[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 19629-19635]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 19629]]

    WAIVING REQUIREMENT OF CLAUSE 6(a) OF RULE XIII WITH RESPECT TO 
                  CONSIDERATION OF CERTAIN RESOLUTIONS

  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 263 and ask for its immediate consideration.


  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 263

       Resolved, That the requirement of clause 6(a) of rule XIII 
     for a two-thirds vote to consider a report from the Committee 
     on Rules on the same day it is presented to the House is 
     waived with respect to any resolution reported on the 
     legislative day of Friday, October 12, 2001, providing for 
     consideration or disposition of the bill (H.R. 2975) to 
     combat terrorism, and for other purposes.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the 
customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), 
pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During 
consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose 
of debate only.
  Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 263 waives clause 6(a) of rule XIII, which 
requires a two-thirds vote to consider a rule on the same day it is 
reported from the Committee on Rules.
  This waiver will be applied to a special rule reported on the 
legislative day of Friday October 12, 2001, providing for the 
consideration or disposition of the bill, H.R. 2975, to combat 
terrorism and for other purposes.
  I urge my colleagues to support the passage of this rule which will 
enable the House of Representatives to debate and consider the 
President's antiterrorism package later today.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, the Committee on Rules met at 8 o'clock this morning to 
begin taking testimony on the antiterrorism legislation. While the 
Committee on the Judiciary had reported a truly bipartisan bill by a 
vote of 36-0, which is somewhat miraculous, 2 weeks ago, we were not 
informed until 7 o'clock this morning that we would be taking testimony 
on a new bill, the content of which the Committee on Rules had not seen 
nor apparently had the members of the Committee on the Judiciary.
  We now have under consideration a rule which waives the two-thirds 
same day consideration requirement because, during the night, a 
bipartisan bill was turned into a bill which most Democratic members of 
the Committee on the Judiciary cannot support. We are considering this 
waiver of the two-thirds consideration rule because so many Members 
understand the grave and long-lasting ramifications of this 
legislation. This legislation is so far reaching that they felt it 
necessary to come to the Committee on Rules earlier this morning to 
offer amendments to the new bill or to simply sit and try to get an 
explanation of what is actually contained in it.
  Democratic Members of the Committee on Rules will not oppose this 
rule, but we will oppose the rule reported a few minutes ago to provide 
for the consideration of the new bill. We will oppose that rule because 
of the process and because we strongly believe it is important to 
maintain bipartisan cooperation in matters such as this. While we 
believe the President should have the tools he needs to fight this war 
against terrorism, we cannot give up the role of Congress in doing so.
  The majority has usurped a committee's jurisdiction and has therefore 
set back the hard-won bipartisan efforts of a committee not known for 
working in such a collegial and bipartisan manner. Both Chairman 
Sensenbrenner and Ranking Member Conyers presented to the House a fair 
and balanced package designed to give the administration what it needs 
to ferret out the terrorists among us, and they are to be commended. 
But to undo their work is unfair and unbalanced.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to 
the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha).
  Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I could ask the gentleman from 
Georgia a few questions here. I have not seen a copy of the bill, and 
nobody on this side has been able to explain to me what is in the bill. 
I know in an hour that it would be very difficult to explain the 
intricacies of a terrorism bill which would last for some period of 
time.
  Could you tell me the difference between the bill that the Committee 
on the Judiciary reported out and this particular bill that we are 
talking about here?
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. MURTHA. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, both the Senate and the House took up, at 
the beginning, a base bill proposed by the administration. Both the 
Senate and the House added provisions to the bill. In the compromise 
last night with the Senate, both took the most egregious provisions 
out. The ones that concerned me the most were the Senate bill at one 
point had reversed the McDade law. That has been taken back out. The 
Senate provisions had reversed our efforts of several years by the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) to change the forfeiture laws. That 
has been removed. So we have pretty much the beginnings of the House 
bill here stripped down from the additions. I have not read them. I 
have asked for explanations. That is the best I can do.
  Mr. MURTHA. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. LINDER. Also, the Senate had no provision for sunsetting or 
review. The House provisions had a 2-year plus 3-year, so about a 5-
year provision for sunsetting.
  Mr. MURTHA. Could I ask the gentleman, and he may not be able to 
answer this question, but could we not have gone to conference since 
the other bill was reported out unanimously? I just wonder, is there 
some reason that we felt like we had to take up the Senate version of 
the bill? Were there enough changes in your estimation that it 
warranted taking up the Senate version amended?
  Mr. LINDER. I think the decision was made to prevent a conference so 
the President could get access to this bill as quickly as possible. The 
Senate is out for the weekend. I would be happy to sit down and chat 
with the gentleman in just a moment.
  Mr. MURTHA. I thank the gentleman.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  I would like to read into the Record in just a moment a statement by 
the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) who is the ranking minority 
member in answer to the gentleman from Pennsylvania's question:
  ``What we have before us is a tale of two bills. One bill was crafted 
by the standing committee of the House. The other was crafted by the 
Attorney General and the President. One bill is limited in scope and 
sunsets after this crisis will have passed. The other bill is a power 
grab by prosecutors that can be used not just in terrorism cases but in 
drug cases and gun cases. This administration bill would last for the 
remainder of the President's term of office, long after the bombing 
stops and the terrorists are brought to justice.
  ``We must all rally around the flag at a time like this, but we also 
shouldn't take leave of our senses. Benjamin Franklin said it best: 
`They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary 
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.' ''
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. 
Baldacci).
  Mr. BALDACCI. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow along in terms of the comments 
that the gentleman from Pennsylvania had put forward.
  In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Congress 
acted quickly to pass measures requested by the administration to 
address the immediate and long-term security, recovery, and financial 
needs of the country. On September 14, the House and Senate passed, by 
near-unanimous votes, a $40 billion emergency supplemental 
appropriations package for antiterrorism initiatives and disaster 
recovery and a joint resolution authorizing the use of force against 
those responsible for planning and carrying out the September 11 
attacks. The House passed a

