[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 24 (Wednesday, February 13, 2008)]
[House]
[Page H875]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      SHORT-TERM EXTENSION ON ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE LEGISLATION

  (Mr. ROYCE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, we are back on the floor today deliberating 
another short-term extension on electronic surveillance legislation, 
and I would understand a stopgap measure if we were at an impasse. But 
yesterday the other body passed a bipartisan permanent rewrite of this 
essential national security legislation. They did it with 68 votes. 
They did it overwhelmingly on what some here have called a contentious 
issue. Well, 21 Members of the majority here have written the 
Democratic leadership supporting the Senate's version. The President 
has said he will sign it.
  Mr. Speaker, let's bring that bill to the floor and pass it today. If 
the current authority is allowed to lapse 3 days from now, most experts 
agree that the administration would have to go back to the original 
FISA statute for new warrants in cases where foreign-to-foreign 
communications are routed through the U.S. telecom infrastructure, 
causing us to miss important information on terrorists that are trying 
to attack Europe, trying to attack us here, trying to attack in the 
Middle East. That's a situation we cannot go back to.

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