[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 49 (Wednesday, April 17, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3446-S3450]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              TERRORISM PREVENTION ACT--CONFERENCE REPORT

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the conference report.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, for my friend from New York, I will just 
move to table this amendment. But I think, because he approaches things 
in such a scholarly manner, I should take just a few minutes to explain 
why we cannot accept his amendment and why I will move to table.
  Mr. President, I think that part of the disagreement we have with 
respect to the appropriate standard of review in habeas petitions 
involves differing visions as to the proper role of habeas review.
  Federal habeas review takes place only after there has been a trial, 
direct review by a State appellate court, a second review by a State 
supreme court, and than a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court. Thus we 
have a trial and at least three levels of appellate review. In a 
capital case, the petitioner often files a clemency petition, so the 
State executive branch also has an opportunity to review the case.
  But that is not the end. In virtually every State, a postconviction 
collateral proceeding exists. In other words, the prisoner can file a 
habeas corpus petition in State court. That petition is routinely 
subject to appellate review by an intermediate court and the State 
supreme court. The prisoner may then file a second petition in the U.S. 
Supreme Court, and may also, of course, seek a second review by the 
Governor.
  So, after conviction, we have at least six levels of review by State 
courts and two rounds of review--at least in capital cases--by the 
State executive. Contrary to the impression that may be left by some of 
my colleagues, Federal habeas review does not take place until well 
after conviction and numerous rounds of direct and collateral review.
  The Supreme Court has clearly held that habeas review is not an 
essential prerequisite to conviction. Indeed, this very term, the 
Supreme Court reaffirmed the principle that the Constitution does not 
even require direct review as a prerequisite for a valid conviction.
  Now that we have set the proper context for this debate, let us just 
look at the proposed standard. Under the standard contained in the 
bill, Federal courts would be required to defer to the determinations 
of State courts unless the State court's decision was ``contrary to, or 
involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal 
law, as determined by the Supreme Court . . . .''
  This is a wholly appropriate standard. It enables the Federal court 
to overturn State court decisions that clearly contravene Federal law. 
Indeed, this standard essentially gives the Federal court the authority 
to review, de novo, whether the State court decided the claim in 
contravention of Federal law.
  Moreover, the review standard proposed allows the Federal courts to 
review State court decisions that improperly apply clearly established 
Federal law. In other words, if the State court unreasonably applied 
Federal laws, its determination is subject to review by the Federal 
courts.
  What does this mean? It means that if the State court reasonably 
applied Federal law, its decision must be upheld. Why is this a 
problematic standard? After all, Federal habeas review exists to 
correct fundamental defects in the law. After the State court

[[Page S3447]]

has reasonably applied Federal law, it is hard to say that a 
fundamental defect exists.
  The Supreme Court, in Harlow versus Fitzgerald, has held that if the 
police officers' conduct was reasonable, no claim for damages under 
Bivens can be maintained. In Leon versus United States, the Supreme 
Court held that if the police officers' conduct in conducting a search 
was reasonable, no fourth amendment violation would obtain and the 
Court could not order suppression of evidence obtained as a result of 
the search. The Supreme Court has repeatedly endorsed the principal 
that no remedy is available where the Government acts reasonably.
  Why then, given this preference for reasonableness in the law, should 
we empower a Federal court to reverse a State court's reasonable 
application of Federal law to the facts?
  Our proposed standard simply ends the improper review of State court 
decisions. After all, State courts are required to uphold the 
Constitution and to faithfully apply Federal laws. There is simply no 
reason that Federal courts should have the ability to virtually retry 
cases that have been properly adjudicated by our State courts.
  I think that once we cut away the camouflage surrounding the 
arguments against our proposed habeas reform package, we find two 
things: First, a disagreement with the death penalty as a punishment. 
That is a legitimate disagreement. I, personally, am in favor of the 
death penalty, but I would very sparingly use it. But there are others 
who very sincerely believe that the death penalty is wrong. I can 
understand that. Many people have moral or ethical concerns about the 
death penalty, and many more in this country, the vast majority, 
believe we should have a death penalty for the most heinous murders and 
crimes in our society. I am appreciative, though, and sensitive to the 
concerns of others who feel otherwise. Many of my colleagues have 
heartfelt views on this matter, and I respect the sincerity of those 
views.

