Senate Democrats Respond

DECEMBER 19, 2005

SPEAKERS: U.S. SENATOR CARL LEVIN (D-MI)

U.S. SENATOR JACK REED (D-RI)

U.S. SENATOR RUSSELL FEINGOLD (D-WI)

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LEVIN: Good afternoon, everybody.

First, on Iraq, we're all pleased with the progress of the elections in Iraq. Millions of Iraqis, including large numbers of Sunnis, went to the polls and voted for a new national assembly.

But the key question is whether the election will bring about a healing of the divisions in Iraq and a unification of the country or whether it will produce further division and a deeper civil war.

And the key to that question will be whether the Iraqis amend their constitution to make it one that is unifying rather than a divisive document.

This constitution, as it now stands, is a divisive document. That is not just me speaking, or us speaking; that is our military leaders who have made that assessment.

General Casey said, "We look for a constitution to be a national compact," but the perception is, particularly among the Sunnis, that it is not a national compact.

And so the Iraqis have given themselves four months after the new assembly takes office to modify that contract, to make the changes that are essential to unify that country, to bring the Sunnis on board.

And for that reason, because the amendment of this constitution is the critical step to unifying that country politically to take on the insurgency, and without that step the insurgency will continue, continue to be strong, and the nation will continue to be divided -- it is because of the essential nature of that next step, that the constitution be amendment, that I was so disappointed that last night and again this morning the president failed to follow the bipartisan recommendation of 79 senators and clearly urge the Iraqis to make the compromises necessary to amend the constitution and achieve a political settlement.

LEVIN: The president was asked directly at his press conference: "How hard will you push Iraqis' competing political parties to get a constitutional compromise?" His answer: "There is an opportunity to amend the constitution."

That is a very weak response to the essential question: "Will you urge the Iraqis, as 79 senators in a bipartisan resolution asked you to do -- will you urge the Iraqis to amend their constitution, to make the changes necessary to share power and to share oil resources so that the Sunni Arabs can be brought on board?"

And his response, again, was extraordinarily disappointing to me and sends the wrong message to the Iraqis.

At his speech last week, he also told the Iraqis that the current constitution is a bold constitution that guarantees the rule of law and freedom of assembly and property rights and freedom of speech and press and women's rights and the right to vote.

The current constitution is a divisive constitution.

LEVIN: The current constitution needs to be amended. And our president must tell the Iraqis that they need to amend this constitution in that four-month period; not just that they have an opportunity to -- that's obviously -- but that they must do it if they're going to have a chance of defeating the insurgency. 

And that is a major failing on the part of the president to not tell the Iraqis what is so obviously essential. 

We cannot amend that constitution for the Iraqis; the president has said that. Only the Iraqis can amend their constitution; the president has said that. And that's obvious. We cannot amend their constitution; only they can do it.

But we have the standing, given what we have put into Iraq in terms of blood and treasure, to tell the Iraqis that they must take that essential step and that it's not just a matter of they have an opportunity to do it, but that they must do it or else we must reconsider our presence in Iraq. We've got to use leverage on the Iraqis to take that essential step. 

One quick word on the surveillance program. The president cites the Constitution and he cites law for authorizing the use of force -- excuse me -- he cites the law which authorized the use of force in Iraq as the legal basis for his wiretapping and surveillance program. What he does not do is tell us where in that resolution authorizing force in Iraq does he see that authority. We can't find any. 

Where in the Constitution, which not only has an Article 2 creating an executive branch but has a Bill of Rights protecting the privacy of Americans -- where does he find in the Constitution the authority to tap the wires and the phones of American citizens without any court oversight?

When asked about what's the check on the executive branch, the president's answer was, "I took an oath of office and congressional oversight."

LEVIN: That's not a check on the executive branch, notifying some members of Congress, if he did, that he's taken the law into his own hands. That is not a check on the executive branch, nor is the fact that he gets opinions from six lawyers in the executive branch, all under his control, that he can do this. That's not a check. 

