Taking Liberties With the Nation's Security

Rudolph W. Giuliani wrote in NYT Yesterday the Senate failed to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act, as a Democratic-led filibuster prevented a vote. This action - which leaves the act, key elements of which are due to expire on Dec. 31, in limbo - represents a grave potential threat to the nation's security. I support the extension of the Patriot Act for one simple reason: Americans must use every legal and constitutional tool in their arsenal to fight terrorism and protect their lives and liberties.

This is the same senate that wants to tie the hands of our integrators, and not only forbid torture, which we do not do, but also forbid use of anything the terrorists find "degrading". We certainly don't want to offend the sensibilities of people who would like to cut off our heads, do we.

When the next terrorist attack occurs in this country (not IF but it is now clear that the proper word is WHEN), let us just hope it is in the Senate Chamber while that body is in session, and in the process of voting, to get as many of those idiots as possible.

The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, made clear that the old rules no longer work. The terrorists who attacked us seek to kill innocent men, women and children of all races and creeds. They seek to destroy our liberties. They willingly kill themselves in their effort to bring death and suffering to as many innocents as they can, here in this country or anywhere in the world where freedom has a foothold.

In October 2001, after six weeks of intense scrutiny and debate, Congress passed the Patriot Act overwhelmingly (98 to 1 in the Senate and 356 to 66 in the House). We had already received clear signals about our enemies' intentions, in the first attacks against the World Trade Center in 1993, the bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the attack on the Navy destroyer Cole two years after that. Despite the abundance of warning signs, it took Sept. 11 to wake us to the dangers we face.