  But if the arguments against meaningful habeas reform are in reality 
arguments against the death penalty, then let us debate the efficacy of 
the death penalty. Let us decide whether death is the appropriate 
sanction for people like those who murdered the 168 individuals in 
Oklahoma City. I am prepared to debate the point. But let us not 
disguise this argument.
  The second argument I think my friends are making is that they 
fundamentally distrust the decisions of State courts. They believe that 
State courts are somehow incompetent to try important cases. They 
believe that State juries are somehow not as good as Federal juries; 
that State court judges are not as qualified as Federal judges; that 
State prosecutors and defense attorneys are not as adept as their 
Federal counterparts. Although I generally disagree with this argument, 
I can understand it. I can debate it. I can argue about the merits of 
having State criminal justice systems at all. I can debate the issue of 
whether something magical happens when a State court judge becomes a 
Federal judge. But if this is what really concerns the opponents to the 
habeas reform, then let us debate the point straight up. We should not 
allow this debate to be derailed.
  My good friend, the Senator from New York, referred to the Great 
Writ, which is part of the Constitution. He need not fear for the Great 
Writ, if this proposal is enacted, in other words, if our bill is 
enacted. The Great Writ of Habeas Corpus contained in the Constitution 
applied to only two circumstances: No. 1, to challenge an illegal 
imprisonment before trial; and, No. 2, to determine whether the trial 
court had jurisdiction to hear the case.
  The habeas corpus we are reforming is the statutory form of habeas 
corpus. There are some in this body who oppose such reform. I believe 
they are motivated in part, in major part, by their desire to stop the 
death penalty or to oppose the death penalty. I can understand that 
position, although I disagree with it, and I think the vast majority of 
Americans disagree with it.
  I believe convicted killers should be punished, and the particularly 
heinous killings ought to be punished with the death penalty. I think 
the survivors and family, the victims of this type of heinous murder, 
have a right to see that those who killed their loved ones are justly 
punished. That is why we have to pass this provision. It is long 
overdue.
  To me, and I think to many others, almost everybody in law 
enforcement today, the habeas corpus provision that we have in this 
bill is a good one. The standard is a good one. The deference to State 
law is good, because it just means that we defer to them if they have 
properly applied Federal law. We should not give some judge who hates 
the death penalty a right to disrupt that whole process when there is 
no legal justification for doing so. Frankly, we have allowed the 
procedural justifications to exist for far too long and that is what 
this is all about.
  So, having said that, I have letters from all kinds of law 
enforcement organizations, including some organizations that have 
fought for civil liberties all of their existence, that support our 
habeas corpus reform because it is time to have that in law. It is time 
to get rid of the charade. They support the habeas corpus reform more 
than any--or the death penalty reform, more than any other provision in 
this bill, although there are many good provisions in this bill.
  Having said all that, I am prepared to yield back the remainder of my 
time, and, on behalf of Senator Dole and myself, I move to table the 
amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Abraham). Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, might I ask for 30 seconds to thank my 
friend and respond?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York is recognized.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I thank him for his thoughtful, careful 
response. I would like to make the point that my concern is not with 
the death penalty but with habeas corpus itself. I have had a long 
experience, as the manager has had, with problems of terrorism. As I 
said a moment ago, the only time the terrorists ever win is when they 
begin to make you change your own fundamental political and judicial 
processes, and that is what I fear this will do. It is of some relief 
to hear the distinguished manager's statement that the Great Writ will 
remain substantially intact.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, if I can have 30 seconds. The Great Writ 
will not be affected by this one bit. I appreciate his concerns, and I 
believe he will find this provision will help us in fighting violent 
criminals.
  So I move to table the motion. I believe we have the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion to 
lay on the table the motion to recommit.
  The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. LOTT. I announce that the Senator from Florida [Mr. Mack] is 
necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Inhofe). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 64, nays 35, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 66 Leg.]