A check is what is in the law, the so-called FISA law, which says he should go to a court, either before or after he taps telephones. He doesn't have to even go to that court before. If there's an emergency, he can go to that court and retroactively seek the authority of that court. 

Which, by the way, is always given, with I think five exceptions out of 5,000 or 10,000.

And when he was asked this morning at his press conference about the fact that the FISA law retroactively gives him the authority to go to the court after he's tapped the wires of American citizens where there's an emergency, he avoided answering the question totally. He just simply said, "We have to move quickly."

He does have to move quickly, at times. And that's why the FISA law says, "Move first and then notify the court and seek their authority afterwards."

And so he can't just simply use the necessity to move quickly as an excuse to bypass the law which we put in place, which is the true check on the executive power: the laws that Congress passed, including the FISA law.

Let me now turn this over to Russ Feingold.

FEINGOLD: Thank you, Senator Levin.

All the major issues that the president covered at his news conference relate, of course, to 9/11 and to the decisions and policies that have come forth since that time.

The president talks about his desire to protect the American people. Well, none of the three of us or any member of this Senate or any member of the House of Representatives is going to take second place to the president in our desire in trying to protect the American people.

We believe that we should get the calls right; that every call that should be made since 9/11 should be based on trying to destroy the terrorist network that attacked us on 9/11, but also making sure that our basic values and our Constitution and Bill of Rights are protected.

FEINGOLD: And this is where the areas of disagreement come. 

The first one is Iraq. I think the president continues to talk about Iraq so much because he's basically covering up for the fact that that wasn't the right next move in the fight against terrorism. That wasn't the top priority. 

He keeps arguing that Osama bin Laden says that Iraq is the central focus in the war of terrorism. Since when do we let our opponents decide where the central focus should be?

But the fact is we're there. And the first thing to do, as Senator Levin certainly did, is to congratulate the Iraqi people on a very successful election.

We do want this to succeed. For the Iraqi people, for the rest of the world, it is something that needs to succeed.

But the president is forgetting about the impact this has on our military and other capacity to fight those who attacked us on 9/11. 

Our military recruiting was down dramatically last year, in significant part because of doubts about whether we really do have a real Iraqi policy: the National Guard, the Reserve, the Army. 

Almost our entire special ops forces in this country that we have developed over the years are devoted basically just to Iraq and Afghanistan, 85 percent of them. And yet Al Qaida is in 60 countries, many of those places being places where this kind of special operations force is needed.

So the point here is, the military operation in Iraq, in my view, has essentially run its course. We've done what we need to do. And that's why we need 2006 to be the year when we disengage in a positive way from the military and continue to help with the political and economic things that the president has talked about.

So the problem here with the president's attitude is that it's all about Iraq, 24 hours a day. It's Iraq-centric. 

It's not about the broader strategy of defeating the Al Qaida network that is attacking us and attacking our allies and attacking the world, all the way from Indonesia to Spain.

FEINGOLD: The same goes for this really shocking revelation about eavesdropping. 

I don't know why the president is concerned about the Patriot Act, when he apparently believes that he can just do all this stuff by himself anyway.

The Patriot Act is important. All of us want to reauthorize it. All of us believe it has to be reauthorized. 

But the president has stated a doctrine that he can just make up the law and create whatever other powers he wants on his own. 

And I have been very involved in this issue over the weekend. I've seen the argument shift. The first argument was that somehow we voted for this when we voted for the Afghanistan war, which I strongly supported. Nobody believes that that changed the basic criminal and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act laws relating to wiretaps.

Then they say that somehow the inherent power of the president, which, of course, would mean we could all go home now, because apparently we don't have a role if the president can just make up these laws.

And then they say, "Well, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act doesn't do the job." Well, that simply has not been demonstrated. That court virtually always gives a warrant. And if it's an urgent matter, as Senator Levin pointed out, they can start tapping right away for 72 hours and they don't have to seek that warrant for 72 hours.

