[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 98 (Tuesday, July 19, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H6081-H6087]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      PATRIOT ACT REAUTHORIZATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Fortenberry). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Carter) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority 
leader.
  Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to talk about something 
we are going to be going into this week, something that is of major 
importance to every man, woman, and child in the United States of 
America and around the world, and that is the USA PATRIOT Act, the 
reauthorization of some certain sections of that act, and the 
reexamination of the PATRIOT Act.
  As we all know, it is no news to anybody that this Nation had the 
most heinous attack in its history on 9/11, and the question has been 
raised, why do we need a PATRIOT Act? As a judge for over 20 years, I 
believe it is necessary to give our law enforcement folks the tools and 
the resources that they need to protect our citizens and our citizens' 
rights. We do not need to create sanctuary for terrorists to operate in 
our country.
  The USA PATRIOT Act removed major legal barriers that prevented law 
enforcement, intelligence, and national defense communities from taking 
and coordinating their work to protect the

[[Page H6082]]

American people and our American society. Now, FBI agents, Federal 
prosecutors, and intelligence officials can protect our communities by 
connecting the dots to uncover terrorist plots before they are 
completed, while respecting the constitutional rights of all.
  To do this, certain tools are necessary for our investigators to 
fight terrorism. Many of the tools the act provides for law enforcement 
to fight terrorism have been used for decades to fight organized crime 
and drug dealers and have been reviewed and approved by the courts.
  Specifically, the PATRIOT Act allows law enforcement to use 
surveillance against more crimes of terror, such as the use of chemical 
weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. It allows Federal agents 
to follow sophisticated terrorist training to evade detection. It 
allows law enforcement to conduct investigations without tipping off 
the terrorists. It authorizes the court the discretion to issue an 
order to obtain business records in national security terrorism cases. 
This act is in the business of disrupting terrorist threats and 
capturing terrorists. It is in the whole business of catching them and 
preventing them from doing what they have been doing in the past.
  Since 9/11, our law enforcement and intelligence community and our 
partners both here and abroad have identified and disrupted over 150 
terrorist threats and cells. Worldwide, nearly two-thirds of all al 
Qaeda known senior leadership has been captured or killed, including 
the mastermind, one of the masterminds of the September 11 attacks. 
Worldwide, more than 3,000 operatives have been incapacitated. Five 
terrorist cells in Buffalo, Detroit, Seattle, Portland, Oregon, and 
northern Virginia have been broken up. More than 401 individuals have 
been criminally charged in the United States in international terrorism 
investigations. Already, 212 individuals have been convicted or have 
pled guilty in the United States, including the shoe bomber, Richard 
Reid and the American Taliban, John Walker Lindh.
  The PATRIOT Act deals with increasing penalties for those who commit 
terrorist crimes. The PATRIOT Act increases penalties for those who 
commit terrorist crimes. And Americans are threatened as much by the 
terrorist who pays for the bomb as the one who detonates the bomb. We 
should even consider eliminating, in my opinion, the loophole and 
making sure that any terrorist who commits a crime resulting in death 
will be eligible for the death penalty or life in prison.
  In particular, this act prohibits individuals from knowingly 
harboring terrorists who have committed or are about to commit a 
variety of terrorist offenses, such as destruction of an aircraft, use 
of nuclear, chemical, biological or other weapons of mass destruction, 
bombing of government property, sabotage of nuclear facilities and 
aircraft piracy. It enhances the maximum penalties for various crimes 
likely to be committed by terrorists, including arson, destruction of 
energy facilities, material support to terrorists or terrorist 
organizations, and destruction of national defense materials. It 
enhances the number of conspiracy penalties, including for arson, 
killing of Federal officials, attacking communication systems, material 