                                YEAS--64

     Abraham
     Ashcroft
     Baucus
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brown
     Bryan
     Burns
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Coats
     Cochran
     Coverdell
     Craig
     D'Amato
     DeWine
     Dole
     Domenici
     Faircloth
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Frist
     Gorton
     Graham
     Gramm
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hatfield
     Helms
     Hollings
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Jeffords
     Johnston
     Kassebaum
     Kempthorne
     Kyl
     Lieberman
     Lott
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Nunn
     Pressler
     Reid
     Robb
     Rockefeller
     Roth
     Santorum
     Shelby
     Simpson
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Warner
     Wyden

                                NAYS--35

     Akaka
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Bradley
     Breaux
     Bumpers
     Byrd
     Cohen
     Conrad
     Daschle
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Exon
     Feingold
     Glenn
     Harkin
     Heflin
     Inouye
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Mikulski
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan

[[Page S3448]]


     Murray
     Pell
     Pryor
     Sarbanes
     Simon
     Wellstone

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Mack
       
  So the motion to lay on the table the motion to recommit was agreed 
to.
  Mr. HATCH. I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Motion to Recommit

  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I move to recommit the conference report on 
the bill S. 735 to the committee of conference with instructions to the 
managers on the part of the Senate to disagree to the conference 
substitute recommended by the committee of conference and insist on 
inserting the following language to prohibit the distribution of 
information relating to explosive materials for a criminal purposes.
  I send the motion to the desk.
  The motion is as follows:

       Motion to recommit the conference report on the bill S. 735 
     to the committee of conference with instructions to the 
     managers on the part of the Senate to disagree to the 
     conference substitute recommended by the committee of 
     conference and insist on inserting the following:

     SEC.   . PROHIBITION ON DISTRIBUTION OF INFORMATION RELATING 
                   TO EXPLOSIVE MATERIALS FOR A CRIMINAL PURPOSE.

       (a) Section 842 of title 18, United States Code, is amended 
     by adding at the end the following new subsection:
       ``(1) It shall be unlawful for any person to teach or 
     demonstrate the making of explosive materials, or to 
     distribute by any means information pertaining to, in whole 
     or in part, the manufacture of explosive materials, if the 
     person intends or knows, that such explosive materials or 
     information will be used for, or in furtherance of, an 
     activity that constitutes a Federal criminal offense or a 
     criminal purpose affecting interstate commerce.''.
       (b) Section 844 of title 18, United States Code, is amended 
     by designating subsection (a) as subsection (a)(1) and by 
     adding the following new subsection:
       ``(a)(2) Any person who violates subsection (1) of section 
     842 of this chapter shall be fined under this title or 
     imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.''.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I may use 
within the limit of the time I have.
  This provision is very straightforward and simple. It is beyond me 
why it was taken out of the Senate version of the language that was 
sent to the House.
  I have heard many colleagues stand up on the floor here and rail 
against pornography on the Internet, and for good reason. Even when we 
thought we had corrected the language that Senator Exon introduced to 
comport with the first amendment, I still hear in my State, and I hear 
of people writing about how so and so is promoting pornography on the 
Internet because they will not ban pornography on the Internet.
  Yet, in the bill, we came along--all of us here--and the genesis of 
this came from Senator Feinstein, when it was initially offered. The 
majority leader, Senator Hatch, and I had some concerns with this, and 
we thought the language to ban teaching people how to make bombs on the 
Internet or engage in terrorist activities on the Internet might 
violate the first amendment. Senators Dole, Hatch, and I worked to 
tighten the language and came up with language that was tough and true 
to civil liberties. It was accepted by unanimous consent.
  We have all heard about the bone-chilling information making its way 
over the Internet, about explicit instructions about how to detonate 
pipe bombs and even, if you can believe it, baby food bombs. Senator 
Feinstein quoted an Internet posting that detailed how to build and 
explode one of these things, which concludes that ``If the explosion 
don't get'em, the glass will. If the glass don't get'em, the nails 
will.''
  I would like to give you a couple of illustrations of the kinds of 
things that come across the Internet. This is one I have in my hand 
which was downloaded. It said, ``Baby food bombs by War Master.'' And 
this is actually downloaded off the Internet. It says:

       These simple, powerful bombs are not very well known, even 
     though all of the materials can be obtained by anyone 
     (including minors). These things are so--

  I will delete a word because it is an obscenity.

       powerful that they can destroy a CAR. The explosion can 
     actually twist and mangle the frame. They are extremely 
     deadly and can very easily kill you and blow the side of a 
     house out if you mess up while building it. Here is how they 
     work.