There's every contingency provided for. The president does not have a leg to stand on legally with regard to this program.

So we do need hearings on it. We do need to figure out what other kind of justifications they might come up with.

But, you know, they've got some pretty high-paid lawyers over there. If there was a legal justification, they would have come up with it now.

They need to back off on a program like this and come to us and say, "We need this authority," or, "We need this change in the FISA program." And we'll have a debate. We will discuss it. And we will act. 

But we will not tolerate a president who believes that he is the sole decision-maker when it comes to the policies that this country should have in the war against terror and the policies we should have to protect the rights of completely innocent Americans.

Jack?

REED: Well, the president has adopted a different tone with respect to Iraq.

REED: It seems more realistic as he looks back. 

But the real question for us here today is looking forward. And there we still, I think, are without a clear-cut plan. 

We all agree here, in this group, that there should be a conditions-based redeployment of forces. What are those conditions? 

We also understand, as our military leaders tell us all the time, that a military success in Iraq cannot be achieved exclusively with military power. It requires economic support, it requires reconstruction of the country, it requires the creation of social institutions and political institutions. 

All of that takes time, it takes money and it takes the commitment of America to do that. 

And, again, that's another area where the president is not quite clear on what he can do and what resources he will commit to that great effort. 

So we've seen an increasing realism. The president has talked about the intelligence was wrong. But there's still an outstanding question: Were people in the administration aware it was wrong at the time, or should they have been aware that it was wrong? 

Those are very critical questions that have to be resolved also. 

And it's not just the issue of weapons of mass destruction, because, as you recall, the administration's argument was it was terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. And assertions of terrorist links in Iraq have in the last several months become more and more tenuous. 

And I think what has happened is that that confusion over the premises for our approach to Iraq have been perceived quite accurately by the American public. And they are concerned about the lack of candor they are witnessing, and they continue to be concerned. And it affects our ability, the president's ability, to continue to marshal international support for his effort and to rally the support of the American people.

We all want to succeed in Iraq; the president's right about that. But we have to have a clear-cut vision of where to go and a clear delineation of the resources that are necessary to achieve that success. And so far I think that's lacking.

And like my colleagues, I'm just stunned by the president's rationales with respect to the illegal wiretapping. 

REED: There are two points that have to be emphasized with respect to the FISA procedure: They're secret and they're retroactive. 

There is no situation where time is of such an essence they can't use the FISA proceedings. And so the president's justification, I think, is without merit. 

His administration used similar justifications before the Supreme Court in 2004 to argue that an American citizen could be incarcerated without trial. 

The Supreme Court rejected those. Justice O'Connor said, "A state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens."

It was true then and it's true today. 

QUESTION: Senator Feingold -- and perhaps the other senators -- on the issue of wiretapping and the NSA, Senator Cornyn a few minutes ago said none of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead. I'd like to get your reaction to that thought and the relationship between life and liberty.

FEINGOLD: I think the framers of our Constitution, who were frequently at risk of being captured and immediately killed or tortured by the British, understood that their liberties mattered. In fact, I believe there's an expression called "Give me liberty or give me death."

So this idea that somehow we don't have the ability as a nation to protect our liberties, through all the challenges we've been through over 200 some years, as well as defeat our enemies, to me, is -- frankly, those comments are a strategy of retreat from who we are and what we should be.

QUESTION: Senator Levin, you made a remark about the president's weak response regarding the Iraqi constitution. I have a question about your responses on the U.S. Constitution. 

You talked about congressional hearings in response to what you're saying is a blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution by the president. Is there not a stronger, more direct response that can be made to what you're perceiving as a blatant violation of the Constitution?

LEVIN: Well, the first step is to get all of the facts, to look at the legal opinions that he claims to have from his lawyers that would authorize him to tap the phones of American citizens without complying with the FISA law which, again, permits him to tap and then get the authority after the tap.

