[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 17]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 23492-23493]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                9/11 RECOMMENDATIONS IMPLEMENTATION ACT

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                               speech of

                     HON. C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 7, 2004

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 10) to 
     provide for reform of the intelligence community, terrorism 
     prevention and prosecution, border security and international 
     cooperation and coordination, and for other purposes:

  Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Mr. Chairman, this is a historic moment for our 
Nation as we take a giant step forward in national security by 
reforming our intelligence community to make our citizens and our 
communities safer. These reforms include the establishment of a 
National Intelligence Director and the implementation of new 
information sharing strategies to break down old barriers between 
agencies. While no legislation is perfect and I believe the Collins/
Lieberman version of Intelligence Reform legislation passed in the 
Senate this week is a better solution, I stand in support of H.R. 10 
and vote for this bill today. These reforms move us towards a safer and 
stronger America.
  In the course of the House debate of H.R. 10, many concerns have been 
raised about immigration and I would like to speak about this 
particular component of the bill. I remain convinced that illegal 
immigration is a serious issue that needs to be addressed by the 
Congress. People who circumvent our Nation's laws and enter this 
country illegally should not be here. I believe this is central to our 
national and economic security for hard working Americans and others 
who come to this country legally.
  But I also believe it is important that we remember the purpose of 
this bill and what brought us to this historic point in time. The 
purpose of this bill is to reform our Intelligence Community; to lay 
the foundation we need to protect Americans today. The 9/11 Commission 
specifically addressed Intelligence Reform. With five Republicans and 
five Democrats, the Commission spent 20 months on an

[[Page 23493]]

exhaustive examination of millions of pages of documents, countless 
interviews and hearings, and hundreds of hours of debate--and produced 
a bipartisan, unanimous list of 41 recommendations. This report 
provided the Congress with a real, workable and effective blueprint 
that became the foundation of the Collins/Lieberman bill that passed 
the Senate 96-2 on October 6, 2004.
  So while I applaud some of the measures in H.R. 10 and have 
ultimately chosen to vote for this bill because it provides many 
measures to protect all Americans and our communities, I remain 
concerned about some of the extraneous provisions it includes like 
immigration. There are enormous differences between illegal aliens and 
legal immigrants. There are enormous differences between immigration 
and terrorism. All of these issues are incredibly important to the 
fabric of our Nation and deserve to be considered in full and 
separately.

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