[[Page 19630]]

$15 billion airline bailout package by a vote of 356-54. The Senate 
then quickly passed the measure by voice vote to clear it for the 
President.
  This antiterrorism package has met with greater congressional 
resistance and concern. The measures being enacted here have decidedly 
much more of an impact on individual rights and civil liberties and 
with no particular document in front of us with which to review and to 
question. When I posed questions to members of the Committee on the 
Judiciary just a few moments ago to ask them what was in the package 
and what was not in the package that we would be taking up shortly, 
they were unaware of it, had not been briefed on it, had not seen any 
actual language.
  The concern that I have is that they were able to fashion a 36-0 
report in a committee that tended to be fairly divided over a good 
number of votes a good number of years that I have been here and for 
them to all come together like that and recognize that they must do 
something, they must make sure that security measures are passed and 
surveillances are increased and the degrees in terms of security and 
preventing accidents, or terrorism attacks from occurring in the future 
we must prevent. But at the same time to make sure that there was a 
sunset provision, so that we knew that it was not going to last 
forever.
  Those are things that are of a great deal of concern to many people, 
not just the people who I represent in the State of Maine but, I am 
sure, throughout the country. I think we should carefully deliberate 
before we start to allow ourselves to go down a track which will give 
evidence to the terrorists that they have won because they have changed 
the way that we do operate. I thought the message was that we had to 
get back to work, we had to get back to school, we had to get back in 
our communities and show them that we were much stronger than they had 
expected, we were much more united than they thought they would be able 
to fractionalize and to divide us up and that we are stronger as a 
country.
  I have met so many young people that have told me that Tom Brokaw is 
going to have to write a new book about this generation because he felt 
that his generation was going to be the greatest generation. There is a 
lot of pride and support and patriotism in our country. I am very 
impressed by the unity of this Congress and in the way the committees 
have been able to operate on the House side and would like to see that 
continued. I think that this is going to present a major impediment in 
terms of our future being able to work together in the interest of 
these issues.
  I would encourage the majority, if they have a way of being able to 
give us the deliberation on this matter, be able to have the 
discussions on this matter, and then be able to expedite on this 
matter, I think will bode well for the way that we deal with this and 
the way history judges the way we dealt with this because of the 
importance of our individual rights and civil liberties which is the 
foundation of this country, the land of opportunity.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Deutsch).
  Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I am speaking on the rule, which I support 
and hopefully will be passed, but also really in terms of the 
underlying base bill and supporting the underlying base bill that will 
be introduced.
  This bill is very much different than the bill that passed out of the 
Committee on the Judiciary. The Committee on the Judiciary bill, I 
think, was really a major problem. The Judiciary bill had some very, 
very specific problems and was really a nonacknowledgment of the 
situation that we find ourselves in in the United States of America 
today.
  I have the same perspective that the President of the United States 
does and I believe the vast majority of Americans do, that we, in fact, 
are at war. We are at war with an enemy that has attacked this country 
with horrific results, 6,000 people dying in an instance at the World 
Trade Center, the Pentagon being attacked as well. But as we also know, 
these are an enemy that almost for sure has biological and chemical 
weapons available. It is unclear whether or not they have nuclear 
weapons, but it is only a matter of time before they do. And the only 
thing that is preventing their delivery of those biological and 
chemical weapons are a lack of a delivery system.
  So what we are faced with at this point in time is literally the 
potentiality of not thousands, as horrific as that is, but literally 
millions if not tens of millions of Americans whose lives could end in 
an instance.