support to terrorists, sabotage of nuclear facilities, and interference 
with flight crews. And it punishes terrorist attacks on mass transit 
systems, such as we just witnessed in Great Britain. It punishes 
bioterrorism. It eliminates and lengthens the statute of limitations 
for certain terrorist crimes.
  The PATRIOT Act is a tool creatively created by the United States 
Congress to maintain the Constitution and give our law enforcement and 
intelligence folks the tools they need to fight.
  Mr. Speaker, I now yield to my colleague, the gentlewoman from 
Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas, and I 
think it is so worthy as we have this debate to recognize the 
experience that the gentleman from Texas brought to this Chamber, 
having served as a judge in his home State of Texas and becoming a true 
contributing member of the Committee on the Judiciary and working with 
our chairman, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), and 
that committee as we bring forward the reauthorization of the PATRIOT 
Act. I thank him for sharing that expertise with our body and I thank 
him for the diligence that he brings to reviewing this.
  Mr. Speaker, I had an interesting experience this week. My husband 
and I have been members of a bible study group for about 15 years, and 
Sunday night, as we gathered, the leader of the group looked at me and 
he said, Marcia, why do you not talk to us about what is going on with 
our border security and our national security. The bombings had been of 
concern to so many people, and this is a group of folks we are very 
close to, and so I took a few minutes to kind of recap for them where 
we are as we look at these issues that face us and as we find workable 
solutions to them; whether it is illegal immigration or whether it is 
keeping our communities and our towns and our cities safe.
  That brought us all to the PATRIOT Act and the reason for the PATRIOT 
Act and the reason this Chamber voted to put the PATRIOT Act in place. 
It is there as a tool to be used, as the gentleman from Texas said, by 
our local, State, and Federal law enforcement, by our intelligence 
community, by our defense community to be certain that we keep America 
safe; that we keep our homeland safe; that we keep our communities 
safe; that we have a tool that we can use to fight terrorism.
  We have to realize, too, that most terrorists do not claim allegiance 
to a specific country or a government. These are not uniformed soldiers 
of a nation's army. What we have are people that are loyal to the 
Taliban, to the al Qaeda, to the terrorist organizations. Their goal is 
to inflict harm on us, and the PATRIOT Act has supplied a way that the 
law enforcement, the intelligence community, the defense community can 
work to get the information that is necessary to keep us safe.
  There are a couple of points that I would like to touch on tonight, 
and that I think are very important, very important to my constituents 
and were important to my friends as we sat Sunday evening, in a safe, 
secure home and talked about this very issue. One of those is the fact 
that the PATRIOT Act allows our Federal agents to follow sophisticated 
terrorists who are trying to evade detection, and this is the ability 
to use roving wiretaps.
  Now, that is something our agents have had the ability to use for 
those that are into racketeering and into drug offenses. So they have 
used that. And the important component there is that this has to be 
court ordered. An agent has to go to a judge and get a court order on 
this. This is not something that is going to compromise ordinary 
everyday citizens. But it is a vital tool because terrorists, we have 
learned, we have learned a good bit from the detainees at Guantanamo 
Bay. They are very sophisticated. They use technology. They use 
telecommunications, and are very sophisticated in how they go about 
communicating and having that ability to get a court order and 
implement that roving wiretap, how very important that is in fighting 
this war on terrorism.
  Another point, Mr. Speaker, that I would like to bring before the 
body is looking at the situation with libraries. There is a myth out 
there, and the ACLU has claimed that many people are unaware that their 
library habits would become the target of government surveillance. That 
is a myth, and I want to be certain everyone understands that is a 
myth.
  Mr. Speaker, as a mother, I do not want our public libraries to 
become safe havens for terrorists. We know that those terrorist cells, 
many of the individuals in those terrorist cells have gone where for 
their e-mail communications and their computers and to use computers to 
research buildings and cities and locations?

