[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 19]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 25943]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    CONFERENCE REPORT ON S. 2845, INTELLIGENCE REFORM AND TERRORISM 
                         PREVENTION ACT OF 2004

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                             HON. TOM UDALL

                             of new mexico

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, December 7, 2004

  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, the Conference Report we have 
before us today is of great importance to the safety of our Nation and 
I would like to commend my colleagues involved with the negotiations of 
this conference report for their diligent and tireless work.
  Unfortunately, once again, the amount of time allotted for debate, as 
well as the amount of time we had to try and determine what actually is 
in the conference report does not do justice to the important task at 
hand. We may sound like broken records on this point, but that's simply 
because the majority continues to undermine the democratic process by 
putting critically important pieces of legislation on the bullet-train 
for passage.
  Mr. Speaker, we are talking about no less than the most dramatic 
restructuring of our Nation's intelligence community since the creation 
of the National Security Council and Central Intelligence Agency in 
1947. As such, each and every member of this body should have adequate 
time to sift through this lengthy and important legislation in order to 
have a full understanding of what exactly we are voting on tonight.
  Nevertheless, as best as I have been able to determine from looking 
through the conference report thus far, it is a great improvement on 
the politically driven, partisan legislation the House passed in 
October. The 9/11 Commissioners who made these important 
recommendations support the conference report, as do families of the 
victims of the 9/11 attacks. Although I plan to vote in support of this 
conference report, I will be doing so with great concern over several 
provisions.
  I have concerns that important civil liberty protection provisions 
have been watered down. I am pleased that there is language in the 
conference report to establish a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight 
Board, but am concerned that it was not given enough independence from 
the White House. The 9/11 Commission recommended the Board be given 
subpoena power. This bill gives no such power. I will introduce 
legislation in the 109th Congress to give the board this subpoena power 
it deserves to do its job. Also, Mr. Speaker, I am concerned that the 
sunset of specific provisions of the PATRIOT Act pertaining to 
financial institutions has been eliminated.
  Despite these concerns, I believe this legislation is too important 
to the safety of our country and will therefore be voting in support of 
it. I do hope, however, as I recently stated during debate of a 
different bill, that the majority will stop bringing legislation and 
conference reports to the floor in the manner that this was brought 
before us today. It is a subversion of the democratic process and it 
must stop.

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