                              {time}  1115

  Now, in the specifics of the Committee on the Judiciary bill in the 
area of terrorism, the committee, I think, made several major mistakes, 
including not allowing the use of classified material for cases where 
property could be seized.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding, and I 
thank the majority for providing me a copy of the bill. This is still 
warm. It just came off the Xerox machine.
  This is not the bill that was adopted by a unanimous 36 vote of 
Democrats and Republicans on the Committee on the Judiciary. These are 
critical issues. This is what we are fighting for. These are our civil 
liberties.
  We need to give law enforcement the proper tools, yes, we do; and we 
need to strengthen laws where they need to be strengthened and give 
them more effective tools. But we also have to be careful that we do 
not dredge up some of the worst ideas of the past, of the fifties, of 
the McCarthy era, of the Hoover era.
  There could be problems. I do not know. I just asked a Member of the 
Committee on the Judiciary who voted for the bill in committee, a 
unanimous vote, a bipartisan vote, agreed upon the tools we needed with 
the limits we needed to protect our precious civil liberties, what is 
in the bill. He said, who could know what is in this? It was just 
handed to him.
  We are going to be required to vote on it in the next few hours. Why? 
Will these laws go into effect this weekend and make a difference in 
protecting people and making them more safe? No. We could be taking up 
an aviation security bill. We have not done a damn thing on aviation 
security in the House of Representatives since this incident. The 
Senate acted unanimously yesterday. We are being prevented from 
bringing forward a bill by a minority of the majority who is so set 
against more Federal employees that they do not want to do the right 
thing on screening, and they do not care about all the other issues in 
aviation security that are even bigger than screening.
  We are being prevented from doing that, while this bill, still warm 
in my hand, is being rushed forward. I do not know what is in it. I am 
not a lawyer. I go to my friends on the Committee on the Judiciary who 
are lawyers who helped craft a unanimous vote in the committee on this 
bill and ask them what is in it, and they said we cannot tell you; we 
do not know. Our copies are still warm in our hands too.
  This is not the way to defend liberty and fight terrorism. I fear 
that this bill, since I do not know what is in it, could be the Gulf of 
Tonkin Resolution for civil liberties, rather than the tools our law 
enforcement agencies really need.
  I would urge the majority to withdraw this marshal law resolution, 
withdraw this bill, give us a weekend to read it, and let us take it up 
Monday morning. Hey, I will come in and vote at 7 o'clock on Monday 
morning, if it is that urgent, or we can vote on Sunday. Give us at 
least a day to read it and understand what we are voting on.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Deutsch), so he can complete his comments.
  Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate that courtesy.
  Let me mention to my good friend from Oregon, the bill has been 
available in its present form since 8 o'clock this morning. I have had 
a chance to review it, staff has had a chance to review it. But in 
substance, this is the

[[Page 19631]]