                              {time}  1900

  They have gone to public libraries. There again, this is not 
something that every one of us will find ourselves exposed to, but this 
is a tool that an agent needs to be able to go to a judge and request a 
court order and come in and review records of someone who is a 
suspected terrorist who would be choosing to inflict harm on 
communities, on cities in this great Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, as I close my time this evening in this Special Order, I 
would

[[Page H6083]]

like to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter) for his leadership 
on the Committee on the Judiciary, and I would like to thank the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner) for the thoughtful 
way they have brought this issue forward and thank the leadership of 
the House for allowing us to have an opportunity to discuss with our 
constituents, with the American people, and also within this body the 
importance of reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act.
  Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. 
Blackburn) for talking to us about the PATRIOT Act. It is always good 
to get the perspective of a lawmaker and a mother. The reality is if 
the mothers ran this country, we probably would be a whole lot better 
off.
  Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
McCaul) and just note that our districts are neighbors.
  Mr. McCAUL of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Carter), who is my neighbor, and thank him for his leadership on 
this important issue. I serve on the Committee on Homeland Security and 
the Committee on International Relations, but that is not the 
experience I would like to talk about tonight. I would like to discuss 
my experience in the Justice Department prior to running for Congress 
which, in my opinion, is very relevant to this discussion.
  I served as a Federal prosecutor in the Public Integrity Section at 
Main Justice when the so-called wall between the criminal division and 
the FBI's foreign counterintelligence was in place. After 9/11, I 
served as the Chief of Counterterrorism and National Security for the 
U.S. Attorney's Office in the western district of Texas. My 
jurisdiction included the President's ranch, the State Capitol, and the 
Mexican border. I worked very closely with the FBI and the CIA on the 
joint terrorism task forces. In that capacity, I practiced law as a 
Federal prosecutor under the USA PATRIOT Act provisions, including the 
one that brought down the wall.
  I also served as deputy attorney general under then Attorney General 
and now United States Senator John Cornyn. I would like to take us back 
to the last decade. In 1995, the U.S. Attorney General adopted policies 
and procedures for contacts between the FBI and the criminal division 
concerning foreign counterintelligence investigations. This policy 
prohibited the criminal division from directing or controlling foreign 
counterintelligence investigations. Eventually, those procedures would 
be narrowly interpreted to act as a wall to prevent the FBI and 
intelligence officials from communicating with the criminal division.
  As noted by the 9/11 Commission Report, this wall may have created a 
climate that helped contribute to 9/11. An FBI agent testified that 
efforts to conduct a criminal investigation of two of the hijackers 
were blocked due to concerns over the wall. Frustrated, he wrote to FBI 
headquarters saying, ``Someday, someone will die, and wall or not, the 
public will not understand why we were not more effective in throwing 
every resource we had at certain problems. Let us hope the National 
Security Law Unit will then stand behind their decisions, especially 
since the biggest threat to us now, Osama bin Laden, is getting the 
most protection.'' This was 9/11.
  Another illustration of the wall creating dangerous confusion is in 
the case of Wen Ho Lee and the Los Alamos investigation. The first time 
the chief of the Counter Espionage Section in the Justice Department 
heard the name Wen Ho Lee was when he read about him in the New York 
Times.
  Indeed, in my own experience I was assigned to investigate 
allegations that China attempted to corrupt and influence our 
elections. With the cooperation of witnesses, we were able to uncover 
some evidence that the director of Chinese intelligence may have 
funneled money to influence the Presidential elections. The frustration 
came from the lack of coordination and communication with the foreign 
counterintelligence side of the House, particularly when our criminal 
investigation moved into the intelligence arena.
  Ultimately, these examples portray an inefficient system in which the 
left hand literally did not know what the right hand was doing. As 
stated by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Quarterly Review, 
they said: ``Indeed, effective counterintelligence we have learned 
requires the whole-hearted cooperation of all government personnel who 
can be brought to the task. A standard which punishes such cooperation 
could well be thought dangerous to national security.''
  Mr. Speaker, today, thanks to the PATRIOT Act, that wall has come 
down. The PATRIOT Act helps us connect the dots by removing the legal 
barriers that prevented law enforcement and the intelligence community 
from sharing information and coordinating activities in a common effort 
to protect national security. It dismantled the walls of separation and 
enabled a culture of cooperation that is essential to our integrated 
antiterrorism campaign.
  The President and the Attorney General recognized that without the 
ability to share information, including intelligence, we risk the very 
survival of this Nation. As stated by Senator Leahy about the PATRIOT 
Act: ``This bill breaks down traditional barriers between law 
enforcement and foreign intelligence. This is not done just to combat 
international terrorism but for any criminal investigation that 
overlaps a broad definition of foreign intelligence.''
  My experience in the Justice Department after the wall came down was 
profound and dramatically improved. As chief of counterterrorism, I 
spearheaded the efforts of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. No longer 
did the barriers of communication exist. Indeed, the FBI's foreign 
counterintelligence agents and the intelligence community were full 
partners at the table. For the first time, the FBI intelligence files 
were reviewed by criminal division prosecutors and agents.
  Our greatest task and our greatest task today remains to identify and 
locate the terror cells which may be in this very country. One of the 
tools we used to achieve this goal was through the use of national 
security wire taps under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
  In addition to these wiretaps, the PATRIOT Act provides many other 
tools for law enforcement in the war on terror. First, the PATRIOT Act 
updated the law to the technology of today. No longer will we have to 
fight a Digital Age battle with antique weapons, legal authorities left 
over from the era of rotary telephones.
  Next, it promotes efficiency by providing for nationwide search 
warrants in terrorist cases. Investigators and prosecutors save 
valuable time because they are able to petition the local Federal judge 
who is the most familiar with the case and who is overseeing the 
nationwide investigation.
  While most of the matters I worked on since the PATRIOT Act remain 
classified, one example that I can share this evening was a provision 
in the PATRIOT Act which was extremely helpful in a case involving 
allegations of a terrorist attack on July 4, 2003. In late June we 
received intelligence from a specific and credible source that a 
terrorist attack was going to occur on July 4 in my home State of 
Texas. At the same time we also received e-mails from an Internet chat 
room from an individual named Apostasy Hears Voices. He threatened to 
commit terrorist acts at numerous locations throughout the United 
States as a member of an unknown terrorist cell.
  And specifically, the individual threatened on July 4, 2003, 
significant locations in Austin, Texas; Washington, D.C.; New York; 
Miami; Charlotte; San Francisco; Seattle; and Portland would be 
attacked by terrorists. The voice stated, ``I have planned a little 
event for July 4, roasted Americans on Independence Day. It will be the 
second largest terrorist demonstration in U.S. history.'' He described 
himself as having the name ``Ali Aussie,'' a student at the University 
of Texas who had been on a ``mission'' for 4 years on a student visa as 
a member of a terrorist cell.
  He stated that each cell acts independently for the most part so that 
if one cell gets caught, the other cells are not compromised, which is 
consistent with how al Qaeda operates. He concluded with the following 
words: ``I did enjoy watching Americans burn alive in the WTC event. 
BBQ Americans.''
  We were getting this real-time from the Internet chat room. The JTTF

