United States of America. They are all trying to break in. And they are for a very special reason. The civil liberties and the guarantees of our Constitution and the institutions that protect our country--the reasons that you and I stand here today. While I respect the dissent of any man or woman in this Chamber about the PATRIOT Act, I regret that we have delayed our ratification of the single tool that turned us around post-9/11, in terms of our ability to protect our shores and our people. I remind this Chamber and everyone who can listen and hear what I am saying that when the 9/11 Commission reviewed all that went wrong prior to 9/11, it recognized that what went right post-9/11 was the passage of the PATRIOT Act. It acknowledged, without our ability to connect the dots, we could not protect the country. Once again, I cherish our civil liberties. I see the PATRIOT Act not as a threat to them but an insurance policy to protect them. As we go to a vote in less than an hour, I encourage every Member of the Senate to vote to proceed and then debate, as we will, the issues and the concerns. But in the end, we should leave this Chamber, today or tomorrow, sending a message to those who would do us harm and sending a message to those whom we stand here today to preserve and protect, that we will not let any encumbrance stop our pursuit of those who would destroy or injure us, our children or our grandchildren. At the end, at the age of 61 and with the opportunity to serve in the Senate, the rest of my life will be about those grandchildren. Riley Dianne Isakson and Sarah Katherine Isakson are less than a month old. They have a bright future. The PATRIOT Act is going to ensure that the very civil liberties that will allow them to pursue happiness to its maximum extent will still exist because America did not turn its back or fear our ability to compete in a 21st century of terror with the type of 21st century laws we need to surveil, to protect, and to defend those who would hurt or those who would harm this great country, the United States of America. I yield the floor. Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. ____________________