Checks and balances, judicial review and congressional oversight are vital ingredients in ensuring that new powers given to government are used, and never abused. It is all the more understandable why the American people have increasingly seen it this way too, when you pick up the paper on a day like today and read about eavesdropping on Americans without court approval.

Our goal has been to mend the PATRIOT Act, not to end it. The best solution is to just fix the bill. We can do that before we adjourn next week, if they’ll let us. I am ready at this moment, and as long as it takes, to work to make this a better bill, and a consensus bill.