[[Page H6084]]

quickly went into action sharing intelligence, information and 
coordinating with multiple jurisdictions. By utilizing the PATRIOT Act, 
I was able to save valuable time by obtaining a nationwide search 
warrant for electronic evidence for terrorist-related activities. Given 
the urgency of the matter and the potential loss of human life, time 
was critical and of the essence. These provisions allowed us to execute 
search warrants on the Internet service provider in real-time. Once we 
received the information, an arrest warrant was obtained and the 
defendant was arrested on July 3, the day before the planned attack.
  The defendant was charged with using the Internet to make threats to 
kill or injure persons by an explosive device. Fortunately, the threat 
on that day turned out to be a hoax. But had it been a real threat, and 
we have to assume they all are, we would have saved lives. That in my 
judgment is what the PATRIOT Act is all about, protecting and saving 
lives.
  There has been much talk from critics of the PATRIOT Act regarding 
allowing many of the information-sharing provisions in the law. Having 
served under its provisions before and after the bringing down of the 
wall, and the implementation of the PATRIOT Act, I can envision no 
bigger national security mistake than to go back to the way things 
were. The PATRIOT Act takes laws which have long applied to drug 
dealers and organized crime and applies them to terrorists.
  For example, for years law enforcement has been able to use roving 
wiretaps which follow all communications used by a suspect as opposed 
to just one telephone line. The PATRIOT Act simply authorizes the use 
of this technique in national security intelligence investigations and 
amends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to conform to the 
parallel provision found in the Federal wiretap statute. Contrary to 
critics' assertions, the Justice Department cannot do anything without 
court supervision. The USA PATRIOT Act does not abrogate the role 
played by the judiciary in the oversight of activities of Federal law 
enforcement. Federal agents still have to obtain judicial approval 
before they can search a residence and before they can install a 
wiretap.
  I would like to leave Members with the following words which are 
disturbing but I think kind of ring home why we are here tonight and 
talking about this important issue.
  The confrontation that we are calling for with the apostate regimes 
does not know Socratic debates, Platonic ideals, or Aristotle 
diplomacy. But it does know the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of 
assassination, bombing and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon 
and the machine gun. Islamic governments have never and will never be 
established through peaceful solutions and cooperative councils. They 
are established as they always have been through pen and gun, by word 
and bullet, and by tongue and teeth.
  The words that I just read are the preface to the al Qaeda training 
manual. These words demonstrate the widely held belief that the 
question is not if the terrorists will strike us again, but rather when 
and where; and we had better be prepared.
  Thomas Jefferson once said ``the cost of freedom is eternal 
vigilance.'' Those words ring more true today than ever before.
  We owe it to the citizens of this country to reauthorize the USA 
PATRIOT Act, for if we do not, and another terrorist attack occurs on 
our soil, on our shores, we will surely all be held accountable.
  Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
McCaul) for giving us great insight from a prosecutor's standpoint of a 
man who has used the tools, and seen a Department effectively use the 
tools. The Chair knows, as I know, that we have used these tools in law 
enforcement for years. We have used them to fight gang activity, 
organized crime, drug activity, and other activities in this country. 
We have now authorized our intelligence communities to use the same 
tools to stop international terrorism and attacks upon the United 
States of America by these heinous terrorists who strike the innocent 
of our society.

                              {time}  1915

  Mr. Speaker, we heard this experience from the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. McCaul), and I think it is great to know from a prosecutor's 
standpoint exactly what is enhanced by the PATRIOT Act and the ability 
to fight these crimes, the front-page crimes in the world today. So I 
am very pleased we were able to hear that perspective.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King), who would 
like to address this body concerning his views on the PATRIOT Act.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Carter), his Honor, for yielding to me.
  And Mr. Speaker, Your Honor; and over here on the right, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert), his Honor; and the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. McCaul), his prosecutorship, it is quite an honor for me to 
stand here amongst these honorable individuals who have stood up for 
the law in the fashion that they have. And, by the way, they are all 
Texans, and I am in elite company here tonight and privileged to be 
here. And I appreciate their role in this Congress and the direction 
that they help take this country and the vision that they bring to this 
floor consistently night after night. I see the faces of some of them 
here defending our Constitution, defending our rights, and defending 
our freedom.
  I have the privilege to serve on the Committee on the Judiciary in 
the United States House of Representatives, and I have served there for 
2 years with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter) as my wing man on 
the right and always bringing me back to the rule of law and an 
excellent listener. And I hope I have picked up some of those traits, 
although I have got some room to go.
  And what I listened to this year and partly last year was the debate 
over whether we had 11, 12, or 13 hearings on the PATRIOT Act. I am not 
sure what that number is. I do not necessarily take a position. A dozen 
plus or minus one, that is a lot. And we had those hearings because 
that is part of our due process. It is part of our full responsibility, 
and we heard throughout the last presidential campaign and across this 
country continually complaint after complaint after complaint about the 
PATRIOT Act. It was going to be taking away people's rights and Big 
Brother was going to be intruding upon their most private documents and 
we would be handing over the investigation to an unchecked Justice 
Department that would go in and violate our privacy for no good reason 
except to look over our shoulder, compile records, and build databases 
that would someplace along the line violate our freedom. So we held 
those hearings, Mr. Speaker, so that we could hear from the public on 
where these violations might have taken place.
  And I will point out that the PATRIOT Act is simply an act that moves 
the investigations of international terrorism up to a level of actually 
a higher standard of protection for the people in this country than 
there is a criminal investigation. So a search warrant that is achieved 
under the PATRIOT Act requires a court order, and a search order that 
is granted under a criminal investigation could be a grand jury 
subpoena, which is simply a rubber stamp. A case has to be made before 
a judge to get a search warrant under the PATRIOT Act. And some of 
those investigations have used section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, and in 
fact it has been used 35 times. And I have read some of those 
incidences. They are in a classified version if it is sensitive to the 
safety of this Nation. But I have read some, and there is nothing in 
there that is unusual or nothing that I can find that compiles data 
that can later on be used in a fashion that violates privacy. It is all 
focused on national security.
  We have too few resources to invest them anywhere else except in our 
national security and in crime enforcement. And yet we have heard 
continually the PATRIOT Act is going to go in and it is going to check 
out library records wherever they check out a book, wherever they get 
on a computer in a library, and Big Brother is going to be watching 
over their shoulder when they go on the Internet down at the local 
public library.
  And, by the way, when people go into a bookstore and buy a book or a 
magazine, we are going to have those records and we are going to keep a

