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Old 08-31-2005, 10:21 AM   #73
Binkie
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Beautiful U.S. of A.
Posts: 1,241
I got ya covered, Peter.

Brief Transcript from Senate Hearing



SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Would you see any problem on specifically excluding, in a reauthorization of the Patriot's Act, authority to obtain library or medical records?

ALBERTO GONZALES: Mr. Chairman, let me try to reassure the committee and the American people that the department has no interest in rummaging through the library records or the medical records of Americans. That is not something that we have an interest in. We do have...

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Does that mean you would agree to excluding them?

ALBERTO GONZALES: We do have an interest, however, in records that may help us capture terrorists. And there may be an occasion where having the tool of 215 to access this kind of information may be very helpful to the department in dealing with a terrorist threat.

The fact that this authority has not been used for these kinds of records means that the department, in my judgment, has acted judiciously. It should not be held against us that we've exercised, in my judgment, restraint. It's comparable to a police officer who carries a gun for 15 years and never draws it. Does that mean that for the next five years he should not have that weapon because he's never used it?

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: Attorney General Gonzales, I don't think your analogy is apt, but if you want to retain those records as your position, I understand.

KWAME HOLMAN: FBI Director Mueller added his insights.

ROBERT MUELLER: We've had investigations in which we have seen persons associated with terrorists groups go into libraries, use the library to communicate, or the computers in the library to communicate, draw up Jihadist literature, and the like. We have been fortunate not to have used 215 because we have had the cooperation of the libraries to date.
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"[Brian Blair] was a punk. I can break his fucking back - break his back and make him humble and then fuck his ass ... Suplex him, put him in a camel clutch, break his back, and fuck his ass - make him humble. Teach him to respect the Iron Sheik. And I didn't do it, because for the God and Jesus, and Mr. McMahon." -Khosrow Vaziri (The Iron Sheik)
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