[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 41 (Thursday, March 13, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3715-S3716]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        ELIZABETH SMART AND THE NATIONAL AMBER ALERT NETWORK ACT

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I, like all of America, was elated last 
night when we heard the news that the young girl from Utah, Elizabeth 
Smart, who had been missing for more than 9 months, had been found and 
reunited with her family. Most of the time, the vast majority of these 
stories about these girls--mostly girls who are kidnapped, abducted, 
stolen--end in bad news. This ended in good news.
  As a father and grandfather, I really don't know the emotion of a 
parent who has a child stolen. An abducted child must be the worst 
nightmare of a parent. But this nightmare ended as I have just related.
  The Justice Department says the number of children taken by strangers 
annually is between 3,000 and 4,000--it varies but thousands of 
children. Every day children are stolen. These children and their 
parents deserve the assistance of the American people and the helping 
hand of the Federal Government.
  We stand ready and willing to help. We all feel so helpless when a 
child is kidnapped. What can we do to help? There is not very much 
because mostly these stories end, not like Elizabeth Smart's, they end 
in tragedy. For the past 2 years, Senators Leahy, Hatch, Hutchison, 
Feinstein, and others have

[[Page S3716]]

introduced the National Amber Alert Network Act to aid in the recovery 
of abducted children. Last year, Committee Chairman Leahy, 1 week after 
it was introduced, held a hearing on the AMBER plan, and then we passed 
the bill by unanimous consent in both the Judiciary Committee and the 
full Senate when it was under the Democrats' control. Such quick and 
dynamic action on legislation is unheard of around here, but that is 
proof positive of the overwhelming support that exists for what is 
really a nonpartisan issue.
  Unfortunately, the House of Representatives refused to pass a 
national AMBER Alert network. They refused to pass this act because 
they said they didn't like it as a stand-alone bill. They wanted it 
part of something else--part of something else being part of nothing. 
It is unknown to me how many children's lives would have been saved if 
we had had a national AMBER Alert. We know, with the situation we had 
in California, that it really works.
  This year, the Senate again, under the leadership of Senator Hatch, 
rapidly passed unanimously this bipartisan legislation. But once again 
the House of Representatives--the leadership of the House of 
Representatives, Republican leadership of the House of 
Representatives--is refusing to act quickly on this bipartisan AMBER 
Alert bill.
  I served in the House of Representatives. They could pass this 
legislation in a matter of hours--not days, hours. Ed Smart, 
Elizabeth's father, has called upon the House of Representatives to 
pass this noncontroversial Senate-passed AMBER Alert bill. I agree this 
is the proper course and the fastest way to protect our children from 
danger.
  In fact, I am confused as to exactly why the House Republican leaders 
refuse to pass this bill since they agreed to include in the fiscal 
year 2003 omnibus spending bill $2.5 million for AMBER Alert grants. 
The House leadership still, however, chooses to ignore the bill that 
the Senate has twice passed under the bipartisan leadership of Senators 
Hatch and Leahy, once when Senator Leahy was chairman, once when 
Senator Hatch was chairman. To include AMBER legislation as a provision 
in an omnibus bill, standing alone, or in any other capacity, 
it doesn't matter to us.

  I hope the successful recovery of Elizabeth Smart and her father's 
call for passage of the Senate-passed bill today moves the House 
Republican leadership to not play politics and promptly let this 
National AMBER Alert Network Act pass as a stand-alone measure--next 
week. They could do it tonight. I know how the House works.
  The AMBER plan has been credited with the recovery of 49 children 
nationwide, 49 children who have been reunited happily with their 
parents. Mr. President, 38 States have a statewide plan. Officials in 
those States that do not yet have AMBER plans are working toward 
establishing the AMBER Alert system, and one of the aims of this bill 
is to help towns, counties, and States all over America to build and 
support systems to broadcast AMBER Alerts.
  Our bipartisan legislation creates a national AMBER Alert coordinator 
at the Justice Department to work with States, broadcasters, and law 
enforcement agencies to set up AMBER Alert plans, to serve as a point 
of contact to supplement existing AMBER plans, and facilitate 
appropriate regional coordination of AMBER Alerts.
  As I was eating dinner last night, watching Larry King, I was so 
impressed with the enthusiasm, hope, and glee demonstrated by the 
family of Elizabeth Smart. Of course, we all recognize the father in 
tears, saying how happy he was, why haven't we passed this legislation. 
Today, when he has learned the real facts, he is saying: Why hasn't the 
House passed this legislation?
  This legislation also directs the coordinator in the Justice 
Department to establish voluntary guidelines for minimum standards for 
AMBER Alerts and their dissemination. As a result, the bill helps 
kidnap victims while preserving flexibility for the States. Developing 
and enhancing the AMBER Alert system is a costly endeavor for States to 
take on alone. So to share the burden, the bill establishes two Federal 
grant programs managed by the Justice and Transportation Departments 
for such activities as information dissemination on abducted children 
and suspected kidnappers, and for necessary AMBER Alert equipment.
  Our Nation's children, parents, and grandparents deserve our help to 
stop the disturbing trend of children's abductions--to let everyone 
know they are helping by their taxpayer dollars going to a national 
system. Everyone can then say, ``I have done my share.'' I think we 
have a program here that really helps.
  In the State of Israel, which every day faces terrorist threats and 
activities, 90 percent of the terrorist activities are thwarted as a 
result of citizens, people of good will, seeing something that doesn't 
look right and calling law enforcement. If there is something going on 
next-door, on the block, something in their city that they see, or in 
their neighborhood, they can complain to authorities, and it helps. 
That is what happened here.
  We had people in Salt Lake City--actually, Sandy, UT--who I am sure 
said: I don't know if I am doing the right thing, but I think this 
could be Elizabeth. A little girl with a wig--a little girl? She is a 
teenager--she has been gone almost a year--with a wig and some kind of 
mask over her face, a veil, as they call it.
  But these people of good will said: You know--I am sure I am thinking 
what they must have thought--this is going to be humiliating to me, if 
I stop these people. Maybe they are religious people, maybe this is 
part of their religious garb and costume. Maybe I'll embarrass them and 
me. But what if I let them go, walk by, and I haven't done anything 
about that, and this is Elizabeth?
  For whatever reason, they decided to become intervenors. She stepped 
forward, and said: I think this is Elizabeth. Sure enough, it was. The 
little girl had a wig on and a veil. She said: I am Elizabeth Smart. As 
a result of that, she was reunited with her parents.

  We don't know. We will never know what that girl has gone through. We 
don't know all of it. I personally don't know if she was brainwashed, 
as was Patty Hearst. I don't know anything about it. But I know there 
are some happy people in Salt Lake City today. Not only the family, not 
only the family, but all over Salt Lake City, the State of Utah, the 
neighboring State of Nevada, but the whole country is celebrating a 
successful conclusion to a kidnapping, an event which doesn't happen 
that much.
  I hope the House of Representatives' conscience will be pricked and 
they will reach out and do something quickly which they have the 
capability of doing and allowing the national AMBER Alert program to 
pass. It should pass not in this congressional session, not this month, 
but next week, and early in the week. That is my desire. I hope we 
follow through on it.

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