same bill that the Senate passed last night. It is the same bill that 
has been available for several weeks now. These issues are not new 
issues. Again, I support the efforts to take this bill up under this 
rule at this time.
  I was going through a list of provisions in this bill that the 
Committee on the Judiciary passed out. Again, it was a unanimous vote, 
but sometimes unanimity can be the lowest common denominator, not the 
highest common denominator.
  I specifically talked about one provision, again, dealing just with 
terrorism. Again, if you do not accept my premise that we are at war, 
or the President's premise, if you do not accept the fact that these 
people have weapons of mass destruction available today, that we 
literally are talking about national security issues and we are 
weighing it, I ask my colleagues to look at specifics, look at the 
specifics in the bill.
  Another provision that the Committee on the Judiciary eliminated was 
the ability for non-American citizens or resident aliens, for law 
enforcement to get education records for those people. As we know, many 
of those people came to the United States specifically theoretically 
under their visa applications for that. But the Committee on the 
Judiciary bill provides none of that.
  Let me read you something specific again in the Committee on the 
Judiciary bill. This only applies to terrorists. In order to prosecute 
someone, the standard that the Committee on the Judiciary put in: ``has 
committed or is about to commit a terrorist act.'' Has committed.
  Now, the bill that is in front of us I think has a much more 
reasonable provision, which I believe if my colleagues read this, a 
vast majority of my colleagues on the floor will support and the vast 
majority of the American people will support: ``reasonable grounds to 
believe that the person being harbored will commit a terrorist act.''
  These are dramatically different standards, standards which, again, I 
believe the vast majority of Americans would support.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
New York (Mr. Nadler).
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a very dangerous time we are in today. It is 
dangerous for two reasons: our country is at war, and we face danger 
from enemy action. We also face danger from our own action. The history 
of this country is that in most of our wars in this century, we have 
taken actions against our liberties that we have regretted and 
apologized for later. I refer to the Espionage Act of 1917, which no 
one will today defend, the Japanese internment of World War II, the 
COINTELPRO operations of Vietnam, and today we are asked to buy a pig 
in a poke. Why a pig in a poke? A 187-page bill, hot off the press, 
that we have not had a chance to read or analyze.
  I am a member of the Committee on the Judiciary. I voted for a 
terrorism bill with strong provisions that I thought was balanced and 
reasonable and protective of civil liberties, as well as giving the 
Government the tools it needs to deal with terrorism. But, no, that 
bill does not come up.
  Why did it not come up? We are told we have to vote on this bill 
right away. We cannot wait until next Tuesday. We ought to wait until 
Tuesday. We ought to have a chance to analyze this bill over the 
weekend, to send it out to the law schools and the civil liberties 
people and others and let them read it and let them give us their 
comments so we vote in an informed manner, and so that we can offer 
amendments on the floor and have a well-crafted bill that protects us 
against terrorism, but also does not do violence to our civil 
liberties.
  But, no, we are told, we must rush right now, we must have this 
marshal law resolution to enable us to vote before anybody can read the 
bill. Why? Some people would say because if we read the bill, there are 
those who are afraid we would not pass it. I am not that cynical. But 
because the President is pushing us, we have got to pass it right away. 
The times demand it.
  Well, why did we not take up the committee bill on the House floor 
earlier this week? We could have passed that bill and gone to 
conference with the Senate and had a full bill, a conference report, 
ready to adopt today or Monday, properly considered.
  To vote on a bill that may do violence to our liberties, and it has 
to be very carefully balanced, to ask the Members of this House to vote 
on a bill that may do violence to our liberties, that may go way beyond 
what we need to legitimately combat terrorism, is an insult to every 
Member of this House, it is an insult to the American people, it should 
not be permitted; and I am asking to have a ``no'' vote on this marshal 
law rule and the regular rule because we are being stampeded into doing 
something we may very well live to regret and that history tells us we 
will regret.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Weldon).
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding me time. I rise in support of the rule, and I rise in support 
of the underlying bill.
  For those who claim that they need more time to read this, this is 
basically the same product that the President sent over requesting 
several weeks ago. It has been analyzed and reanalyzed. And to contend 
that we need to reanalyze this further I think is disingenuous. We have 
a very serious problem in this country. There are terrorists in our 
country, right now. They have come over here in many instances 
fraudulently, on student visas or other types of visas; and their 
intent is to do us harm right here in the country.
  There are people sympathetic to the terrorists who raise money in 
this country to support terrorist activities. Essentially all of these 
people are people from these countries in the Middle East who are 
either terrorists themselves or sympathetic, and they take advantage of 
the liberties that we have in this country in order to do us harm.
  I believe that this bill is a very carefully crafted bill. For 
example, there is a lot of concern about grand jury secrecy. In order 
for a prosecutor to share with CIA or FBI the grand jury secrecy 
content, it has to pertain to a terrorist action. They cannot just 
blithely share information with CIA, unless it has some bearing on the 
activities of these terrorists. Furthermore, there is a provision in 
the bill that if there is any inappropriate information that is shared, 
that the citizen could pursue recourse in the courts.
  The long and short of it is I think this bill is badly needed. I 
think it is something the American people will support. Most of the 
people in my congressional district are prepared to see some of our 
civil liberties modified in order to enable us to better or effectively 
fight these terrorists.
  I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and a ``yes'' vote on the bill.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the ranking member of the Committee on the 
Judiciary.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me 
time.
  We have three matters up this morning. One is the so-called marshal 
law rule that would bring the bill to the floor right away; the second 
is the rule itself; and then there is the bill.
  Now, the previous speaker, the gentleman from Florida, tells us we 
have got to move really fast because there is a national emergency that 
requires us to get this bill into law before we have even seen it or 
read it. But the fact of the matter is that there are going to be two 
different bills that will come before the House, and we are going to 
conference. So there is not any emergency whatsoever. We will not have 
a conference until next week, and we do not know how long that is going 
to go. I am not even sure which provisions are going to be conferenced, 
because the Senate just passed their bill late last night; and the bill 
that the House should have been considering, passed unanimously by the 
Committee on the Judiciary, something that has not happened before in 
my career on the committee, has been sidelined, and we are piecing 
together another bill.

[[Page 19632]]

  So I am making an appeal to my Republican friends in the House to 
join me on at least a couple of occasions here today.
  First of all, let us reject the martial law that will allow this bill 
to throw procedure into the waste basket and bring the rule and the 
bill up right away. It has been said by the leadership that we will be 
out of here by 2 o'clock this afternoon. It is now 11:27 a.m. Will 
somebody explain to me what is going to be the difference if we take 
this bill up after the 435 Members have had a chance to read some 
nearly 200 pages of it? I will yield to anybody on that if they would 
like to explain that.
  There is no reason. It feeds this emergency nonsense that keeps 
coming from the White House and the Department of Justice, that we have 
got to do this right away or the poor Attorney General's hands are 
tied, he really cannot do anything. Well, we passed an anti-terrorist 
law in 1996 that gives him some of that, which has more power in it 
than the one we are going to consider here today or next week.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject the rule that would 
expedite bringing this bill to the floor.

