[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 163 (Saturday, December 17, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H12055-H12056]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            CIVIL LIBERTIES

  (Mr. FARR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. FARR. Mr. Speaker, while we are locked up here today, I would 
like to wish my wife Sherry a very happy birthday. This week, I have 
been telling her, has been a real doozy for civil liberties.
  We learned that both the Pentagon and the National Security Agency 
have been spying on thousands of innocent Americans. Apparently, the 
NSA was doing it at the direction of President Bush.

[[Page H12056]]

  I was shocked to learn that one of those documented instances of the 
Pentagon domestic spying happened in my district.
  A student protest against military recruiters at the University of 
California at Santa Cruz, which occurred this past April, was not only 
observed for suspicious activity, but the ``threat'' was declared 
``credible.''
  I cannot condemn these actions strongly enough. Using government time 
and money to spy on people exercising their constitutional freedoms is 
just ridiculous.
  I have already signed on to two letters about these violations of 
privacy, calling on the NSA to fully explain the constitutionality of 
their surveillances and calling on the Department of Defense and the 
Department of Justice to investigate NSA's actions.
  As Members of Congress, we must be diligent in our oversight of the 
Pentagon, but our job is next to impossible when the administration 
hides behind the cloak of national security to thwart the civil 
liberties of many Americans, as they have done with the Pentagon 
surveillance program.
  The Pentagon must come forward with an explanation about why they 
were spying on the UCSC rally.
  The right to express differing opinions was one of the founding 
principles of this country.
  The voices of the American people must always be heard, whether this 
admistration agrees with them or not.
  It is hypocritical for us to urge transparency in foreign governments 
while ignoring what our own government is doing in violation of its 
citizens' civil liberties.

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