Biden has an 80% lifetime rating from the ACLU, the second highest of any 2008 presidential candidate. Biden voted for the original USA PATRIOT Act in 2001 but was among the first to express skepticism about the Bush administration's post-9/11 policies. He voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act with modifications (amendments).
Biden voted in favor of preserving habeas corpus for Guantanamo detainees and has expressed his opposition to torture. He voted in favor of an amendment that would require congressional oversight of CIA programs on detainees and interrogation methods.
Biden On The Issues
Immigration
Biden supports a citizenship path and guest worker program. “There doesn't need to be a 700-mile fence, 14 million illegals -- now you tell me how many buses, car loads, planes that are going to go out, round up all these people, spend hundreds of millions of billions of dollars for the whole world watching… Rather than get a background check on all of them, take out the criminals, get them back, and provide for a means by which we allow earned citizenship over the next decade or so,” Biden said at Democratic presidential debate at Saint Anselm College on June 3, 2007.
Biden is a cosponsor of the "DREAM" Act, which would repeal the denial of unlawful alien’s eligibility for higher education benefits. The act also authorizes the cancellation of removal for aliens who entered the country before they turned 16 and are of good character, not eligible for deportation, and have been admitted to institutions of higher education.
Biden On The Issues
IAPAC Congressional Scorecard 109th Congress
Iran
Biden believes that America’s policy towards Iran must be interconnected with its broader global strategy. “The way to avoid a war with Iran -- and to avoid a really dangerous Iran 10 years from now -- is to figure out how to connect the dots….as if you can have an Iranian policy that can succeed that has no bearing on the relationship with Russia, China, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan,” said Biden in an interview with Salon Magazine.
Biden opposed the Kyl-Lieberman amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill. The resolution defines the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a "terrorist organization" and accuses Iran of fighting a "proxy war" in Iraq. “My argument against Kyl-Lieberman didn't go to the merits ... of whether or not the Revolutionary Guard was all bad or only some bad. And it didn't even rest upon the notion that [approving the resolution was] going to embolden Bush. It was just counterproductive…. Guess what happened? Oil went up $30 a barrel. It's not all because of that, but at least 15 percent of the risk factor [is] related to Iran.”
Biden believes that U.S. must take regime change options off the table and focus on economic factors in dealing with the government of Iran. “We have to understand how weak that government is,” said Biden at the Democratic Presidential debate in New Hampshire. “They import all of their refined oil. By 2014, they are going to be importing their crude oil. There are much better ways if we had to get to the point of real sanctions of doing economic sanctions on them forcefully that way.”
Biden calls himself "the odd man out" among '08 Democrats, Salon.com, November 21, 2007
Transcript Democratic Presidential Debate, New Hampshire