                              {time}  1130

  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Delaware (Mr. Castle).
  Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a subject that is a concern of 
mine. I will support the various rules. I think we need to bring this 
legislation before us and support the legislation. But I went before 
the Committee on Rules and have otherwise talked about it, along with 
the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) and the gentleman from Georgia 
(Mr. Deal), of the Visa Integrity and Security Act. I also just asked 
the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), the chairman of the 
Committee on the Judiciary, a conference about it, because I assumed 
from the beginning it probably would not be included in this 
legislation today, and he indicated that when this is done, it is the 
issue of next importance that his Committee on the Judiciary wants to 
address.
  But if we look at the record, even of the individuals who were the 
terrorists who came into this country, if we looked at the testimony of 
the head of INS yesterday, we will find that they do not even know 
where some of these people came from. They have no record of them at 
all. In other cases they were dealing with expired visas, students or 
workers who were here on expired visas.
  Our whole visa system of tracking these millions, and it is millions, 
of people who are in the United States of America on visas is frankly 
in a state of total disrepair and needs immediate addressing. Our 
legislation that was not included today but, hopefully, will be 
included in the legislation that will come forward before this House in 
the next few weeks, addresses this issue. It has an entry-exit tracking 
system which, by the way, is in the law but we are not enforcing now so 
that we will know in real-time where people are; it provides to our 
consulates overseas information to the various agencies, CIA, FBI, 
whatever it may be, INS, various lists of people who may not be 
desirable in the United States of America. It has a tracking system for 
students. Right now, they do not even have to report to the school, so 
we do not know they are in this country, which is exactly what happened 
in a case here. But if they fail to arrive, it would be reported and 
that information would go forward, their visa would be terminated 
automatically.
  There is a visa waiver pilot program included in that, because in 
some countries, some of our closer allies, Canada, et cetera, there are 
certain waivers to participate in that, we would raise the standards 
somewhat, and with the H1-B visas, which we are very fond of here, 
which are basically for the higher tech community, when people come 
into this country and they do not come to work at that particular 
company, they would have an obligation to report that as well.
  We need to get a much better handle on what is going on in the United 
States of America with people visiting our borders. We are a free 
country; we are an open country. I do not think what happened on 
September 11 is going to change that, nor should it change it 
necessarily. But we have the right and the responsibility to know 
exactly who is in the United States of America. Are they here legally 
in the United States of America? What they are doing here? And if, 
indeed, their time is up, we have the responsibility to make sure that 
they have left the United States of America and perhaps in that way, we 
can prevent some of the terrorism, the problems which we have had.
  So obviously, I would have liked to have had it in this legislation; 
but I understand the reasons why, so I will continue to support it. But 
I hope that this is something we could address soon.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the next speaker, I 
yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) for the 
purpose of a colloquy.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Conyers).
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. 
Slaughter) and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) for yielding me 
time.
  I see the gentleman raises a question. I would like to assure the 
gentleman that we have a Department of Justice that makes sure it knows 
who is in this country and who is not. It is called the Immigration and 
Naturalization Service, and it has thousands and thousands of people at 
both borders working the airports. We do not need this bill to find 
that out. So if that is why the gentleman thinks we have to rush this 
through, I would like him to rest more comfortably over the weekend.
  Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Delaware.
  Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I agree completely. Obviously we have that 
service, we all know about INS; but I will tell the gentleman it is 
dysfunctional in terms of the way it is working. I think that is a 
concern that all of us have. It is not that we do not have it or do not 
even have somewhat of a system in place, it just does not function 
particularly well. I am not talking about just the terrorists in this 
circumstance, I am talking about the broad pattern of the problems that 
we have with Immigration and Naturalization Service visas and all of 
the transgressions that take place.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Scott).
  Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, the Committee on the Judiciary worked long and hard on 
this particular bill. We spent several weeks of research and 
deliberation, but apparently an intelligent, deliberative process is 
not welcomed, and now here we are under martial law considering a 
completely different bill than that that was reported from the 
Committee on the Judiciary.
  There was one amendment that was not accepted in the Committee on 
Rules that I think we need to take some time to deliberate. That is an 
amendment that I offered that would have required government officials 
who get one of these roving wiretaps to listen only to the target of 
the investigation, not to innocent people who also might be using the 
same phone that the target might be using. Now, that is a complicated 
issue, and that is why we need time to deliberate. Remember, this is 
not just for terrorism; this is all wiretaps. So we need to be careful 
and notice how this thing works.
  First of all, under present law, there is no incentive to abuse this 
process of a roving wiretap under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance 
Act, because if you got anything from that, you could not use it in a 
criminal investigation. But now, we are changing things. We want to 
share the information. So now there is an incentive to get that 
information. Under FISA, there is a very low standard. You do not need 
to show probable cause that a crime is being committed, all you have to 
show is

[[Page 19633]]

