Mr. Speaker, none of us here deny that some of the provisions of the PATRIOT Act are very useful in fighting the war on terrorism. No one wants the PATRIOT Act to be eliminated, but the PATRIOT Act should be amended to safeguard civil liberties.

Section 215 should be amended to provide meaningful protection from abuse by an overzealous government seeking sensitive and personal documentation. We should replace the mere showing of relevance standard with a three-part test that was the basis of the Senate compromise. Recipients of section 215 orders and of section 505 national security letters must be allowed a meaningful court challenge to the gag order, and the national security letter authority should sunset in order to guarantee Congressional oversight.

We also must be mindful, while debating this, of the President's claim of extraordinary power to wiretap Americans in conversation he says with people who are terrorists abroad. We do not know that is the only wiretapping that is going on. It may be thousands, may be hundreds of thousands of Americans are being wiretapped. We do not know. This is all secret. It only got out because it leaked.

The President claims the power to do this against the apparently plain language of the law. Many of us think it is illegal. Many people think this is illegal the President claims inherent power or that we authorized this when we authorized the use of force in Afghanistan. Well, maybe, but we ought to be holding hearings. It is an abdication of responsibility for the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees of this House not to be holding hearings on this.

Why should the hearings only occur in the Senate? Is this House not an equal branch of the government? So I urge this bill. This extension ought to pass so that we can work out the problem of modification of the PATRIOT Act, and we ought not to abdicate our responsibility. I urge the chairman of the Judiciary Committee to hold hearings so that we can examine these issues.