mr. leahy: madam president, i thank my dear friend from mississippi for his kind wds. i know they wi be appreciated by the kennedy family. before i begin, i ask that unanimouconsent request come before my comments, i have seven unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate with the approval of the majority and minority leaders i ask unanimous consent the requests be agreed to and printed in the record. the presiding ofcer:ithout objection, so ordered. mr. leahy: madam president, i think when i hear the senator from mississippi, before him, the senator from illinois, the senator from california, the senator from massachusetts and others who have spoken, it brings back so many memories. the memory i have was on august 26th, when, very, very early in the morning we heard the news about senator kennedy, now, marcel and i knew the day was coming ande would lose a close friend o over 35 years. but our farmhouse in vermont was still filled wh grief on lending o

mr. chairm. chairman whitehouse, ranking member senator graham, chairman leahy, and distinguished members of the committee -- >> let me say one thing quickly because you are first witness. i would like to try to keep all of the witness statements her some of them are quite lengthy on paper, to five minutes. and saw some point witnesses are gointo start hearing this noise, which is your warning that the five minutes has run out and if you could please wrap it up. and if you asked into far beyond i will sply cut you off so everybody has a fair chance and so thathe senator to have a chance to engage in dialogue, which is the most helpful part of a hearing. >> i may go a minute or so over. thank you for inviting me to testify today. you have asked me to talk about the legal ethics of the torture and interrogation memos written by lawyers in the office in the office of legal counci based on the publicly available sources i have studied, i believe that the memos are an ethical train back. when a lawyer advises a client about what the law requires, there is one basic ethical obligation, to tell it stra

leahy of vermont. much of the adversely go decisions on this entire issue have been routed to the national security letter law rather than the mr. sensenbrenner patriot act i do take pride of authorship is the fact that the mr. sensenbrenner patriot act 15 of the 17 provisions yser went unchallenged as to their constitutionality in almost eight years of wrangling case there is a constitutional challenge withdrawn. that were held unconstitutional and the mayfield case in the district of oregon which is currently on appeal involved whether fisa orders violate the fourth amendment and there is a string of cases that have reached the opposite conclusion that fisa orders to not violate the fourth amendment and i think the supreme court will end up deciding that issue definitively when the case gets up there. so all of the hyperbole the patriot act has been plainly unconstitutional enactment of congress that tramples on civil rights is not borne out by the litigation that has occurred in the almost 80 years the patriot act has spent a lot. i really would admonish people both in this room and out to look at the fact that 15 of 17 auth

mr. chairman. >> thank you. we'll keep the record open for any other statements. director mueller, please feel free to go ahead. >> thank you, and good morning senator leahy and senator sessions. when i updated you in march, our developing efforts to protect our infrastructure. this statement folks us on criminal threats as well as our other priorities. i pete say in fighting crime, the fbi continues to focus on areas where our skills and expertise will have a substantial and lasting impact. today's fbi is not an intelligence service that collects but does not act, nor are we a law enforcement service that acts without knowledge. we are a security service fusing the capability to understand the breadth and scope of threats with the capability to dismantle those same threats whether they be terrorist or criminal. on the counterterrorism front, al qaeda continues to present a threat to the homeland. domestically through our joint terror and task morses and overseas through our legal attaches, we try to develop any al qaeda operatives with access to the united states. we are also alert to homegrown, radicalized terrorists. we work with our communities to identify and di

director chairman leahy has gone to the vote and will be back shortly and in the meantime it is my turn and temporary chairmanship, i guess i call on myself. [laughter]. >> do i call you mr. chairman. >> better not do that! >> first of all, welcome you here, and thank you for your continued leadership of the federal bureau of investigation, which is aing or -- an organization that americans are very proud of, and you have been given a significant new respond with respect to the high-value detainee interrogation group, and, very reasonably, i think the end of august, when this was announced, i'm wondering what your administrative benchmarks are for the next couple of months, to keep that process moving forward, and to discharge the obligations that you have received? what do you see as your next steps? when do you think the group will be fully operational? what are the key benchmarks on the way there? >> i want to start by saying, we are in the midst right now of following up with protocols, for the -- this group. but, as important as anything else, is the leadership, the leadership from the bureau and the intelligence community and we are exploring names and options, for