that you are investigating something involving foreign intelligence. 
You do not even have to show that that is the primary cause of getting 
the wiretap, just a significant cause. Which begs the question: What is 
the primary cause? Is it a criminal investigation without probable 
cause, or is it just political surveillance? What is the primary cause 
of getting this wiretap? We do not know. And if we are listening to 
different people's conversations, I would like to know how this thing 
got started.
  But who you listen to, if you have gotten a right to follow a person 
along and find out that he is using a pay phone, you can put a bug on 
that pay phone. My amendment would have required you to listen only to 
the target on that pay phone, not everybody else, but that amendment 
was not accepted. So you could have people listening in on people using 
the pay phone. You have wide latitude, because once the search wiretap 
warrant is issued, you can follow the person around. Nobody is 
questioning whether you put it on the pay phone or the phone in the 
country club or the neighbor's phone, so long as the prosecutor thinks 
well, we might be able to get some information.
  We need to deliberate on this. One of the factors that created the 
unanimous vote in the Committee on the Judiciary was the 2-year statute 
of limitations which required us to quickly, with dispatch, deliberate 
on this issue and come to a final judgment.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Lofgren).
  Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I think this is really a sad day for the 
House of Representatives and the legislative branch of government. 
Others will go through the details, but I would like to explain to the 
Members of the House, who were not a part of the Committee on the 
Judiciary process, what we went through. I personally participated in 
lengthy meetings where Republican and Democratic staff of the committee 
sat down with the Justice Department, the FBI, the intelligence 
community; and we went through the proposal line by line.
  We did not do anything that the Justice Department objected to. In 
fact, there were huge sections of the bill that would have been thrown 
out because they were unconstitutional; and we fixed them in the 
process that we had. Ultimately, we had a unanimous vote on a very 
tough measure, and I think some people are confused that we did 
something at odds with the professional staff. We did not. This is a 
tough measure.
  Now, is it the perfect answer? Perhaps not. We could work further 
with the administration. We have worked on a bipartisan basis to make 
this a good, tough law.
  The problem is, we are going to have a conference anyhow. The Senate 
is going to insist that we have a conference, and rather than going 
through the regular order and taking up the bill that was unanimously 
passed that would probably get 400 votes here in this Chamber, and then 
having our conference in the regular order, making additional changes 
in collaboration with the White House, we are taking a bill that most 
of the Members will not even know what is in the bill when they vote 
for it. This is not respectful of the United States Government. This is 
not respectful of the United States House of Representatives. I think 
it is a mistake.
  I voted for the Committee on the Judiciary bill. I am a cosponsor of 
the bill. It creates wide-ranging authority that I think is 
appropriate, given the threat that faces this Nation. It allows FISA 
wiretaps without a warrant. U.S. citizens will be subject to wiretap 
without judicial review. That is a big deal. That is a very big deal, 
and I am prepared to do that with some constraints that the Justice 
Department and the FISA experts agreed with.
  I believe that on both sides of the aisle, if Members rush to 
judgment on this, and it is not necessary; we can have this done next 
week and it would follow the regular order; if Members rush to vote and 
to do it in this flawed process, we will end up regretting this on both 
sides of the aisle. The constituency for freedom in America is not 
limited to Democrats or Republicans. We know that patriotic Americans 
are aware we are at risk in two ways. One, from the terrorists, and 
also from destroying the foundations of liberty in this United States.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from 
New York for yielding me time, and I thank the gentleman from Georgia 
(Mr. Linder). I appreciate the fact that the Committee on Rules had to 
meet this morning at 8 a.m. and many of us were there promptly to 
engage in what we would hope would have been an affirmation of H.R. 
2975.
  Let me add my voice to the complete dissatisfaction with the process 
that we are now engaged in, with the recognition that we are in a 
crisis, Mr. Speaker. It is important that we say to the American people 
the truth, that we are in a crisis. But we can be in a crisis and be of 
sane mind of cautiousness and of balance. That is what H.R. 2975 
represented.
  This was a piece of legislation that members of the committee, and I 
serve as a member of the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims of the 
Committee on the Judiciary, this is a process where each of us were 
engaged in our respective areas of responsibility in a bipartisan way. 
It means that those who are on the Subcommittee on Immigration and 
Claims, Democrats and Republicans, were speaking to each other about 
the specifics of addressing the question of how we balance immigration 
and the laws of this land; the fact that immigration does not equate to 
terrorism. We provided that balance. And in that balance, we were able 
to assure that there would not be endless detention, if you will, for 
those individuals who were not, in fact, guilty of any acts.
  Just a few days ago, the FBI called in a practicing physician from 
San Antonio of Muslim faith to come all the way across country and 
determine that he was not engaged in any activities. If we have this 
bill where there would be no opportunity for judicial review in that 
process, innocent persons would be involved. In the instance of H.R. 
2975 there were opportunities for the appeals of those individuals who 
were held without an opportunity to present their case to appeal their 
situation all the way up to the Supreme Court.
  This bill was called the PATRIOT Bill, and I want to remind my 
colleagues of what a patriot was in the early stages of this Nation. It 
was an individual who was willing to lay down his or her life so that 
the civil liberties and the Bill of Rights and the Constitution could 
be protected. It was people who ran away from a despotic government in 
order to seek freedom in the United States. Yes, there is terrorism; 
and might I say that there is sufficient terrorism that the Department 
of Justice saw fit to put a random Web site indicating that this Nation 
would face terrorist acts. I wonder whether that was put on to simply 
threaten the United States Congress into not doing its job, but rather 
to be frightened into passing an antiterrorist bill that really does 
not balance the rights of the American citizens along with the rest of 
the needs that we have.
  Let me simply conclude by saying, Mr. Speaker, that we should vote 
down this particular marshal rule, vote down the rule, we should be on 
the floor supporting the federalizing of security in airports and 
airlines, and give us time to work to put a bill together that all of 
America can be proud of and that the FBI can go out and find the 
terrorists and bring them to justice. This is not this bill.

