[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 21]
[House]
[Pages 28275-28307]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 3199, USA PATRIOT IMPROVEMENT AND 
                      REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2005

  Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 595 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 595

       Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be 
     in order to consider the conference report to accompany the 
     bill (H.R. 3199) to extend and modify authorities needed to 
     combat terrorism, and for other purposes. All points of order 
     against the conference report and against its consideration 
     are waived.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Foley). The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Gingrey) is recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield 30 
minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), 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, House Resolution 595 waives all points of order against 
the conference report and against its consideration.
  I rise today in support of House Resolution 595 and the underlying 
conference report for H.R. 3199, the USA PATRIOT and Terrorism 
Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2005.
  Mr. Speaker, I would first like to take this opportunity to thank 
Chairmen Sensenbrenner and King for all of their work in shepherding 
H.R. 3199 initially in the committee and then on the floor and now 
through the conference. This conference report demonstrates this 
Congress's commitment to find common ground in order to move solid and 
important legislation for the good and safety of the American people. 
This conference report is the culmination of 4 years of thorough 
hearings, extensive oversight, representing a collaborative effort to 
strengthen and fine tune our law enforcement needs and civil security 
needs as originally provided by the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act.
  Like most Americans, I fully cherish and celebrate our 
constitutionally protected civil liberties, while also recognizing the 
need for strengthened national security with thorough and proper 
oversight. And this Congress has demonstrated and will continue to 
demonstrate a clear commitment to oversight in order to better achieve 
the essential and proper balance between necessary protective measures 
and our sacred civil liberties granted to us by the United States 
Constitution.
  As I mentioned, when the House first considered this legislation back 
in July, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3199, like most legislation considered 
before this House, is not perfect. In an ideal world, it would not be 
necessary, but today's world is sadly far from ideal. Today, America 
faces a grave threat from enemies who cowardly operate in the darkness 
of shadows, waiting with the intent to kill innocent people in the name 
of their hateful ideology. Therefore, we must never again be caught 
with our guard down.
  This Congress must act and must act decisively and deliberately to 
provide our law enforcement with the tools they need to protect and to 
save American lives, both here and abroad.
  With respect to the provisions of this legislation, Mr. Speaker, this 
conference report will make permanent many vital law enforcement tools 
made available for use against suspected terrorists by the USA PATRIOT 
Act while establishing 4-year sunsets on a few provisions such as 
section 206, FISA, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, multi-point 
wire taps, section 215, FISA business record provisions and finally, 
the Lone Wolf provision.
  With respect to section 206, it is important to recognize that the 
ability to track terrorists through the use of multi point or roving 
wire taps is essential because it allows law enforcement to follow a 
terrorist, rather than a telephone.
  Mr. Speaker, terrorists are not reliant on two Dixie cups and a piece 
of string to coordinate and plot terrorist attacks. They have access to 
a universal and a vast array of communication technologies, and our 
laws must take this fact into account.
  Additionally, this conference report, through section 215, ensures 
that law enforcement will still have the ability, under thorough and 
extensive oversight, let me repeat, under thorough and extensive 
oversight, to seek out information on terrorists without tipping them 
off and thereby potentially compromising security and costing lives.
  Again, Mr. Speaker, it should be emphasized to all Americans that the 
USA PATRIOT Act did not establish any new law enforcement capabilities 
but rather extended techniques long available for use against organized 
crime or drug trafficking to be used against suspected terrorists as 
well. If these are acceptable tools against some dope-pushing thug, 
then they should be acceptable tools against terrorists who seek to 
destroy American lives and rip apart the very fabric of this great 
Nation.
  Without question, this Congress must, and I trust, will continue to 
remain vigilant with thorough oversight to protect our Constitution, to 
protect our civil liberties and to protect our national security.
  Mr. Speaker, I encourage all of my colleagues to support the rule and 
the underlying conference report, and I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia 
(Mr. Gingrey) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield 
myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 3199. While 
this conference report makes some improvement to the current PATRIOT 
Act, it fails to address some major deficiencies, and in many ways, it 
makes the current situation worse.
  The original intent of the PATRIOT Act was to provide our law 
enforcement officials with the necessary tools to make our country more 
secure. While maintaining national security is absolutely a necessary 
responsibility of Congress, it can and must be achieved without 
compromising our civil liberties.
  Unlike the proponents of H.R. 3199, the American people do not 
believe that security and liberty are mutually exclusive goals. A 
delicate balance between enhancing security and protecting liberty 
needs to be present. But unfortunately, this bill before us today falls 
far short to achieving this appropriate balance.
  Mr. Speaker, back in 2001, when the PATRIOT Act was enacted, 16 
provisions were sunsetted or authorized for a certain period of time 
because of their controversial nature and also due to the hurried 
manner in which they were drafted; 14 of these 16 provisions

[[Page 28276]]

are made permanent by this conference report. And while three of the 
most contentious provisions have been sunsetted for 4 years, even that 
is too long.
  Section 215, commonly referred to as the Library Records Provision, 
grossly expands the Federal government's ability to seize records and 
investigate citizens' reading habits without any notification.
  Section 206, dubbed the Roving Wiretaps Provision, grants the 
government the power to perform so-called John Doe wiretaps in which 
they do not have to disclose the phones that will be tapped or even the 
names of the suspected person.
  Section 6001, known as the Lone Wolf Provision, broadly redefines the 
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act's, FISA, standard for the agent 
of foreign power. The new definition is so expansive that the 
Government can now define any individual non-U.S. person as a terrorist 
suspect, even if the individual has no clear ties to a foreign 
government.

                              {time}  1115

  Mr. Speaker, it is more than apparent that these three provisions 
pose a threat to American citizens' civil liberties. And while I would 
rather see these provisions removed from the legislation, I am 
encouraged that a shorter sunset has been placed upon them.
  But, unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, shorter sunsets do not do the trick. 
Sunsets alone do not fix the severe substantive flaws of these 
sections, and they do nothing to address the deficiencies of the 14 
other provisions that are being made permanent by this report. Instead 
of opting to apply shorter sunset dates to these misguided provisions, 
Congress should be exploring appropriate ways to fix them. After all, 
giving the government the power to violate civil liberties is wrong 
regardless of whether we give the government that power for 1 year or 4 
years or for 100 years.
  Most notable of the deficient provisions, which was made permanent by 
the original PATRIOT Act, is section 505, known as the National 
Security Letters provision, NSLs. These NSLs are administrative 
subpoenas, issued by high-ranking Department of Justice officials, 
which force a person to turn over a wide range of personal records. 
Essentially, NSLs allow the FBI to conduct secret, warrantless searches 
of any records they deem relevant to national security.
  What is most concerning about NSLs are the rate in which they are 
being issued and the eventual relevancy of the retrieved records. More 
than 30,000 NSLs are being issued a year, a hundred-fold increase since 
the enactment of the PATRIOT Act. Meanwhile, only a handful of NSL 
investigations have ever gone through the judicial process. Moreover, 
the FBI has surreptitiously gathered information on tens of thousands 
of Americans. They are maintaining databases on these citizens. And 
instead of deleting information on NSL recipients once an investigation 
is completed, the FBI is abusing this power and holding onto personal 
information of Americans who have never been accused of any crime.
  Mr. Speaker, while this conference report does require the Department 
of Justice to report the number of national security letters they 
issue, it fails to address the abuse of power and the 
unconstitutionality of the provision. As determined by a Federal court 
judge on October 4, 2005, the NSL provision was ruled to be 
unconstitutional. So instead of reevaluating this provision or at the 
very least sunsetting it, the NSL provision remains permanent and 
continues to infringe upon the civil liberties of the American people.
  Mr. Speaker, we all must be reminded that privacy is a right 
guaranteed by our Constitution, not a luxury that we can simply discard 
when it becomes inconvenient to the government. Shorter sunsets and 
minimal regulations imposed on the Department of Justice do not cure 
the serious problems with these provisions. Congress needs to go back 
to the negotiating table, reevaluate these provisions, and come up with 
a report that strikes the appropriate balance between advancing 
security and defending our civil rights.
  That is why, Mr. Speaker, I am a cosponsor of H.R. 4506. This 
legislation, introduced by the ranking member of the Judiciary 
Committee, Mr. Conyers, extends by 3 months the 16 provisions of the 
PATRIOT Act set to expire at the end of this year. Extending the 
PATRIOT Act in its current form for 3 months would give lawmakers the 
opportunity to reevaluate these contentious provisions, fix them, and 
then issue a conference report that actually protects the civil 
liberties of the people of this country and not hinders them.
  I would like to share a quote from an article entitled ``Going Down 
in History with USA PATRIOT Act,'' which appeared in the November 27 
edition of the Massachusetts Republican: ``Unless lawmakers are 
prepared to revise the USA PATRIOT Act to include modest protections to 
safeguard civil liberties, they will go down in history as the authors 
of remarkably bad legislation.''
  Mr. Speaker, when we in Congress authorize Federal agencies, it is 
our responsibility to grant them with an appropriate level of power so 
that abuse will not occur. It is also our responsibility to demand 
accountability and conduct appropriate oversight. Sadly, under this 
Republican leadership, neither responsibility has been fulfilled.
  One final observation. We are all, every single Member of this House 
is committed to protecting our country from terrorism. We must adjust 
our laws accordingly to deal with any potential threat. But we must not 
undercut or undermine the protection of our civil liberties. Mr. 
Speaker, democracy requires courage, and we can protect our citizens 
from terrorism and at the same time protect their civil liberties. They 
are not mutually exclusive. I am not convinced that the bill as written 
will enhance our national security, nor am I convinced that these 
broad, sweeping powers that we are now giving to our government will 
not be abused.
  In our recent history, we have seen abuse of power. We have seen 
civil rights leaders in this country, people who have advocated equal 
treatment under the law for all of our citizens, we have seen these 
people put under surveillance. They have been wiretapped. We have seen 
others who have raised their voices in dissent or who have advocated 
issues that are now viewed as the mainstream, we have seen that they 
have been spied upon by our own government. So let us not give 
government more power than is needed.
  That is my fear today, that we are going too far, that we are paving 
the way for abuse, and that if we enact this bill as written, a little 
bit of the Liberty Tree will die.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  In regard to section 215, I want to remind the gentleman that section 
215, relating to investigators' access to business records, this 
reauthorization requires a statement of fact showing reasonable grounds 
to believe that the records or other things sought are relevant to an 
authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or 
espionage. This provides additional safeguards to the original USA 
PATRIOT Act, which requires the government only to certify that the 
records at issue were sought for an authorized investigation without 
any factual showing.
  Mr. Speaker, I could continue with that, but I now yield such time as 
he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the 
distinguished chairman of the Rules Committee.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, let me thank my friend from Georgia for 
yielding me this time.
  I listened very, very closely to the remarks offered by my good 
friend from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) and I have to say that every 
Member of this House is committed to the national security of the 
United States. That is our number one responsibility, our priority. But 
I will go so far as to say every single Member of this House is 
committed to recognizing the civil liberties of the American people.
  When this issue came to the forefront just a few weeks after 
September 11,

[[Page 28277]]

2001, the now Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, former 
chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and vice chairman of the 
Rules Committee, our very good friend, Mr. Goss, argued that he 
believed we should begin with permanence at that point, and I argued 
then that I thought it important that we focus on sunsetting provisions 
in the USA PATRIOT Act. Why? Because we were looking at this issue 
literally weeks after the worst attack on our soil.
  So, Mr. Speaker, as we moved ahead, we said we should have these 
sunset provisions, and we put them into place, and they were very 
important and helpful. One of the reasons we did it is we wanted to see 
what kinds of civil liberties were being violated as we focused on our 
number one priority, that being our national security. And I am very 
happy to report that, as we look at what has transpired since 
implementation of the USA PATRIOT Act, it is the following: we have 
provided every opportunity for any American to raise concern, talk 
about violations of their civil liberties by going on the Worldwide 
Web, filing any kind of complaint. And there has not been one instance, 
not one complaint has been leveled, against the provisions in the USA 
PATRIOT Act as evidence of violating civil liberties.
  I consider myself a small ``l'' libertarian Republican. I want to do 
everything in my power to ensure that we recognize the rights of our 
individuals. But we have to remember that this measure is exactly what 
Mr. McGovern said it should be. It is a delicate balancing act between 
our goal of recognizing the importance of our national security and at 
the same time focusing on civil liberties. That is why we see the 4-
year sunset for the so-called Lone Wolf provision, for the roving 
wiretap provision, for the so-called library provision. These measures 
that are in there are designed to force us to look at them again. But, 
Mr. Speaker, there is nothing to say that we cannot look at this again, 
as one of my staff members just said to me, next week if we so choose.
  Now, the United States Congress pursues oversight with great 
diligence. I was shocked last night when the distinguished ranking 
member of the Rules Committee said that there had been no oversight by 
the Judiciary Committee of the USA PATRIOT Act. And Chairman 
Sensenbrenner, who has done a phenomenal job on this, went through the 
litany of oversight hearings that have gone on between first 
implementation of the USA PATRIOT Act and today and will continue, will 
continue as we see this measure pass.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I believe that this does create that fine balancing 
act that we have recognized, and we do know that at the same time 
sacrifices have been made. Every single American who travels today has 
made a sacrifice, because of the fact that we are in the midst of a 
global war on terror, by virtue of going through the security to get on 
an airplane. We have had to make sacrifices. Professor Harvey Mansfield 
of Harvard wrote about the need to make those sacrifices when we are in 
the midst of war. And we know that this is an ongoing global war on 
terror; but we cannot, as we pursue that war, move to undermine the 
great liberties and rights of the American people.
  This measure strikes that balance, and I urge my colleagues to 
support the rule and to support the underlying bill.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, in response to my good friend from 
California who said there must be sacrifices and sacrifices have been 
made, I would remind Members of the words of Benjamin Franklin who once 
said that those who would give up their essential liberties to achieve 
a measure of security deserve neither.
  The tragedy of 9/11 led to the PATRIOT Act, and then it led to a war 
against Iraq. Fear and suspicion led the U.S. to roll back our civil 
liberties and attack a nation that did not attack us.
  We have become a Nation of leaders, some of whom who have condoned 
torture and illegal detentions. Fear and suspicion have driven us to 
that. We need a different type of leadership so the American people 
could have been spared the effects of 9/11. It could have been 
different. But, no. We are here today trying to appeal to people to let 
go of their fear and suspicion because an open, honest review of the 
FBI's use of the PATRIOT Act would surely find many areas in need of 
reform.
  A careful balance between national security needs and protecting 
American rights must be struck, but that is not what we have here. 
Today we are set to pass a whole new round of democracy rollbacks. 
American citizens are losing more of their free speech rights and 
privacy rights. The authors of today's bill inserted a very weak and 
loophole-ridden right to judicial review of government actions. The 
American public is not served by such minimal accommodation.
  Today, the House will ignore more than 400 local communities and 
seven States that have passed resolutions asking for PATRIOT Act 
reform. This legislation fails to provide reasonable sunset provisions 
that guarantee future congressional review. The bill retains 4-year 
sunsets for only two of the 16 PATRIOT Act provisions and only one of 
two expiring provisions in the 2004 Intelligence Reform Act. All other 
intrusive powers are either made permanent or remain permanent.
  This bill continues to allow roving wiretaps that permit Federal 
agents to tap communications of a target where neither the target nor 
the phone is identified. Criminal wiretaps require one or the other, 
and the 10-day after-the-fact notice requirement is no substitute for 
privacy safeguards in the criminal wiretaps.
  The bill continues to permit sneak-and-peak searches of a person's 
home or business to remain secret indefinitely. It drops a Senate 
provision supported by the Chamber of Commerce, conservatives, 
libraries, civil liberties organizations that set limits on secret 
court orders for library, medical, and other personal records. Instead, 
the bill establishes a false right to judicial review. A recipient must 
challenge before a preselected group of three court judges and go to 
the expense of hiring a lawyer with a security clearance who the FISA 
court agrees can appear before it.
  So people have to essentially fight for their rights to be free of 
the scourge of wiretaps and to be free of the scourge of having the FBI 
reach into their library records, their reading records, their medical 
records.
  Where are we going with this country? It is not the America it used 
to be. It has become something that is hard to recognize for many 
Americans.
  Vote against this bill.

                              {time}  1130

  Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the gentleman that in the 
original bill that we considered, H.R. 3199, which 43 of his colleagues 
supported, there were sunset provisions not in two, but in three, 
sections that were of 10 years' duration. In their motion to instruct 
the conferees, the request was to abide by the Senate bill, which would 
lower those to 4 years each. So that is exactly what we are bringing 
back in the conference report, exactly what they asked for.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from West Virginia 
(Mrs. Capito), my colleague on the Rules Committee.
  Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the rule and the 
underlying PATRIOT Act reauthorization. I would like to take a minute 
to highlight two aspects of this legislation that we probably will not 
hear a whole lot about today, but are very important to me.
  I am pleased that the conference report includes the amendment that I 
introduced and which passed the House 362-66 to increase penalties and 
update outdated laws to protect our rail and mass transportation 
systems. This provision, section 110 of the conference report, will 
ensure that those who conspire to commit attacks against our rail 
systems or fund such attacks can be prosecuted to the fullest extent of 
the law.

[[Page 28278]]

  While no penalties can deter some of these terrorists bent on causing 
death and destruction, these enhanced penalties on conspirators will 
hinder the efforts of terrorists to secure and finance their networks.
  The attacks on the rail systems in Madrid and in the London 
Underground have demonstrated the real threat that rail and mass 
transportation systems face. I would like to thank Chairman 
Sensenbrenner and all the Members who supported this important 
provision to add another layer of protection to America's rail systems.
  Also I want to commend the conferees for including anti-meth 
legislation in the conference report. Methamphetamine is a large and 
growing problem in rural America. In West Virginia, meth labs have been 
found in neighborhoods, endangering children and innocent members of 
the community. Provisions of this bill enhance penalties for those who 
run meth labs in the presence of children.
  This bill also places restrictions on the sale of meth precursor 
chemicals that are similar to those that the West Virginia legislature 
passed earlier this year and other legislatures throughout the country. 
Provisions in this bill require that meth precursors be sold from 
behind the counter or from a locked cabinet and place better controls 
on mail order and Internet sales.
  Authorization in this legislation will ensure that the Meth Hot Spots 
grant program will continue. This program has already provided 
assistance to local law enforcement in many districts, including the 
Metro Drug Task Force in my hometown of Charleston, West Virginia. 
Continuing this grant program will enable Congress to continue to help 
our communities fight the meth problem.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Zoe Lofgren).
  Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I would just note the 
most important thing in the PATRIOT Act is the sharing of information 
between law enforcement and intelligence. I support that 
reauthorization. I am a member of the Judiciary Committee, a member of 
the Homeland Security Committee. The Department of Justice has 
stonewalled Congress on telling us how they are using these powers.
  I am a member of the conference committee. Republicans met secretly 
and separately away from Democrats on the conference committee. We have 
failed to cure the problems in the bill, and we have missed an 
opportunity.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it's clear that the primary benefit of the USA 
PATRIOT Act we passed in 2001 has been the sharing of information 
between criminal investigators and intelligence officials it enabled. I 
support authorizing that information sharing capability in the original 
PATRIOT Act, and I support its reauthorization today. But this 
conference report on reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act fails in 
important ways.
  Following the attacks of 9/11, this Congress passed the USA PATRIOT 
Act to give our law enforcement and intelligence agencies new powers to 
fight terrorism. I voted for that law, but only after securing support 
for sunset provisions that allowed this Congress to revisit these 
issues under less trying circumstances.
  Congress has not done its job in providing the thorough review we 
need of the PATRIOT Act. Nor has the Bush administration done its job 
in providing us the information we need to properly evaluate the 
PATRIOT Act. I have repeatedly sought access from the Department of 
Justice to the national security letters or NSLs it has issued under 
section 505 of the act, and underlying materials regarding its use of 
the material witness statute. I have been seeking access to these 
materials for over 6 months now, with no response from DOJ. I wrote to 
them again last month seeking this information, and again received no 
response. This is vital information about DOJ's actual use of PATRIOT 
Act powers, information which DOJ steadfastly refuses to provide. Yet 
with this conference report Congress blindly reauthorizes and makes 
permanent many of these same powers.
  In fact, through the cracks in DOJ's veil of secrecy, we've begun to 
find some information about the PATRIOT Act. We've found out from 
whistleblowers that the FBI issues more than 30,000 national security 
letters each year. These are tens of thousands of letters, never 
reviewed by a judge, demanding information on countless people, the 
vast majority of whom may be Americans innocent of any terrorist 
activity. We don't know how many private lives are being swept up in 
these NSLs, because DOJ won't tell us.
  This bill does not correct the problems with national security 
letters. It creates a new process for judicial review, but leaves that 
review subject to an extremely vague standard. There are no 
requirements for law enforcement to ``minimize'' its collection of 
NSLs; that is, there's no requirement for DOJ to segregate the vast 
amount of information collected on innocent Americans unconnected to 
any terrorist activity. An audit is provided which would allow DOJ to 
freely continue stockpiling information on Americans without providing 
any standard.
  This bill also adopts too weak a standard for law enforcement to 
engage in business records searches under section 215 of the PATRIOT 
Act. The Senate passed unanimously what I thought was a very reasonable 
standard for law enforcement to meet in order to conduct these 
searches. The Senate required that these searches actually be relevant 
to an ongoing terrorism investigation and related to the activities of 
an agent of a foreign power. But the conference report adopts a 
presumption of relevance that would essentially tie judges' hands and 
force them to grant any requested searches.
  Adoption of 4-year, rather than 7-year, sunsets on three provisions 
regarding business records searches, roving wiretaps, and so-called 
``lone wolf'' terrorists acting as agents of foreign powers is 
positive. Frankly, I would have liked to see 4-year sunsets applied to 
more provisions of the PATRIOT Act, such as the provisions regarding 
NSLs. I believe these sunsets provide Congress an important opportunity 
to review how the PATRIOT Act is actually being used. Given how 
reluctant DOJ has been to share information with us, these sunsets 
really provide the main source of leverage Congress has over the 
Department of Justice to obtain information we should be provided as an 
equal branch of government.
  Mr. Speaker, I'm very disappointed that this legislation has removed 
the provisions we passed in the House providing for additional funding 
for first responders. This is vitally needed funding that local first 
responders need in the event of another terrorist attack or other 
disaster. This conference report drops all of these provisions passed 
by the House.
  For these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in 
voting against this conference report. Instead of rushing this bill to 
conclusion, we should give ourselves the time we need to get the 
PATRIOT Act right. I, along with some of my colleagues, have introduced 
legislation that would allow us to reauthorize the existing PATRIOT Act 
authorities for another 3 months, to take the time we need to correct 
the many deficiencies still remaining in this conference report. I urge 
that, instead of voting for a bad bill in order to meet an arbitrary 
deadline, my colleagues join me in voting for more time to turn this 
into a better bill.
  Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Coble), a member of the Judiciary and 
Transportation Committees.
  Mr. COBLE. Mr. Speaker, on 9/11, evil terrorists, murderers, if you 
will, inspired and motivated by fanaticism and hatred attacked our 
country and nearly 3,000 innocent Americans expired. It would be a 
simple matter to overreact to such an attack; but our response, for the 
most part, Mr. Speaker, has been thorough and deliberate.
  The Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security 
alone conducted nine hearings, coupled with two additional hearings 
before the full House Judiciary Committee. Other committees as well 
conducted hearings. So this seems to me refutes the charge that this 
act has been hurriedly rammed through the Congress.
  I spoke earlier on this floor, Mr. Speaker, of a constituent who 
urged me to lead an effort to repeal the PATRIOT Act. When I asked him 
to cite examples where civil liberties had been abused, he could offer 
none. Other opponents of the act have likewise been unable to document 
evidence of abuses. Some have said, well, these points are irrelevant. 
They are not irrelevant at all, Mr. Speaker, when you are talking to 
people who oppose the act, but yet are unable to offer evidence to 
support their opposition. I think it is relevant, indeed.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, I am going to touch on a point that I think 
many Americans have inadvertently ignored, and that is the fact that 
there are in

