[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 75 (Tuesday, May 20, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H4327]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        POSSIBLE MISUSE OF OFFICE OF HOMELAND SECURITY RESOURCES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, most Americans have never visited the 
little west Texas community town of Hale Center. It is a good 
community, a little under 3,000 people, the heart of the west Texas 
Bible Belt. Having not been there recently, I imagine they probably 
have a local pharmacy and a great little public school. But according 
to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Hale Center, Texas, a town 
of under 3,000 people, must be a terrorist threat to the United States.
  Why do I say that? Well, it is the only legitimate reason I can think 
of as to why last week, while al Qaeda was apparently planning and 
carrying out murders of citizens in Saudi Arabia, including Americans, 
and a terrorist attack in Morocco, our U.S. Homeland Security Agency, 
with the responsibility to protect American citizens from terrorism, 
was doing what? They were checking a private airplane flight leaving 
from Hale Center, Texas, that fine little Bible Belt community, a plane 
that was going to that other, I guess, center of Islamic radical 
terrorism, Ardmore, Oklahoma.
  Now, the truth was that on that airplane was former Speaker and now 
legislator of the Texas House, Pete Laney, a fine American. Even his 
worst political enemies would never suggest he is a terrorist. Yet our 
U.S. Homeland Security Agency, working through the forces and offices 
in California, spent our tax dollars tracking down Mr. Laney as he flew 
in his own plane from Hale Center, Texas, to Ardmore.
  Now, I will say, they do have on the 4th of July every year in Hale 
Center, Texas, a county fiddlers' contest. Perhaps Mr. Ridge and our 
Homeland Security Agency should go visit Hale Center and see if maybe 
that fiddlers' contest is a front for al Qaeda. Certainly if there is 
an al Qaeda cell headquartered in Hale City, Texas, Americans ought to 
know about it.
  There is something else Americans have a right to know about. They 
have a right to know what is on the tape between the Texas Department 
of Public Safety last week and their phone conversation with the U.S. 
Homeland Security Agency that led to our using and abusing Federal tax 
dollars to track down Mr. Laney and his air flight from Hale Center, 
Texas. There is no justification for that kind of abuse of resources of 
an agency that ought to be focusing its attention on how to stop 
terrorism here in the United States.
  This issue of the Texas legislators going to Ardmore is no longer 
just a Texas issue. It is the fundamental question of whether American 
taxpayers can have faith that our U.S. Homeland Security Agency is 
going to track down terrorists, rather than track down law-abiding 
American citizens.
  I voted to create that agency. I voted to fund that agency. But if 
this agency is going to abuse tax dollars and undermine our ability to 
fight terrorists by tracking down in frivolous efforts a State 
legislator who is a great, respected law-abiding citizen of Texas, then 
something is wrong, something is amiss; and we need to make some 
changes at the Department of Homeland Security.
  Now, the question I think American citizens, Mr. Speaker, have a 
right to ask Mr. Ridge and the Homeland Security Agency is, what are 
you afraid of? Why are you unwilling to let the American people hear 
what is on that telephone conversation? In fact, that tape was made 
with U.S. public tax dollars. Why not let the public, the citizens who 
paid for that tape, listen to what is on it? Are they afraid it might 
implicate our Federal agencies and leaders who made the decision to 
abuse Federal tax resources to track down a law-abiding citizen 
involved in a Texas political dispute? Are they afraid that perhaps 
maybe the Speaker of the Texas House, Mr. Craddick, or even the House 
Majority Leader, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), were involved in 
asking the Federal agency to get involved in this inappropriate way?
  Frankly, no one will know the answer to those questions until the 
Department of Homeland Security lets the public fulfill its right to 
listen to what is on that tape. If it exonerates these State and 
Federal officials, why has Mr. Ridge not already divulged the tape to 
the public? If it implicates Federal officials and State officials, 
perhaps that is the explanation as to why they have denied us the right 
to listen to that tape.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a serious issue. The Texas legislators are back 
at work in Austin. But this issue will not go away, for one simple 
reason: the American public and American taxpayers have a right to know 
whether their tax dollars have been used unethically and perhaps 
illegally. They have a right to know whether Texas State public 
officials were involved in asking the Federal agency to put aside its 
efforts for a moment in their fight against terrorists who might attack 
our homeland and focus on an internal Texas political dispute where no 
State or Federal law was broken.
  When will we know what is on that tape, who is implicated in that 
tape? We have a right to know the answer to those questions, and the 
public and press will not stop until our U.S. Homeland Security Agency 
provides those answers.

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