Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. Madam Speaker, later today, we will debate the National Defense Authorization Act. Just yesterday evening, section 1021 of last year's bill was given an injunction by U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest when she stated: In the face of what could be indeterminate military detention, due process requires more.

As we debate this bill, we will have an opportunity to act on several amendments which will make due process a key part of this bill and eliminate the concerns that the judge had when granting that preliminary injunction.

I take the opportunity today to remind us of some history. Dateline: Paris, December 20, 1787. In a letter to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson wrote, in regard to the Constitution of the United States that was being proposed: I will tell you now what I do not like. First, the omission of a Bill of Rights providing clearly and without aid of sophism, for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction of monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land, and not by the laws of nations.

To say, as Mr. Wilson does, that a Bill of Rights was not necessary because all is reserved in the case of the general government, which is not given, while in the particular ones, all is given which is not reserved, might do for the audience to which it was addressed; but it is surely a gratis dictum, the reverse of which might just as well be said; and it is opposed by strong inferences from the body of the instrument, as well as from the omission of the cause of our present Confederation--that would be the Articles of Confederation--which had made the reservation in express terms.

It was hard to conclude, because there has been a want of uniformity among the States as to the cases triable by jury, because some have been so incautious as to dispense with this mode of trial in certain cases; therefore, the more prudent States shall be reduced to the same level of calamity.

It would have been much more just and wise to have concluded the other way, that, as most of the States had preserved with jealousy this sacred palladium of liberty, those who have wandered should be brought back to it, and to have established general right rather than general wrong.

[Time: 10:30] He goes on: For I consider all the ill as established, which may be established. I have a right to nothing which another has a right to take away.

And he goes on: Let me add that a Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on Earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

There are those, in regard to the debate on the NDAA and particularly section 1021 of last year's bill and the similar language this year, that it is inferred that those rights are not given away. Jefferson was not willing to allow us to rest on the rights of inference, nor should we in this Congress also not be willing to rest on the rights of inference.

And when particularly you have language such as this coming out of the court yesterday evening, this court finds the plaintiffs who are, as discussed below, have reasonable fear of future government action sufficient to confer standing.

Ladies and gentlemen, many of you cannot see it, but behind me here in the desk is the word ``liberty stands,'' it is written in. It was not left to inference. It's right here for us to look at every day. And, ladies and gentlemen, as long as I serve in Congress, I will stand up for liberty and make sure that no citizen of the United States has their due process removed.

I will support the Amash amendment, the Smith amendment, and the Goodlatte amendment. Thank you very much. I hope you do the same. END