[[Page 28279]]

excess of 360 ports in the United States and this bill provides basic 
and much-needed protection thereto. It is clear that our ports and 
harbors are significant and appealing targets for terrorist attacks. We 
cannot afford to leave these areas unprotected or hamstring law 
enforcement efforts to provide basic security against terrorists.
  Mr. Speaker, I am not trying to be a Chicken Little and shouting that 
the sky is falling, but just because we have not been attacked 
subsequently since 9/11 does not indicate to me that these terrorists, 
I call them murderers, they are murderers, are asleep at the switch. 
They are continuing to plot, and we cannot turn a blind eye to them.
  Is this act perfect? No. Not many acts that find their way through 
this Congress are perfect. But it is a piece of legislation that should 
be enacted, and I urge support.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Woolsey).
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, the President and his administration 
continue its rhetoric that anyone calling for a withdrawal of troops or 
questioning the intelligence that led us into the Iraq war is 
unpatriotic, while, on the other hand, using this war as an excuse, a 
PATRIOT Act was passed that recklessly violates our civil liberties and 
attacks the very freedoms our troops in Iraq are told that they are 
fighting to protect.
  This administration and the leadership in this very House we are 
standing in has tried every trick in the book to spread the blame, pass 
the buck on this misguided war. They continue to filter the debate in 
our very own country and to discredit those who disagree with them.
  This bill they want us to pass today would continue to limit our 
constitutional freedoms in our very own country. Though they did not 
seem to care one bit about the facts before 9/11, they now believe the 
United States will benefit from hoarding insignificant and ill-gotten 
information on innocent Americans. They believe that this makes us a 
safer Nation.
  If you want to talk about dishonesty, look at this administration's 
policies that have led us to ignore facts in order to manipulate the 
very policies that fly in the face of our own honesty, and this is an 
administration that also pays for ``canned'' news overseas.
  The real patriots have been those who stand up and question the 
misleading intelligence and dishonest tactics that got us into this 
war, those who have challenged the PATRIOT Act and its impact on the 
civil rights and civil liberties of every American. Actually, it is 
patriotic to question how the PATRIOT Act affects the very rights that 
we live under in this country of ours.
  Vote ``no'' on this PATRIOT Act.
  Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  Mr. Speaker, I just want to remind my colleagues that prior to 9/11 
and before the USA PATRIOT Act in 2001, we had this culture and legal 
problem where law enforcement could not communicate whatsoever with 
intelligence. This bill enabled us to finally, finally connect the 
dots. I think this is very important for all of us to keep in mind.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. 
Wamp), a member of the Appropriations Committee.
  Mr. WAMP. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia, and I 
thank the chairman and Chairman Souder for not only bringing the 
PATRIOT Act reauthorization to the floor but including these important 
meth provisions in this legislation.
  In rural east Tennessee, over 10 years ago meth production showed up 
in a real ugly way and spread like moonshine of 50 years ago, but 100 
times more lethal, through the mountains and the hills. We attacked it 
with 
a comprehensive State-Federal-local partnership called the Southeast 
Tennessee Meth Task Force and that grew to the East Tennessee Meth Task 
Force, and now it is a statewide, state-of-the-art, frankly, national 
model for how to combat this problem; and we were second in the country 
last year in lab seizures.
  One of the innocent results here, though, of fighting meth and the 
production of meth are the children that are left in these homes. My 
colleague from Tennessee, a Democrat from Nashville, Jim Cooper, wrote 
legislation, and I was the original Republican cosponsor, that creates 
a provision funded at $20 million a year for the next 2 years to deal 
with the children that come out of these meth homes.
  Over 10,000 children nationally between 2000 and 2003 came out of 
these meth homes and became wards of the State. In my State, 750 alone 
so far are wards of the State. There was no social service network for 
these children. This creates that.
  So we are not just attacking the problem, but we are dealing with the 
aftermath of this deadly plague on America called methamphetamine 
production. It is so responsible to include it.
  A second on the PATRIOT Act. In ordinary circumstances, it might not 
be necessary. These are extraordinary circumstances, and it has been 
necessary. The facts do not lie. If you listen to the testimony of the 
attorneys general and the prosecutors and you hear the cases, you know 
the PATRIOT Act has definitely kept our country safer, safer, since 
September 11.
  We need to reauthorize it. We need to be realistic. We cannot just 
pander or engage in mythological discussions. Deal with the realities. 
We have to do certain things and communicate better. The law 
enforcement personnel have to have the tools and equipment to safeguard 
our country from these terrorists. This is the reality that we face 
today. We can change this later if we need to. Today, we need to 
reauthorize it and keep the teeth in Federal law enforcement and keep 
the terrorists out of our country.

                              {time}  1145

  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Vermont (Mr. Sanders).
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this conference report. 
All of us are in agreement that the United States government must do 
everything it can do to effectively fight terrorism and protect the 
American people from another terrorist attack. There is no debate about 
that. But some of us believe that with strong, well-trained and well-
funded law enforcement, we can in fact protect the American people 
without undermining the constitutional rights that make us a free 
country.
  In that regard, I am happy to say that there has been a very strong 
coming together of Members of Congress and Americans from very 
different political perspectives, people who usually agree on nothing 
but who have come together to protect the Constitutional rights of the 
American people as we fight terrorism.
  We should be very proud that, on this issue, such diverse groups as 
the ACLU, the American Conservative Union, the Gun Owners of America, 
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Library Association and the 
American Book Sellers Association have come together to say to 
Congress, please support the Senate version. And this is a message that 
I hope all Members heed.
  The simple fact of the matter is that the original Senate bill is a 
far better piece of legislation than what we are looking at today, and 
that is the legislation that we should pass.
  Mr. Speaker, day after day, we hear the Republican leadership telling 
us about the virtues of small and limited government, about how we have 
got to deregulate almost everything and get government out of our 
lives. In that regard, are my Republican friends really comfortable 
with allowing the FBI to access Americans' reading records, gun 
records, medical records and financial records without judicial 
approval; allowing the FBI to search someone's home without probable 
cause and without telling that person about the search; allowing the 
FBI to serve a librarian or a bookstore owner with a section 215 order 
demanding records without having to provide facts that a person whose 
records are being sought is involved in a terrorist investigation?
  Please vote no on this conference report.

[[Page 28280]]


  Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Keller), a member of the Education and Workforce 
Committee.
  Mr. KELLER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act before it expires on 
December 31 is literally a matter of life or death because it is 
helping us to win the war on terrorism.
  Since we passed the PATRIOT Act in 2001, we have convicted 212 
terrorists, and we have frozen $136 million in terrorist assets. 
Passing the PATRIOT Act is purely a matter of common sense. Is it not 
common sense that we give law enforcement the same tools to go after 
terrorists as they now have to go after Mafia dons and drug dealers? Is 
it not common sense that we can now share data between the intelligence 
community and the law enforcement community? Is it not common sense 
that we can now track deadly terrorists even though they cross 
jurisdictional lines or switch cell phones?
  Now, some Members of Congress want to postpone this legislation or 
even filibuster it. The worst thing that these critics can say about 
the PATRIOT Act is that supposedly law-abiding citizens will have their 
book store and library habits monitored. That is a totally bogus 
allegation. In reality, a prosecutor seeking this information must go 
before a federal judge, get a court order and prove that it is a matter 
of international terrorism. Now, how many times has that happened since 
we first passed the PATRIOT Act in 2001? Exactly zero according to the 
U.S. Attorney General.
  I urge my colleagues to vote yes on the PATRIOT Act and yes on the 
underlying rule.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Doggett).
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, true patriots need not hide behind the flag 
nor apply phony titles to cover the misguided purposes of their 
legislation.
  From its origin, this grossly misnamed PATRIOT Act has cloaked its 
weaknesses by implying that its opponents are ``un-patriots'' as in 
``unpatriotic.'' This is all part of a troubling pattern: secret 
prisons, sneak and peek searches, gag orders, redefining torture to 
exclude cruel and degrading punishment, extraordinary rendition, 
combing through library records, and even attempting to misuse our 
military to spy on religious groups.
  These acts debase our American values. This bill should be rejected 
because it fails to strike the proper balance between the security we 
demand and the liberties that we cherish.
  Yes, Vice President Cheney has suddenly emerged from his secure, 
undisclosed location and taken pause from his campaign to preserve 
torture in order to enthusiastically embrace today's bill. But 
intrusive, invasive powers in the hands of a few with little oversight 
and no accountability is a formula for wrongdoing. We should not 
surrender our liberties to any Administration. Retreating to such 
abusive tactics is weakness, not strength.
  We should not add even more powers to an Administration that has so 
often been willing to abuse its existing power, nor should we add more 
authority to an Administration that has acted in authoritarian ways. 
Real patriots understand that an all-powerful government can undermine 
our security just as surely as a dangerous religious fanatic.
  And all of this is occurring when the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, the 
citizens' commission that this Administration fought every step of the 
way, is giving the Administration and this Republican Congress one F 
after another for not protecting our families. Instead, we get this 
kind of legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, authoritarianism is not born full-bodied. It is 
conceived in small injustices, which tolerated over time become 
irreversible. Benjamin Franklin understood when he said, ``Those who 
would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, 
deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.''
  This much is certain, each day of this Administration brings more 
news of both deaths of true patriots abroad and more abuses of our 
values by those who claim to be patriots at home. This is an 
Administration where the ends always seem to justify the means. But 
their ``ends'' too often betray our safety, and their ``means'' forsake 
our values.
  To those who promote this misguided act, pull down your false colors; 
raise the American flag of freedom. Reject this bill.
  Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.
  I want to remind the gentleman from Texas that this latest 9/11 
Commission so-called report card gave us an F for failing to reveal the 
amount of intelligence spending to the terrorists. So if that is the 
kind of report card he is talking about, then I am proud of that F.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Rohrabacher).
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule but in 
opposition to the underlying bill, the so-called PATRIOT Act, the USA 
PATRIOT Act.
  I supported the PATRIOT Act when it was first passed and would do so 
again. I support the war on radical Islam. Our country is under attack 
and under grave threat. But my original support was based on the 
inclusion of 4-year sunsets in those sections of the PATRIOT Act, those 
sections that drastically expanded the police and investigative powers 
of the Federal Government.
  That is what was included in the original PATRIOT Act. Instead, the 
current legislation before us makes permanent the expansion of police 
powers which were meant to be only temporary until this war was over. 
Of the 16 sunset provisions, sections sunsetted in the original 2001 
bill, the current conference committee report establishes 4-year 
sunsets on only two of those 16. The rest of the expanded police powers 
are being made permanent, the most drastic permanent expansion of these 
powers being section 213, the sneak and peek section; the section 205, 
the secret search section; and section 214, which permanently 
eliminates probable cause needed for the use of eavesdropping devices.
  I would support redoing the PATRIOT Act as originally came forward. 
As the war on terrorism continues, I can support these expanded powers. 
However, this effort to use the war as a way to alter forever the 
balance of personal liberty and legitimate restraints on government 
power should be defeated. Long after the war on terrorism is won, under 
permanent sneak-and-peek rules, American citizens will have their homes 
and businesses searched without court order and without legal 
notification for a month after that search is conducted. Long after the 
threat of Islamic extremism is over, under permanent secret search 
rules, Americans will have their business records, phone records, 
credit records and computer files seized without a judge issuing a 
warrant based on probable cause. Long after the crisis we face today, 
under permanent eavesdropping rules, American citizens will have their 
phone conversations monitored without a warrant.
  There is no excuse in peacetime to give our police and our 
investigative agencies wartime powers, and that is what we are doing 
here. There have been a few improvements in the bill but not enough 
improvements, as far as I am concerned, for us to support it. My 
central theme has always been based on the need for periodic review by 
Congress of all those dramatic expansions of police power that we are 
giving our government now in order to win this war on terrorism. This 
is best achieved by sunsets. We should not live in peacetime under the 
extraordinary laws passed during times of war and crisis. Emergency 
powers of investigation should not become the standard.
  Let me just note that I think people will rue the day if we give the 
Federal Government this permanent power over our lives.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman 
from New York (Mrs. Lowey).
  Mrs. LOWEY. Mr. Speaker, I am deeply disappointed that the conference 
report, among other things, today does not include an amendment that I 
offered with Mr. Sweeney to

[[Page 28281]]

alter the first responder funding formula in the original PATRIOT Act. 
This provision would have allocated precious Homeland Security 
resources on the basis of risk. Under the original PATRIOT Act, zero 
percent of formula grants are distributed on the basis of risk. Under 
the House proposal, at least 84 percent and up to 100 percent of 
funding would be risk-based, ensuring that we spend our resources to 
address the greatest threats our Nation faces. This long overdue change 
has been approved by the House on three separate occasions, including 
in a stand-alone bill that passed by a vote of 409 to 10 in May. While 
the Senate has rejected this commonsense reform, the administration 
supports it, as does the 9/11 Commission. In a recent report, the 
Commission gave the government an F for failing to allocate funding 
where it is needed but stipulated that we can earn an A if the House 
provisions in the PATRIOT Act reauthorization bill are accepted. As 
Commission Chairman Kean stated last week, ``It is time for senators to 
exercise leadership and do the right thing for our Nation's security by 
passing the risk-based funding reform in the PATRIOT Act.''
  The Senate failed to exercise leadership. We have therefore missed a 
golden opportunity to improve our Nation's security. We cannot back 
down from this fight, and we must demand that the Senate accept our 
proposal in any future Homeland Security legislation. I hope my 
colleagues will join me.
  Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Souder).
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the PATRIOT Act and, in 
particular, title VII of that report, the Combat Methamphetamine 
Epidemic Act of 2005. This is certainly the biggest, and last night we 
passed Chairman Boehlert and Congressman Gordon's environmental meth 
bill, but this is the biggest comprehensive bill on meth that we have 
ever had in front of the United States Congress, and it is important 
that we pass this.
  I want to thank a number of people. It is impossible to thank 
everybody who has been involved in this, but I would like to thank 
Chairman Sensenbrenner of the Judiciary Committee for his co-
sponsorship and his willingness to put this in a conference report. If 
we did not have this in a conference report, it would not see the light 
of day. We have had the pharmaceutical companies attack this bill. We 
have had the Mexico and China lobbies attack this bill. We have had the 
pro-drug groups attack the law enforcement provisions. It would not go 
through the other body. It is not even clear we can move it to another 
bill at this point. Yet, it is the only bill standing, and it is a 
bipartisan effort to try to address this scourge that is crossing the 
country. I thank Chairman Sensenbrenner; also Majority Leader Roy 
Blunt, who has been an early leader in this charge; Chairman Barton of 
the Energy and Commerce Committee for his willingness to have this move 
on this conference report; Chairman Hyde of the International Relations 
Committee because it has International Relations jurisdiction and for 
his support; Chairman Young of the Transportation and Infrastructure 
Committee; Chairman Coble of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime; 
Chairman Frank Wolf of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Science, 
Commerce, Justice and State, because, without all of their help, we 
would not have this bill in front of us.
  I would also thank the several Members who have worked so hard to 
make this comprehensive anti-meth legislation happen. In particular, I 
would like to thank Representatives Mark Kennedy, Darlene Hooley of 
Oregon, Dave Reichert and John Peterson, because they provided much of 
the content of this comprehensive bill and their consistently strong 
leadership on the House floor.
  I would also like to thank the four co-chairmen of the Congressional 
Meth Caucus, Congressmen Larsen, Calvert, Boswell and Cannon, for their 
staffs' assistance in putting this together so we could have a 
bipartisan effort.
  Congressman Tom Osborne has crusaded on this House floor and across 
the country on behalf of anti-meth legislation, as has Congressmen 
Baird, Wamp, Boozman, King, Gordon and so many others. This would not 
be happening today if we did not have this bipartisan coalition, and I 
hope it becomes law.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the conference report to H.R. 3199, 
the USA PATRIOT and Terrorism Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2005, 
and in particular of title VII of that report, the Combat 
Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005. I believe this bipartisan 
legislation is a vital first step in our renewed fight against the 
scourge of methamphetamine trafficking and abuse, and I hope the House 
will support its passage.
  I would probably take an hour if I tried to thank each of the Members 
and staff who helped with this legislation, so I will have to mention 
only a few. First, I'd very much like to thank Chairman Sensenbrenner 
of the Judiciary Committee for his cosponsorship of the Methamphetamine 
Epidemic Elimination Act, H.R. 3889, one of the two bills that was 
incorporated into today's legislation, and for his leadership in 
ensuring that anti-meth legislation would be added to the conference 
report. I would also like to thank Majority Leader Roy Blunt, Chairman 
Barton of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Chairman Hyde of the 
International Relations Committee, Chairman Young of the Transportation 
and Infrastructure Committee, Chairman Coble of the Judiciary 
Subcommittee on Crime, and Chairman Frank Wolf of the Appropriations 
Subcommittee for Science, Commerce, Justice, and State, for their 
invaluable assistance and support in bringing this bill to the floor 
for a vote today.
  I would also like to thank several Members who worked so hard to make 
comprehensive anti-meth legislation happen. In particular, I'd like to 
thank Representative Mark Kennedy, Representative Darlene Hooley, 
Representative Dave Reichert, and Representative John Peterson for 
providing much of the content of this bill, and for their consistently 
strong leadership on the House floor on meth issues. I would also like 
to thank the four co-chairmen of the Congressional Meth Caucus, 
Representative Rick Larsen, Representative Ken Calvert, Representative 
Leonard Boswell, and Representative Chris Cannon, for their and their 
staffs' assistance and support. And to every other Member who has 
cosponsored either H.R. 3889, or the other major bill incorporated in 
this conference report, the Combat Meth Act of 2005, H.R. 314, I 
express my deep appreciation.
  I don't have to tell any of you how serious a threat meth is for our 
communities; pick up almost any newspaper or magazine these days and 
you can read about it firsthand. As chairman of the Government Reform 
Committee's Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human 
Resources, I have held 11 hearings on the meth epidemic since 2001, not 
only in Washington, DC, but in places as diverse as rural Arkansas, 
Ohio, Oregon, and Indiana, suburban Minnesota, island of Hawaii, and 
urban Detroit. There are regional and local variations on the problem, 
of course, but one thing remains constant everywhere: This is a drug 
almost unique in its combination of cheapness, ease of manufacture, and 
devastating impact on the user and his or her community.
  There are three aspects of the meth epidemic that I believe need to 
be emphasized as Congress prepares to enact this legislation. First, 
meth presents unique challenges to Federal, State, and local law 
enforcement. The small, clandestine meth labs that have spread like 
wildfire across our Nation produce toxic chemical byproducts that 
endanger officers' lives, tie up law enforcement resources for hours or 
even days, and cost tremendous amounts of money to clean up. That, 
combined with the rise in criminal behavior, child and citizen 
endangerment, and other effects, have made meth the number one drug 
problem for the Nation's local law enforcement agencies, according to a 
study released over the summer by the National Association of Counties.
  Second, the damage this drug causes is not confined to the addict 
alone; it has terrible effects on everyone around the user, 
particularly children. Another survey by the National Association of 
Counties found that 40 percent of child welfare agencies reported an 
increase in ``out of home placements because of meth in the past 
year.'' This abuse unfortunately includes physical and mental trauma, 
and even sexual abuse. Sixty-nine percent of county social service 
agencies have indicated that they have had to provide additional, 
specialized training for their welfare system workers and have had to 
develop new and special protocols for workers to address the special 
needs of the children affected by methamphetamine. Community health and 
human services, as

