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Senator Sessions was opposed to the Wyden amendment (secret holds), and had this interesting statement. Interesting that "secret holds" created this level of passion.

I am quite curious to learn who (if anybody) has a hold on the intelligence authorization bill. Kerry and Kennedy say it is a Republican, and Sessions says it is Kennedy and/or Kerry. They can't all be telling the truth.

Mr. SESSIONS ... I want the American people to know how bills are passed in this Senate. We were talking about some sunshine here. Let's talk about it. There is a system we have called a hotline. What is a hotline? In each Senate office there are three telephones with hotline buttons on them. Most evenings, sometimes after business hours, these phones begin to ring. The calls are from the Republican and the Democratic leaders to each of their Members, asking consent to pass this or that bill--not consider the bill or have debate on the bill but to pass it. Those calls will normally give a deadline. If the staff do not call back in 30 minutes, the bill passes. Boom. It can be 500 pages. In many offices, when staffers do not know anything about the bill, they usually ignore the hotline and let the bill pass without even informing their Senators. If the staff miss the hotline, or do not know about it or were not around, the Senator is deemed to have consented to the passage of some bill which might be quite an important piece of information.
So that is the real issue here. The issue is not about holds. The rules say nothing about holds. Holds do not exist. The issue is consent. Nobody has a right to have an individual Senator's consent to pass a bill. They act as though you have a right to get it. You would expect if you are going to say you have unanimous consent, you have consent. But that is not always the case. ...
In many cases, even Senators sponsoring the bill have never read it, unfortunately. Committee reports are filed on bills. Very few staff have read the committee reports. How do I know about this? I have the thankless task of chairing the Senate Steering Committee. One of our commitments is to review every bill that is hotlined in the Senate. My staff actually reads them. It is a service to my colleagues, I suggest. They read the CBO scores which tell how much the bill costs the taxpayers. A lot of times they do not want you to know that. Some committee, group, or someone has moved a bill on the floor--they move it along--and nobody has read the score. Many contain massive, new spending programs. Some bust the budget. We think Senators who are looking out for the taxpayers and taking the time to study bills should have the same rights as Senators who are willing to let big spending bills pass without reading them. This amendment is not good government. It will make it more likely that bills will pass in the middle of the night filled with pork and who knows what else. ...
This amendment says those Senators who are willing to grant consent to legislation they have never read or have perhaps never even heard of--those are the good Senators.
But those Senators who dare to say: I would like time to read this legislation, to see how much it costs, to see whether it is within the national interests--they are the troublemakers. These scoundrels need to be exposed to the public.
So, in summary, here is where we are.
Passing midnight spending boondoggles with two Senators in the Chamber: Good. Reviewing legislation: Bad. Objecting to big spending legislation: Really bad.
Lobbyists must be thrilled with this. Lobbyists who are pushing special-interest legislation will now have a ready-made target list. ...

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, thank you. And I thank Senator Wyden for his leadership and the time.
Everything this body has heard the Senator from Alabama say about what is wrong with this piece of legislation is entirely inaccurate. Everything he said we need to do to study bills--to hold them up until we get a feel about everything in a bill before enactment by this body--this amendment, which brings transparency to holds, does not in any way prevent any of that from happening. All it simply says is, if you are going to put a hold on legislation, you ought to have guts enough, not be a sissy that the public might find out who you are, why you are holding something up. State for the entire country why you think this person or this bill ought to be held up in the Senate. You can hold it up for a year. You can hold it up for 1 day. ...
25 . LEGISLATIVE TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT OF 2006