ED MEESE III, (Fmr. U.S. Attorney General): At least 42 terrorist attacks aimed at the United states have been thwarted since 9/11. Tools like the Patriot Act have been instrumental in finding and stopping terrorists. Shouldn't we have a long range extension of the investigative powers contained in that act, so that our law enforcement officers can have the tools that they need?
GINGRICH: Well I think that Attorney General Meese has raised a key point in that key distinctions the American people to recognize is the difference between National Security requirements, and criminal law requirements. I think its desperately important that we preserve your right to be innocent until proven guilty, if its a matter of criminal law. But if you're trying to find somebody who may have a nuclear weapon that they're trying to bring into an American city, I think you wanna use every tool that you can possibly use to gather the intelligence. The Patriot Act has clearly been a key part of that. And I think that looking at it carefully and extending it and building an honest understanding that all of us will be in danger for the rest of our lives. This is not gonna end in the short run. And we need to be prepared to protect ourselves from those who, if they could, would not just kill us individually, but would take out entire cities.
BLITZER: So Speaker, just to clarify, you would not change the Patriot Act?
GINGRICH: No I would not change it. I'm not aware of any specific change it needs. And I'd look at strengthening it, because I think the dangers are literally that grave. And again, I've spent years studying this stuff. You start thinking about one nuclear weapon in one American city, and the scale of loss of life, and you ask yourself, "What should the president be capable of doing to stop that?" And you come up with a very different answer. Again, very sharp division. Criminal law, the government should be frankly on defense and you're innocent until be proven guilty. National security, the government should have many more tools in order to save our lives.
BLITZER: Congressman Paul, I suspect you disagree.
PAUL: I do. I think the Patriot Act is unpatriotic, because it undermines our liberty. I'm concerned, as everybody is, about the terrorist attack. Timothy McVeigh was a vicious terrorist. He was arrested. Terrorism is still on the books, internationally and nationally. Its a crime and we dealt with it rather well with Timothy McVeigh. But why I really fear it, is we have drifted into a condition that we were warned against, because our early founders were very clear. They said, "Don't be willing to sacrifice liberty for security." Today, it seems to easy that our government and our Congress are so willing to give up our liberties for our security. I have a personal belief that you never have to give up liberty for security. You can still provide security without sacrificing our Bill Of Rights!
GINGRICH: Timothy McVeigh succeeded. That's the whole point. Timothy McVeigh killed a lot of Americans. I don't want a law that says, "After we lose a major American city, we're sure going to come and find you." I want a law that says, "You try to take out an American city, we're going stop you."
PAUL: This is like saying that we need a policeman in every house, a camera in every house, because we want to prevent child-beating and wife-beating. You can prevent crimes by becoming a Police State. So if you advocate the Police State, yes you can have safety and security. And you MIGHT prevent a crime, but the crime then will be against the American people, and against our freedoms, and we throw out so much of what our revolution was fought for. So don't do it so carelessly.
