but notwithstanding that, mr. president, when people came to me and said, well, maybe we should do away with some of our search and seizure, maybe we should do away with our laws and wiretap, after all, somebody tried to kill you, and if you had touched that envelope, would you have died. i said no. this is more than one senator, more than one person, more than one individual. this is the constitution of the united states. and if we, the 100 members of this body, do not protect our constitution, we do not protect our country, and we do not deserve to be in this body. mr. president, i will continue to fight, and whatever years i have left in this body, i will continue to fight to preserve our constitution and our rights as americans.

today as the united states senator is one who 13 years ago this week a letter was sent to me, addressed to me, it was so deadly with the anthrax in it that one person who touched the envelope addressed to me that i was supposed to open, they died. they died from that. and we still don't -- haven't caught all the people involved with that. but notwithstanding that, mr. president, when people came to me and said, well, maybe we should do away with some of our search and seizure, maybe we should do away with our laws and wiretap, after all, somebody tried to kill you, and if you had touched that envelope, would you have died. i said no. this is more than one senator, more than one person, more than one individual. this is the constitution of the united states.

swore an oath to defend. i would say to those both in this chamber and outside who went at this issue by fomenting fear, fomenting fear stifles serious debate and constructive solutions. that the carefully drawn reforms in this bill, doing it at the last minute is all the more regrettable. this nation deserves more than that. this nation should not allow our liberties to be set aside by passing fears. america will always face the threat of terrorist attacks both outside our borders and inside.

outside our borders and inside. we didn't do away with all our civil liberties after the oklahoma city bombing, even though that was an american who did that, someone who had served in our military, churchgoing, so forth. no more should we do it if the attacks come from outside our country. we talk about 9/11, we have all the evidence necessary to stop 9/11 before it happened. everybody who has looked at that now agrees, that bothered to translate the material we had, if had bothered to listen to people in minnesota who tried to warn about it, we could have stopped that. but because mistakes were made then, let's not take away the liberties of 325 million americans.

united states. and if we, the 100 members of this body, do not protect our constitution, we do not protect our country, and we do not deserve to be in this body. mr. president, i will continue to fight, and whatever years i have left in this body, i will continue to fight to preserve our constitution and our rights as americans.