[[Page H6085]]

huge nationwide database so we know what they are thinking because what 
they are reading must be what they are thinking.
  But, in fact, after all those hearings and in the last hearing, which 
is the one we heard so much about, the minority party brought all of 
the witnesses, all four witnesses, and they made their testimony about 
how egregious the PATRIOT Act was. And I asked a question of the CEO of 
Amnesty International, after he had made all those allegations, could 
he just kindly into the record give us the name of one individual, just 
one individual who had their rights violated under the PATRIOT Act. And 
the answer was, well, a librarian in Texas is intimidated and this 
person is afraid and it puts a chilling effect out on people that think 
their documents that they access in the library should be private.
  But, Mr. CEO, could you name a person?
  And I pressed and pressed and pressed until I ran out of time. Then I 
asked him, would he enter it into the record and we will give him a 
week to respond with the name or the names of the individuals who have 
had their rights violated by the PATRIOT Act.
  And the chairman, at the conclusion of the hearing, reiterated my 
request, put it into the record. And the response that we got back was 
very vague in its allegations and devoid of names, addresses, and phone 
numbers of people who had had their rights violated by the PATRIOT Act.
  If in a dozen plus or minus one hearings, if in the final hearing 
that had all critics' witnesses at the hearing, there was not still a 
single name that was presented to this Congress on someone who had had 
their rights violated by the PATRIOT Act, then it falls back to the 
supposition of, well, it could happen, could it not? And for that after 
all of this, after these years of the PATRIOT Act and its clear record 
and its record of success, as was referenced by the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. McCaul) earlier, we would repeal the PATRIOT Act on the 
supposition that someone's rights could one day be violated?

