[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 127 (Friday, August 3, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H9666-H9668]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1345

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, we just heard it straight out: You don't 
need to see the bill. You will see it whenever we want to give it to 
you. You don't need it. All we are doing down here is playing 
tiddlywinks with national security.
  Mr. Speaker, I disagree with that. We disagree with that. I think 
this is an unfair way.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Daniel E. Lungren).
  Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the 
gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I do not have the privilege to serve on the Intelligence 
Committee now, but in the 1980s I did. Then, following that, in the 
1990s when I served in California as the attorney general, I recall 
getting security briefings from the intelligence community from 
Washington, DC.
  It was during the Clinton administration that Admiral McConnell was 
the head of the NSA. I do not recall any partisan or bipartisan dispute 
about his qualifications, his professionalism or his judgment. He is 
the man that the President has brought out of retirement to be the 
Director of National Intelligence. He is the one that has presented to 
us in open and in closed testimony why we need this.
  I think it is fair for us to ask, if we are getting a draft that he 
has rejected, why it is the draft that is going to be presented to us 
under the suspension calendar. Unless we have changed the rules of the 
House in the 16 years I was gone, the whole concept of a suspension 
bill is that you suspend all the rules for noncontroversial bills. 
Noncontroversial bills. If the head of our intelligence services 
believes that this is so controversial we ought to reject this, then 
why is it being brought up under this kind of a suspension?
  Now, I have tried to work and have worked with the gentlewoman from 
California on many occasions getting bipartisan legislation through 
this floor. But this is the single most important bill that I have seen 
brought up in the 3 years that I have been back, and maybe in the 10 
years I was here before.
  This goes to the question of whether we take our blinders off with 
respect to intelligence, with respect to what kind of chatter that is 
going on around the world. And, yes, they say we all agree that 
foreign-to-foreign communications ought to be not under the purview of 
the Court, because we understand that has never been protected under 
the Constitution. We have been informed that the draft that we are 
talking about would not allow us to do that in the way it is necessary 
to protect this Nation.
  That is why it is so important; not that it is partisan, not that 
somebody came here under one rule or another, but because the head of 
intelligence for the United States has said we can't accept this draft. 
If he says that, we ought to listen to him. We ought to try and get 
something that will work.
  So let's forget about this nonsense of partisanship. Let's not get up 
here, shake something out here in the hand and say, well, you have had 
it long enough. I don't know how long it took the Constitution to be 
written from beginning to end. It wasn't how long it took. It is the 
words they put there. It is what they actually produced. That is what 
we are going to be judged by; not by how many hours we were here, but 
whether we got it right.
  The Director of National Intelligence has told us we have gotten it 
wrong now. All our people back home are in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy 
because it

[[Page H9667]]