So the first thing to do is to have an accumulation of evidence to find out what are the authorities. Because, so far, he's not given any authority except he took an oath and that there's a Constitution which gives him authority.

LEVIN: That's it. 

So that's what I would do first. And then when you take that first step, you go from there. But you don't take the second and third and fourth steps until after you've gathered all of that evidence, in my judgment. 

QUESTION: Is there a legal action that could be taken by members of Congress collectively through the courts to have an injunction against continuation of his policy...

LEVIN: There may be a lot of actions -- may be actions which can be taken legally, but I wouldn't want to try to guesstimate those. 

And I think it's important that we first gather all of the evidence, including these alleged legal opinions that he has from his own lawyers, and see whether or not they can stand the light of day. 

QUESTION: You're saying as far as you're concerned, the policy can continue until that evidence is gathered. 

LEVIN: I think this policy is so dubious that they ought to comply with the FISA law and if there's an emergency, tap the wire first and then notify and get authority from the court. They have that emergency power. That's what they ought to abide by right now. 

That's what I would urge them to do until he can satisfy the Congress -- and the people, more importantly -- that he is in compliance with the laws and Constitution of the United States. 

FEINGOLD: If we could just stay on one point on this issue of what's going to happen with the time frame and dealing with the eavesdropping, I think Senator Levin is right about the process that we should go through. 

I will say this, though: If we ever get to the point where we're talking about an independent counsel/special prosecutor situation, the current attorney general is not somebody that should be handling this. 

This attorney general is the one that gave the president pretty bad advice on torture. This attorney general said today on the "Today Show" that somehow the Afghanistan resolution authorized this. This attorney general has given very bad advice to this president when it comes to the balance of power between the executive branch and the legislative branch and Constitution, and I'm very troubled by the approach he continues to take. 

QUESTION: Are you calling for a special...

FEINGOLD: No. I agree with Senator Levin: There is a process here. 

But if we ever get to the point that there needs to be a different kind of investigation other than just a congressional investigation, I want it known right now that I have real concerns about the current attorney general's objectivity and legal approach to these issues. 

LEVIN: By the way, the president talked about congressional oversight as being a check on him today; that, plus his taking the oath of office. 

Well, it should be a check on him. It hasn't proven to be much of a check with a Republican Congress these last few years. 

But he seems to invite that check to be used. We ought to take him up on it. This Intelligence Committee, this Judiciary Committee, in both the House and Senate, ought to have vigorous, immediate hearings into this and ask the president's people to come up and show what possible justification they have for not following the FISA law. 

QUESTION: Senator, you were mentioning earlier that you heard that the White House told several members of Congress about this.

LEVIN: The president says he told several members of Congress. 

QUESTION: As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, were you aware of this information? 

LEVIN: No.

QUESTION: Do you know who was aware of the information?

LEVIN: I do not. I was not aware. I don't know who was aware, if anybody, and I was not. 

REED: Can I say something also on that point? 

I was not made aware of it. But also, I presume that, if you were made aware of it, our colleagues, they would have done so under the strictures that this was top-secret classified information that could not be discussed, could not be released, could not be even shared with other members of the United States Congress. 

So that is not an effective check on any type of presidential action. And it doesn't do anything in terms of enabling the Congress to take appropriate action with respect to the president of the United States. 

And in a way, it misses the point entirely. That's not an effective check. That's going to people and saying, "Under penalties of criminal law, we're telling you this but you can't tell anyone else, until we decide it's declassified." 

LEVIN: By the way, the check written into the law is the court. We wrote that law and said that the check on executive power are the FISA courts. That's the check. He apparently ignored those courts when it came to this particular exercise of power. 

QUESTION: Senator Levin, when you found out about this story when the news broke, did you go to Senator Rockefeller and ask him? 

QUESTION: Did you say, "The White House is saying you were briefed on this program and you raised no objections"? Did you talk to him?