  This is on the Internet now. It says:

       Go to Sports Authority or Herman's Sport Shop and 
     buy shotgun shells. It is by the hunting section. At the 
     Sports Authority that I go to you can actually buy shotgun 
     shells without a parent or an adult. They don't keep it 
     behind the glass counter, or anything like that. It is 
     $2.96 for 25 shells.

  And then it says:

       Now for the hard part. You must cut open the plastic 
     housing of the bullet to get to the sweet nectar that is the 
     gun powder. The place where you can cut is CRUCIAL. It means 
     a difference between it blowing up in your face or not.

  Then there is a diagram, which is shown as to how to do that on the 
Internet. Then it says:

       You must not make the cut directly where the gun powder is, 
     or it will explode. You cut it where the pellets are.

  And then it goes through this in detail. And then it gets to the end, 
and it says:

       Did I mention that this is also highly illegal? Unimportant 
     stuff that is cool to know.

  And then it rates shotgun shells by two numbers, gauge, pellet size, 
and goes into great detail. It is like building an erector set. It does 
it in detail.
  So what Senators Dole and Hatch and I did, we said you should not be 
able to do this, but we have a first amendment problem, possibly. So we 
added a provision that says that you have to have the intent, when you 
are teaching people how to do this, that the person using it is using 
it for the purpose of doing harm.
  So it seems to me that this is pretty straightforward. Granted, I 
want to stop pornography on the Internet. I think pornography does harm 
to the minds of the people who observe it, particularly young people. 
But if that does harm, how much harm is done by teaching a 15-year-old 
kid, a 12-year-old kid, or a 20-year-old person, with great detail, how 
to build a baby food bomb, or how to build an automatic particle 
explosion provision, or how to build light bulb bombs.
  It says:

       An automatic reaction to walking into a dark room is to 
     turn on the light. This can be fatal if a light-bulb bomb has 
     been placed in the overhead light socket. A light-bulb bomb 
     is surprisingly easy to make. It also comes with its own 
     initiator and electric ignition system. On some light-bulbs, 
     the light-bulb glass can be removed from the metal base by 
     heating the base of the light bulb in a glass flame, such as 
     that of a blowtorch and a gas stove.

  And so on and so forth. It goes on to explain how if you attach a 
plastic back to the light bulb when you remove the glass part but leave 
the filament and attach it and tape it there, when someone comes in and 
turns on the light, it blows up the room. Or, if you want to just play 
a prank, you could put odorous, smelling materials in the bag. It would 
blow up the bag. But you can put anything in it, and it blows it up.
  We said in the language we passed that it shall be unlawful for any 
person to teach or demonstrate the making of explosive materials, or to 
distribute by any means information pertaining to, in whole or in part, 
the manufacture of explosive materials if the person intends or knows 
that such explosive material, or information will be used for, or in 
the furtherance of, activity that constitutes a Federal criminal 
offense, or a criminal purpose affecting interstate commerce. And the 
House took it out. The House removed it.
  I want to say to all of you who are going to probably vote down my 
putting this back in, I want to hear you explain to your folks back 
home when a commercial is run on your television station that Senator 
Jones or Senator whoever voted against prohibiting on the Internet 
explicit directions how to make a bomb knowing that the person intends 
to use it. I want to hear your

[[Page S3449]]

explanation of that. I want to be there when you explain that one.
  Let me read the statute again. It says: It shall be unlawful for a 
person to teach or demonstrate, et cetera, if the person intends or 
knows that such explosive material or information will be used for, or 
in the furtherance of, activity that constitutes a Federal crime. 
``Knows or intends'' is a pretty a high standard falling, in my view, 
and in the view of constitutional scholars, well within our first 
amendment privileges. I just think this is crazy.
  Let me go on just a few more moments, and then I will stop. The 
provision is pretty straightforward. If you are one of the guys who has 
made a name for himself by bringing manifestoes like ``The Terrorist 
Handbook'' or ``How to Kill With Joy,'' which literally are on the 
Internet, and if someone comes to you and says, ``Tomorrow morning a 
group of police officers are going to be meeting at the Fifth Street 
precinct, and I want to blow them up,'' and if you say to them, ``Here, 
let me tell you how to make a bomb,'' arguably at that point the police 
can get you on a conspiracy charge. That is possible. That is possible. 
But if you just know what they are about, you see them all out there in 
a car, you look down and see that they have this plan, and you go ahead 
and tell them how to make a bomb, it is not a violation of the law to 
teach them how to make the bomb. Is not that incredible?

