[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 94 (Tuesday, June 14, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3843-S3844]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        MASS SHOOTING IN ORLANDO

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I know the country is in shock and still 
trying to evaluate the terrorist attack in Orlando as we continue to 
learn from the FBI's investigation. The attack killed almost 50 people 
and of course left dozens injured.
  According to the latest reports, one of the victims was Frank 
Escalante from Weslaco, TX. My heart goes out to Frank, his family and 
friends, and all those others who lost loved ones early Sunday morning 
and to those living with the wounds they sustained in that terrible 
attack. With this act of violence and hatred, Orlando sadly joins a 
growing list of American cities and cities around the world changed 
forever by radical Islamic extremism.
  The jihadist, like those in San Bernardino before him, declared his 
allegiance to the Islamic State, and like the two Boston Marathon 
bombers, he was previously investigated by the FBI for connections to 
terrorists or known terrorist groups that carried out attacks similar 
to the gruesome attacks in Paris last November. Like those terrorists, 
the terrorist in Orlando targeted hundreds of unarmed civilians, and 
ISIS has used the Internet to urge lone wolves to imitate these types 
of attacks. In other words, not only are we concerned about people in 
the Middle East who have pledged allegiance to ISIS coming to the 
United States, we are concerned about Americans who are traveling from 
the United States, going there and training, and then coming back home. 
But the worst, and perhaps the most difficult of all to deal with, are 
American citizens, such as this shooter, who are radicalized in place, 
and of course this is the biggest challenge for the FBI. We must now 
come together and not only mourn and grieve those lives lost, but we 
need to also try and make a difference. It is time to act.
  The Orlando attack was not just a random act of violence. It was a 
calculated act of terror. By aiming his gun at innocent civilians, this 
jihadist opened fire on our freedoms, our way of life, and the bedrock 
principles that make us a diverse and vibrant democracy. We have to 
take these threats seriously and do everything we can to counter the 
ideology that provides a threat to our security, both within and 
without our borders.
  We also need an honest conversation about how to move forward on 
legislation that might have the effect of preventing attacks like this 
in the future. Some of those conversations are already happening, and I 
hope we will not stop until we make some progress. One place we can 
start is with a measure I introduced last year that would prevent known 
or suspected terrorists from purchasing firearms in the first place. It 
would not just block someone from buying a gun because of mere 
suspicion but would set up a process to actually detain--if based on 
evidence they are deemed to be a threat to society--and prevent them 
from not only purchasing a firearm but put them behind bars where they 
can't be a danger to other people. If potential terrorists are 
dangerous enough not to be allowed to own a gun, then I think they are 
dangerous enough to be taken off the streets. We shouldn't forget that 
a person who feels compelled to commit a terrorist act will not be 
stopped by just being unable to legally purchase a firearm. The 9/11 
attackers used box cutters and airplanes. The Boston Marathon bombers 
used homemade explosives, and the terrorists in Paris and Brussels used 
illegal firearms and suicide vests.
  In the case of the Orlando attacker, it does not appear he was on a 
watch list at the time he purchased the weapons he used to carry out 
this horrific attack. In fact, the FBI had twice cleared him of being 
an active terror threat. We need to be clear-eyed about this if we are 
actually serious about stopping events like this in the future.
  I believe we do need to go further and do more to arm our law 
enforcement officers with the tools they need in order to counter 
terrorists and defend communities. FBI Director James Comey has 
outlined--with great clarity and specificity--how great a threat we 
face from extremists within our borders, and he made the point that the 
FBI has opened investigations in all of their FBI field offices around 
the country; that is, investigations of people being radicalized in 
place and doing the terrible deed that the shooter in Orlando did early 
Sunday morning.
  If the FBI Director says this is an urgent need, we ought to act. Too 
often the FBI and other local law enforcement officers have to operate 
with one hand tied behind their back because they can't access key 
pieces of information like encrypted data. We saw that in an attempted 
terrorist attack in Garland, TX, last year, on the day of the ISIS-
inspired attack just northeast of Dallas. Before the two jihadists--
unfortunately traveling from Phoenix--arrived in Garland, they 
exchanged more than 100 different messages with terrorists overseas. 
Unfortunately, the FBI still doesn't have access to those 
communications because they are encrypted. That means law enforcement 
could still be missing critical information that could uncover future 
plots or identify more terrorists, both abroad and here at home.
  The Garland case is not unique. The FBI is routinely hamstrung by 
outdated policies that make their job of protecting the homeland more 
difficult. We saw another example of that in San Bernardino, CA. We 
have to address this major policy gap. I hope the Senate has an 
opportunity to consider an amendment I filed to a bill that would 
update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. It would help FBI 
agents get access to critical information faster to prevent terrorist 
attacks. The FBI Director has made it clear that this is his top 
legislative priority, and it is also supported by President Obama and 
his administration.
  I believe it is our duty, now more than ever, to do something about 
it and make sure the FBI has critical counterterrorism tools to be able 
to identify potential threats before they commit horrific acts of 
violence like we saw in Orlando. It is clear the threats are on our 
doorsteps, and we should be willing to give those on the front lines of 
the counterterrorism fight faster access to critical information so 
they can identify terrorists and thwart those attacks. I am not talking 
about content of communications--at least initially. We know under the 
Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that law enforcement has to 
demonstrate probable cause to get access to content of online 
communication, but there is a whole host of information that identifies 
email addresses, Internet Protocol addresses, and the like, that could 
help the FBI connect the dots. If we are expecting the FBI to connect 
the dots in terrorist attacks and prevent other tragedies such as that 
in Orlando, then we ought to give them access to all the dots.
  I hope this week, as we debate what the appropriate response is to 
dealing with these acts of mass terror, we look at the legislation I 
introduced last December that would notify the FBI in the event someone 
on a watch list attempts to purchase a firearm and then give the FBI a 
chance, if the evidence warrants it, to detain that individual and deny 
them access to the firearm. Moreover, I hope we will also provide

