[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 11]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 15270-15271]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 5005, HOMELAND SECURITY ACT OF 2002

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                             HON. RON PAUL

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 25, 2002

  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I do not oppose this rule because I would like 
to consider this important issue, but I am very concerned with the 
process of bringing this legislation before this body.
  Mr. Speaker, since we began looking at proposals here in the House of 
Representatives, more questions have arisen than have been answered. We 
have put this legislation on a ``fast track'' to passage, primarily for 
reasons of public relations, and hence have short-circuited the 
deliberative process. It has been argued that the reason for haste is 
the seriousness of the issue, but frankly I have always held that the 
more serious the issue is, the more deliberative we here ought to be.
  Instead of a carefully crafted product of meaningful deliberations, I 
fear we are once again about to pass a hastily drafted bill in order to 
appear that we are ``doing something.'' Over the past several months, 
Congress has passed a number of hastily crafted measures that do 
little, if anything, to enhance the security of the American people. 
Instead, these measures grow the size of the Federal Government, erode 
constitutional liberties, and endanger our economy by increasing the 
federal deficit and raiding the social security trust fund. The 
American people would be better served if we gave the question of how 
to enhance security from international terrorism the serious 
consideration it deserves rather than blindly expanding the Federal 
Government. Congress should also consider whether our hyper-
interventionist foreign policy really benefits the American people.
  Serious and substantive questions about this reorganization have been 
raised. Many of these questions have yet to be resolved. Just because a 
bill has been reported from the Select Committee does not mean that a 
consensus exists. Indeed, even a couple of days before consideration, 
this bill it was impossible to get access to the legislation in the 
form introduced in the committee, let alone as amended by the 
committee.
  In the course of just one week, the President's original 52-page 
proposal swelled to 232 pages, with most members, including myself, 
unable to review the greatly expanded

[[Page 15271]]

bill. While I know that some of those additions are positive, such as 
Mr. Armey's amendments to protect the privacy of American citizens, it 
is impossible to fully explore the implications of this, the largest 
departmental reorganization in the history of our Federal Government, 
without sufficient time to review the bill. This is especially the case 
in light of the fact that a number of the recommendations of the 
standing committees were not incorporated in the legislation, thus 
limiting our ability to understand how our constituents will be 
affected by this legislation.
  I have attempted to be a constructive part of this very important 
process. From my seat on the House International Relations Committee I 
introduced amendments that would do something concrete to better secure 
our homeland. Unfortunately, my amendments were not adopted in the form 
I offered them. Why? Was it because they did not deal substantively 
with the issues at hand? Was it because they addressed concerns other 
than those this new department should address? No, amazingly I was told 
that my amendments were too ``substantive.'' My amendments would have 
made it impossible for more people similar to those who hijacked those 
aircraft to get into our country. They would have denied certain visas 
and identified Saudi Arabia as a key problem in our attempt to deal 
with terrorism. Those ideas were deemed too controversial, so they are 
not included in this bill.
  I also introduced four amendments to the bill itself, including those 
that would prohibit a national identification card, that would prohibit 
the secretary of this new department from moving money to other 
agencies and departments without congressional oversight, that would 
deny student visas to nationals of Saudi Arabia, and that would deny 
student and diversity visas to nationals from terrorist-sponsoring 
countries. All of these amendments, which would have addressed some of 
the real issues of our security, were rejected. They were not even 
allowed onto the floor for a debate. This is yet more evidence of the 
failure of this process.

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