  Last June, all of us in this body agreed to this. I hope we will 
agree to it again because let me tell you, if this will kill the bill, 
as I am sure my colleague from Utah is going to say it will, I want to 
hear--if this is the only change in the bill--I want to see those House 
Members stand up and say, ``The reason I am not voting for this 
terrorist legislation is because I want to continue to allow people to 
teach people how to make bombs,'' knowing that they are going to be 
used to commit a crime or kill someone, ``And that is why I am voting 
against this bill,'' because it now contains a provision that prohibits 
that, I think maybe this is time to face down some of those people over 
there. Let them stand up and tell all of our colleagues around the 
Nation, and tell the parents around the Nation, that that is the reason 
they are voting against the terrorism bill.
  I retain the remainder of my time and yield the floor.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I will only take a couple of minutes, and 
then I am prepared to yield back the remainder of my time.
  The constitution of conspiracy to use an explosive to commit a felony 
is already provided for in precedent law, 18 U.S.C. 844(h). Thus, 
anyone who trains a terrorist to make a bomb as part of such a 
conspiracy would certainly be prosecuted under current law.
  I want to make it clear that I do not entirely disagree with Senator 
Biden's position. However, we have been facing down this problem for a 
year now. Friday is the day where we commemorate this awful tragedy. 
Frankly, we have gone through every detail in this bill, and we have 
not been able to get it exactly to Senator Biden's desire, or even 
mine, but this is it. This is the bill. And anything short of this is 
going to amount to losing the bill.
  Like I said, I do not entirely disagree with Senator Biden's 
position. However, there are many who have raised first amendment and 
intellectual property concerns about this provision. They are 
legitimate concerns. As the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which 
handles all of the patents, copyrights, and trademark issues, I can say 
they are legitimate. So, consequently, we have included a study in the 
bill to ensure that we can criminalize efforts to distribute bombmaking 
materials without impinging upon constitutional freedoms. Besides, 
there is little doubt that anyone who knowingly transmits information 
to use explosives to commit a felony is already subject to Federal law; 
18 U.S.C. 844(h) does that.

  So, frankly, I would like to accommodate the distinguished Senator 
from Delaware, but we tried to and we have been unable to accommodate 
him. Frankly, I contend that any return to the conference will kill 
this bill.
  I am prepared to yield. I apologize for not being able to do more. 
But we think we have brought this bill back to a very, very strong 
level, and we have had a lot of cooperation with Members of the House 
in doing so and the leadership on the Judiciary Committee--both 
Democrats and Republicans.
  Yes, it is not a bill that any one of us in here thinks is totally 
what we want, but I think the vast majority of us will believe that it 
is a pretty darned good bill that is going to make a real dent in 
terrorist activities in the future and will, I think, correct some 
inequities of terrorist activities in the past.
  So I am prepared to yield the remainder of my time.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, let me respond about this conspiracy. I 
acknowledge that, if, in fact, there is an agreement with the 
bombmaker, the bomb teacher, and the bomb user, and they could prove 
that, then they can get the bomb teacher as part of this conspiracy. 
That is not how this happens. The way it happens is someone walks in 
telling me--and looking like they are something out of a movie--telling 
me, and I do not know them, that they want to learn how to make a 
fertilizer bomb. ``I want to learn how to make a bomb out of baby food, 
a baby-food bomb, or a light-bulb bomb''--that is all they tell me, and 
I do not know them from Adam. I sit down and tell them how to make the 
bomb. The ability to prove that there was a conspiracy to commit a 
crime requires that there be an ability to be an agreement between the 
two of us about the crime that was about to be committed.
  I am saying it should be a national crime if you intend, or you know 
the person is about to do something wrong regardless of whether you 
know what the crime is, what they are going to do with it. Obviously, 
if a 14-year-old kid comes to you and says, ``By the way, I want to 
learn how to make a baby-food bomb that has the ability to blow up, has 
the power, like advertised here, that can bend the frame of a car,'' 
you are telling me that you have to be able to prove conspiracy. If the 
guy says, ``I am happy to show you how to make that, just like I can 
show you how to make a rocket in the field for a science class,'' there 
is no distinction. And under this law, there is no conspiracy.
  You vote against this, and it means someone can show a kid how to do 
that and not have to wonder why this kid is asking me how to make a 
powerful bomb that can bend the frame of a car. You cannot prove 
conspiracy. But it should be wrong. It should be wrong. And how any of 
you can vote here and say that is not wrong is beyond me.
  I think it is about time we make some of those people hiding over in 
the House side stand up. Make them stand up.
  I want to be there when some punk on the New York subway decides he 
wants a baby food bomb just for the kicks of it, just to see what it is 
like, and sets it off. You mean to tell me when we find the guy who 
taught him how to do it, we should say, ``No problem; you didn't do 
anything wrong. It's OK; no problem.'' I think we should throw the 
sucker in jail.
  I cannot understand how you all can vote against this. I understand 
the rationale. The rationale in part is 35 House Members, or 75 House 
Members or 99 House Members will turn down the whole bill because of 
this. I do not believe for 1 second that if this single provision were 
added to the bill, with all the stuff they have on habeas corpus they 
want, with all the other stuff they say they want, they are going to 
vote down this bill because now you are going to be able to arrest some 
wacko teaching our kids how to make bombs when you know they are going 
to use them. I cannot believe that. I think we are being cowardly in 
our willingness to confront whoever the cowards are over there who will 
not allow us to protect ourselves. This is crazy.
  I yield the floor. I yield back my time. I am ready to vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Inhofe). The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. BIDEN. That is a good reason to do it.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I hear the Senator. I do really think, 
though, we ought to consider winding this up. Personally, I think there 
comes a time when enough is enough on these motions to recommit because 
what we are trying to do is to get this bill through. Frankly, we have 
people in the House on both extremes, both the far left and far right, 
who disagree on some of these things. I do not think it is unreasonable 
to request a study so that we