  There is not a shred of evidence that that has happened. Of the 35 
times that it was used, it was not used in a library. It was not used 
for books. It was not used for a computer in a library. But there was 
an amendment that passed on the floor of this Congress that would 
prohibit the use of U.S. funds for enforcement, federal taxpayers' 
dollars for enforcement, of those sections of the PATRIOT Act so that 
it would turn libraries off limits, book stores off limits; and they 
said they made an exception for computers, but it included also the 
sign-up list in the library so they could not even go look at the sign-
up list in the library and find out whose computer was not exempt. They 
are all exempted by that amendment. We cannot let that happen when we 
bring the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act and get it finally 
concluded and get it into law.
  And this is something that is critical. It is critical to the future 
of this country, for the safety and security of this country, for us to 
be able to do a simple international terrorist investigation 
domestically within the United States and protect the rights of people.
  And my view is this: That after 12 hearings plus or minus one, after 
these cases that cannot be brought forward that people's rights may 
have been violated, and they were not, I am impressed with the work 
that was done on the part of this Congress before I got here. And they 
were under the pressure of the dust of September 11, 2001, drafted a 
PATRIOT Act in a pretty fast legislative hurry, and there is not any 
part of that that I think was picked apart in an effective way. We made 
a few minor changes to make sure that people were protected a little 
bit more, but it really did not change the substance of the PATRIOT 
Act.
  We have got a good bill here. It needs to be put into code. There 
will be a 10-year sunset on it by the position that we put in it. That 
is a pretty wise thing. It takes it out of the realm of short-term 
politics, but it is a law that can stand, I think, in perpetuity with 
this country.
  And we are faced with an enemy in this country and around the world 
that we need to define and understand. It is not just law enforcement 
that controls this enemy. This enemy is a parasite. Radical Islam, the 
Islamists. The parasite lives on the host, the host called Islam. The 
Muslims have the mosques where the parasites, the radical Islamists, 
congregate. And the parasites live on the host, feed off the host, are 
funded by the host. And we need the help of the host to eradicate 
radical Islamists. And if we do not have that kind of help, there is 
going to have to be some other steps that are taken. And one of those, 
I hope, is a web page that goes up in the United States so that these 
sermons in the mosques go up where our public knows what is being said 
about the hatred of Americans.
  I thank the gentleman for bringing this special order tonight. All 
these Texans, judges, and honorable people that do this good cause, I 
am glad to be part of them.
  Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman 
from Iowa, whom I very much enjoyed sitting next to and talking to and 
working with on issues on the Committee on the Judiciary. We Texans are 
proud to have him here with us tonight because he is a true patriot in 
the sense of the American term ``patriot,'' and we are very proud of 
him.
  And the gentleman mentioned these issues of obtaining these records, 
this fear, this absolute fear that people have of somebody looking at 
their library records. Grand jury subpoenas have looked at library 
records for years. Grand jury subpoenas can be issued by the foreman of 
a grand jury. I do not know where the panic comes from. This has been 
going on forever, but somehow there is a panic.
  At this time I would like to welcome the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert), from East Texas. I feel really kind of like we are in a 
judicial conference. We have got a judge in the chair. We have got two 
of us down here on the floor. We are proud that we might as well just 
call a quorum and start doing some legal business.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert), a 
good colleague and close friend, to talk about some of the issues and 
the answers that we see in the PATRIOT Act.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. 
And I do appreciate being in the presence of two of my former judge 
colleagues. They all understand due process. They have dealt with it. 
They have reviewed the affidavits. They have signed the search 
warrants. They have signed the arrest warrants. They understand due 
process. And what made me feel better about the PATRIOT Act, because I, 
like many Americans, had concerns about it, was getting into the meat 
of it and seeing that there are some safeguards here. But some of us 
did fight to have a sunset provision, and that is the way it came out 
of committee. And by the time we came out of committee, every single 
Republican, I believe, if not all, most all, voted to have a sunset 
provision on 206 and 215, those two provisions. So there are people 
that are extremely interested in keeping our liberties as much as 
possible while we battle a nemesis that wants to destroy our way of 
life, and I think that is what people lose sight of, that we are in a 
war for our very existence.
  It was a pleasure to follow in the gentleman from Texas' (Mr. Carter) 
footsteps into the Committee on the Judiciary. I was advised that, at 
least from our side of the aisle, I am the only judge, former judge, 
that is on there after he left.
  But, nonetheless, these are people that are concerned about due 
process. We had 11 hearings on the sunset of the PATRIOT Act and what 
needed to be kept and what did not. And we had 35 witnesses we heard 
from, and we heard from various positions. All different aspects were 
looked at. So it was not like we went blindly into this. There was 
tremendous debate. There was a lot of discussion because people are 
concerned about the rights of Americans.
  And one of the ongoing battles that we fight is balancing liberties 
with complete freedom. And I admire one of the quotes from John Locke, 
and, of course, my colleagues recall that John Locke was an individual 
who was studied heavily by the framers of the Declaration of 
Independence, the framers of the Constitution. And Locke said this: 
``In all the States of created beings, capable of laws, where there is 
no law there is no freedom. For liberty

[[Page H6086]]

is to be free from the restraint and violence from others.'' That is 
pretty profound. ``Liberty is to be free from the restraint and 
violence from others; which cannot be where there is no law; and is 
not, as we are told, a liberty for every man to do what he lists.'' 
Pretty profound stuff. But it is a balance between the incredible 
important liberties that we have in this country that people fought and 
died to make sure that we secured, and also our security. And I love 
Patrick Henry and I love his quotes: ``Is life so dear, or peace so 
sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid 
it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take; but as for 
me, give me liberty or give me death.'' Those are profound words, but 
we fall in the shadow of these giants, and it is not lost on us, and it 
was not lost on the Republicans as we have struggled with these issues 
and to balance. But, Mr. Speaker, make no mistake. We are in a war for 
our survival. There are people that are bent on the destruction of our 
way of life.
  I was a history major at Texas A&M. I love history. And the fact is 
throughout the history of mankind there are always people bent on evil, 
but every now and then through history evil men emerge bent on 
destroying everything that is civilized, everything that is good, 
liberties of others. They want to destroy them. And the danger is 
another dark age is if we do not oppose that evil, if we do not take it 
head on. And throughout our history where good people did not oppose 
evil, they tried appeasement like Neville Chamberlain: This means 
``peace for our time.''