[[Page 28282]]

well as child welfare services such as foster-care, are being 
overwhelmed as a result of meth.
  Finally, the meth threat is not confined to the small, local labs, 
but extends well beyond our borders to the ``super labs'' controlled by 
large, sophisticated Mexican drug trafficking organizations, and the 
international trade in pseudoephedrine and other precursor chemicals 
fueling those super labs. Three-quarters or more of our Nation's meth 
supply is controlled by those large organizations, and over half of our 
meth comes directly from Mexico.
  The Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act will be the first legislation 
enacted by Congress that addresses all three of these critical aspects. 
Previous acts of Congress have addressed meth production and precursor 
chemical diversion, while others have provided assistance to State and 
local agencies; for the first time, however, we are tackling domestic 
and international chemical diversion, assistance to State and local 
agencies, child and family welfare issues, and the criminal production 
of meth.
  The conference committee has filed a detailed section-by-section 
analysis of the legislation, so I will only briefly mention the 
highlights of this bill. Among other things, the act would:
  Require all pseudoephedrine, ephedrine, and phenylpropanolamine 
products to be stored behind the counter or in a locked cabinet; impose 
a daily and a monthly purchase limit; require purchasers to show I.D. 
and sign a logbook; and require training of all employees handling the 
products;
  Close a number of loopholes in existing import, export, and wholesale 
regulations of meth precursor chemicals, including import and 
manufacturing quotas to ensure no oversupply leads to diversion; and 
regulation of the wholesale ``spot market'';
  Require reporting of major meth precursor exporters and importers, 
and would hold them accountable for their efforts to prevent diversion 
to meth production;
  Toughen Federal penalties against meth traffickers and smugglers;
  Authorize the ``Meth Hot Spots'' program, as well as increase funding 
for drug courts, drug endangered children programs, and programs to 
assist pregnant women addicted to meth.
  Each of these steps is vital to our success in the fight against 
meth, and I hope that the House will support them.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill was a true compromise--both between the two 
parties, and between this House and the other body. Of all the many 
Members of Congress who worked on this legislation, no one got 
everything he or she wanted. But what we did get was an excellent bill 
that will re-energize our fight against methamphetamine. Every one of 
us, Republican or Democrat, urban or rural, has a stake in the outcome 
of that fight. We have to stop the meth epidemic from spreading, and we 
need to start rolling it back. I believe that this legislation will be 
an important step in that process, and I urge my colleagues to vote for 
its passage.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
New Mexico (Mr. Udall).
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. I rise today in opposition to the PATRIOT 
Act reauthorization conference report. As a former Federal prosecutor 
and New Mexico's Attorney General, I am familiar with both the needs of 
law enforcement to pursue suspects and a strong supporter of law 
enforcement. I am also a strong supporter of civil liberties and 
believe that our Constitution must be guarded against encroachment even 
in the name of security.
  On October 24, 2001, a justified sense of urgency resulted in an 
unjustifiably rushed vote on the PATRIOT Act.

                              {time}  1200

  Many of us had little time to study the bill which became law. A 
bipartisan bill was junked by the majority's Rules Committee in the 
middle of the night. Since this legislation was enacted, over 385 
cities, towns, and counties in 43 States passed resolutions concerning 
the PATRIOT Act. In New Mexico alone, 10 cities and four counties have 
adopted resolutions calling for reform. I have received thousands of 
letters from Americans worried about excessive government power without 
judicial oversight.
  I had hoped during the conference committee Senate provisions 
granting more congressional oversight and constitutional protections 
would have been kept in this bill. The Senate version contained greater 
restrictions on the government's power and required higher standards 
for record demands.
  However, the conference report is more of the same. It extends for 4 
years two of the most controversial provisions of the bill, including 
the section granting law enforcement authorities unprecedented powers 
to search library and bookstore records without probable cause or the 
need for search warrants.
  This bill also makes permanent 14 provisions of the PATRIOT Act that 
were set to expire this year. This bill has serious problems.
  National security letters are out of control, with no meaningful 
oversight. It has been reported that 30,000 national security letters 
are issued every year. These letters allow the government to collect 
almost limitless sensitive, personal information without judicial 
approval. We should target this government power against terrorists, 
not against innocent Americans.
  I will vote against this bill today, not because I oppose the PATRIOT 
Act in its entirety but because I believe that the needs of law 
enforcement can be met without eroding our liberties.
  Mr. GINGREY. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Nebraska (Mr. Osborne).
  Mr. OSBORNE. Madam Speaker, the crippling reach of methamphetamine 
abuse has become the Nation's leading drug problem today, and this is 
according to a survey by 500 sheriffs departments in 45 States.
  It is cheap to buy. It is easy to make. It is available everywhere. 
It is highly addictive. Oftentimes it is addictive after just one use. 
So it is currently replacing cocaine and heroin in many parts of the 
country. It leads to increased crime, child abuse, increases in the 
jail population. In many parts of the country, almost 40 to 50 percent 
of the jail population is due to methamphetamine abuse.
  However, the main problem anymore is not the mom-and-pop meth lab out 
in the countryside. It is the superlabs. Right now 60 to 85 percent of 
the meth in the United States is coming from superlabs in Mexico, and 
this is really hard to trace. It is hard to get at.
  The one thing that is needed to make methamphetamine is 
pseudoephedrine or ephedrine, and this is manufactured in only six or 
seven locations around the world: Czechoslovakia, Germany, China, 
southeast Asia and so on. This bill would make it more difficult for 
meth manufacturers to obtain the pseudoephedrine necessary for 
producing the drug in these superlabs.
  H.R. 3199 includes language the House passed earlier as part of the 
Foreign Operations authorization bill. It identifies and publicizes the 
five countries which have the highest rate of diversion of 
pseudoephedrine to manufacturers of meth. We can get the invoices from 
these manufacturers. The Department of State could then use its 
existing authority to reduce or eliminate U.S. foreign aid to those 
countries which are most contributing to the meth problem. This is one 
thing that gets people's attention, when you take their foreign aid 
away, because they are producing meth that is being used in these 
superlabs.
  It is a good bill. It gets to the source of the problem. I want to 
thank Chairman Sensenbrenner and particularly Chairman Souder for their 
hard work on this bill, and I urge support of the underlying 
legislation.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).
  Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Listeners should realize that truth is not required in debate on the 
floor of the House. The chairman of the Rules Committee stood up here 
and said there has not been one complaint about the use of the PATRIOT 
Act, or the abuse. He should talk to Brandon Mayfield from Portland, 
Oregon, who was considered to be a perpetrator of the Madrid bombing 
and they used the PATRIOT Act to accumulate the nonevidence about him. 
The government has subsequently apologized, and he sued the government, 
but I guess that is not a complaint.
  Maybe we are not hearing the complaints because librarians, bookstore 
owners, and business owners can themselves be prosecuted if they tell 
anybody that there was an unwarranted

[[Page 28283]]

gathering of records about innocent Americans from them. So, yeah, I 
guess there is sort of a dearth of complaints.
  Then there is the other gentleman. He said, well, we can change this 
later. We heard that when we passed the first PATRIOT Act, which no 
Member of the House of Representatives had read, at 10 o'clock in the 
morning with one copy available on each side of the aisle. We said it 
sunsets; you can change it later. Now is later. It is time to change 
it. Guess what? They say well, no, we can't change it now; we might 
change it later after we make it permanent now. Before it was 
temporary; we are going to change it later. Now, it is permanent, maybe 
we will change it later.
  Come on. Let's be honest about this debate. You are jamming this 
through on behalf of the White House and the Attorney General. They 
want this. It is bad legislation. It threatens the civil liberties of 
Americans, and I believe it will impinge on our investigation and 
finding of terrorists.
  These national security letters, 30,000 national security letters, 
gathering huge amounts of data about the lives of innocent Americans. 
In the past, that would have to be discarded. Now they say, well, we're 
going to keep it; but don't worry, all the information we're going to 
accumulate about people, innocent Americans, is going to go into a 
databank; but it will only be available to the Federal Government, 
State government, local governments, tribal governments and appropriate 
private entities. I guess there is one person in America who might not 
be able to tap into this databank.
  This is going to create such a huge haystack of irrelevant 
information about the lives of innocent Americans that the FBI, who had 
one terrorist in hand, Musawi, and had an agent in Arizona pointing at 
the plot, could not even see their hand in front of their face. Now we 
are going to create a huge mountain of irrelevant data about innocent 
people and this is somehow going to improve how they perform in finding 
terrorists in America? I don't think so.
  Then the most cynical thing about this bill is to take a meritorious 
bill that deals with methamphetamine precursors and trafficking, that 
passed separately in this House of Representatives, which I supported, 
and they are going to include it as part of this legislation in a 
cynical ploy to somehow basically force, bully, or trick people into 
supporting the underlying legislation with its unwarranted attack on 
the Bill of Rights, the Constitution of America, the foundation of our 
government, the gathering secretly of information about innocent 
Americans, and the permanent retention of that information for no good 
purpose.
  This is bad legislation. The time has come to change it. It should be 
defeated, and we should change it now.
  Mr. GINGREY. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time for the 
purpose of closing.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch).
  Mr. LYNCH. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from the great city 
of Worcester, Massachusetts, for yielding.
  Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the conference report on H.R. 
3199, the so-called USA PATRIOT Act, because we have not taken 
meaningful steps to eliminate or correct the most egregious sections of 
this act.
  In particular, it is disappointing that the conference agreement does 
not include a meaningful judicial review mechanism for FISA wiretaps, 
under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as applied against 
U.S. citizens.
  Given that the power that today's surveillance technology gives to 
government and given the broad powers that we have given to 
intelligence agencies under this act, the absence of post-execution 
judicial review in today's conference report constitutes one of its 
most critical shortcomings.
  Madam Speaker, in order to ensure that the powers granted by the 
PATRIOT Act are not susceptible to abuse, our government must always 
operate with meaningful oversight, checks and balances.
  After all, it is the maximum transparency and active judicial review 
which is our ultimate weapon in combating both governmental abuse and 
overreaching by governments to restrict the individual freedoms of our 
citizens.
  For these reasons, I ask my colleagues to oppose the this version of 
the PATRIOT Act reauthorization.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time I have 
remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Biggert). The gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) has 2\1/2\ minutes remaining. The 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) has 2\1/4\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute 20 seconds to the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).
  Ms. LEE. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding 
and for his leadership.
  Madam Speaker, I rise in total opposition to this rule and to the 
reauthorization of this unpatriotic act. We should be repealing these 
undemocratic provisions, not expanding government's reach into the 
private lives of the American people.
  Since 2001, the PATRIOT Act has been used more than 150 times to 
secretly search private homes, and nearly 90 percent of those cases had 
nothing to do with terrorism.
  Americans have rejected provisions in this legislation like sneak-
and-peek searches, national security letters, and roving John Doe 
wiretaps.
  Under this renewal, we will see more of the same. Private residences, 
libraries, businesses, medical records, not even your DNA, are safe 
from the PATRIOT Act.
  I now understand why many have called this bill yet another Big 
Brother attack.
  Requiring an A on the 9/11 Commission recommendations instead of Ds 
and Fs is how we protect the American people from terrorist attacks, 
not taking away our civil liberties, which this unpatriotic bill does.
  Preserving medical privacy, the right to read and congressional 
oversight should not be partisan issues, Madam Speaker. Our 
constituents deserve better. I hope that we all vote ``no'' on this 
rule and vote ``no'' on this very unpatriotic PATRIOT Act as they call 
it.
  Mr. GINGREY. Madam Speaker, I yield to myself 15 seconds and want to 
remind the gentlewoman from California that under this reauthorization, 
the USA PATRIOT Act, we are not utilizing powers that were not already 
granted to the Federal Government in regard to crime prevention and 
drug lords and organized crime. We are just applying it now to 
terrorists.
  Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, may I inquire of the gentleman from 
Georgia how many more speakers he has?
  Mr. GINGREY. I have no more speakers.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I will close for our side.
  Madam Speaker, this bill overreaches. It paves the way for abuse and 
is a potential threat to innocent, law-abiding citizens. We are not a 
police state, and what makes us different from so many others is our 
freedom and our respect for basic civil liberties and our respect for 
privacy.
  I understand the urge of some to embrace this legislation; but let me 
remind you that every time you chip away at our civil liberties, you 
give the terrorists a victory. You take away something that is 
essential to who we are as Americans.
  Let us adjust and enhance our laws accordingly, to give law 
enforcement officials what they need; but let us not give them more 
than what they need.
  This bill puts us on a dangerous path. There are over 150 provisions 
in this bill that are noncontroversial, that everybody agrees on, that 
will help track down terrorists and criminals; but there are a few 
provisions that so cross the line that they threaten our privacy and 
our civil liberties and do not make us safer.
  We can defend our country; we can protect our people without trashing 
the Constitution.
  With that, Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this 
bill.

[[Page 28284]]

  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. GINGREY. Madam Speaker, I will close this debate by again 
thanking Chairmen Sensenbrenner and King for their work on this 
important conference report.
  This bill is a testament to our open legislative process. 
Conservatives, liberals, moderates, Democrats, Republicans, 
Independents, the ACLU, the Department of Justice and various other 
organizations have all had the opportunity to voice their thoughts and 
concerns on the underlying bill.
  I believe, Madam Speaker, the final product is solid and legal, does 
not violate our constitutional rights guaranteed by the fourth 
amendment, and will serve as an important framework to fight terrorism, 
protect civil liberties and thereby further strengthen America.
  Again, I want to encourage all of my colleagues on both sides of the 
aisle to support both the rule and the underlying bill.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the 
previous question on the resolution.
  The previous question was ordered.
  The resolution was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                              {time}  1215

  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 595, I 
call up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 3199) to extend and 
modify authorities needed to combat terrorism, and for other purposes.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Biggert). Pursuant to rule XXII, the 
conference report is considered read.
  (For conference report and statement, see proceedings of the House of 
December 8, 2005, at page 27826.)
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. 
Sensenbrenner) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) each will 
control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin.


                             General Leave

  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend 
their remarks and include extraneous material on the conference report 
to accompany H.R. 3199 currently under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Wisconsin?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Speaker, my staff has prepared for me an opening statement on 
this bill, and I am going to put the opening statement in the Record 
and not read it, because after listening to the debate on the rule that 
was just concluded, the amount of misinformation and misleading 
information that has been placed in the Congressional Record relating 
to the USA PATRIOT Act is just absolutely astounding.
  First of all, let me say that when the original PATRIOT Act was 
enacted in October of 2001, there were expanded powers that were given 
to law enforcement in 16 sections, and I was the person that insisted 
upon a 4-year sunset being placed on each and every one of the powers 
of law enforcement that were expanded. I was successful in that effort, 
and we have had this sunset, during which time the Judiciary Committee 
has conducted vigorous oversight.
  I have heard allegations that have been made on the other side of the 
aisle that there has been no oversight by the Judiciary Committee and 
that we were lacking and that we were negligent in doing the oversight. 
Madam Speaker, this is the written record of the oversight that has 
taken place over the last 4 years. I would submit that there has been 
no other provision of current law that has been subjected to as 
extensive oversight as the Judiciary Committee has done on a bipartisan 
basis on the USA PATRIOT Act.
  How have we done this oversight? We have done this oversight through 
letters to the Department of Justice, usually cosigned by the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) and myself. And when the Department of 
Justice has been nonresponsive, we have been like the crabby professors 
asking them to do it again and again until they get it right and to 
disclose the information that Congress is entitled to.
  The Judiciary Committee has done oversight through hearings beginning 
in 2003. Those records are open to the public. The Judiciary Committee 
and its Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security has done 
oversight through briefings. Those briefings have been open to Members 
of both parties.
  And when we came up to the reauthorization process, I would remind 
you, Madam Speaker, and the Members of the House of Representatives, 
that I strongly opposed a premature striking of the sunset or extending 
the sunset in the last Congress. And I said that, when the time came to 
do the reauthorization, the Judiciary Committee would deal with the 
reauthorization on a section-by-section basis. We did that. I fulfilled 
that promise. There were 12 hearings, and I am going to insert into the 
Record the chronology of those hearings and who testified at those 
hearings, many of whom were witnesses that the minority asked to have 
testify and who did.
  Now, what came out of this? It came out of the testimony, including 
participation by minority witnesses, that 14 of the 16 sunsetted 
sections were noncontroversial, and as a result, both the committee and 
this House and the other body made those sections permanent because 
there was no need for a sunsetted review. A few minutes ago, we heard 
allegations that this was irresponsible. The record shows that this was 
the responsible thing to do.
  The two sections that were passed in 2001 that were not made 
permanent related to section 215, the business records or so-called 
library provisions, and the so-called multipoint wiretaps or roving 
wiretaps in section 206. In both section 215 and in section 206, we 
have put in this conference report additional restrictions that protect 
civil liberties. They have been subjected to a 4-year sunset, as 
requested by the Senate, rather than the 10-year sunset in the House-
passed bill. And if anybody is interested in going into detail as to 
what those additional protections consist of, I will be happy to do 
that at a later time.
  The other provision that is sunsetted in this bill was not put in the 
original USA PATRIOT Act, it was put in the intelligence bill that was 
enacted about a year ago. That involved expanding law enforcement 
powers in the so-called lone wolf terrorist. That is also subjected to 
a 4-year sunset so we can see what happens in terms of how the Justice 
Department and law enforcement deals with the issues.
  Now, what did all of this oversight disclose? First of all, it 
disclosed that none of the 16 provisions where law enforcement powers 
were expanded has been declared unconstitutional by any Federal Court 
whatsoever. There was a finding of unconstitutionality relative to the 
National Security Letters provision of law. But the National Security 
Letters provision of law was not passed in the PATRIOT Act. It was 
passed in 1986, 15 years before September 11, in a bill that was 
written by a member of the other body who has been very critical of 
this conference report.
  We are concerned about National Security Letters. And this conference 
report, even though the National Security Letters provisions were not 
contained in the PATRIOT Act, put restrictions on National Security 
Letters so that there would be increased disclosure and a potential 
judicial review process.
  Now, we have heard an awful lot about delayed notification warrants, 
and we heard more complaints about them from people who are criticizing 
this conference report. I want to make it perfectly clear that all the 
PATRIOT Act did was to give law enforcement the authority to use a 
delayed notification warrant for terrorist purposes that law 
enforcement had had for drug trafficking and organized crime and 
racketeering. And in the case of the last two matters, the organized 
crime and