[[Page S3844]]

the FBI with additional tools in order to identify those radicalized 
Americans in place who pose a potential threat here on the homeland.
  Finally, we must do more to counter the venomous ideology pedaled by 
ISIS by hitting them in their safe havens abroad. I am still amazed 
when the President refers to ISIS as the JV team. Yet ISIS seems to be 
the best game going for terrorists in the Middle East. Indeed, I 
recently traveled with members of the Homeland Security Committee in 
the House to Tunisia. There have been as many as 100 Tunisians who have 
traveled to Libya and trained with other foreign fighters and then hope 
to make the short jump into Europe via Italy and then potentially 
commit terrorist attacks there or even travel to the United States. 
Many of those countries are visa waiver countries--38 different 
countries are visa waiver countries. If you make it into Europe through 
a visa waiver country, you can travel to the United States without a 
visa. That is a potential threat to the United States.
  We need to deal with ISIS seriously, which means we need a strategy 
to crush ISIS and prevent them from not only killing innocent civilians 
in the Middle East, as we saw when some 400,000 Syrians died in Syria--
Syria started out as a civil war, but now it appears to be attracting 
terrorists from all across the region. We need to deal with the threat 
of ISIS as a serious national security matter and not just as a law 
enforcement exercise, where we act after the fact to investigate it and 
then perhaps prosecute people and put them behind bars. There is 
nothing we can do to punish a potential terrorist for taking the lives 
of 49 people in Orlando, especially when they kill themselves in the 
attack. We ought to be about preventing those attacks and not just 
prosecuting the culpable once the attack is over.
  Earlier today we passed the national defense authorization bill and 
gave our military men and women in uniform the resources they need in 
order to combat this evil outside our borders, but what we need most of 
all in this fight against radical Islamic ideology is leadership from 
the White House, a strategy, which we are still waiting for, and a 
commitment to root out and destroy ISIS and its affiliates.
  I get the sense that the President and his national security team 
feel like this is something they can contain, but this is not something 
they can contain. Maybe they can hope to contain the people fighting in 
the Middle East, but of course we know what has happened there. Maybe 
they can hope to catch people traveling from the Middle East to the 
United States, but it is not 100 percent secure. We know for sure that 
the preeminent threat here in the homeland is people being radicalized 
in place through social media and obviously being instructed to kill 
Americans where they live. This group is growing in strength across 
North Africa, as I mentioned in places like Libya, which is now a 
failed state because of the flawed strategy that the administration had 
after they took out Muammar Qadhafi. It seems as though we learned 
nothing from Iraq or any of our other experiences in the region.
  Now is the time for coming together to face this enemy that seeks to 
upend our very way of life. This is not the time to downplay the evil 
that perpetuates this violence, and it is also not the time for show 
votes on things like gun control.
  This individual in Orlando, who murdered 49 people and injured so 
many more, had a firearms license since 2011. He was a licensed 
security guard. He was not on a watch list at the time he committed 
this horrific act. So passing some legislation dealing with people on 
watch lists, such as the Senator from California offered last December, 
would have done nothing to prevent this attack.

  We ought to be about finding a way to come together on a bipartisan 
basis to make sure this sort of travesty is not repeated over and over 
and over again. The only way we are going to do it is to get serious 
about giving the FBI the tools they need in order to fight and crush 
ISIS and its dangerous ideology where it resides in the Middle East. We 
ought to take that opportunity this week. We need to focus on the 
threat and how to better protect our country.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues in other ways, exploring 
other ideas they may have to prevent tragedies like Orlando, San 
Bernardino, and Boston from happening in the future.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cruz). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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