                              {time}  1930

  Fortunately, in the 20th century, even though appeasers went too far 
at times and they let evil get too much of a foothold, ultimately 
people cared so deeply that they came forward and they gave it their 
all, and some made the ultimate sacrifice to fight evil so we did not 
go into another dark ages.
  Mr. Speaker, that is what we face. My colleague from Texas 
understands that, and my colleagues from around this country, they 
understand that. And as we reviewed top secret intelligence information 
and as we continue to do that, some of us in the Committee on the 
Judiciary this week, there is no question that, perhaps not the level 
of 9/11, but there are disasters that have been averted by use of the 
PATRIOT Act. We need it. We need to protect ourselves.
  On balance, on the other side, as we struggle among ourselves, and I 
am grateful to colleagues, I see my friend from Massachusetts across 
the way, there are people that struggle to make sure that we have and 
preserve the freedoms that were fought for, and that is why we agreed 
and have a sunset provision, so that we can come forward.
  I want to say this, make it clear, that we did not fight for a sunset 
provision in the PATRIOT Act because we are concerned about the Bush 
administration and our wonderful Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales. 
These are good people. They have been forthcoming. There have been no 
abuses. The record is clear. We got to review the information, they 
have done a wonderful job.
  But I can tell the gentleman, I had concerns. Like in 215, the 
language in there says basically when the order is issued to produce 
documents from the court order, that it is secret. It is kept secret, 
and you cannot disclose it.
  Well, I am proud of this Justice Department, I am proud of this 
President, and I am proud that the position they have taken is that 
even though it says nothing could be disclosed, their position has 
been, of course you can talk about this with your lawyer. Of course you 
can appeal and have due process on this order to produce. But I was 
concerned that if we had a lesser, freer-minded administration 
following this one, that perhaps they would say no, the law means what 
it says. It says you cannot disclose it to anybody. No, you cannot have 
a lawyer, you cannot appeal, and then we would really be in for a 
battle.
  So I am grateful that the Department of Justice and the 
administration were in favor of amending that to make clear for future 
administrations what this administration has done, allow people to 
consult their attorney, allow an appeal to make sure due process takes 
place. In 215 we are looking at those amendments to put that insertion, 
you consult with your lawyer, you can appeal.
  The librarian exception keeps being brought up, but it is a business 
records exception. As a judge, I do not know about you all, and I use 
``you all,'' and I realize I am in a national setting here, but, by 
golly, the language needs a second person plural, and we in the South 
have provided it. It is ``you'' and ``you all,'' and that is where we 
are.
  But as far as these provisions regarding library business records, it 
is not just librarians, it is business records, and if there is reason 
to believe that these things need to be pursued, then they will be 
pursued. Just like I have issued orders to banks to produce information 
when there was probable cause, I have issued warrants to produce 
information, there are safeguards to ensure the same thing here. But I 
am glad we are going to have those amendments in there to make sure.
  I appreciate the gentleman yielding me time, because these are very 
serious issues. I know the gentleman believes that and knows they are. 
So it is the balance. But, make no mistake, evil people are bent on the 
destruction of our way of life, and if we flinch, if we cringe, if we 
weary from this struggle in the war against terror that would undermine 
all that others have given to us through their sacrifices, then we have 
not done the job we should have.
  The PATRIOT Act allows us to do that. It provides for sunset 
provisions which will allow us to revisit these issues in the future. 
If you go back historically, when people combat evil and they are 
victorious, you put that evil back in a box and we do not go into a 
dark age. There is another period of enlightenment, like I believe we 
have gone through. But we must battle, put it back in the box, 
hopefully for another 100, 200, 300 years, so we can continue in this 
great sense and state of freedom that our forefathers and foremothers 
have given to us.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. I congratulate the 
gentleman on taking the time for something so important.
  Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I appreciate the 
gentleman being willing to address this body and to talk about this.
  Mr. Speaker, when we were discussing this, when I heard the 
gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn) talk and also as I heard 
the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) talk and others, I thought about 
something that many of us in the Judiciary deal with every day, and it 
dawned on me that one of the things we toyed with for a while was 
defining ``gangs'' and what makes up gang violence.
  Basically a simple definition of a gang is a group of organized 
people bonded together for the purpose of committing some type of 
criminal activity. That is the way the law looks at a gang.
  We are dealing with an international gang when we deal with 
terrorists. There has become a magic or mystique that is being created 
by those who oppose the PATRIOT Act that for some reason we are 
stepping on the toes of some group of people, and yet the same tools 
that are in the PATRIOT Act have been used against gang violence, have 
been used against organized crime, have been used against gangs, 
against street gangs in this country. The tools have been used against 
drug dealers and drug importers. They have been used for years, and no 
one seems to be feeling like for some reason there is something 
terrible about those rules and those laws that we have used.
  But they do feel for some reason that using them against the largest, 
most organized gang on Earth, there is something wrong with that, the 
gang that has killed in one fell attack more Americans than were killed 
at Pearl Harbor, more civilian Americans than were killed at Pearl 
Harbor, that started the Second World War.
  For some reason, people are concerned about a PATRIOT Act that does 
nothing more than make uniform in many instances laws that exist in 
different jurisdictions across the United States.
  We hear talk about the sneak-a-peak warrant. For a while that was the 
section of choice to talk about for a long time, the sneak-a-peak 
warrant. It just sounds terrible. It sounds like a peeping tom looking 
through your window,