[[Page 28285]]

racketeering and drug trafficking, the United States Supreme Court has 
upheld delayed notification warrants as constitutional and not in 
violation of the fourth amendment.
  This conference report provides additional civil liberties protection 
in the area of the business records section, in the area of the delayed 
notification warrants section, in the area of the roving wiretap 
section, and in the area of National Security Letters. If it is voted 
down, all of these protections for civil liberties will go down with 
this conference report, and we will be back to the existing PATRIOT Act 
under the proposal that has been advocated by my distinguished ranking 
member from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) and members on the other side of the 
Capitol building.
  The PATRIOT Act has been a vital tool in the interception and 
prevention of terrorist activities, and if it is allowed to expire, the 
first consequence will be that the wall that prevented the CIA and the 
FBI from exchanging intelligence information prior to 9/11 will go back 
up. And if there is one thing the 9/11 Commission said repeatedly, it 
is that the stovepiping of intelligence information between various 
agencies of the Federal Government prevented our government from being 
able to try to connect the dots to see what the terrorists were doing 
before 3,000 people were killed on September 11, 2001.
  The consequence of letting the PATRIOT Act expire will be a boon to 
terrorists because they will be able to exploit all of the 
vulnerabilities in our legal system that allowed them to pull 9/11 off. 
And as a result, I do not think that that is the responsible thing to 
do.
  The Congress, and this House in particular, have three choices: One 
is to let the act expire, and back goes the wall, and we cannot use 
delayed notification warrants to figure out what the terrorists are 
doing, but we can for drug pushers and Mafia dons. We cannot try to get 
business records of terrorists doing business, whether it is at 
libraries or elsewhere. And those warrants, by the way, have to be 
issued by the courts, so there is judicial review before they are 
issued.
  The second thing is to extend the existing law, whether it is for 3 
months, as Mr. Conyers has proposed, or for a longer period of time, 
which means that all of the civil liberties protections that I have 
just described will not be in the law, and they will all be lost. And I 
think that would be a shame.
  Or we can pass the conference report. That is what we should do.
  Now, since the beginning of this country's history, we have given law 
enforcement and prosecutors a lot of discretion. And anybody who has a 
lot of discretion, whether it is the Attorney General of the United 
States or the cop on the beat, has the potential of abusing the 
discretion. There has not been an abuse of discretion in the PATRIOT 
Act. The Inspector General's reports to Congress on abuses of the 
PATRIOT Act that are required by the original law have said that there 
are none.
  Yes, there is the potential for abuse, and that is what oversight and 
the civil liberties protections that are contained in the original law 
and improved in this conference report is all about.
  The PATRIOT Act keeps us safer. It does not make us perfectly safe; 
it keeps us safer. The record here shows that civil liberties have not 
been trampled upon. The responsible alternative for the Congress to do 
is to pass this conference report. We should do so promptly.
  Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of the conference report 
accompanying H.R. 3199, the ``USA PATRIOT Improvement and 
Reauthorization Act of 2005.''
  In the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, congressional and 
independent investigations showed that terrorists exploited historic 
divisions between the law enforcement and intelligence communities that 
prevented authorities from ``connecting the dots'' in time to avert the 
attacks. To address this vulnerability, broad bipartisan majorities in 
both Houses passed the PATRIOT Act to enhance investigatory tools 
necessary to detect and prevent terrorist attacks. Since its enactment, 
U.S. law enforcement and intelligence authorities have utilized these 
tools to gain critical knowledge of the intentions of foreign-based 
terrorists while preempting terrorist threats on our own soil. The 
PATRIOT Act has made America safer, but the threat has not receded. 
Without congressional passage of this conference report, key provisions 
of the PATRIOT Act will no longer be available to our law enforcement 
on January 1, 2006--two weeks away.
  It is crucial to note at the outset that H.R. 3199, which passed the 
House by a vote of 257-171, and the amendment to this legislation 
unanimously approved by the other body, underscore bipartisan and 
bicameral support for core provisions of the PATRIOT Act. There was 
broad agreement to make fourteen of the sixteen expiring provisions 
permanent, and the conference report does so. After exhaustive and 
comprehensive negotiations in which all conferees were provided an 
opportunity to extensively participate, the conference report sunsets 
these two provisions in four years.
  The conference report also contains vital provisions to reduce 
America's vulnerability to terrorist attack. The PATRIOT Act breached 
the ``wall of separation'' between law enforcement and the intelligence 
community; the conference report we consider today ensures that it will 
not be rebuilt.
  The PATRIOT Act strengthened the penalties for attacks against mass 
transportation systems and our Nation's airports; the conference report 
enhances these penalties to reflect the urgent threat that the London 
and Madrid attacks have underlined. The PATRIOT Act helped reduce 
terrorist funding sources, requiring terrorists to establish and rely 
upon criminal schemes to finance their murderous ambitions; the 
conference report adapts to this threat by enhancing penalties against 
narco-terrorism and other terrorist criminal enterprises.
  The conference report also addresses the clear danger to America's 
communities posed by methamphetamine. It restricts Internet and mobile 
vendor sales of the precursors necessary to produce methamphetamine, 
enhances criminal penalties for its sale and manufacture, targets large 
meth kingpins, and enhances tools necessary to stop meth trafficking 
across the southwest border. Passing these anti-methamphetamine 
provisions is vital, and I congratulate the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. 
Souder, for his leadership on this issue.
  Now let me talk about the process that has led to this point. When 
the House Judiciary Committee unanimously reported the PATRIOT Act in 
October of 2001, I pledged to rigorously examine its implementation to 
ensure that new law enforcement authorities did not transgress civil 
liberties. H.R. 3199, which passed the House by a wide margin on July 
21, 2005, reflected bipartisan congressional consideration consisting 
of legislative and oversight hearings, Inspector General reports, 
briefings, and Committee correspondence.
  This extensive record, a chronology of which I ask unanimous consent 
to submit for the record, has demonstrated that the PATRIOT Act is an 
effective tool against terrorists and other criminals. Of no less 
importance, the record shows that there is absolutely no evidence that 
the Act has been used to violate civil liberties. However, to curtail 
the potential of government overreach, the conference report contains 
important amendments and revisions. Specifically, the conference report 
contains additional judicial and congressional oversight of the use of 
multipoint wiretapping authority contained in section 206 of the 
PATRIOT Act.
  The conference report also clarifies and refines the use of delayed 
notice search warrants in section 213 of the legislation. It ensures 
that information likely to be obtained through section 215 of the 
PATRIOT Act are subject to a judicial review process that authorizes 
the judge to set aside or affirm a 215 order that has been challenged.
  The conference report establishes additional requirements on the 
utilization of National Security Letters, including congressional 
disclosure of the frequency of their use, and enhances congressional 
oversight of electronic and other types of surveillance. Many of these 
changes were requested by minority conferees, and the absence of any of 
their signatures on this vital conference report is disappointing.
  I also regret to note that in many ways, the bipartisanship that 
characterized passage of the PATRIOT Act in 2001 has yielded to the 
desire of some to engage in political hyperbole and partisan 
brinksmanship. Some have attempted to create the impression that the 
PATRIOT Act poses a greater threat to the American people than that 
presented by terrorism. These claims are not only false, the record 
clearly demonstrates that they are groundless and irresponsible.
  Madam Speaker, the security of the American people is a fundamental 
responsibility of Congress and an obligation that each of us

[[Page 28286]]

swears an obligation to uphold. I urge my House colleagues to support 
passage of this critical antiterrorism initiative and encourage the 
other body to send the conference report to the President for his 
signature before vital antiterrorism provisions contained in the 
PATRIOT Act expire at year's end.
  I wish to recognize the important contributions of the following 
staff who spent much of the last several months working on this 
historic legislation. From the House Committee on the Judiciary: Philip 
Kiko; Sean McLaughlin; Beth Sokul; Mindy Barry; Mike Volkov; and Robert 
Tracci. From the Senate Judiciary Committee: Mike O'Neill, Brett 
Tolman; Nick Rossi, Joe Matal, and Cindy Hayden. From the House 
Intelligence Committee, Chris Donessa--from the Senate Intelligence 
Committee, Brandon Milhorn. From the Department of Justice, William 
Moschella, Elisabeth Cook, Jim Baker, Matthew Berry, and David Blake.
  Madam Speaker, I provide for the Record the following document, which 
is a detailed listing of oversight hearings held on the USA PATRIOT 
Act:

 Oversight of the USA PATRIOT Act From October, 2001, to November, 2005

       (1) November 9, 2005, Department of Justice classified 
     briefing for Committee on the Judiciary staff on press 
     accounts of FBI use of NSLs;
       (2) October 25, 2005, Department of Justice classified 
     briefing for House & Senate Committees on the Judiciary and 
     Committees on Intelligence staff on press accounts of FBI use 
     of NSLs;
       (3) October 6, 2005, Department of Justice classified 
     briefing for Committee on the Judiciary Members and staff on 
     press accounts of mistakes in FBI applications to the Foreign 
     Intelligence Surveillance Court under the USA PATRIOT Act;
       (4) July 12, 2005, letter from Assistant Attorney General 
     William Moschella to the House Committee on the Judiciary 
     responding to July 1, 2005, letter regarding use of the USA 
     PATRIOT Act;
       (5) July 12, 2005, letter from Assistant Attorney General 
     William Moschella to the House Committee on the Judiciary 
     responding to May 19, 2005, letter regarding use of the USA 
     PATRIOT Act;
       (6) July 11, 2005, letter from Assistant Attorney General 
     William Moschella to Rep. Bobby Scott responding to questions 
     regarding use of the USA PATRIOT Act;
       (7) July 11, 2005, letter from Assistant Attorney General 
     William Moschella to the House Committee on the Judiciary 
     regarding use of the USA PATRIOT Act;
       (8) July 5, 2005, letter from FBI Director Meuller to 
     Senate Committee on the Judiciary responding to questions 
     regarding use of the USA PATRIOT Act;
       (9) July 1, 2005, letter from Assistant Attorney General 
     William Moschella to Rep. Bobby Scott responding to questions 
     regarding use of the USA PATRIOT Act;
       (10) July 1, 2005, letter from House Committee on the 
     Judiciary to the Attorney General regarding use of the USA 
     PATRIOT Act;
       (11) June 29, 2005, letter from Assistant Attorney General 
     William Moschella to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary 
     responding to April 5, 2005, letter regarding use of the USA 
     PATRIOT Act;
       (12) June 10, 2005, House Committee on the Judiciary 
     hearing on reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act;
       (13) June 8, 2005, House Committee on the Judiciary hearing 
     on reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act;
       (14) May 26, 2005, House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, 
     & Homeland Security hearing on Material Witness Provisions of 
     the Criminal Code & the Implementation of the USA PATRIOT 
     Act; Section 505 that Addresses National Security Letters; & 
     Section 804 that Addresses Jurisdiction over Crimes Committed 
     at U.S. Facilities Abroad;
       (15) May 19, 2005, letter from House Committee on the 
     Judiciary to the Attorney General regarding use of the USA 
     PATRIOT Act;
       (16) May 10, 2005, House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, 
     & Homeland Security hearing on the prohibition of Material 
     Support to Terrorists & Foreign Terrorist Organizations & on 
     the DOJ Inspector General's Reports on Civil Liberty 
     Violations under the USA PATRIOT Act;
       (17) May 10, 2005, Senate Committee on the Judiciary 
     hearing on continued oversight of the USA PATRIOT Act;
       (18) May 5, 2005, House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, & 
     Homeland Security hearing on Section 212 of the USA PATRIOT 
     Act that Allows Emergency Disclosure of Electronic 
     Communications to Protect Life and Limb;
       (19) May 3, 2005, House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, & 
     Homeland Security hearing on Sections 201, 202, 213, & 223 of 
     the USA PATRIOT Act & Their Effect on Law Enforcement 
     Surveillance;
       (20) April 28, 2005, House Subcommittee on Crime, 
     Terrorism, & Homeland Security hearing: Section 218 of the 
     USA PATRIOT Act--If It Expires Will the ``Wall'' Return?;
       (21) April 28, 2005, House Subcommittee on Crime, 
     Terrorism, & Homeland Security hearing: Have Sections 206 and 
     215 Improved Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) 
     Investigations?;
       (22) April 26, 2005, letter from Assistant Attorney General 
     William Moschella to Senator Dianne Feinstein responding to 
     April 14, 2005, letter regarding use of the USA PATRIOT Act;
       (23) April 26, 2005, House Subcommittee on Crime, 
     Terrorism, & Homeland Security hearing: Have Sections 204, 
     207, 214, & 225 of the USA PATRIOT Act, & Sections 6001 & 
     6002 of the Intelligence Reform & Terrorism Prevention Act of 
     2004, improved FISA Investigations?;
       (24) April 21, 2005, House Subcommittee on Crime, 
     Terrorism, & Homeland Security hearing on Crime, Terrorism, & 
     the Age of Technology--(Section 209: Seizure of Voice-Mail 
     Messages Pursuant to Warrants; Section 217: Interception of 
     Computer Trespasser Communications; & Section 220: Nationwide 
     Service of Search Warrants for Electronic Evidence);
       (25) April 20, 2005, Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, 
     Technology, & Homeland Security hearing: A Review of the 
     Material Support to Terrorism Prohibition;
       (26) April 19, 2005, House Subcommittee on Crime, 
     Terrorism, & Homeland Security hearing on Sections 203(b) and 
     (d) of the USA PATRIOT Act and their Effect on Information 
     Sharing;
       (27) April 6, 2005, House Committee on the Judiciary 
     hearing with Attorney General Gonzales;
       (28) April 5, 2005, Senate Committee on the Judiciary 
     hearing on Oversight of the USA PATRIOT Act;
       (29) March 22, 2005, Department of Justice law enforcement 
     sensitive briefing for Committee on the Judiciary Members and 
     staff on the use of FISA under the USA PATRIOT Act;
       (30) September 22, 2004, Senate Committee on the Judiciary 
     hearing: A Review of Counter-Terrorism Legislation & 
     Proposals, Including the USA PATRIOT Act & the SAFE Act May 
     5, 2004, Senate Committee on the Judiciary hearing: Aiding 
     Terrorists--a Review of the Material Support Statute;
       (31) May 20, 2004, Senate Committee on the Judiciary 
     hearing on FBI Oversight: Terrorism;
       (32) April 14, 2004, Senate Committee on the Judiciary 
     hearing on Preventing & Responding to Acts of Terrorism: A 
     Review of Current Law;
       (33) February 3, 2004, Department of Justice briefing for 
     House Committee on the Judiciary staff on its views of S. 
     1709, the ``Security and Freedom Ensured (SAFE) Act of 
     2003,'' and H.R. 3352, the House companion bill, as both 
     bills proposed changes to the USA PATRIOT Act;
       (34) November 20, 2003, request by Chairmen Sensenbrenner & 
     Hostettler to GAO requesting a study of the implementation of 
     the USA PATRIOT Act anti-money laundering provisions. Report 
     was released on June 6, 2005;
       (35) October 29, 2003, Department of Justice classified 
     briefing for Committee on the Judiciary Members & staff on 
     the use of FISA under the USA PATRIOT Act;
       (36) September 10, 2003, Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, 
     Technology, & Homeland Security hearing on Terrorism: Two 
     Years After 9/11, Connecting the Dots;
       (37) August 7, 2003, Department of Justice briefing for 
     House Committee on the Judiciary Members and staff regarding 
     the long-standing authority for law enforcement to conduct 
     delayed searches & collect business records & the effect of 
     the USA PATRIOT Act on those authorities;
       (38) July 23, 2003, Senate Committee on the Judiciary 
     hearing on Law Enforcement & Terrorism;
       (39) June 13, 2003, letter from Assistant Secretary for 
     Legislative Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, 
     Pamela J. Turner, to the House Committee on the Judiciary 
     responding to questions regarding the USA PATRIOT Act;
       (40) June 10, 2003, Department of Justice classified 
     briefing for Committee on the Judiciary Members & staff on 
     the use of FISA under the USA PATRIOT Act;
       (41) June 5, 2003, House Committee on the Judiciary hearing 
     on the U.S. Department of Justice, including its use of the 
     provisions authorized by the USA PATRIOT Act;
       (42) May 20, 2003, House Subcommittee on the Constitution 
     hearing: Anti-Terrorism Investigations and the Fourth 
     Amendment After September 11th: Where and When Can Government 
     Go to Prevent Terrorist Attacks;
       (43) May 13, 2003, letter from Acting Assistant Attorney 
     General, Jamie Brown to the House Committee on the Judiciary 
     responding to questions regarding the USA PATRIOT Act;
       (44) April 1, 2003, letter from the House Committee on the 
     Judiciary to the Attorney General regarding use of the USA 
     PATRIOT Act;
       (45) October 9, 2002, Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, 
     Technology, & Homeland Security hearing: Tools Against 
     Terror: How the Administration is Implementing New Laws in 
     the Fight to Protect our Homeland;
       (46) September 20, 2002, letter from Assistant Attorney 
     General, Daniel Bryant, to the House Committee on the 
     Judiciary responding to questions regarding the USA PATRIOT 
     Act;

[[Page 28287]]

       (47) September 10, 2002, Senate Committee on the Judiciary 
     hearing on the USA PATRIOT Act in Practice: Shedding Light on 
     the FISA Process;
       (48) August 26, 2002, letter from Assistant Attorney 
     General, Daniel Bryant, to the House Committee on the 
     Judiciary responding to questions regarding the USA PATRIOT 
     Act;
       (49) July 26, 2002, letter from Assistant Attorney General, 
     Daniel Bryant to the House Committee on the Judiciary 
     responding to questions regarding the USA PATRIOT Act;
       (50) July 25, 2002, Senate Committee on the Judiciary 
     hearing on the Department of Justice, including its 
     implementation of the authorities granted by the USA PATRIOT 
     Act;
       (51) June 13, 2002, letter from the House Committee on the 
     Judiciary to the Attorney General regarding use of the USA 
     PATRIOT Act;
       (52) April 17, 2002, Senate Subcommittee on Administrative 
     Oversight and the Courts hearing: ``Should the Office of 
     Homeland Security Have More Power? A Case Study in 
     Information Sharing;''
       (53) December 6, 2001, Senate Committee on the Judiciary 
     hearing on DOJ Oversight: Preserving our Freedoms While 
     Defending Against Terrorism;
       (54) December 4, 2001, Senate Committee on the Judiciary 
     hearing on DOJ Oversight: Preserving our Freedoms While 
     Defending Against Terrorism;
       (55) November 28, 2001, Senate Committee on the Judiciary 
     hearing on DOJ Oversight: Preserving our Freedoms While 
     Defending Against Terrorism; and
       (56) October 3, 2001, Senate Subcommittee on the 
     Constitution, Civil Rights, & Property Rights hearing: 
     Protecting Constitutional Freedoms in the Face of Terrorism.

  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Speaker, if only what my good friend, the chairman, said was 
accurate, we would not be here to ask that this measure be turned down 
and that we pass a 3-month extension, as I have proposed and is in 
legislative form, so that the PATRIOT Act and intelligence reform would 
not be stymied.
  It is like coming to a meeting and we have forgotten all the things 
that most of the Members on my side of the aisle on the Judiciary 
Committee agreed with is wrong with the PATRIOT Act, but that we have 
ignored the fact that many other organizations are not for the PATRIOT 
Act.
  Now, what safeguards are being preserved is very interesting for me 
because the opponents of the PATRIOT Act, including seven States that 
have passed resolutions opposing parts of the PATRIOT Act and a number 
of communities that have done so, represent over 62 million Americans.

                              {time}  1230

  Additionally, numerous groups ranging across all parts of the 
political spectrum have come forward to oppose sections of the PATRIOT 
Act and demand that the Congress conduct more oversight, including the 
American Civil Liberties Union, the American Conservative Union, the 
American Immigration Lawyers Association, the American Library 
Association, the Center For Constitutional Rights, the Center For 
Democracy and Technology, Common Cause, Free Congress Foundation, Gun 
Owners of America, the Lawyers Committee For Civil Rights, the National 
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Criminal Defense 
Lawyers, People for the American Way, and numerous other groups 
concerned about immigrants' rights.
  And what about the more than six death penalty additions that have 
been put into this build with very, very few hearings. Is that 
something that somebody can hold forward as protecting the rights and 
improving the PATRIOT Act? I do not think so.
  And even worse has been the abuse of unilateral powers by the 
administration where since September 11 our government has detained and 
abused physically thousands of immigrants without time limits for 
unknown and unspecified reasons and targeted tens of thousands of Arab 
Americans for intensive interrogations. All this serves to accomplish, 
of course, is to alienate many of those Muslim and Arab Americans that 
would be working with us.
  So, Madam Speaker, there are two pictures of what happened in the 
Committee on the Judiciary. One is that the bill was made clearly 
worse, and we have some 92 pages of dissent about the bill itself, and 
much of it is still of course valid in terms of the conference report 
that we are examining today.
  I urge Members, we have been tricked once, the first time when the 
bill was substituted, and now we are about to be fooled again if 
Members do not read our dissents and the reservations that we have 
about the PATRIOT Act. It can be made better, and we would propose that 
that is exactly what happen today.
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), the distinguish chairman of the 
Intelligence Committee.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of the 
conference report. Today, our country is at war. We are at war against 
a global enemy, the global enemy of terrorism. Beginning long before 
the 9/11 attacks, our citizens have faced potential threats to our 
safety and security at home within the United States for the first time 
since Pearl Harbor. We are reminded on a daily basis around the world 
that those threats are real, serious, and continuing.
  As chairman of the Intelligence Committee, I want to take this 
opportunity to remind my colleagues that the central purpose of this 
bill is to provide enhanced intelligence authorities to combat spies 
and terrorists within the United States. We have many national 
intelligence capabilities, but the authorities that are enhanced by the 
PATRIOT Act are among the most crucial because they protect the 
American people from terrorist threats here at home. They are a crucial 
part of our efforts to build a strong domestic national security 
capability within the FBI. I want to thank Chairman Sensenbrenner for 
his leadership in this conference and on this important legislation.
  The conference report under consideration today will make 14 of 16 
provisions of the PATRIOT Act permanent while also including sensible 
clarifications and improvements in many areas where there should be 
broad, bipartisan agreement.
  By the Justice Department's count, the bill adds 30 new safeguards to 
protect privacy and civil liberties. These include a clearer standard 
for obtaining certain business records, clarification that that 
authority may be subject to judicial review, and much more specific 
standards with respect to the use of national security letters and 
roving wire taps.
  In addition, the Congress will continue its close and continued 
oversight with the Intelligence Committee paying particular attention 
to the specific manner in which these authorities are used.
  Madam Speaker, this bill needs to be approved. I encourage my 
colleagues to support this conference report and work to keep America 
safe.
  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I am delighted to yield 5 minutes to the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler), a subcommittee ranking member.
  Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, we are engaged in a serious war with 
terrorism. Unfortunately, we are going after the wrong targets. We are 
not protecting ourselves, but we are endangering our liberties.
  We are not doing anything or anything adequate about collecting the 
loose nuclear materials all over the former Soviet Union before they 
are smuggled to al Qaeda to make atomic bombs to attack us with. That 
costs money.
  We are searching 2 percent of the 6 million shipping containers that 
come into our country's ports every year, any one of which may contain 
a weapon of mass destruction; but to search them would cost money.
  We are not doing much about what the 9/11 Commission said was one of 
the most important things we should do, providing for 
intercommunicability between the first responders so police can talk to 
the fire and military. We are not doing that.
  What are we doing? We are violating the civil liberties of our people 
and making them think that we are protecting ourselves.