And what is the Intelligence Committee doing right now? I know you're saying there should be an accumulation of evidence, but is there...

LEVIN: I have had a very preliminary conversation with Senator Rockefeller. He is the one to tell you whether or not he was notified, what his reaction was. It is not up for me to tell you that other than to tell you have talked with him. But whether or not he is free to describe what the notice was or not is really has decision, not mine. 

QUESTION: The president today said it's inexcusable for opposing senators not to renew the Patriot Act. What's your response to that?

LEVIN: We all want to renew it, and we all want to extend it. The question is whether we're going to extend it for three months, to give us a chance to raise problems which the version which came out of conference has for the liberties of Americans. 

The version which passed the Senate I believe was unanimously passed by the Senate. But it came out very differently from conference. 

And we want to extend the Patriot Act during the three-month period when we take up the changes which were made from the Senate version in that conference, which are very, very problematical in terms of the privacy of American citizens.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

FEINGOLD: Because the United States Senate has voted unanimously for one version; 202 members of the House voted for that same version. And I don't know how any senator could say that the version that we're talking about is unreasonable, because they all voted for it.

It's the president who wants to play chicken here. He wants to have the risk taken that this would expire. All he has to do is be just a little reasonable, let the will of the Senate unanimously and an overwhelming number of House members be that a couple of provisions be fixed, and the law will be extended permanently, other than certain sunset provisions.

I think it's clear that the president is the one who is playing politics with this.

QUESTION: Senator Feingold, on that point, Senator Cornyn just said he would be willing to consider and support the Senate agreement, if the Senate were to give an up-or-down vote on the current agreement. Would you consider that?

FEINGOLD: Look, the whole process here is about what kind of a outcome we're going to have in the end. The Senate voted unanimously, including Senator Cornyn, for the version that we're talking about. So Senator Cornyn should support the version that he voted for, which is perfectly reasonable. 

Unless Senator Cornyn takes the view that somehow those provisions were dangerous for America, I wonder why he voted for them.

LEVIN: As a matter of fact, the Democrats offered to extend the Patriot Act for three months by unanimous consent. In other words, we don't even need a vote to extend it for three months while we can have this debate over a couple provisions that were added in conference which were different from the Senate version which had such strong support, bipartisan support, in the Senate and in the House.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) resolution in 2001 had some clauses, including one that says the president has the authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism.

And some who support the White House are pointing to some of those whereases in the resolutions that may have given the president the power to do some of this domestic spying.

Can you at all comment on that? I mean, the attorney general was crystal clear. He said you authorized it. He's the chief law enforcement officer in the country. Is he lying? 

FEINGOLD: Well, we could get into some pretty boring legislative interpretation rules. But let me just say that whereas clauses certainly don't have the force of law. 

And when something like that is passed and has general language, it is very clear statutory interpretation that more specific provisions of the law, such as the very specific provisions of the FISA law, clearly control. 

And the FISA laws says that its rules with regard to wiretap -- and I know Senator Levin knows this better than I do -- are the exclusive, exclusive means by which this can be done.

So I think it's one of the weakest legal arguments I've ever heard that this war resolution somehow undid the basic laws of wiretapping in the United States.

REED: Well, it goes to the point, too: At the same time we were debating the Patriot Act, now, if that clause covers the way you can treat intelligence for the rest of the United States, if those small phrase, that preamble, why did we pass the Patriot Act? Why did we do anything beyond the resolution?

Quite clearly, it did not.

QUESTION: So was the attorney general lying?

FEINGOLD: He's just wrong. He's dead wrong. 

REED: I think he's wrong on the law.

But as Senator Feingold pointed out before, they were forced to withdraw opinions they rendered with respect to torture, with respect to the Convention Against Torture and statutory provisions against torture, the role of the Geneva Convention, the conduct of our operations overseas.

So this is not the first time I think the American people have discovered that they've been wrong on major issues of the law.