much appreciate that my colleague from vermont, senator leahy, is an original cosponsor, and i hope within the next couple of days, we can have more. mr. president for more than three decades, seniors have relied on a cost-of-living adjustment in their social security benefits to keep up with their increased expenses. unfortunately, the current formulation for determination social security colas in my view does not accurately take into account the purchasing needs of today's seniors who often do not buy items like laptop computers and cellular phones but spend, as i mentioned a moment ago, a disproportionate amount of their income on health care needs and prescription drugs. mr. president, the truth is what we are proposing now is something very similar to what the obama administration provided for in the stimulus package and this legislation that we are offering is fully paid for by simple applyin a-- y applying the social security payroll tax to house incomes above $250,000 and below $359,000 in 2010. under current law, only the first $106,000 of earned income is subject to the social security payroll tax. thus, a worker earning $10

mr. chairman. >> thank you. we'll keep the record open for any other statements. director mueller, please feel free to go ahead. >> thank you, and good morning senator leahy and senator sessions. when i updated you in march, our developing efforts to protect our infrastructure. this statement folks us on criminal threats as well as our other priorities. i pete say in fighting crime, the fbi continues to focus on areas where our skills and expertise will have a substantial and lasting impact. today's fbi is not an intelligence service that collects but does not act, nor are we a law enforcement service that acts without knowledge. we are a security service fusing the capability to understand the breadth and scope of threats with the capability to dismantle those same threats whether they be terrorist or criminal. on the counterterrorism front, al qaeda continues to present a threat to the homeland. domestically through our joint terror and task morses and overseas through our legal attaches, we try to develop any al qaeda operatives with access to the united states. we are also alert to homegrown, radicalized terrorists. we work with our communities to identify and di

mr. chairman. >> thank you. we'll keep the record open for any other statements. director mueller, please feel free to go ahead. >> thank you, and good morning senator leahy and senator sessions. when i updated you in march, our developing efforts to protect our infrastructure. this statement folks us on criminal threats as well as our other priorities. i pete say in fighting crime, the fbi continues to focus on areas where our skills and expertise will have a substantial and lasting impact. today's fbi is not an intelligence service that collects but does not act, nor are we a law enforcement service that acts without knowledge. we are a security service fusing the capability to understand the breadth and scope of threats with the capability to dismantle those same threats whether they be terrorist or criminal. on the counterterrorism front, al qaeda continues to present a threat to the homeland. domestically through our joint terror and task morses and overseas through our legal attaches, we try to develop any al qaeda operatives with access to the united states. we are also alert to homegrown, radicalized terrorists. we work with our communities to identify and di

leahy has gone to the vote. he will be back shortly, but in the meantime it's both my turn and my temporary chairmanship. so i guess i call on myself. >> do i call you mr chairman? >> better not do that. first of all, i welcome you here and thank you for your continued leader shcht federal bureau of investigation which is an organization that americans are very proud of. you have been given you've been given a significant responsibility when this was announced. i was wondering what your administrative benchmarks are for the next couple of months to keep that process moving forward and to discharge the obligations that you have received, what you see as your next debs, when you think the group will be fully operational, what are the key benchmarks on the way there? >> let me start by saying that we're just now following up with protocols for this group. but as important as anything else is the leadership from the intelligence community, and we are exploring names and options for that. and the third area that we are -- there is outreach to other people who have done research in this area, to try to bring them in earlier, the lessons learned, research fro

mr. leahy: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. leahy: i apologize, mr. president. i am going to stro ask to reinstate the quorum call. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mr. leahy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont is recognized. mr. leahy: i ask unanimous consent that the call of the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: what is the parliamentary situation? the presiding officer: the senate is considering h.r. 2996, senate appropriations -- the appropriations tear -- interior department appropriations. mr. leahy: am i correct, mr. president, that at 12:30 we will go to the nomination of judge gerard lynch to the u.s. court of appeals for the second circuit? the presiding officer: the senator is correct. mr. leahy: mr. president, prior to going to that, i ask unanimous consent that i be able to speak