[[Page 28288]]

  Madam Speaker, this country has a great heritage of liberty. It also 
has an unfortunate history of violating that liberty whenever we get 
into a war, from the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798 to the Espionage 
Act of 1971, the Palmer Raids of 1919, the Japanese American Internment 
Act of World War II, the FBI's egregious COINTELPRO program against 
opponents of the Vietnam War. And now in this war, this administration 
has resorted to torture, to indefinite detention without trial, to 
evasions of the great writ of habeas corpus, to going back in some 
respects to before Magna Carta.
  What does this bill do? This bill continues in that tradition. It 
does some okay things. It continues breaking down the so-called wall 
between intelligence and police work. That makes sense. But it also 
invades our liberties in ways that are very unnecessary. Let me focus 
on two of them.
  Section 215, the so-called libraries provision, allows the government 
to get orders from a FISA court to search any records of any business 
of a library regarding a third party who never knows about the search. 
It does not require a showing of a particularized suspicion of the 
target as the fourth amendment would seem to require. It simply says 
that the government has to come up with a statement of fact showing 
there are reasonable grounds to believe the tangible things sought are 
relevant to an authorized investigation. Well, that is hardly 
restrictive at all. Relevant, almost anything can be relevant.
  Moreover, it says that the government's statements that the 
information sought is necessary to protect against international 
terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities are presumptively 
relevant if the person they pertain to may be an individual in contact 
with a subject or agent of a foreign power. Presumptively relevant, 
that means they do not have to prove it. They do not have to show 
probable cause. This destroys the fourth amendment requirement for 
search and seizures.
  Then you have the gag order. They cannot tell anybody about it. The 
Internet service provider or the library that is giving up all the 
information about what you read or who you talk to cannot tell you. You 
cannot move in court to quash it.
  Section 505, national security letters which have been held 
unconstitutional by two courts so far do not even require a FISA court. 
It is an administrative proceeding. It is not even a proceeding; the 
FBI simply says they want it, and they can get it. This is like the 
writ of assistance the British granted in 1761 which this is very 
similar to. That started the American Revolution. But after the FBI 
gets the information, you can protest the gag order. You can say I want 
to be able to tell somebody about it, but you can only say that if you 
can show that revealing that information is not harmful to the national 
security or diplomatic relations, but the government's statement that 
it is conclusive, so the court is a cipher. The court cannot make any 
judgments. There is no evidence. The government's statement is 
conclusive.
  This does not protect liberty; this destroys liberty. We ought to 
have real protections for our liberty. We ought to have put some 
procedural safeguards on these powers such as our entire tradition 
demands. To pass this bill with no sunset of section 505, with no 
procedural safeguards on these very intrusive provisions is to 
disregard our entire history of ordered liberty. I very much urge 
defeat of this bill so we can do it properly after further 
consideration.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Speaker, the issue of national security letters was not in the 
PATRIOT Act that was enacted in 2001. They were enacted in 1986 in a 
bill that was written over in the other body.
  This conference report puts procedural safeguards into national 
security letters even though they are not a part of the PATRIOT Act 
that was passed in 2001. It makes changes to all NSL provisions, not 
just electronic communications as the Senate wanted. It permits 
disclosure of NSLs to legal counsel and those necessary to comply with 
the letter. That is not in the law now.
  It creates explicit access to judicial review of the government's 
request for records. It permits the reviewing court to modify or set 
aside the NSL if compliance would be unreasonable, oppressive or 
otherwise unlawful, the same standard for quashing a subpoena.
  It permits judicial review of the nondisclosure requirement. It 
creates a 5-year felony criminal penalty for unauthorized disclosures 
of NSLs with intent to obstruct an investigation or judicial 
proceeding, just like the obstruction of justice statute. The 1-year 
misdemeanor for disclosure without intent to obstruct, that is not in 
the conference reports. That is out.
  It requires the DOJ Inspector General to conduct two audits of the 
FBI's use of national security letters. One audit covers 2003 and 2004, 
the other 2005 and 2006. It requires the Attorney General and the 
director of national intelligence to submit to Congress a report on the 
feasibility of applying minimization procedures to NSL to ensure the 
protection of constitutional rights of United States persons, and it 
requires an annual public reporting on national security letters, 
including the aggregate number of requests made by the Justice 
Department for information concerning different U.S. persons.
  Now, national security letters are not subject to the sunset. They 
are in the earlier law. If the argument that has been advanced by the 
gentleman from New York succeeds, all of the protections I have just 
described go down the drain with the rest of the bill.
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds.
  May I bring to the attention of the chairman of the Judiciary 
Committee that section 505 of the PATRIOT Act expanded the use of 
national security letters, so to say they are not in the bill would not 
be accurate.
  Madam Speaker, I yield 1\3/4\ minutes to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Eshoo).
  Ms. ESHOO. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this conference 
report.
  The PATRIOT Act provided new authorities, but it also modified long-
standing laws. One such change was the lowering of the standard for 
issuing government requests for financial, telecommunications credit, 
and other business records.

                              {time}  1245

  These requests commonly referred to as National Security Letters or 
NSLs are issued directly by the government agencies in national 
security investigations without the approval of a judge. Before the 
PATRIOT Act, the FBI and other issuing agencies had to show there was 
some nexus to an agent of a foreign power or terrorist. Post-PATRIOT 
Act, the government only has to show the request is relevant to an 
investigation. The lowering of this standard has resulted in an all 
time high in the number of NSLs issued.
  A recent Washington Post article alleged that over 30,000 National 
Security Letters have been issued by the FBI to businesses and private 
institutions across the Nation. Even more disturbing, the article 
alleged that records collected pursuant to NSLs are retained for an 
indefinite period of time, even when they are not of interest to 
investigators, and shared with other Federal agencies and the private 
sector.
  As a citizen, I am deeply disturbed by these allegations. As a Member 
of Congress, I am disappointed that we have missed a critical 
opportunity to get the NSL standard right. We have also missed the 
opportunity to ensure that NSL recipients have an opportunity to seek 
meaningful judicial review of the nondisclosure or gag requirements 
that accompany NSLs and further tailor the statutory framework to 
ensure that privacy and civil liberties are better protected.
  I will vote against the conference report. I think the precious 
balance of civil liberties and security are damaged here.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), the

[[Page 28289]]

distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution.
  Mr. CHABOT. Madam Speaker, today I rise in support of this conference 
report. And as a conferee, I want to specially thank Chairman 
Sensenbrenner for his leadership in negotiating the final details of 
this very important legislation.
  Our Nation continues to be threatened by radical terrorists, and it 
is critical that we take every step possible to prevent future attacks. 
Over the past 4 years, the PATRIOT Act has proven to be an effective 
tool in helping to accomplish this goal. But significant threats 
continue to exist, endangering the lives of U.S. citizens. With this in 
mind, it is imperative that detecting and disrupting terrorist activity 
before it occurs remain a top priority.
  It is also critical, however, that we maintain our commitment to 
protecting American civil liberties. When the House first considered 
the original PATRIOT Act, I was one of several on the Judiciary 
Committee who sought to include sunset provisions that would require 
Congress to reauthorize the legislation after conducting vigorous 
oversight.
  Well, the House Judiciary Committee has extensively reviewed the 
PATRIOT Act and its implementation. And over a 4-month period, it 
received testimony from 35 witnesses during 12 hearings on the PATRIOT 
Act. Furthermore, the committee conducted a nearly 12-hour markup of 
this legislation, including consideration of 43 amendments.
  As chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, we have held 
PATRIOT Act oversight hearings in my subcommittee, and we remain 
committed to monitoring the implementation of this legislation through 
aggressive oversight. I am pleased that another 4-year sunset of the 
more controversial provisions and several additional safeguards to 
further protect civil liberties were included in the conference report, 
and I thank Chairman Sensenbrenner for that.
  The sunset provisions proved to be successful the first time around, 
and their renewal, coupled with new protections, helped strengthen our 
defenses against terrorism while demonstrating a strong commitment to 
civil liberties.
  The goal of our enemies is to destroy America and its allies. We must 
remain steadfast in our resolve to eradicate the plague of terrorism. 
This act does that.
  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
New Jersey (Mr. Holt).
  Mr. HOLT. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan for all 
of his good work and for yielding me the time now.
  I rise in opposition to the PATRIOT Act conference report. These 
provisions and many others have a deep impact on the freedoms and civil 
liberties of all Americans. Now, some will say we need these provisions 
to track down terrorists and build cases against them. But what is 
often unsaid is that these provisions will also be used against people 
who have committed no crime and who are completely innocent. It is 
because of that that the PATRIOT Act must be seen as something that 
affects all of us. Searching business records can sweep up people, most 
of whom are innocent. A small number of unnecessary intrusions can have 
a broadly chilling effect.
  Proponents of the PATRIOT bill before us will say that it is directed 
against terrorists, not law-abiding citizens. But they should try to 
tell that to Brandon Mayfield of Portland, Oregon.
  Mr. Mayfield, an attorney, was detained by investigators last year as 
a material witness under authority granted through the PATRIOT Act. 
They alleged that his fingerprints were found on a bag linked to the 
terrorist bombings in Madrid, Spain. More so-called evidence was 
collected when his residence was searched without his knowledge under 
Section 213. However, the investigators were wrong. The FBI has issued 
an apology for his wrongful detention. But this is small conciliation 
for a lawyer and Muslim American whose reputation was tarnished by the 
investigation.
  Of course, some mistakes will occur. But this bill strikes the wrong 
balance and makes those errors more likely. It also allows the fact, 
the very fact of such a search to remain undisclosed to the subject 
indefinitely.
  I urge my colleagues to oppose this flawed conference report and 
protect the liberties and freedoms of our citizens that are central to 
what it means to be an American.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Once again, there has been erroneous information presented to the 
House. The conference report on the delayed notification search warrant 
limits initial delayed notification to only 30 days unless the facts 
justify a later date. It permits extensions of up to 90 days unless the 
facts justify a later date and only upon the showing of need. And it 
has new reporting requirements on the use of delayed notification 
warrants.
  Now, the original PATRIOT Act did not have these time limits. The 
delayed notification was determined it could be for a long period of 
time by a magistrate judge, a judicial officer, not by law enforcement, 
but by a judicial officer in determining when the notification would 
take place.
  What I just described in the conference report is new language. It is 
limitations on how long a magistrate judge, a judicial officer, can 
delay notification of the warrants. You vote against this bill and you 
kill this bill, those limitations go down with the bill.
  Madam Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Daniel E. Lungren).
  Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Madam Speaker, I was absent from 
this chamber for 16 years after serving for 10. The compelling reason 
for me to return was the events of 9/11. And one of the things that I 
thought I would never see in the House of Representatives is an Alice 
in Wonderland type atmosphere where just because you say something, you 
think it is true.
  The fact of the matter is, many of the complaints registered by my 
friends on the other side of the aisle are taken care of in this 
conference report. If you vote down the conference report, those 
sections that are not subject to sunset will continue on without any of 
the changes that the chairman has articulated. So the very arguments 
they are making against what they do not like about the law now should 
compel them to vote for this conference report because we make changes.
  Madam Speaker, it is the primary responsibility of government to 
protect the safety of its citizens. The PATRIOT Act tears down that 
wall, that artificial wall that existed between the intelligence 
community and the criminal justice enterprises. And what we did was we 
said it made no sense, it made us more vulnerable to attack.
  Some have said, look, these changes in the PATRIOT Act change what 
was current law. That is true because there was a need to do so. And 
some have argued all we need to do is to follow what has been the law 
in the past. The distinction that must be drawn is that, in the war on 
terrorism, it is not good enough to collect the evidence after a 
terrorist attack to try and bring people to justice. The imperative is 
to stop the terrorist attacks from occurring in the first place. That 
is why we have the differences in this law.
  Yes, there is a different standard. The standard is to allow us to 
stop the terrorist attacks in the first instance. We have, as a result 
of oversight, and I have attended every single hearing in the 
subcommittee and full committee, done unbelievable oversight, reviewing 
every bit of evidence that has been out there. There has not been one 
single example of abuse proven, not one. The IG report could not find 
it. We could not find it. I have been to every single hearing that we 
have had, been with every witness. They could not prove a one. But 
because we are concerned about the possibility of abuse, we have put at 
least 30 additional limitations into this conference report. And so 
really the question is, do you believe in

[[Page 28290]]

the essential foundation of the PATRIOT Act which makes changes, 
recognizing that we are trying to stop terrorist attacks before they 
occur, rather than doing the regular criminal justice activity of 
collecting evidence after the fact. I am not willing to place my 
children and grandchildren in jeopardy by defeating this conference 
report.


                         Introductory Comments

  It is the primary responsibility of government to protect the safety 
of its citizens. The PATRIOT Act is a critical element in a strategy to 
provide law enforcement with the necessary tools to conduct 
antiterrorism investigations. This task is made all the more difficult 
in that unlike the traditional criminal case, our success will be 
measured by the ability to prevent a future terrorist attack.
  The 9/11 Commission report observed that ``The choice between 
security and liberty is a false choice, as nothing is more likely to 
endanger America's liberties than the success of a terrorist attack at 
home.'' Freedom presumes security. The converse is equally true. In the 
delicate balance of these important interests. our concern for liberty 
must not discount the consequences of a failure to keep Americans 
secure from a cataclysmic event. While it is important to avoid 
hyperbole on such a serious matter, the very nature of American life--
and the traditional regard for liberty--could itself be threatened.
  At the same time, it is the solemn responsibility of committees with 
oversight respon-
sibilities to be ever diligent to assure that government does not 
overstep the proper limits of its authority in implementing the PATRIOT 
Act.
  In this regard, in our oversight of the PATRIOT Act, the Judiciary 
Committee conducted 13 hearings and there was no finding of abuse. This 
was evidenced by the fact that opponents of the act resorted to attacks 
on the circumstances at Guantanamo, and the Creppy memo--issues related 
to the wider war on terrorism but unrelated to the PATRIOT Act itself.


      Comments on Provisions Further Strengthening the PATRIOT Act

  The conference report contains a number of provisions which maintain 
the integrity of those key provisions necessary to combat terrorism, 
while at the same time strengthening the protection of civil liberties:
     Section 102 (sunset provisions)
  As the author of the 10-year sunset provisions in the House bill 
relating to section 206, roving wiretaps, and section 215, access to 
business records the final language in the conference report responds 
to the critics of the legislation. The conference report contains the 
Senate language of 4-year sunsets of these same provisions and extends 
the sunset language to the ``lone wolf' provisions of the bill as well.
     Section 106 (215 business records)
  The conference report language relating to business record access 
includes additional protections not contained in current law.
  The conference report explicitly provides for judicial review of any 
section 215 order.
  If the documents sought pertain to sensitive categories of records--
such as library, bookstore, tax returns, firearms sales, educational 
and medical records--the FBI Director, Deputy Director, or the official 
in charge of intelligence must personally sign off on the application 
before it can be submitted to the court.
  The conference report requires that the application to the FISA court 
must include ``a clear statement of the facts'' that demonstrate 
reasonable grounds to believe the tangible things sought are relevant 
to the investigation.
  The conference report requires the use of so-called minimization 
procedures to regulate the retention and dissemination of information 
concerning United States persons and the protection of privileged 
documents.
  The conference report makes it explicit that a recipient of an order 
has the right to disclose receipt to an attorney or other parties 
necessary to comply with the order.
     Section 108 (206 roving wiretaps)
  Section 108 of the conference report imposes several additional 
safeguards on the use of roving surveillance:
  The conference report requires that the order describe the specific 
target in detail when authorizing a roving wiretap for a target whose 
identity is not known.
  The conference report specifies that the FISA court must find that 
the possibility of the target thwarting surveillance is based on 
specific facts in the application.
  The conference report requires investigators to inform the court when 
``roving'' surveillance is used to target a new facility--such as when 
a terrorist or spy changes to a different cell phone.
     Section 114 (sec. 213 delayed notice search warrants)
  As the former chief law enforcement officer of my State of 
California, I want to first of all emphasize that delayed notice search 
warrants are not an invention of the PATRIOT Act. The delayed notice 
search warrant has been available to California law enforcement for 
years.
  The conference report adds new safeguards relating to the use of 
delayed notice search warrants.
  The conference report places a limit of 30 days on an initial request 
or on a later date certain if the facts justify such a delay.
  Extensions of up to 90 days are possible unless the facts of a 
particular case justify a longer period.
     Sections 115-119 (national security letters)
  The language in the conference report provides for explicit judicial 
review of an NSL.
  The conference report provides that a recipient of an NSL may 
challenge any non-disclosure requirement in court.
  The report clarifies that a recipient may disclose receipt of an NSL 
to an attorney or other necessary party.


                               Conclusion

  There is a total absence of any evidence of abuse of the PATRlOT Act. 
Furthermore, the conference report adds further protections against any 
potential abuse of the law. The conference report represents a careful 
balance between our responsibility to protect Americans from terrorist 
violence, and our responsibility to avoid any potential violations of 
their civil liberties.
  The enactment of this legislation is critical to this endeavor. There 
are those who will attempt to come here for the sole purpose of 
murdering innocent Americans. It is our responsibility to keep this 
from happening. We must provide law enforcement with the necessary 
tools to carry out this task.
  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.
  Let me remind my friend who returned from his California duties to 
the Congress, did you hear the Brandon Mayfield case just recited by 
the gentleman from New Jersey? That was an abuse that we heard in the 
committee.
  Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi 
(Mr. Thompson), the ranking member on Homeland Security.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman 
from Michigan for the time.
  Madam Speaker, I am opposed to the reauthorization of the PATRIOT 
Act. First, I do not believe many of the so-called law enforcement 
tools will make us any safer.
  I am probably one of a few Members of Congress who has been spied on 
by his own government. During the civil rights movement, an agency in 
the Mississippi State Government called the State Sovereignty 
Commission kept files on me and countless other people working for 
change.
  I might add that none of us did anything illegal other than just 
convene and talk about how we would change our State.
  From this experience, I have known that, when government has the 
authority to spy on its own people, it is almost always and will misuse 
that power.
  Nothing good will come from many of the tools in the PATRIOT Act, and 
I fear that it will lead to more misuse of power.
  It is too broad an authorization to continue to give the government 
these powers, such as to search the library records or to place roving 
wiretaps without a warrant that at least should say what phone is being 
tapped.
  I am also opposed to the conference report because it fails to 
include the provision in the House bill that would allocate more 
Homeland Security funds based on risk.
  The 9/11 Commission explicitly recommended that Homeland Security 
funds be allocated based on risk. The 
9/11 Commission members recently said that if the House funding 
measures were passed, Congress would have received an A grade instead 
of an F on fulfilling its recommendation.
  We must focus our scarce Homeland Security resources on areas that 
are most at risk of terrorist attack. We cannot yield to politics. We 
must fulfill the Commission's recommendation by passing the House 
proposal. Without that measure in this PATRIOT Act reauthorization, I 
cannot support it.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the acting

[[Page 28291]]

majority leader, the very distinguished gentleman from Missouri (Mr. 
Blunt).
  Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding and for 
the incredible hard work he has done to bring this bill to the floor, 
both to help create this legislation 4 years ago, to review it time 
after time after time for the last 4 years and to extend it into the 
future with the safeguards that have been discussed here on the floor 
today.
  In terms of the review process, I think the Attorney General today in 
some information he put out suggested that there were at least 23 
separate hearings last year of oversight, this is last year alone, of 
oversight on this act; witness after witness after witness called to 
testify about what was happening with the act. This oversight work that 
the chairman has been largely responsible for has made a difference in 
the way the law was implemented, has made a difference in the way we 
offer it to be extended today and has made a difference, frankly, in 
the safety and security of America.

