Senator Ron Wyden

Statement of U.S. Senator Ron Wyden
On Senate Renewal of the PATRIOT Act

July 29, 2005

Thank you very much, Mr. President. I intend to be very brief, just take a few minutes.

Tonight the United States Senate is passing the renewal of the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act by unanimous consent, and it is certainly not often that such a procedure would be used for a statute of such extraordinary importance. I believe that it is possible to fight terrorism ferociously without sacrificing civil liberties.

Tonight, I remain concerned that there will be an effort in the conference between the House and the Senate to authorize what are known as administrative subpoenas for the F.B.I. under the law. These administrative subpoenas are warrants that F.B.I. field offices can write themselves without having to make an application to a judge. Under an administrative subpoena, an FBI field office could get records secretly for just about anything from just about anybody.

Here's an example of just how intrusive these administrative subpoena could be: now there are 56 field offices, one in almost every major city. The head of a field office could issue an administrative subpoena to a hospital director and ask for all of the hospital's medical records simply by claiming they were relevant to an investigation. If the hospital director were busy or didn't have the resources to make a challenge, no judge would ever see the subpoena. The patients would not know their records had been seized. They would be totally in the dark, your mother, your husband, your own medical records could move into the government's hands and you would be none the wiser.

Now, despite the very aggressiveness here in the Senate to include this power to conduct these what I believe are fishing expeditions, it is not in the version of the PATRIOT Act that is being passed tonight. Since it is not in the House bill either, Mr. President and colleagues, my view is that under Rule 28, it would be outside the scope of the conference to include these administrative subpoenas in any form in the PATRIOT Act and if I am informed later that it is in the conference report in some form, I will make a point of order at that time and the conference report would fall.

We can strike a balance. We can fight terrorists without throwing our civil liberties into the trash can. If these administrative subpoenas show up in that conference report, that will skew the balance. It will skew the balance that is so important in this country to make sure we can win the war on terrorism but also to protect the rights that we have brave men and women fighting for.

Mr. President, with that I yield the floor.

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