[[Page H6087]]

and that is great terminology and well-worded by those who oppose it.
  So what is a sneak-a-peak warrant? Well, one time before I went on 
the bench, I was a young lawyer and I had a client who had a house out 
in the country. And he took it in on a debt and he was trying to sell 
it, but until he did, he wanted to rent it, so he rented it to a 
graduate student from the University of Texas.
  They came by my office every first of the month and laid $200 on my 
desk for that house, and for a year that graduate student lived out 
there in that house in the country outside of Round Rock.
  Then along about in the November time frame of the next year, I got a 
phone call from my client, who happened to be in the great State of 
Pennsylvania, and he said, ``I think I have got a buyer. I ought to be 
able to close this thing. I need to get the tenant out of the house. 
Would you go out there and tell him we will give him a month to vacate 
the house.''
  I took my little boy, who now is a 35-year-old football and baseball 
coach at Round Rock High School, but at that time was about a 4-year-
old, and we went out in the country to the house. We knocked on the 
door. Nobody was home.
  I had a key and the right of the landlord to enter, so I entered the 
home to write a note to put on the kitchen table. I discovered the 
house looked fairly unlived in. As I looked around to see if my tenant 
might have moved out, I opened a door to a bedroom and there stacked 
floor to ceiling were thousands of kilo blocks of marijuana, packed so 
dense you could not see the windows in this 12-by-14 room, floor to 
ceiling.
  My son, not knowing anything, and I, backed quickly out of the house 
and went to the police in Round Rock. The police, after a long effort, 
found a judge, applied for a search warrant, got a search warrant and 
an arrest warrant and went out to that house. They went to execute the 
warrant.
  There was no one at home. They examined the fact that there was a ton 
at least of marijuana in that house, and so they backed off and waited 
for those who were in possession of that marijuana to come home, 
because they had no one at that point in time. Ultimately, four 
individuals came back to the house. At that point in time they executed 
the warrant.
  That was a sneak-a-peak. They looked at it, they saw it, they backed 
off and executed later. Those gentlemen's rights were not violated. 
That is a tool we have used in law enforcement for years.
  Now, why does it sound so bad? Because we use the term ``sneak-a-
peak.'' It sounds like peeping toms in somebody's neighborhood.
  We have got to get away from this terminology that is trying to take 
good, valid laws that have been tested time in and time out by our 
courts, both State and Federal courts, and putting some cute phrase on 
them that makes them sound like they step all over people's 
constitutional rights and causing our public to be concerned about what 
we are doing here.
  This PATRIOT Act follows the guidance the courts have given us over 
the years concerning law enforcement tools that we have used and we 
have used effectively. This PATRIOT Act has put together these tools 
not only which have been there in fighting the criminal justice issues 
in this country, but now the intelligence and international terrorism 
issues have the ability to use these same lawful instruments without 
fear of being crossed over between the various Federal acts that are 
involved in dealing with the terrorist issues.
  One of the things that the people are concerned about is that you get 
a search warrant that can be served across the United States. Just on 
that case I was giving you, before we went to a judge we tried to 
figure out which law enforcement agency ought to be seeking the 
warrant. Should it have been the constable, should it have been the 
sheriff in his jurisdiction, should it have been the city cops in their 
jurisdiction, or should it have been the Department of Public Safety in 
their jurisdiction?
  That was just a little old dope case in Texas, trying to go out and 
who seeks the warrant.
  We have now gone and said it is crazy when you have got people that 
operate instantly on the Internet, who can move across this country in 
record time and do crimes in various jurisdictions simultaneously and 
store elements of destruction in various jurisdictions simultaneously, 
to have to go to every jurisdiction in the Nation to get a valid search 
warrant. So all we have done is something that we have had, we have 
allowed one warrant to be served across the country.
  All of these are the various complaints that we hear about the 
PATRIOT Act. The PATRIOT Act is just that. What is interesting is it is 
a patriot's solution to the War on Terror, a group of patriots, both 
Republicans and Democrats, who joined together after a heinous attack 
on our Nation and passed the PATRIOT Act.
  This is a bipartisan bill that was passed in Congress. This is both 
sides of the aisle saying we have had enough. And it was put together I 
think effectively. This time in the reauthorization, as the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) explained, we have addressed concerns about 
should we have a little more due process. On some of the issues, we 
have enhanced the due process provisions.
  A grand jury foreman, he can subpoena records, business records or 
library records. He does not have to have anybody's permission to do 
it. The DA comes to him, he subpoenas them. As the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Gohmert) explained, in the PATRIOT Act a judge looks at the thing, 
examines it to make sure there is probable cause, and he makes sure the 
law is abided by.
  Why are we worried about that, when we already have a procedure that 
we have used for years and years and years and nobody seems to have 
been crying about it? I never heard anybody complain about it at all.

                              {time}  1945

  So let us get back to being patriots. Let us get back to saying, we 
have an enemy without and within that chooses to attack innocent people 
in this Nation for the purposes of imposing their will, their criminal 
will, upon society, and their number one target is our society and our 
way of life. Let us go back to being patriots and say, we will give our 
warriors, both the warriors that fight in the streets and on the 
Internet and in the law courts of this United States, and our warriors 
who fight in Iraq and Afghanistan and wherever the enemy may meet us 
overseas, all of the tools and weapons necessary to fight and destroy 
this evil war on terrorists, these terrorists who attack our way of 
life.
  Mr. Speaker, let us be proud that we are patriots who have created a 
PATRIOT Act, a bipartisan PATRIOT Act that protects the freedoms of 
Americans and protects the lives of Americans from terrorists.

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