                              {time}  1300

  There is nothing in this law, nothing in the law the last 4 years, 
nothing in the law as we look to the future that was not available to 
law enforcement for organized crime. What crime could be more organized 
than terrorism?
  No one has come up with a single instance where someone's rights were 
impacted by the PATRIOT Act, because of the PATRIOT Act. There is no 
evidence that there are problems, and we all could easily be aware of a 
number of instances, where there is no concern about the fact that the 
PATRIOT Act made a difference in the safety and security of America.
  Another thing that the chairman worked hard to put in this act is 
some legislation that I originally introduced that deals with the 
problem of methamphetamine, and methamphetamine does become a security 
issue. It particularly becomes a bigger issue as our borders become 
more secure. People turn to this drug as the drug for funding of 
illicit activities, as the drug of choice when imported drugs are not 
available. That is an important addition to the bill today.
  But the PATRIOT Act with two provisions that need to be reviewed in 4 
years, the PATRIOT Act with a Judiciary Committee and an oversight 
responsibility that will continue to be, as it has been, extensive in 
ensuring that the executive branch does what the PATRIOT Act intends it 
to do with the maximum protection for individual freedom and the 
maximum protection for the security of our Nation.
  We don't want to face 9/11 again, and we certainly don't want to face 
a 9/11 that could have been prevented. If the law enforcement 
techniques and tools that are available for organized crime continue to 
be available for terrorism, this allows that to happen.
  I come to praise the chairman and his committee and to seek a ``yes'' 
vote on this bill today.
  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Ruppersberger), distinguished member of the Intelligence 
Committee.
  Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Madam Speaker, the PATRIOT Act provided tools 
essential to identifying and tracking terrorists that were not 
available before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. At the time it passed, 
just 7 weeks after 9/11, there were concerns that some of the 
authorities were too broad and susceptible to abuse. The sensible 
proposal emerged to sunset 16 of the most controversial provisions.
  Sunsets matter. They forced the Justice Department and the American 
public to evaluate the appropriateness of, and need for, the PATRIOT 
Act. Without sunsets, Congress probably would not have undertaken the 
same review of key provisions this year and considered significant 
changes to the law.
  For those reasons I offered an amendment to extend the PATRIOT Act 
sunset during the Intelligence Committee markup of H.R. 3199. I am 
pleased this conference report includes 4-year sunsets on the most 
controversial provisions: 215 orders, 206 roving wiretaps, and the Lone 
Wolf provision.
  But additional steps, however, must be taken to ensure the right 
balance is struck between security and constitutionality. Congress must 
engage in vigilant oversight of the PATRIOT Act, national security 
letters, and other authorities granted to law enforcement and 
intelligence agencies. I am committed to doing my part as a member of 
the House Select Intelligence Committee to ensure proper oversight 
occurs.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from Arizona (Mr. Flake).
  Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me this 
time.
  I want to commend him for a great process here. Often we do not have 
a deliberative process when we pass major pieces of legislation. That 
is not the case here. We had 12 hearings over a year on these 
provisions, and I want to point out what the chairman has already said, 
that we are not just dealing with those sections that are sunsetted but 
we are dealing with those that are not as well. We had some substantive 
reforms to the NSL process.
  After the passage of the first PATRIOT Act, I and others formed the 
PATRIOT Act Reform Caucus because we felt we needed additional 
protections. That process yielded about a half dozen amendments which 
we offered during the House version of the bill, and each of those 
amendments was accepted and remains part of the legislation. One 
amendment that we dealt with during consideration of the House bill 
clarified that a recipient of an NSL, or national security letter, may 
discuss the NSL with his or her attorney and may disclose that request 
to an individual whose help is necessary for compliance with the NSL. 
That is an important safeguard.
  And for those who say there is a gag rule that prohibits people from 
even mentioning the NSL, that is no longer true. If an NSL is 
challenged, it requires a recertification by either the FBI Director or 
another official confirmed by the Senate. This reform increases 
accountability in using NSLs, and it clarifies that judicial review 
exists and challenges to both the NSL and the prohibition on disclosure 
are now allowed. It also, as the chairman mentioned, establishes 
additional reporting requirements to the House and Senate Judiciary and 
Intelligence Committees on the frequency and use of NSLs. These are 
commonsense reforms and clarifications.
  In addition to these safeguards on NSL authorities, the 
reauthorization also will add significant safeguards in a number of 
other areas, as the chairman mentioned. There are now strict time 
limits for those who are put on delayed notification as well as new 
reporting requirements to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
  Madam Speaker, these are reforms that are important, and I am happy 
to support it, and I hope that we will codify these in the bill.
  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.
  I want to quote from a letter that was sent to Chairman Sensenbrenner 
from the American Library Association, its president, indeed, Michael 
Gorman, and a copy to myself.
  It says: ``Dear Mr. Chairman, I am writing on behalf of the American 
Library Association to express our opposition to the conference report. 
We are deeply disappointed that the conferees did not take this 
opportunity to heed the concerns of library users across this country 
and to restore protections for records of library use that were 
stripped away by the PATRIOT Act'' itself.
  It ``does not seriously address any of the library community's 
concerns with section 215. It does not require a factual connection 
between the records sought and a terrorist or terrorist organization.
  ``The report also leaves in place the USA PATRIOT Act standards for 
national security letters'' and would ``allow the FBI to continue its 
unfettered reach into the personal electronic records of the public, 
including records of their use of the Internet through computers in 
libraries. Worse, it adds a criminal penalty for noncompliance

[[Page 28292]]

with the order and for a knowing violation of the gag order. And while 
adding an ability to challenge the secrecy of a national security 
letter on the one hand, it takes it away with the other by requiring 
the court to accept, as conclusive, the government's assertion of harm 
to national security . . . ''
  Madam Speaker, this is the clearest description from the president of 
the American Library Association, supported by thousands of 
professional librarians from one end of the country to the other.
  Please, let us not buy into the fact that this is a new and improved 
version of the PATRIOT Act. With the death penalties arbitrarily added, 
it is a definite reversal, a downward, backward movement in which the 
PATRIOT Act becomes meaner and less democratic and is far more 
dangerous for people who get caught up in these things who are innocent 
Americans. Please join us in sending this bill back to committee and 
supporting my measure that would allow for a 3-month period of time for 
us to improve the bill.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Speaker, the gentleman from Michigan talked about the 
conclusive presumption provisions on national security letters that are 
contained in the conference report as well as the requirements that 
have been changed relative to section 215, which is the business 
records or library provisions.
  I would just point out that both the NSL provision and the section 
215 provision in this respect were the language in the Senate bill that 
passed unanimously. And everybody here has been saying that the Senate 
bill is great and the conference report is not. But if the Senate bill 
was great, now they are attacking two provisions in the Senate bill. 
They cannot have it both ways. What we did in the conference report is 
responsible.
  With respect to section 215, I wish that the Library Association had 
read it, because it requires the statement of facts in an application 
to the court that issues the 215 order to show reasonable grounds to 
believe that the records are relevant to an authorized investigation. 
The Senate's language. Then it creates a presumption in favor of 
records that pertain to a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power, 
activities of a suspected foreign power who is the subject of an 
authorized investigation, or an individual in contact with or known to 
a suspected agent of a foreign power who is the subject of an 
authorized investigation.
  Now, all of these people are presumably bad folks that want to commit 
a terrorist attack, and I do not think we should make the libraries or 
any other place off limits to an investigation to try to see who is 
trying to blow innocent people up.
  Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. 
Souder), who is the author of the methamphetamine section of this bill.
  Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman for his cosponsorship 
and his leadership in making sure that this meth bill can pass this 
bill in the form of passing a conference report, which is the only real 
way to get this done. I also want to say briefly that I support section 
215, which amends the Import and Export Act to make sure that we can 
have better prosecution methods.
  Eighteen of the 40 major organizations that are involved in terrorism 
also deal in narcotics. The Methamphetamine Act is the single, first 
comprehensive anti-meth bill that we have ever introduced in Congress, 
let alone passed in Congress. It is a sweeping anti-meth bill. It will 
require all pseudoephedrine and ephedrine products to be stored behind 
the counter or in a locked cabinet; impose a daily and monthly purchase 
limit; require purchasers to show ID and sign a logbook; and require 
training of all employees handling the product.
  It closes a number of loopholes in existing import, export, and 
wholesale regulations of meth precursor chemicals, including import and 
manufacturing quotas to ensure no oversupply leads to diversion; and 
regulation of the wholesale ``spot market.'' It requires reporting of 
major meth precursor exporters and importers. It would hold them 
accountable for their efforts to prevent diversion to meth production. 
It toughens Federal penalties against meth traffickers and smugglers. 
It authorizes the Meth Hot Spots program as well as increases funding 
for drug courts, drug endangered children programs, and programs to 
assist pregnant women addicted to meth. In addition, it has EPA 
environmental regulations.
  I want to thank Democrats and Republicans for all their bipartisan 
effort. This is something we did in a bipartisan way. This is our best 
chance to really get ahead of this epidemic that swept from Asia to 
Hawaii to California, the Northwest to the Plains, to the Great Lake 
States, is headed into the East and is into North Carolina, South 
Carolina, Pennsylvania, and New York and headed to the Atlantic Ocean. 
This is our attempt, a massive coordinated multicommittee that took 
many chairmen to do this, Senators Talent and Feinstein of the Senate 
to do this. I thank Chairman Sensenbrenner, I thank the leadership, 
because this is a big day for those of us who have been fighting the 
anti-meth cause.
  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 35 seconds.
  I want to give Chairman Sensenbrenner the benefit of the presumption 
of a doubt about this section 215 business. What happens in the report 
is it makes it easier to get library and other records under section 
215 by creating a presumption that records of anyone to come into 
contact with a suspected terrorist even accidentally, innocently, is 
relevant to an investigation.

                              {time}  1315

  Madam Speaker, what he has done is he has moved a part of section 215 
to another part of the bill, and that is why it does not operate that 
way.
  Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
Nadler), a ranking subcommittee member of the Judiciary Committee.
  Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I want to make two points: One, the bad 
parts about section 215 and section 505 are not that, under certain 
circumstances, the FBI or other investigative agencies can get 
information from libraries. No one is proposing, as Mr. Sensenbrenner 
said, to say that libraries are totally sacrosanct.
  The bad part is that the FBI can get all this private personal 
information without any proper or adequate judicial review and then can 
tell them, shut up, do not tell the victim about it, and that gag order 
also operates without any real judicial review. That is the real issue.
  Secondly, the gentleman from Wisconsin is attempting to do something, 
I think, improper, and that is, he tells us you cannot change the 
PATRIOT Act. There are good things in this bill, things we need, which 
is true, but you have got to take it or leave it, because your 3-month 
extension I will not allow to go through. We will blackmail this House. 
If you do not pass the bill as is today, if it expires, there will be 
blood on your hands, because he and his side of the aisle will not 
allow a 3-month extension. Well, if there is fault, if there is real 
danger by not extending the PATRIOT Act, it is on that side of the 
aisle by refusing a 3-month extension so that we can get it right.
  This country should not be subjected to that kind of blackmail. The 
Senate has real questions. Many liberals, many conservatives, have real 
questions about this bill. It should be worked out, and if it takes an 
additional 3 months, let it be. But we, this House, should not be told, 
take it or leave it, because if you do not take it the way it is, we 
will not permit a 3-month extension; there will be dangers to the 
Republic. Without a 3-month extension, there will be blood on your 
hands.
  That is not the way to legislate. That is not proper procedure. That 
is not respectful of the Constitution. It is not respectful of the 
people of this country. It is not respectful of the Members of this 
House.
  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

[[Page 28293]]


  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this 
conference report which would reauthorize the PATRIOT Act by making 
permanent the expansions of Federal police powers that were temporarily 
put into the original bill and sunsetted in that bill.
  I am unmoved by the argument that we can have faith that, in the 
future, that there will be proper oversight because there has been 
proper oversight so far in determining whether or not the new police 
powers that were put in the original PATRIOT Act were abused. Long 
after Mr. Sensenbrenner and myself and others are gone from here, these 
powers will remain, and Congress may not have that proper oversight.
  Let me note that the people in the pro-life movement should take note 
of what is happening here because the expanded police powers of the 
Federal Government will be used against them. Our second amendment 
friends already understand that. Proposition 187, the anti-illegal 
immigration group in California, the FBI went after them in the last 
administration.
  When you expand the police powers of the Federal Government, no 
matter how much oversight we might have today and say that power is not 
being abused, we have opened the door to abuse. That is not what our 
Founding Fathers had in mind. Our Founding Fathers said, only 
temporarily increase those powers in an emergency. Otherwise, deny 
those powers to the Federal Government.
  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I am delighted to yield 1 minute to our 
leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi).
  Ms. PELOSI. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and 
thank you, Mr. Conyers, our ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, 
for being such an outstanding leader in protecting our civil liberties 
and also the national security of our country. I also extend that to 
the Democrats on the committee.
  First, let us be clear about what we are voting on today, Madam 
Speaker. We are not voting for the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act 
in general. More than 90 percent of the PATRIOT Act is permanent law 
and includes many noncontroversial provisions that give law enforcement 
the tools they need. What is before us on the floor today is the 
extension of certain provisions which are controversial and have the 
potential for abuse.
  Madam Speaker, all of us support providing law enforcement officers 
with the tools they need to combat terrorism. In doing so, we must also 
preserve the balance between security and civil liberties and to 
recognize that not all of the tools law enforcement officers want are 
tools that they legitimately need.
  I cannot support the PATRIOT Act extension conference report because 
it does not secure the right balance between security and liberty. Our 
Founding Fathers knew well the importance of the balance between 
security and liberty. They led a revolution to secure liberty against 
an arbitrary power. They knew that you cannot have security without 
liberty and liberty without security in a democracy.
  As we consider this conference report, I ask every Member of 
Congress, indeed, every American, do you know if a National Security 
Letter has been issued about you, a letter to your phone company, your 
Internet provider, your bank, for wholesale collection of records that 
may include your personal information? This letter does not even have 
to specify that the specific records sought are connected to terrorism, 
and the recipients, you do not know if such a letter has been issued. 
You cannot know. You will never know.
  This is the same for every American, and any information, including 
your most sensitive personal data, along with that of thousands of 
American citizens gathered by these National Security Letter requests, 
will be held in perpetuity by law enforcement.
  The recipients, the bank, the phone company, the Internet provider, 
are not allowed to tell anyone they have received this letter about 
you. These are searches without any warrant and without any judicial 
supervision.
  Just think of it: You do not know, the recipient of the letter who is 
in possession of your information cannot tell you. You do not know, so 
you cannot challenge it, and the letter can be sent without 
demonstrating any relationship between the specific records sought and 
a connection to terrorism. This is a massive invasion of the privacy of 
the American people.
  This is not just some idle threat. The Washington Post reported last 
month that the FBI hands out more than 30,000 National Security Letters 
per year, a reported hundredfold increase over historic norms.
  How did this happen? When originally enacted, the PATRIOT Act was 
intended to be accompanied by Congressional oversight so that the 
implementation did not violate our civil liberties. Unfortunately, the 
Bush administration and the Republican Congress have been delinquent in 
the oversight of the PATRIOT Act. As we have seen with this massive and 
unprecedented scope of National Security Letters, the implications of 
the Republican failure of oversight are glaring and have a direct 
impact on every American. It is long past time for Congress to have 
real oversight.
  This conference has missed an opportunity to address the revelation 
of the widespread use of National Security Letters. We must have 
standards that clarify that there must be a connection to terrorism or 
to a suspected spy.
  Section 505 that covers the National Security Letters must now 
include a sunset. That is why I strongly support the request of Mr. 
Conyers for a 3-month extension so that conferees can reconvene, adopt 
the Senate bill, fix the National Security Letters and get it right. 
Our democracy requires no less.
  Another part of this legislation that requires the government to show 
some connection between the records sought is under the library 
provision and an individual suspected of being a terrorist or spy. Such 
a standard is needed to assure that fishing expeditions do not take 
place. Yet this standard is missing from the Republican conference 
report.
  The list of failures goes on. That is why I think it is important 
that we support the motion to recommit to adopt the Senate bill. If not 
that, then to follow Mr. Conyers' lead and take 3 months to do this 
right. Nothing less is at stake than the privacy, the civil liberties, 
really the essence of our democracy.
  We must always remember as we protect and defend the American people, 
we must honor the oath of office we take here when we are sworn in to 
protect and defend the Constitution and the civil liberties that it 
contains. We have an obligation to do that for the American people.
  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Madam Speaker, I thank Leader Pelosi for her very succinct and moving 
comments.
  At the close of this debate, I will offer a motion to recommit the 
conference report with instructions to recede to the Senate bill in its 
entirety. Not that the Senate bill is perfect, but it does a far better 
job at protecting civil liberties than the conference report by 
requiring that the documents and things collected through section 215 
have some connection to a suspected terrorist and providing meaningful 
judicial review of uses of that authority.
  What is wrong with that? The conference report makes sensitive and 
personal records even easier to get by making every innocent connection 
with a suspected terrorist presumptively relevant to a terrorist 
investigation.
  Now, the Senate bill also lacks a number of controversial and wholly 
unrelated provisions tacked on to the end of this bill. It does not 
have a lot of Christmas tree in it. Some 143 of the 216 pages of this 
bill have absolutely nothing to do with the PATRIOT Act.
  The chairman repeatedly admonished committee Democrats that we were 
not permitted to consider matters falling outside of the 16 expiring 
provisions of the PATRIOT Act, but on the floor and

[[Page 28294]]

in conference, this bill became a Christmas tree for random drug laws, 
Presidential succession amendments and Federal employee benefit 
changes.
  Some have argued that we must pass this bill now because it is the 
end of the session and it is so urgent. The House Republican leadership 
waited 3 months to appoint conferees. Where was the urgency then?
  The PATRIOT Act does not need to expire if this bill fails in the 
House or the Senate, which it should. My bill, H.R. 4506, extends the 
PATRIOT Act for 3 months so that conferees may go back and make a truly 
bipartisan and bicameral bill.
  Sunsets were a small step in the right direction but do not address 
the underlying problems. They are not a solution for bad law. We should 
instead be fixing the problems of the PATRIOT Act. Sunsets will be of 
no relief to those who will have their constitutional rights violated 
in the next 4 years and should prevent no one from voting against this 
bill and in favor of the motion.
  This measure before us, this conference report, is neither bipartisan 
nor bicameral. In fact, not a single Democrat in the House or in the 
other body would sign it. No one on this side has signed the conference 
report. It is the conservative House bill with window dressing.
  We should not let in the government sneak-and-peek provision for at 
least 30 days. The Senate bill and Federal courts allow a 7-day delay 
unless good cause is shown. And listen to these non-PATRIOT add-ons; it 
is a virtual Christmas tree: It alters the Presidential line of 
succession, criminalizes peaceful protest behavior, changes employment 
qualifications and benefits for Federal employees and expands the death 
penalty for non-terror related offenses.
  The Senate sticks to the real issues, so join me in a motion to 
recommit the conference report with instructions to recede to the 
Senate bill in its entirety.