is wrong, because we are not doing it right. He has asked us to fix it. 
It is the most solemn obligation we have under our oath of the 
Constitution to do it right. And to say that we are going to do it 
under some suspension and don't worry about what it says violates that 
oath.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Rogers).
  Mr. ROGERS of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I can't tell you how 
disappointed I am in my friends. And I have the greatest respect for my 
good friend from Florida and the gentlewoman from California. We have 
worked so well together on so many issues that, I think, have made a 
difference in a positive way for national security for this country. I 
believe that with every fiber of my being.
  I almost feel bad for you that you would be sent here on behalf of 
the Speaker to try to defend this today. I feel bad for you because I 
know you both. And I know that is not the direction you would have 
taken, had it been your decision.
  Efforts to change this are not new. The level of concern by so many 
of us who sit in those classified hearings in our Intelligence 
Committee is not new. Last year, my colleague from New Mexico 
introduced a bill that would have fixed this problem last year, and it 
was stopped. Earlier this year, earlier this year, it was introduced 
again to fix this problem, and it was denied by the majority.
  I have to tell you, when I was a young FBI agent, sometimes you would 
look up at the policies kind of flowing down at you. We were working 
awfully hard to develop probable cause to get wiretaps, which was the 
right thing to do. It was a difficult process with lots of vetting, 
lots of hours, lots of source development and source vetting, lots of 
surveillance, and putting it all together to make something like that 
work so that it could rise to the standard to go after a United States 
citizen and their communication. It is a pretty high standard. I argue, 
as somebody who did it for a living, it should be.
  But what we have been arguing for for the last year is to say, 
listen, we should not give those rights to terrorists overseas who are 
conducting terrorist activities to target Americans or our allies, 
including the United States soldiers. They do not deserve the rights of 
a U.S. citizen.
  This was an easy fix. It said, let's be technology neutral. Times 
have changed since the 1970s when FISA was written. Technology has 
changed. People communicate completely differently.
  What we said last year is let us change to keep up, because today we 
have asked soldiers to stand in harm's way. And the thing that I know 
that my colleagues understand, both Democrats and Republicans, is 
because this House has failed to act, they have stood in harm's way 
without all the information that they need and deserve to be safe, 
successful, and come home to their families.
  This gamesmanship is dangerous, and I mean dangerous. My colleagues 
understand those classified cases that we talk about, that we know 
because this has not been fixed. Lives may have been lost because of 
it. Lives may have been lost because of it. We can change that today.
  I just got a copy of this. As I go through it, just in my brief 
cursory look at it, this is not what we have been negotiating. There 
have been no new demands. This is so easy. This is so simple. It can be 
about a 2-page bill, and we can begin to protect Americans in harm's 
way, including the homeland, but, most importantly, the soldiers who 
are overseas who deserve that protection. And just because we shout and 
we yell, no, no, no, we believe that terrorists should not have to have 
a warrant overseas as well doesn't make it so, and you know that. That 
has been the stumbling block. The Court has said it. The intelligence 
community has said it. The DNI has said it. We have said it.
  I am going to beg all of you, please, for the lives of the soldiers 
who are at risk today, for the homeland, this is not the place for 
gamesmanship. This is not the place that we argue about a bill that we 
have not even seen. This is the time that we should come together. This 
is the time that this bill should be out and done, negotiated, and free 
from all of the gamesmanship we see today.
  When I go home and look at those families of those folks who have 
loved ones overseas, I want to be able to tell them we have done 
everything that we can do to make them safe. When somebody kisses their 
young child and puts them on the bus, I want to be able to look that 
family in the eye and say we are doing everything to make sure we get 
all the information of what the terrorists are up to to protect the 
United States of America.
  We all know in good conscience we can't say that today, and we have 
not been able to say that for months in good conscience.
  This is our chance to come together as people I know and I respect, 
who know the dangers of the gamesmanship on an issue this important. 
Let's stop it. Let's go back. Go back and tell the Speaker, I am sorry, 
we are not playing this game.
  People's lives are at stake. We can do this. We can do this together. 
I know that is why I was sent here. I know that is what you believe in 
your hearts. Let's do this together. Let's put this stuff aside and fix 
this problem so that we can begin to listen to the conversations of 
terrorists we know are planning attacks against our allies and the 
United States of America.
  I strongly urge the reconsideration of this. Let's do this. We can do 
this. We should do this. We ought to do it. And shame on us if we can't 
do it.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I 
may consume, and I will yield to the distinguished Chair of the 
Intelligence Committee in just a moment.
  But I would like to respond to my good friend from Michigan, and he 
is my good friend, and he was correct in asserting that he, Ms. Harman, 
myself, all of the members of the Intelligence Committee that are here, 
have worked actively for more than a year on this. What he was 
incorrect about was whether or not there were ongoing negotiations.
  I would urge him to know that with staff, the distinguished Chair of 
the Intelligence Committee and many other Members, and Ms. Harman from 
her Chair on Homeland Security, and countless others in the minority as 
well, have worked day and night with the administration to produce a 
bipartisan, bicameral proposal.
  Mr. Rogers just said last night no other negotiations were going on. 
Last night the DNI asked us to make three changes, three, to our 
proposal. We made all three changes. They are in this bill. But the 
administration still rejected our proposal, and they gave us a moving 
target.
  We gave the administration what it told us it needed to protect 
America. They still said no.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Reyes), the distinguished chairman of the Intelligence Committee.
  Mr. REYES. Mr. Speaker, I just want to take a minute to respond to my 
colleague from Michigan.
  This is a serious issue. We have worked hard for the last 2 weeks in 
particular, in addition to the hearings that we have had, with the 
commitment that we are going to do an overall fix of FISA in the fall. 
But we wanted to give the administration the three things, as my 
colleague from Florida just mentioned, that they could work with so 
they could keep this country safe in this urgent hour. Those three 
things we gave them. Then the goalposts were moved and we were told 
that there would be additional issues. That has been our experience.
  The difference here is very simple, Mr. Speaker. My colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle for 6 years have been only too happy to oblige 
the administration on whatever they need. You got a bill? Let's rubber-
stamp it. Need a supplemental? Let's rubber-stamp it.
  Well, do you know what? Those days are over. Since we took control of 
the Congress, we are doing the oversight that was neglected. We are now 
being part of the process to make sure that not only do we have the 
tools to keep this country safe, but that we protect the American 
people and their civil rights. That is the basic fundamental 
difference.
  This bill here does the three things that the DNI asked us to do and 
that the administration wanted us to do. It is not the all-encompassing 
changes that FISA needs, but we are committed to doing that in the 
fall.

[[Page H9668]]

                              {time}  1400

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson).
  Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that 
the House recess until we get feedback from the Director of National 
Intelligence that he has seen this legislation and he agrees that it 
will fix the intelligence gap that is threatening the United States.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. I object.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Objection is heard.

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