[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 15]
[House]
[Page 21826]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                            FORTRESS AMERICA

  (Mr. FARR of California asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, it is time for us to confront 
the double message we have sent the American people in the wake of the 
tragedy of September 11.
  On one hand, we exhort Americans to travel, spend money, go out on 
the town and help revive the sagging economy. On the other hand, when 
they come to the Nation's Capitol, they find it closed, locked and off 
limits.
  What kind of example are we setting for America's museum of 
democracy? Is ours a government of by and for the people or a 
government that lives behind heavily guarded, closed doors?
  When Americans come to Washington, D.C., they get the same dreary 
refrain at the White House, the FBI and the Supreme Court: Closed to 
the public. When they come to the House of Representatives they find 
their Member of Congress can no longer provide a guided tour of the 
storied corridors, the Capitol dome or the old Senate Chamber. Instead 
our visitors are sent for 10 minutes to sit by themselves in the 
gallery.
  Mr. Speaker, there are those who say we need a Capitol littered with 
jersey barriers, ugly fences and awful planters so we can feel safe in 
our fortress, but I say we should not let security concerns rob us of 
the freedom to participate in and petition the government. If 
terrorists can wander all the way to the Capitol without being 
discovered, we really are in desperate straits.
  Mr. Speaker, when will you give the American people back their 
Nation's Capitol?

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