QUESTION: Senator Levin, on the torture issue, human rights groups are saying that the version of the Graham-Levin amendment that came out of the conference effectively guts some portion of the McCain amendment. Can you comment on that?

LEVIN: Yes, well, Senator McCain was very actively involved in working the language of the Graham-Levin amendment and its final version. So it's obvious that he would never -- and we would never -- adopt language which would undermine or dilute in any way McCain's language.

We were very strong supporters of McCain's language. Senator McCain was actively involved in the conference relative to the Graham- Levin amendment. And we came up with a version which does not in any way undermine the McCain language.

What we did, if you want to know -- is that enough? Or does that answer the question?

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) you do have some concerns, though, about the final version...

LEVIN: The final version, we believe, protects -- let me just go back now, if you want to go further into this. 

The first Graham amendment which was adopted eliminated habeas corpus for people at Guantanamo; said there's no access to habeas corpus. I was very much opposed to that amendment. It won. I think probably all of us vote against that amendment, but in any event it got above 55 votes or so and it passed. 

At that point we had to try to build in, if we could, some access to the courts for people at Guantanamo, and we rebuilt it in a number of ways. One, by direct appeal from a decision as to their status to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, to a federal court. So if somebody is determined to be an enemy combatant down at Guantanamo, they have a direct appeal on that decision. 

Secondly, if they're found guilty by a military commission of a crime, they have direct access to the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia; if the sentence is 10 years or more, as a right; if it's below 10 years, it is a discretionary appeal that they can ask the court to review it. 

So we started building back opportunities for court review for the people at Guantanamo. 

Now, one other issue which has come up is the following. The bill which passed the Senate said that if a statement of a detainee was obtained through undue coercion -- undue coercion -- that it would not be allowed in a court proceeding or in a tribunal -- should not be allowed. 

The word "undue" bothered me, because I don't think there is any due coercion. I don't know of any coercion that is appropriate. So I wanted to get rid of the word "undue," which we did in the final version. 

However, we left it up to a court as to whether or not a statement which is obtained through coercion, the way it's defined, has any probative value at all. We left that to a court. 

We didn't say in this bill that it has probative value and should be allowed into evidence or should be considered. We said that the court would determine whether or not any such evidence should be allowed into evidence, has any probative value. 

LEVIN: My own view is, it never has probative value if it's obtained through coercion. 

QUESTION: But doesn't that open up a loophole if it is in fact coercion or (OFF-MIKE) it were to occur that the U.S. (OFF-MIKE) act on that information? 

LEVIN: The original language had nothing to do with acting on the information. It had to do with whether it was admissible in a court proceeding. And what we do is leave that up to the court if it finds that there's coercion. 

But again remember, this is a higher standard in one way than it was in the original Senate bill, because there we talked about prohibiting the use in court if the coercion was undue. That is a loophole which I wanted to get rid of. 

So we don't decide that testimony obtained through coercion is admissible. We, in our language, say it'll be up to a court as to whether or not it has any probative value. 

QUESTION: Senator Reed, I wanted to just clarify -- and get Senator Reed and Senator Feingold's answer to the question that Senator Levin did earlier. 

Do you say today that the president should immediately suspend this policy of warrant-less searches until there can be a congressional hearing? 

REED: I think the FISA procedures are sufficient. And there's been no compelling showing to my mind that anything extralegal is necessary, and I think for two principle reasons. 

First, as has been pointed out by colleagues, these procedures are secret and they're retroactive. If the president or the director of central intelligence, someone else, is confronted with a situation where they have to move instantly to obtain these taps or these intercepts, they can do that and they have 72 hours to go back to a court. 

And in the record, I think I heard someone today say there was thousands of thousands of request for these warrants and a handful have been turned down. So this is almost automatic that it would take place. 

And particularly, if the evidence the president claims he has is of direct connections to Al Qaida, what could be more probative than that in terms of requests for a warrant? 