                              {time}  1145

  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Sweeney).
  Mr. SWEENEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for 
yielding time to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this important legislation, 
with

[[Page 19634]]

some apprehension, solely because there are a number of provisions I 
would have liked to have seen added into this process. But I recognize 
that time is of the essence. It is important that this body move 
forward to show the American people the seriousness of the nature of 
our need to improve our intelligence and security systems.
  Specifically, I was hoping to have offered, along with the gentleman 
from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), an amendment relating to student visas and 
the need for us to take action in this House immediately to tighten up 
the system of student visas; in fact, to create a system regarding the 
tracking of student visas by the intelligence community.
  Mr. Speaker, currently there are 600,000 international students 
studying in colleges and universities all over this Nation, many of 
whom are contributing greatly to those universities and colleges, and 
therefore our society.
  Nevertheless, the INS, in the failure to develop a system of tracking 
those students, has led to incredible breaches of security that should 
concern us all. Indeed, in fact, one of the hijackers on September 11 
was in this country on a student visa, never having reported even to 
the college or university that that person was supposed to.
  I am going to rise in support of today's move forward, but I would 
call upon my colleagues in this body to move forward expeditiously, as 
well, with all of the other important pieces, because America demands 
it.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).
  Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, I have never seen the legislative process 
more degraded than it is by this process. The Committee on the 
Judiciary worked very hard and very thoughtfully and very seriously to 
make significant changes in the bill so we gave the House a bill that 
enhances law enforcement authority, as is appropriate, but to the 
maximum extent possible, gave protections against the abuse of that.
  It was not perfect, but it was a very thoughtful effort. But it 
turned out we were engaged in a game of bait and switch, because once 
the committee bill came forward, it was dumped; and we have today an 
outrageous procedure: a bill drafted by a handful of people in secret, 
subjected to no committee process, comes before us immune from 
amendment.
  I have a question: What is it about democracy that the Republican 
leadership thinks weakens us? Why, after an open process of a 
bipartisan sort, coming out with a reasonable product, are we not even 
allowed to offer it on the floor and debate it? What is it about the 
process of open discussion that people see somehow as a distraction?
  In fact, it is bait and switch for this reason. There are a number of 
important issues that now may never get debated because, having worked 
on that compromise bill, many of us assume that we had achieved some 
agreement on the balance to be struck, and at the last minute that is 
thrown aside so the important issues that were debated will never be 
debated here.
  I know, this allows the motion to recommit, the great catch-22 of 
parliamentary procedure. On the one hand, they say, you can offer it in 
the motion to recommit. On the other hand, Members on that side will be 
told, this is a party issue. This is a partisan issue. The motion to 
recommit has a whole 5 minutes of debate on each side. So all of that 
thoughtful process, all of the compromise, all of the anguishing 
decisions we had to make about how do we balance self-defense with 
protections against abuse, that is all to be compressed into a 5-minute 
partisan motion.
  Shame on the people who have brought this forward.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Woolsey).
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule, 
to the martial law, and to the underlying bill. We are just learning 
how far this recently-crafted legislation called the PATRIOT Act goes 
beyond the powers necessary to fight terrorism.
  The people I represent in Marin and Sonoma Counties in California 
recognize that law enforcement may need some extra tools to combat 
terrorism and to ensure our safety, but my constituents and the 
majority of Americans in general know the difference between 
inconvenience and loss of civil liberties. They have made it 
overwhelmingly clear that they do not embrace proposals that encroach 
on our civil liberties, proposals that ultimately make us less free.
  For example, Mr. Speaker, this bill, as I understand it, lifts limits 
on CARNIVORE, the tool to read private e-mail correspondence, allowing 
the FBI to read and use information at their own discretion. My 
constituents are right to worry about how gathered information under 
this legislation could and would be used.
  Mr. Speaker, we must not allow the Bill of Rights to become the next 
victim of the September 11 attack. I urge my colleagues, withdraw this 
rule, withdraw this bill. Instead, why are we not voting on airport 
safety, something that everyone in this country is waiting for and is 
worried about, and something that passed out of the other body last 
night 100 to zip?
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).
  Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, we are debating a rule that is going to 
determine whether or not we vote on one of the most important items 
perhaps in some of our careers. We are talking about whether or not we 
are going to take a product that was produced by the Senate in the wee 
hours of the morning on one of the most important issues we will ever 
debate in this Congress, and rush it to the floor and vote on it, where 
significant changes have been made. There is a significant difference 
in what the Senate produced and what the House produced.
  What normally happens in this process is we have the House bill that 
is heard; we have the Senate bill that is heard. When there are 
differences, they go to conference and we try and work it out. We 
worked very hard in the Committee on the Judiciary in order to have a 
product that everybody could embrace. The right wing came together, the 
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner); and the left, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), myself; and the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) and others.
  We gave a lot. We worked on this to make sure that we could get a 
bill that would respect the civil liberties of the people of this 
country, and now it has all been undone because of one person on that 
side who will not allow them to bring it up.
  I would ask the Members of this Congress to reject that kind of 
action.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, it is with great sadness that I vote 
against the rule and the Surveillance Act that it authorizes.
  We united as a country after the tragic events of Sepetmber 11. We 
were firm in our resolve that it would not be business as usual and 
that we would do what is necessary to root out the hateful individuals 
who unflicted such loss on our citizens.
  Part of our responsibility was to reach out on a bi-partisan basis 
and give the American people our best. The work product that was 
produced by our Judiciary Committee was an example of giving our best. 
Thirty-six widely disparate men and women under the leadership to 
Chairman Sensenbrenner and Ranking Member Conyers have perhaps the 
widest array of opinions found on any committee in the House. Yet they 
were able to come together unanimously with a balanced, well thought-
out measure that could serve as a focal point for the House of 
Representatives. This work product of our committee system was swept 
aside by the House Republican leadership. At the last minute we 
received a 175-page substitute, without the opportunity for any 
amendments.
  This is not a question that needs to be decided by a partisan power 
play. The American public cares about rooting out the terrorist 
elements in our country and everywhere else. They have every reason to 
expect that the rights of the American public will be respected. A few 
days or even a few hours of work could have achieved that objective. I 
will vote against the bill because I reject the notion that in these 
times of crisis, the legislative process can not work, that 
partisanship must prevail over the openness and strength of America's 
democratic system.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