[[Page S3450]]

look at this matter, consider the first amendment implications and 
other implications and do it right, although I have some sympathy with 
what the Senator said.
  I am prepared to yield back the remainder of my time, and I move to 
table.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I yield myself 20 seconds on the bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, no one asked for a study on pornography. No 
one asked for that. I did not hear anybody stand up here and say, 
``Let's have a study on pornography. I wish to stop pornography on the 
Internet.'' I did not hear anybody say, ``Let's not do it. Let's have a 
study.'' When it comes to a bomb, teaching our kids how to make bombs, 
we want to study it.

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, like I say, I am sympathetic to what the 
Senator is trying to do. He knows that. But he also knows that we have 
gone through this and we have come up with this bill after a year of 
intensive battling, fighting. And it is not just the conservatives that 
were there; it is the far left.
  We have worked hard on this, and this is the bill we could come up 
with. Do we want to do something about terrorism or do we want to kill 
the bill? That is what it comes down to. Frankly, it is not just any 
one of these things. It could be any one of these things. We have 
worked it out. It is a good bill, and it will make a difference. It 
will start fighting terrorism right now. In the end, it seems to me if 
we can ever get to a final vote on this, we will have something of 
which virtually everybody who thinks about it will be proud.
  So I move to table the motion on behalf of Senator Dole and myself 
and ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question now occurs on agreeing to the 
motion to table the motion to recommit. The yeas and nays have been 
ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. LOTT. I announce that the Senator from Florida [Mr. Mack] is 
necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
who desire to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 51, nays 48, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 67 Leg.]

                                YEAS--51

     Abraham
     Ashcroft
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brown
     Burns
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Coats
     Cochran
     Cohen
     Coverdell
     Craig
     D'Amato
     DeWine
     Dole
     Domenici
     Faircloth
     Frist
     Gorton
     Gramm
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hatfield
     Helms
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Jeffords
     Kassebaum
     Kempthorne
     Kyl
     Lott
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Pressler
     Roth
     Santorum
     Shelby
     Simpson
     Smith
     Snowe
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Warner

                                NAYS--48

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Bradley
     Breaux
     Bryan
     Bumpers
     Byrd
     Conrad
     Daschle
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Exon
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Glenn
     Graham
     Harkin
     Heflin
     Hollings
     Inouye
     Johnston
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Mikulski
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan
     Murray
     Nunn
     Pell
     Pryor
     Reid
     Robb
     Rockefeller
     Sarbanes
     Simon
     Specter
     Wellstone
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--1

     Mack
      
      
  So the motion to lay on the table the motion to recommit was agreed 
to.
  Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.

                          ____________________