So I'm at a loss to understand why they adopted this extralegal procedure when the FISA procedures have been in place. 

REED: And I can't recall -- and I'll defer to my colleagues -- a request in the context of debating or developing the Patriot Act or anything else for these special types of protections that the president would have the authority -- you know, at times we do that.

At times, we will pass legislation saying that, "The president has the right to do this," but it's based on a statute authorized by Congress, not by the claim of authority under the commander-in-chief clause. 

FEINGOLD: Yes, he should not do any of this that is not consistent with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the FISA court. If he feels there has to be a change in that procedure, he should come to us and we should debate it. 

And I would add, he should cease doing anything else he might be doing for which there is not legal authority that we don't know about. 

He is the president, not a king. And that's the way we make laws in this country. So there may be other things. It makes you wonder. 

One senator said to me on the floor, "I wonder what else the New York Times is holding as a story." 

I mean, this really is something when you think about this, sort of, secret world of these practices. If the president's asserting a doctrine that he can do anything to protect the American people without the basis of law, we need to know what those things are and we need to talk about it. 

QUESTION: I want to get back to the issue of notification again. 

If what the president is doing is so egregious and there are members of Congress know about it and don't do anything about it, aren't they complicit in it? If it is indeed, as you're saying, an illegal act, perhaps an illegal act, don't they have a responsibility to act on that information? 

LEVIN: As Senator Feingold pointed out, first of all, any information which is provided to a member of Congress is so classified they're not able to do anything with it. 

Again, since I was not one who was informed and I don't know who, if anybody, was -- being informed of something which is then classified is very different than coming to Congress and seeking authority to do something. 

And by the way, the FISA act has got no provision in it relative to coming to Congress and notifying Congress. That's not the FISA Act; that's a different act, relative to intelligence activities of the president abroad.

LEVIN: The FISA act's check and balance is the FISA court. It's not notice to congressional leaders. 

So whoever got that notice is in a better position to answer your question, if they did get that notice of what was going on.

But let's be real clear: The FISA law has a check and balance in it, which the president has ignored, and that's the FISA court. 

QUESTION: Senators, the House, in the early hours of this morning, passed the Defense appropriations bill with Alaska oil drilling. What are your thoughts about that?

FEINGOLD: Very unhappy.

(LAUGHTER)

I went out to the floor and talked about the fact that Senator Stevens has chosen to break the rules of the Senate and then put a provision in there that says we're going to go right back to the rule after he gets what he wants.

This particular approach to the Alaska drilling has never passed the United States Senate. It does not belong in a Department of Defense bill. Five retired generals have written saying, "Please do not do this to a bill that's important for our troops and for the defense of our country." 

It's simply inappropriate and it shouldn't be in there. And I am involved with others in trying to prevent this.

LEVIN: If this succeeds, every conference then becomes a Rules Committee. It can just write into a conference report amendments to the rules and then we're put in a position of do we agree with a Defense appropriations bill or a Defense authorization bill or an intelligence authorization bill. And that is so fundamentally violative of bedrock principles -- the bedrock principle is you've got rules, rules you're supposed to apply unless the Senate, acting specifically on a challenge to the rule by a chair, decides to waive the rule.

But here, he puts into the conference report a rule override. And then in that same conference report purports to restore the rule after he gets his way on one particular conference report.

LEVIN: If that's the process around here, every conference is turned into a Rules Committee. We'll waive this rule, this rule, this rule, this rule just for this conference report, and then when this is adopted those rules will be restored. 

There are no rules at that point. Conference will write their own rules for their own conference report.

It is a major blow to any kind of a legislative process which has any kind of rationale or reason or sanity, frankly, to it. And particularly when these conference reports -- I mean, it's bad enough, but when things are added to theses conference reports the way they are, which have not been considered in either body, this is a recipe for real chaos. And I believe it's a recipe for real damage to the legislative process.

Thank you.

END