[[Page 19635]]

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). Without objection, the previous 
question is ordered on the resolution.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a 
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 216, 
nays 205, not voting 10, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 382]

                               YEAS--216

     Abercrombie
     Akin
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baker
     Ballenger
     Barr
     Bartlett
     Bass
     Bereuter
     Biggert
     Bilirakis
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (SC)
     Bryant
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Capito
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Coble
     Collins
     Combest
     Cooksey
     Cox
     Crane
     Crenshaw
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     Deal
     DeLay
     DeMint
     Deutsch
     Diaz-Balart
     Doolittle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Everett
     Ferguson
     Flake
     Fletcher
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fossella
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gekas
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gilman
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Graves
     Green (WI)
     Greenwood
     Grucci
     Gutknecht
     Hall (TX)
     Hansen
     Hart
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Herger
     Hilleary
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hyde
     Isakson
     Issa
     Istook
     Jenkins
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Keller
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MN)
     Kerns
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     LaHood
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     LoBiondo
     Lucas (OK)
     Maloney (CT)
     Manzullo
     McCrery
     McInnis
     McKeon
     Mica
     Miller, Gary
     Moran (KS)
     Morella
     Myrick
     Nethercutt
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Osborne
     Ose
     Otter
     Oxley
     Pence
     Peterson (PA)
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Pombo
     Portman
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Reynolds
     Riley
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Saxton
     Schaffer
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shows
     Shuster
     Simmons
     Simpson
     Skeen
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Souder
     Stearns
     Stump
     Sununu
     Sweeney
     Tancredo
     Tauzin
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Toomey
     Traficant
     Upton
     Vitter
     Walden
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins (OK)
     Watts (OK)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NAYS--205

     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baird
     Baldacci
     Baldwin
     Barcia
     Barrett
     Becerra
     Bentsen
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop
     Blagojevich
     Blumenauer
     Bonior
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brady (PA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Carson (IN)
     Carson (OK)
     Clay
     Clayton
     Clement
     Clyburn
     Condit
     Conyers
     Costello
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Crowley
     Cummings
     Cunningham
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Ford
     Frank
     Frost
     Gephardt
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green (TX)
     Gutierrez
     Hall (OH)
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Hill
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hoeffel
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hooley
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     John
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind (WI)
     Kleczka
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     Lampson
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Lucas (KY)
     Luther
     Maloney (NY)
     Markey
     Mascara
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller, George
     Mink
     Mollohan
     Moore
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Paul
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Petri
     Phelps
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rivers
     Rodriguez
     Roemer
     Ross
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Sabo
     Sanchez
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Sawyer
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Scott
     Serrano
     Sherman
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Solis
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stenholm
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor (MS)
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thurman
     Tierney
     Turner
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Watson (CA)
     Watt (NC)
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn

                             NOT VOTING--10

     Aderholt
     Barton
     Blunt
     Dicks
     Gillmor
     McHugh
     Miller (FL)
     Schrock
     Towns
     Wexler

                              {time}  1216

  Mr. HOLDEN, Mrs. JONES of Ohio, and Mr. MEEKS of New York, changed 
their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Mr. TAUZIN changed his vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So the resolution was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
  Stated for:
  Mr. SCHROCK. Mr. Speaker, today I was in my district attending the 
memorial service for the victims of the USS Cole, which was attacked by 
terrorists on October 12, 2000. As a result, I missed rollcall vote 
382. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on this rollcall 
vote.

                          ____________________