                              {time}  1330

  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my 
time.
  Madam Speaker, the gentleman from Michigan has said that he wants us 
to recede to the Senate, and that means that the Senate bill goes to 
the President as passed by that body. That means that there will be no 
provisions relative to control of methamphetamine. There will be no 
provisions relating to airline security or port security or mass 
transit security. The Inspector General's audits that are contained in 
the conference report will not go to the President, and the 
minimization procedures to get rid of extraneous material that might 
come into the presence of the government will also not be in the bill 
that goes to the President.
  Listening to the litany that has come from the gentleman from 
Michigan and folks on the other side of the aisle, you would think that 
Halloween is tomorrow, because there is an attempt to scare the 
American public. The PATRIOT Act had nothing to do with the detention 
of immigrants, indefinite intentions, invasion of habeas corpus, writs 
of assistance and warrantless wiretaps. The Brandon Mayfield case which 
has been cited by others on the other side of the aisle was relating 
not to the PATRIOT Act but a mistake in fingerprint identification.
  If we accept their argument, we ought to abolish the FBI fingerprint 
lab. That is irresponsible, as are most of their arguments. Vote down 
the motion to recommit. Keep the good parts in the bill. Pass a good 
bill, and let's make the American people safer.
  Mr. FARR. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the PATRIOT 
Act Conference Report.
  Due to concerns about civil liberties infringement, I voted against 
the original PATRIOT Act in 2001 and the House PATRIOT Act 
Reauthorization Bill earlier this summer.
  The democratic fabric of this country was founded on checks and 
balances but the PATRIOT Act contains neither. In 1775, one of our 
Nation's true patriots, Benjamin Franklin, said ``They that can give up 
essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither 
liberty nor safety.''
  This legislation tramples on the essential liberties that our 
Founding Fathers wanted to ensure. They understood that lowering our 
civil liberties standards would not ensure safety; but it would 
undermine the relationship of this proud democracy with its citizens.
  I believe that the Founders of this country would be rolling in their 
graves to hear the claims this Administration and Republican Leadership 
make in the name of safety from terrorists.
  Do you really feel safer knowing that the government is allowed to 
investigate personal records without you knowing? Do you feel safer 
knowing that the government can issue blank wire tap orders without 
identifying the line, place or person it wishes to investigate? Do you 
really feel safer knowing that if you or your neighbor were accused 
that documents used against you would not be subject to judicial 
review? Do you really feel safer that your library records can be 
considered intelligence in an investigative report?
  I can not with a clean conscience support this bill which gives 
government unnecessary access to the lives of innocent Americans and 
tramples on their civil rights.
  Madam Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on this piece of legislation that 
flies in the face of our forefathers.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I rise today to 
address the many troubling issues associated with the reauthorization 
of the Patriot Act. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, this Congress 
was faced with the difficult task of revamping our intelligence system. 
However, the PATRIOT Act is flawed with over-reaching provisions that 
lack the safeguards to prevent abuse.
  Americans deserve a bill that successfully prevents attacks against 
our country, while protecting our Constitutional rights. We must 
address the authority this bill gives, and how it may negatively impact 
Americans.
  Most of the provisions within the PATRIOT Act are positive measures 
that successfully protect American citizens. However, we cannot ignore 
the provisions that create serious privacy and civil liberty abuses. 
These include:
  Permitting large-scale investigation of Americans for ``intelligence 
purposes.''
  Having minimal judicial supervision on wiretaps.
  Allowing the indefinite detention of non-deportable aliens, even if 
they are not terrorist suspects.
  The power to conduct secret searches without having to notify the 
target of the search.
  And the ability to designate domestic groups as terrorist 
organizations.
  America was built on the notion of strong protection for our privacy 
and civil liberties. Now is the time to protect our citizens from 
terrorism while putting forth meaningful reforms.
  Mr. MARKEY. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the 
conference report on the USA PATRIOT reauthorization Act.
  As a member of the Homeland Security Committee since its creation 
almost 3 years ago, I understand the importance of providing our 
Nation's counter-terror and law enforcement officers with the 
capabilities to act aggressively to detect and deter terrorist attacks. 
As Co-Chairman of the Congressional Privacy Caucus, I remain concerned 
about government encroachments into the private lives of innocent 
Americans, which can undermine the principles of liberty, freedom of 
association and protection from unjust searches and seizures that have 
been embedded in our Constitution and culture.
  Clearly, the interests of security and privacy must be balanced. 
Unfortunately, this conference report does not strike the appropriate 
balance, and I cannot support it.
  The conference report fails to include essential privacy protections 
that had been included in the Senate version of this legislation. 
Specifically, the Senate-passed bill contained key safeguards not 
included in the conference report regarding the PATRIOT Act's use of 
so-called ``National Security Letters'' and ``business and library 
records''.
  Madam Speaker, as you know, National Security Letters are, in effect, 
a form of secret administrative subpoena. They are issued by Federal 
authorities, most often the FBI, without any court supervision, and 
recipients are prohibited from telling anyone that they have been 
served. These letters represent a counter-terror tool that must be 
carefully and judiciously used, provided their secretive nature outside 
the traditional judicial process. Unlike the Senate-passed bill, 
however, the conference report does not provide meaningful judicial 
review of a National Security Letter's gag order. The conference report 
requires a court to accept as conclusive the government's assertion 
that a gag order should not

[[Page 28295]]

be lifted, unless the court determines the government is acting in bad 
faith. Despite strong opposition to this provision, House Republicans 
refused to strip it out of the conference report. House Republicans 
also refused, as an alternative, to impose a sunset on National 
Security Letter authorities. Such a sunset provision would have ensured 
closer oversight of, and public accountability for, the use of National 
Security Letters.
  The conference report eliminated key protections in the Senate-passed 
bill regarding the ``business and library records'' provisions. Under 
the conference report, the government can compel the production of 
business and library records merely upon the showing that the records 
are ``relevant'' to a terrorism investigation. By contrast, the Senate-
passed bill required the government to show that the records have some 
connection to a suspected terrorist or spy. This is a commonsense 
protection that would not restrict government capabilities, but would 
prevent government overreaching and fishing expeditions.
  The House-Senate conference committee had an opportunity to adjust 
the PATRIOT Act's expiring provisions to protect the rights and 
liberties of all Americans more effectively. Regrettably, this 
opportunity was lost and the conference report we are considering today 
does not contain key privacy protections that had been included in the 
Senate-passed bill.
  I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this conference report and 
support the Democratic substitute offered by Ranking Member Conyers, 
which strikes the proper balance between security and privacy.
  Mr. LEVIN. Madam Speaker, there is no question that Congress must 
give law enforcement the tools it needs to prevent terrorist attacks 
against the American people. When the Congress approved the PATRIOT Act 
4 years ago, we recognized that the serious nature of the threat 
required giving law enforcement broad new powers to help prevent it. 
There is also no question that the House and Senate should not allow 
the PATRIOT Act to expire on December 31. Indeed, nearly all of the 166 
provisions of the PATRIOT Act are already the permanent law of the 
land.
  Four years ago, the Bush administration and the Leadership of the 
House rushed the original PATRIOT Act through the House without full 
debate or the chance to make improvements to the bill. There is no need 
to rush an imperfect bill through the House today simply to accommodate 
a 6-week holiday recess.
  While the conference report makes a number of improvements to the 
measure the House approved last summer, further improvement is needed. 
In particular, I am disappointed that the bill before us does not 
include language to change how first-responder grants are allocated. We 
need to make the formula risk-based. Just last week, the bipartisan 
members of the former 9/11 Commission awarded Congress and the Bush 
administration a grade of F for our failure to distribute homeland 
security funds on the basis of risk. The 9/11 Commission made this 
recommendation 17 months ago. How can we continue to justify a first 
responder grant formula that awards Wyoming $37.94 per capita while 
Michigan--a key border State--receives just $7.87 per capita? If we're 
not going to fix this problem now, then when will we make this change?
  In a number of other areas, the Senate-passed version of the bill 
included key safeguards that were removed from the conference report. 
In particular, the Senate bill contained important protections relating 
to the business and library records provisions of the Act that have 
been so controversial with our constituents. The Senate-passed bill 
required the government to show that the records sought by the 
government have some connection to a suspected terrorist or spy. The 
standard contained in the conference report is much weaker. It would 
allow the government to compel the production of business or library 
records merely by showing that the records are ``relevant'' to a 
terrorism investigation.
  In addition, unlike the Senate-passed bill, the conference report 
fails to protect the records of innocent Americans collected by means 
of National Security Letters. The FBI now issues more than 30,000 
national security letters a year to obtain consumer records from 
communications companies, financial institutions, and other companies. 
These National Security Letters are issued without the approval of a 
judge and permanently bar recipients from telling anyone besides their 
lawyer that they have been served. Unlike the Senate-passed bill, the 
conference report does not provide for meaningful judicial review of 
the National Security Letter nondisclosure requirement. Under the bill 
before the House, the records collected under National Security Letters 
can be kept forever and even used for data-mining. We need better 
privacy safeguards in this area.
  I will vote against passage of this legislation today because I am 
convinced that we can write a better bill that safeguards both our 
vital security interests and basic American liberties. To that end, I 
have cosponsored legislation that calls for a three-month extension of 
the current PATRIOT Act to give Congress additional time to perfect 
this legislation. We should take the time we need to do the job right.
  Mr. STARK. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 3199, 
the USA PATRIOT and Terrorism Prevention Reauthorization Act conference 
report. I would be violating my Oath to uphold the Constitution if I 
voted to unravel the very freedoms for which we're supposedly fighting.
  The PATRIOT Act criminalizes speech, protest and assembly while it 
removes the right to due process and a search warrant. For example, the 
formerly bedrock principle that government cannot spy on you unless it 
provides strong evidence of wrongdoing to a judge no longer exists in 
America. As a ``compromise'' in this bill, Americans can now talk to a 
lawyer when the FBI sends them a National Security Letter. These 
letters demand their medical, business or Internet records, and it is 
nearly impossible to get the request blocked.
  Madam Speaker, there is no room for compromise in the Bill of Rights. 
If the FBI wants to know what Web sites I visit, they should justify it 
to a judge beforehand just like anyone else. With 30,000 of these 
National Security Letters going out every year, up from 300 before the 
PATRIOT Act was enacted, this is much more than just an academic 
argument.
  While no amount of success in the war on terror could justify the 
PATRIOT Act, it is especially tragic that we have little to show for 5 
years of police-state tactics. The American people might be surprised 
to know that the median sentence for people convicted in terrorist 
investigations over the last 5 years was just 11 months. Most were 
convicted on technicalities having nothing to do with the PATRIOT Act. 
In other words, the war on terrorism is just an irrelevant excuse for 
the expanded power of government to find out what books you buy, send 
undercover agents to your community group meetings, or search your home 
without a warrant.
  The PATRIOT Act is a war on liberty to create a false sense of 
security. I urge my colleagues to join me in rejecting this underhanded 
ploy.
  Mr. CASE. Madam Speaker, as an original cosponsor of H.R. 3899, the 
Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act, and as a committed member of the 
Congressional Caucus to Fight and Control Methamphetamine, I rise in 
support of its passage, as Title VII in H.R. 3199, the USA PATRIOT 
Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005.
  I would like to thank Congressman Mark Souder, the chief sponsor of 
H.R. 3889, for his leadership in addressing our methamphetamine 
epidemic. Last year, Congressman Souder visited my district in order to 
fully understand first-hand the unique challenges we in Hawaii face, to 
hear of our efforts to keep drugs out of our homes and communities, and 
to see our successes in our fight against the scourge of crystal 
methamphetamine, ice. And he just returned to address the 2nd Annual 
National Methamphetamine Legislative and Policy Conference of the 
National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws, Congressman Souder has not 
just talked, but acted.
  We in Hawaii share many of the same concerns as others in our Nation 
in regard to the need to support drug control, education, prevention, 
and treatment efforts. However, our geographic isolation, not only from 
the contiguous United States but also from our neighbor islands to the 
island of Oahu, must be taken into account as we work to end the 
scourge of crystal methamphetamine.
  General drug abuse, of course, has plagued many of our communities 
for decades. To target what is needed to prevent this abuse now and in 
the future, we must first understand what causes it and then focus our 
efforts on overcoming those causes. And uniquely, it is up to our 
Federal Government to take the lead on the issue as it is the only 
entity with the resources and ability to coordinate the indispensable 
multi-pronged approach to stamping out drug abuse.
  Title VII of H.R. 3199 is essential in our efforts to address 
methamphetamine trafficking, both in the United States and abroad. It 
would classify pseudoephedrine, ephedrine, and phenylpropanolamine, the 
major methamphetamine precursor chemicals, as ``Scheduled Listed 
Chemicals.'' It would repeal the federal ``blister pack exemption'' 
that currently allows unlimited sales of pseudoephedrine pills. The 
bill would also require information sharing from importers on the 
``chain of custody'' from foreign manufacturer to U.S. shores of 
methamphetamine precursor chemicals. Title VII

[[Page 28296]]

would also strengthen Federal penalties against traffickers and 
smugglers.
  I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on both sides 
of the aisle on initiatives to provide the federal resources and 
support we need in our fight against methamphetamine.
  Mahalo, thank you, for this opportunity to express support for Title 
VII of H.R. 3199.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Speaker, with the PATRIOT Act set to expire at 
the end of the year, Congress has once again missed an opportunity to 
narrow and tighten the legislation.I opposed the original PATRIOT Act, 
as it was rushed into law in the wake of 9/11, and I strongly oppose 
the current conference report. The conference report tries to appease 
both sides of the debate by extending sunsets on the two most 
controversial provisions, library records and ``roving'' wiretaps, 
while making 14 of the existing 16 provisions permanent thus limiting 
Congress' ability to exercise checks and balances. This is a step 
backwards.
  But for the existing sunset provisions, we would not have been 
exercising our oversight function for this sensitive area.
  It puts the administration on too long of a leash and does not force 
Congress to review and modify the act as needed. We can keep America 
safe without compromising our civil liberties.
  Ms. HARMAN. Madam Speaker, this vote on the PATRIOT Act 
reauthorization is tough; it is far from being the best bill it could 
be. But I will vote for it and want to explain why.
  Imagine a world in which terrorists make deals and connect with 
recruits on-line, in cabs, hotel lobbies or cafes all over the world. 
Communication is highly compartmentalized so few, if any, know what the 
big plans are. Sometimes, physical runners deliver messages to evade 
listening devices.
  Such a world is not the stuff of Hollywood movies. It is our 21st 
century world.
  The horrific events of September 11, and the more recent bombings in 
Bali, Britain, Jordan, Madrid, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Turkey remind 
us that the terrorists are prepared to strike anywhere, at any time--
and with maximum destructive force.
  With this as a backdrop, it has been and remains my view that the 
PATRIOT Act tools are needed: to track communications by email and 
internet, including the use of internet sites in libraries; and to 
prevent and disrupt plots against us.
  Such powerful tools must be narrowly tailored to ensure that they do 
not violate the rights of innocent Americans. In reauthorizing the 
PATRIOT Act, Congress had an opportunity to refine the law, but this 
conference report reflects only modest improvements.
  Many of us in both bodies worked hard to make this conference report 
better. In the end, we asked for three things of critical importance.
  First, four-year sunsets on the most controversial provisions--
Section 215 orders; Section 206 roving wiretaps, and the Lone Wolf 
provision. This request was accepted.
  Second, dropping the 1-year criminal penalty on divulging that a 
National Security Letter has been received, even in a case where there 
is no intent to obstruct justice. This request was also accepted.
  Third, modifying the ``conclusive'' presumption that disclosure of an 
NSL would harm national security. The legislation properly establishes 
that recipients of NSLs have the ability to consult an attorney and 
challenge an NSL in a Federal court. But the ``conclusive'' presumption 
language makes it virtually impossible to challenge the ``gag'' order 
on recipients of NSLs. This is an important flaw in the bill and, 
sadly, our requested change was not accepted.
  To remedy this, several of us will introduce legislation to replace 
the ``conclusive'' presumption language with a ``rebuttable'' 
presumption, and to incorporate critical checks and balances on the 
``front end'' of the NSL process. Such changes will help ensure NSLs 
cannot be used as a ``back door'' for getting library circulation, 
medical, tax, educational or other sensitive records, and will help 
protect against other abuses. This legislation will also ensure 
Congress is finally provided with meaningful, detailed reports on NSLs, 
which are critical to effective oversight.
  Another flaw in the report is Section 215, commonly called the 
Library provision, which allows the government to gather a wide range 
of business materials, including library, medical and tax records. This 
section is tightened by requiring that the records must be ``relevant'' 
to a terrorism investigation. But the conference report should have 
explicitly required that the records be connected to a foreign power, 
or an agent of a foreign power--the traditional FISA standard.
  My refusal to sign the conference report was to protest the way the 
Conference was managed. Instead of taking a few additional days to 
craft a strong bipartisan report that strikes the best balance, the 
majority rushed to file this flawed report. That is why I have co-
sponsored HR 4506, to provide a 3-month extension of the PATRIOT Act to 
give the conferees additional time to bring to the floor a more 
carefully tailored bill with strong bipartisan support. But the 
majority insists we proceed today.
  My view of the PATRIOT Act is we need to mend it, not end it. Today 
we are mending it. Hopefully, soon, we will mend it further.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to this 
conference report on the PATRIOT Act. Simply stated, Mr. Speaker, 
passing this conference report today will institutionalize an 
abridgment of the Bill of Rights.
  Like all of my colleagues, I support common sense measures that will 
help our law enforcement and intelligence organizations protect the 
American people. For example, I support the provisions of the PATRIOT 
Act that permit surveillance or physical searches in foreign 
intelligence investigations where the ``significant'' purpose of the 
action is to collect intelligence. I also favor the provisions that 
allow the sharing of foreign intelligence information with federal law 
enforcement agencies, or with intelligence, protective, immigration, or 
military personnel for their official use. These are useful and 
necessary provisions that have clearly benefited our intelligence and 
law enforcement counterterrorism efforts without endangering the civil 
liberties of Americans. However, the conference report before us today 
contains too many provisions and excludes too many others, making it 
impossible for me to support it in its current form.
  When this bill was on the House floor in July, I expressed grave 
concern about several provisions, including Section 213, which allows 
the so called ``sneak and peek'' searches in anyone's home, as well as 
Section 215, which allows investigators broad access to any record 
without probable cause of a crime. This bill has not improved with age.
  If passed, this bill would, among other things:
  Allow the ``sneak and peak'' searches to go on with no meaningful 
judicial review for at least 4 more years.
  Allow the government to spy on your library book checkout habits and 
possibly your conversations with your attorney for at least 4 more 
years.
  Allow secret eavesdropping and secret search orders that do not name 
a target or a location for at least 4 more years.
  This bill effectively guts the Fourth Amendment. Let me repeat that. 
This bill guts the Fourth Amendment.
  How can any American feel ``secure in their persons, houses, papers, 
and effects, against unreasonable searches'' if the Department of 
Justice can send agents into one's home without notice, either before 
or after the fact? True, this new version of the Act provides for a 90-
day maximum for notification of a subject that her or his dwelling or 
business has been searched, but it is weak protection that in effect 
allows the fact of a search to be concealed from the subject 
indefinitely.
  How can any American feel ``secure in their persons, houses, papers, 
and effects, against unreasonable searches'' if the government can 
demand access to privileged information, potentially including 
conversations between a citizen and his or her lawyer?
  How can any American feel ``secure in their persons, houses, papers, 
and effects, against unreasonable searches'' if the government is 
allowed to eavesdrop on a telephone conversation or secretly search a 
home or business and, in effect, fill in the names and locations on the 
search order later?
  The search powers that would be reauthorized for federal law 
enforcement are too sweeping and will receive too little oversight if 
this bill passes in its current form, and that is unacceptable, Mr. 
Speaker.
  Finally, this bill is significant for what it does not do: it fails 
to restructure the homeland security grant formula to a risk-based 
model.
  There is simply no excuse for a State like New Jersey to get a 
smaller percentage of homeland security grants than States that clearly 
are not at the same level of risk of being attacked. Homeland Security 
grant money should be distributed based on risk, not on politics. The 
House strongly supported changing the distribution formula so that 
States, like New Jersey, that face greater risk of terrorist attacks or 
other catastrophic events would get a greater share of the grant money, 
a viewed shared by Secretary Chertoff. Further, the members of the 9/11 
Commission recently reiterated their support for a change in the 
formula and said, ``it should be obvious that our defenses should be 
strongest were the enemy intends to strike--and where we are most 
vulnerable.''
  Failing to distribute these vital homeland security grants according 
to risk is like sending

[[Page 28297]]

hurricane preparedness funds to North Dakota. They may be well-
received, but sending them to a low-risk area comes at a price to parts 
of the country that need it more.
  The FBI and Department of Homeland Security have repeatedly warned of 
the threat to transportation and economic infrastructure targets in New 
Jersey, and we know from published press reports that Al Qaeda 
operatives have conducted surveillance activities against economic and 
other targets in New Jersey. Under this bill, New Jersey will not 
receive the Federal support it needs to harden these targets or full 
range of tools that our police and other first responders would require 
to respond should another 9/11-style attack occur. The conferees had a 
chance to correct this glaring weakness but they failed to do so, and 
if for no other reason, I urge my colleagues to vote no on this 
conference report.
  As President Woodrow Wilson said almost 100 years ago, ``liberty has 
never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the 
subjects of it. The history of liberty is the history of resistance. 
The history of liberty is a history of limitations of government power, 
not the increase of it.'' Today, we have made the mistake of ignoring 
history and increased the government's power at the expense of our 
citizen's liberty. This is a grave error, and it is why I will vote 
against reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Madam Speaker, I support this PATRIOT Act 
conference report, and appreciate the time and effort Chairman 
Sensenbrenner has put into bringing it to the floor.
  We know Americans will continue to be a terrorist target as long as 
we stand for freedom and democracy. That lesson was learned on 
September 11, 2001.
  We must do everything legally possible to protect Americans from 
attack. This conference report helps law enforcement officials prevent, 
investigate, and prosecute acts of terror.
  The original PATRIOT Act was a long overdue measure that enhanced our 
ability to gather crucial intelligence information on the global 
terrorist network. It passed by a margin of 98-1 in the Senate and 357-
66 in the House.
  But certain provisions of the PATRIOT Act expire at the end of this 
year. This conference report renews many of those provisions and 
improves on the original legislation.
  It makes permanent the ability of law enforcement officials and 
intelligence officials to communicate about on-going investigations. It 
also makes permanent provisions that allow the government to do its job 
by obtaining warrants and gathering information during terrorism 
investigations.
  America is a safer country today than before September 11, 2001, 
because of the PATRIOT Act.
  Over 200 people in the United States have been charged with crimes 
tied to international terrorist investigations and have been convicted 
or have pled guilty because of the PATRIOT Act.
  Law enforcement and intelligence agencies must continue to have the 
powers they need to protect all Americans.
  I urge my colleagues to support this conference report.
  Also, I am placing in the Record an op-ed that appeared in the 
Washington Times on December 13, titled ``Preserving the PATRIOT Act.''

                       Preserving the Patriot Act

                       (By Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.)

