I think the Attorney General is doing a very good job.  He’s getting good questions from both sides of the Judiciary Committee, and these kinds of hearings are important because one of Congress’s most important responsibilities is to have oversight of the various departments.

I have some real concerns about overemphasizing the rights of people who essentially want to harm as many Americans as possible, and so I think we have to be very careful in maintaining techniques which can get information from people, but still do it in a constitutional manner.  I think some of the Supreme Court decisions recently in that area are very suspect.

I think it is doing everything within the Justice Department’s bailiwick to make sure that our country continues to be safe. When one considers we haven’t had an attack on our country since 9/11, one of the main reasons is because of the additional tools that law enforcement has been given to combat terrorism.  And those tools are working. Now some people are very critical of those tools, but I think we need to make sure that they continue to have whatever is constitutional to keep us safe.  There are those who still say that the PATRIOT Act was bad policy, it was the wrong way to go, I differ with them on that.  I think our number one responsibility is to make sure this country and the people that live here are safe, and I would urge this Department to continue those policies so we don’t suffer another attack like we did on 9/11.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Politics .