       The proverbial rubber is about to meet the road. This week, 
     the U.S. Congress will determine if the U.S.A. Patriot Act--
     the most important domestic security legislation since 
     September 11, 2001--will be re-enacted in slightly weakened 
     form or allowed to lapse in a number of its key provisions.
       Since the consequences of the latter would be manifestly 
     detrimental to the War for the Free World, legislators 
     opposed to the Act have offered to extend it for a short 
     period--a gambit they hope will allow them to dumb it down 
     still further. But make no mistake: Additional delay and more 
     negotiations will not improve either the bill or the national 
     security. To the contrary, they likely would jeopardize both.
       That would be particularly true if the Patriot Act's most 
     vociferous critics on the Left and their less numerous (and 
     most unlikely) bedfellows on the Right get their way. They 
     tend to characterize the Act as an assault on the basic 
     freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights and have sought far-
     reaching changes in the tools it provides law enforcement to 
     detect and prevent terrorist plots inside the United States.
       In reality, the Patriot Act is an eminently sensible 
     overhaul of the government's antiquated counterterror 
     arsenal, an overhaul that reflects the realization we cannot 
     hope to fight a 21st-century war using 20th-century legal 
     instruments.
       Consider two elements critics have most insistently 
     demanded be repealed: (1) the socalled ``library records'' 
     provision (Section 215) and (2) the authorization of what 
     have been derided as ``sneak-and-peek'' search warrants (Sec. 
     213).
       The dust-up over government access to library information 
     is truly a manufactured controversy. For one thing, libraries 
     are not mentioned anywhere in the pertinent Patriot Act 
     provision. Moreover, law enforcement has been authorized for 
     decades in ordinary criminal cases to subpoena library 
     records (along with any other business records). This has not 
     had any noticeable effect on Americans' reading habits.
       The Patriot Act only made business records (including those 
     of libraries) available on roughly the same terms in national 
     security cases as they have long been in criminal cases.
       The reason should be obvious: It makes no sense to enshrine 
     libraries as safe havens for terrorist planning.
       In fact, as we now know, many of the September 11 hijackers 
     used American and European libraries to prepare the run-up to 
     the attacks. Relevant literature, including bomb manuals and 
     jihadist materials, have been staples of terrorism 
     prosecutions for more than a decade. Privacy extremists of 
     organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) 
     nevertheless have reacted to the Patriot Act's much-needed 
     business records law as if the Gestapo had seized office in 
     the United States.
       Similarly, the PATRIOT Act did not--as its critics would 
     have us believe--create new and unsavory ``sneak-and-peek'' 
     warrants. It does, however, allow agents to search premises 
     but delay notification of the search to subjects of a 
     terrorism investigation.
       The PATRIOT Act's notification provision is no different in 
     principle from the legal notice previously required to 
     persons intercepted in a court-ordered wiretap. In such 
     situations, notification of the target has routinely been 
     delayed for weeks or months after the eavesdropping ends.
       Doing so can be absolutely critical to the arrest and 
     prosecution of suspected perpetrators: Delayed notification 
     allows the government to complete its investigation without 
     giving the subjects a heads-up that would certainly cause 
     them to flee or destroy evidence.
       The PATRIOT Act, in the so-called ``sneak-and-peek'' arena, 
     established consistent standards federal courts must follow 
     in determining whether to permit delayed notification. 
     Previously, a hodgepodge of different rules were applied in 
     various jurisdictions. This is precisely the sort of fairness 
     and equal protection Congress should provide--yet, it has 
     been criticized sharply for doing so in the PATRIOT Act.
       On both the business records and delayed notification 
     sections of the PATRIOT Act (among others), the stance of the 
     American Civil Liberties Union and like-minded critics seems 
     to have an ulterior motive. They not only oppose such 
     legislation in the PATRIOT Act. They appear intent on 
     reopening settled case law on use of these authorities on 
     crimes unrelated to terror.
       Congress should not encourage, let alone facilitate, such 
     efforts by holding open the PATRIOT Act for further revision 
     and adulteration. The original PATRIOT Act as a whole 
     infringed only modestly on our civil liberties and did not 
     meaningfully intrude on the privacy rights of law-abiding 
     Americans. We need to keep in mind, moreover, that if its 
     precautions fail to prevent some future terrorist attack, we 
     are likely to see impassioned demands for greater security 
     measures at the expense of our freedoms. Since few, if any of 
     us relish that prospect, we need to ensure the PATRIOT Act 
     retains its core provisions and authorities--and remains an 
     effective tool for securing the home front in the War for the 
     Free World.

  Mrs. MALONEY. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the conference 
report to H.R. 3199, the USA PATRIOT and Terrorism Prevention 
Reauthorization Act of 2005.
  Unfortunately, this bill does not do enough to protect the civil 
liberties of innocent Americans. Clearly, preventing another terrorist 
attack should be our highest priority. However, it should not be done 
at the expense of the basic rights guaranteed by the Constitution, and 
that is what I fear we are doing today.
  Like the version of this legislation I voted against in July, this 
conference report would make permanent 14 of 16 provisions included in 
the original PATRIOT Act passed in 2001. I continue to have serious 
concerns about how this administration and future administrations could 
apply the provisions included in this bill. I simply do not believe 
that this body should relinquish its oversight duties. Many of these 
provisions should still have sunset clauses, and Congress should not be 
abrogating its responsibilities to review how these laws are being 
implemented.
  By agreeing to this conference report today, the House will 
effectively give up its oversight over sneak-and-peek searches, secret 
search orders, and surveillance authority provided by this bill given 
how little oversight we have had on these issues. Our constituents 
expect more from us. Why are oversight and an independent review so 
opposed?

[[Page 28298]]

  While I applaud the efforts of the conferees to reduce the extension 
of two key provisions relating to roving wiretaps, which allows taps on 
multiple phones and computers of a suspect, and business and library 
records from 10 years to 4 years, this legislation is woefully 
inadequate. My constituents are concerned that the government is 
watching them just because they are visiting their local library or 
bookstore. Under the PATRIOT Act, these records could be obtained with 
insufficient oversight by the courts or any independent review. Law 
enforcement should spend its time going after the terrorists, not using 
valuable resources reviewing the library records of innocent people. 
Unless we have an independent review, I know that I will not be 
satisfied that our rights are being protected.
  To make matters even worse, there are entirely new provisions in the 
conference report to expand the Secret Service's ability to restrict 
free speech by creating ``exclusion zones.'' These provisions were 
included in neither the House nor the Senate version of this bill. I 
would think that this expansion of the Secret Service's authority at 
the very least deserves serious consideration by this body, and should 
not be slipped in at the last minute without any hearings or markups.
  My constituents have legitimate concerns about the lack of 
independent, judicial oversight over the provisions included in the 
PATRIOT Act. We all want terrorists to be apprehended before they 
commit horrific acts of violence against innocent people. All we are 
asking is that we prevent unnecessary civil rights violations by 
ensuring that the administration is not abusing its powers. But this 
new provision is just the most glaring example of the lack of diligence 
that this Congress appears to have on protecting our rights.
  I am incredibly disappointed that throughout the entire debate on 
this legislation, the leadership of this House has refused even to 
discuss the topic of civil liberties, the very issue that makes this 
legislation so divisive. When the House debated this bill in July, the 
Rules Committee denied a bipartisan effort to debate an amendment 
offered by Representatives Christopher Shays, Tom Udall and myself that 
would have made the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board, created by the 
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, more robust. This 
board would have been in line with what the 9/11 Commission envisioned 
when they issued their report. Today, 3 days before the 1 year 
anniversary of the signing of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism 
Prevention Act, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board has yet to hold 
its first meeting and the 9/11 Commission has given Congress and the 
President a D for our work implementing this board. It appears to me 
that Congress and the President refuses to even have a discussion about 
our civil liberties and are opposed to implementing commonsense 
protections. This bill is just another example of that.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against this conference report.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Madam Speaker, I join my many colleagues, 
many victims of terrorism, and many victims of racial and religious 
profiling in opposing this legislation, H.R. 3199, for several reasons. 
First, we never have been given the facts necessary to fully evaluate 
the operation of the underlying bill, the USA PATRIOT Act. Second, 
there are numerous provisions in both the expiring and other sections 
of the PATRIOT Act that have little to do with combating terrorism, 
intrude on our privacy and civil liberties, and have been subject to 
repeated abuse and misuse by the Justice Department. Third, the 
legislation does nothing to address the many unilateral civil rights 
and civil liberties abuses by the administration since the September 11 
attacks. Finally, the bill does not provide law enforcement with any 
additional real and meaningful tools necessary to help our Nation 
prevail in the war against terrorism. Since 2002, 389 communities and 7 
States have passed resolutions opposing parts of the PATRIOT Act, 
representing over 62 million people. Additionally, numerous groups 
ranging the political spectrum have come forward to oppose certain 
sections of the PATRIOT Act and to demand that Congress conduct more 
oversight on its use, including the American Civil Liberties Union, 
American Conservative Union, American Immigration Lawyers Association, 
American Library Association, Center for Constitutional Rights, Center 
for Democracy and Technology, Common Cause, Free Congress Foundation, 
Gun Owners of America, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, National 
Association for the Advancement of Colored People--NAACP, National 
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, People for the American Way, 
and numerous groups concerned about immigrants' rights.
  I sit as ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border 
Security, and Claims. Of particular concern to me are a number of 
immigration-related provisions that cast such a broad net to allow for 
the detention and deportation of people engaging in innocent 
associational activity and constitutionally protected speech and that 
permit the indefinite detention of immigrants and noncitizens who are 
not terrorists.
  Among these troubling provisions are those that:
  Authorize the Attorney General, AG, to arrest and detain noncitizens 
based on mere suspicion, and require that they remain in detention 
``irrespective of any relief they may be eligible for or granted.'' (In 
order to grant someone relief from deportation, an immigration judge 
must find that the person is not a terrorist, a criminal, or someone 
who has engaged in fraud or misrepresentation. When relief from 
deportation is granted, no person should be subject to continued 
detention based merely on the Attorney General's unproven suspicions.
  Require the AG to bring charges against a person who has been 
arrested and detained as a ``certified'' terrorist suspect within 7 
days, but the law does not require that those charges be based on 
terrorism-related offenses. As a result, an alien can be treated as a 
terrorist suspect despite being charged with only a minor immigration 
violation, and may never have his or her day in court to prove 
otherwise.
  Make material support for groups that have not been officially 
designated as ``terrorist organizations'' a deportable offense. Under 
this law, people who make innocent donations to charitable 
organizations that are secretly tied to terrorist activities would be 
presumed guilty unless they can prove they are innocent. Restrictions 
on material support should be limited to those organizations that have 
officially been designated terrorist organizations.
  Deny legal permanent residents readmission to the U.S. based solely 
on speech protected by the first amendment. The laws punish those who 
``endorse,'' ``espouse,'' or ``persuade others to support terrorist 
activity or terrorist organizations.'' Rather than prohibiting speech 
that incites violence or criminal activity, these new grounds of 
inadmissibility punish speech that ``undermines the United States'' 
efforts to reduce or eliminate terrorist activity.'' This language is 
unconstitutionally vague and overbroad, and will undeniably have a 
chilling effect on constitutionally protected speech.
  Authorize the AG and the Secretary of State to designate domestic 
groups as terrorist organizations and block any noncitizen who belongs 
to them from entering the country. Under this provision, the mere 
payment of membership dues is a deportable offense. This vague and 
overly broad language constitutes guilt by association. Our laws should 
punish people who commit crimes, not punish people based on their 
beliefs or associations.
  In addition, the current administration has taken some deeply 
troubling steps since September 11. Along with supporting the USA 
PATRIOT Act, it has initiated new policies and practices that negate 
fundamental due process protections and jeopardize basic civil 
liberties for noncitizens in the United States. These constitutionally 
dubious initiatives undermine our historical commitment to the fair 
treatment of every individual before the law and do not enhance our 
security. Issued without congressional consultation or approval, these 
new measures include regulations that increase secrecy, limit 
accountability, and erode important due process principles that set our 
Nation apart from other countries.
  I cosponsored the Civil Liberties Restoration Act, CLRA, reintroduced 
from the 108th Congress by Representatives Howard Berman and William 
Delahunt, that seeks to roll back some of these egregious post-9/11 
policies and to strike an appropriate balance between security needs 
and liberty interests. The CLRA would secure due process protections 
and civil liberties for noncitizens in the U.S., enhance the 
effectiveness of our Nation's enforcement activities, restore the 
confidence of immigrant communities in the fairness of our government, 
and facilitate our efforts at promoting human rights and democracy 
around the world.
  While every step must be taken to protect the American public from 
further terrorist acts, our government must not trample on the 
Constitution in the process and on those basic rights and protections 
that make American democracy so unique.
  My ``safe havens'' amendment that relates to the civil forfeiture 
provision of 18 U.S.C. 981 and would add a section that would allow 
civil plaintiffs to attach judgments to collect compensory damages for 
which a terrorist organization has been adjudged liable, fortunately, 
was included in the text of the conference report as section 127:


[[Page 28299]]

       It is the sense of Congress that under section 981 of title 
     18, United States Code, victims of terrorists attacks should 
     have access to the assets forfeited.

  This language seeks to allow victims of terrorism who obtain civil 
judgment for damages caused in connection with the acts to attach 
foreign or domestic assets held by the United States Government under 
18 U.S.C. 981(G). Section 981(G) calls for the forfeiture of all 
assets, foreign or domestic, of any individual, entity, or organization 
that has engaged in planning or perpetrating any act of domestic or 
international terrorism against the United States, citizens or 
residents of the United States.
  The legislation, H.R. 3199, as drafted, fails to deal with the 
current limitation on the ability to enforce civil judgments by victims 
and family members of victims of terrorist offenses. There are several 
examples of how the current administration has sought to bar victims 
from satisfying judgments obtained against the government of Iran, for 
example.
  In the Sobero case, a U.S. national was beheaded by Abu Sayyaf, an 
AI-Qaeda affiliate, leaving his children fatherless. The administration 
responded to this incident by sending 1,000 Special Forces officers to 
track down the perpetrators, and the eldest child of the victim was 
invited to the State of the Union Address. Abu Sayyaf's funds have been 
seized and are held by the U.S. Treasury at this time. The family of 
the victim should have access to those funds, at the very least, at the 
President's discretion.
  Similarly, the administration barred the Iran hostages that were held 
from 1979 to 1981 from satisfying their judgment against Iran. In 2000, 
the party filed a suit against Iran under the terrorist state exception 
to the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act. While a Federal district court 
held Iran to be liable, the U.S. Government intervened and argued that 
the case should be dismissed because Iran had not been designated a 
terrorist state at the time of the hostage incident and because of the 
Algiers Accords--that led to the release of the hostages, which 
required the U.S. to bar the adjudication of suits arising from that 
incident. As a result, those hostages received no compensation for 
their suffering.
  Similarly, American servicemen who were harmed in a Libyan sponsored 
bombing of the La Belle disco in Germany were obstructed from obtaining 
justice for the terrorist acts they suffered. While victims of the 
attack pursued settlement of their claims against the Libyan 
government, the administration lifted sanctions against Libya without 
requiring as a condition the determination of all claims of American 
victims of terrorism. As a result of this action, Libya abandoned all 
talks with the claimants. Furthermore, because Libya was no longer 
considered a state sponsor of terrorism, the American service men and 
women and their families were left without recourse to obtain justice. 
The La Belle victims received no compensation for their suffering.
  In addition, a group of American prisoners who were tortured in Iraq 
during the Persian Gulf war were barred from collecting their judgment 
from the Iraqi government. Although the 17 veterans won their case in 
the District Court of the District of Columbia, the administration 
argued that the Iraqi assets should remain frozen in a U.S. bank 
account to aid in the reconstruction of Iraq. Claiming that the 
judgment should be overturned, the administration deems that rebuilding 
Iraq is more important than recompensing the suffering of fighter 
pilots who, during their 12-year imprisonment, suffered beatings, bums, 
and threats of dismemberment.
  Finally, the World Trade Center victims were barred from obtaining 
judgment against the Iraqi government. In their claim against the Iraqi 
government, the victims were awarded $64 million against Iraq in 
connection with the September 2001 attacks. However, they were rebuffed 
in their efforts to attach the vested Iraqi assets. While the judgment 
was sound, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower 
court's finding that the Iraqi assets, now transferred to the U.S. 
Treasury, were protected by U.S. sovereign immunity and were 
unavailable for judicial attachment.
  While the PATRIOT Act may not deserve all of the ridicule that is 
heaped against it, there is little doubt that the legislation has been 
repeatedly and seriously misused by the Justice Department. Consider 
the following:
  It's been used more than 150 times to secretly search an individual's 
home, with nearly 90 percent of those cases having had nothing to do 
with terrorism.
  It was used against Brandon Mayfield, an innocent Muslim American, to 
tap his phones, seize his property, copy his computer, spy on his 
children, and take his DNA, all without his knowledge.
  It's been used to deny, on account of his political beliefs, the 
admission to the United States of a Swiss citizen and prominent Muslim 
scholar to teach at Notre Dame University.
  Its been used to unconstitutionally coerce an internet service 
provider to divulge information about e-mail activity and web surfing 
on its system, and then to gag that provider from even disclosing the 
abuse to the public.
  Because of gag restrictions, we will never know how many times its 
been used to obtain reading records from library and book stores, but 
we do know that libraries have been solicited by the Department of 
Justice--voluntarily or under threat of the PATRIOT Act--for reader 
information on more than 200 occasions since September 11.
  It's been used to charge, detain and prosecute a Muslim student in 
Idaho for posting internet website links to objectionable materials, 
even though the same links were available on the U.S. Government's 
website.
  Even worse than the PATRIOT Act has been the unilateral abuse of 
power by the administration. Since September 11, our government has 
detained and verbally and physically abused thousands of immigrants 
without time limit, for unknown and unspecified reasons, and targeted 
tens of thousands of Arab-Americans for intensive interrogations and 
immigration screenings. All this serves to accomplish is to alienate 
Muslim and Arab-Americans--the key groups to fighting terrorism in our 
own county--who see a Justice Department that has institutionalized 
racial and ethnic profiling, without the benefit of a single terrorism 
conviction.
  Nor is it helpful when our government condones the torture of 
prisoners at home and abroad, authorizes the monitoring of mosques and 
religious sites without any indication of criminal activity, and 
detains scores of individuals as material witnesses because it does not 
have evidence to indict them. This makes our citizens less safe not 
more safe, and undermines our role as a beacon of democracy and 
freedom.
  Right now, H.R. 3199 is the most appropriate and timely vehicle in 
which to address this issue and allow U.S. victims of terrorism to 
obtain justice from terrorist-supporting or terrorist-housing nations. 
Madam Speaker, I oppose this legislation and ask that my colleagues 
work to negotiate real fixes to the sunsetted provisions.
  Mr. HYDE. Madam Speaker, I am very pleased with the conference 
report, H.R. 3199, to renew the PATRIOT Act. I want to thank and 
compliment all the conferees and the administration for bringing this 
about.
  By renewing this measure, we are continuing to provide our law 
enforcement agencies and the administration with many of the critical 
tools needed to combat global terrorism and protect America. Provisions 
of the PATRIOT Act have already been instrumental in warding off 
further terrorist attacks since 9/11, and they are responsible for 
helping to keep us safe here at home.
  In addition, the bill includes an added provision, which I authored, 
offering a new tool to attack the growing phenomenon of narco-
terrorism, with the proceeds of illicit drug funding and financing 
feeding the Foreign Terrorist Organizations, FTOs, and supporting acts 
of terrorism. Passage of the PATRIOT Act conference report will enhance 
Federal criminal law to effectively address the current reality, 
according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, of illicit drugs 
being linked to nearly half of the designated FTOs around the globe 
today.
  In this measure, my provision makes narco-terrorism, which involves 
both the illicit drug trade and support for terrorism, a Federal crime, 
and provides tough penalties that match the nature of such deadly and 
dual criminal activity.
  Our hardworking Drug Enforcement Administration will no longer be 
challenged to produce evidence of a nexus of these illicit drugs to the 
United States, if there is proof that the illicit drugs support FTOs or 
acts of terrorism.
  In Afghanistan, most of the heroin from illicit drug production goes 
to Europe, rather than here, and much of the profit then finances and 
supports anticoalition terrorists and attacks on our forces there. My 
provision will give us the tools to attack that drug-related support 
for terrorism and further protect America, our troops, and coalition 
forces on the ground in places like Afghanistan.
  Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the passage of the 
PATRIOT Act conference report.
  Ms. HART. Madam Speaker, I rise in Support of H.R. 3199, the PATRIOT 
Act reauthorization conference report.
  This is a balanced reauthorization--protecting civil liberties and 
extending the necessary provisions to help us fight the war on terror 
here at home.
  I want to thank Chairman Sensenbrenner for including a number of 
provisions from H.R. 3007 Combating Terrorism Financing Act.

[[Page 28300]]

  Funding is the lifeblood of terrorist organizations--if we are to 
prevent future attacks and continue to dismantle terrorist 
organizations we must deny them funding.
  Terrorist analysts often note that it is fairly inexpensive to carry 
out a single act of terror--for example, it is estimated that the 
attack on the World Trade Center cost only $500,000.
  Terrorist organizations need money not just to carry out such 
attacks; they also need funding to continue their operations such as 
recruiting and training new members and support their current members.
  One of the most important lessons we have learned is exactly how 
terrorists and other criminal organizations transmit money through 
unregulated financial markets.
  Like the patchwork of terrorist organizations and cells, terrorism 
funding does not come from a single source. Terrorist networks are 
funded through state sponsorship, charities and businesses fronting as 
legitimate institutions, and exploitation of markets and financial 
networks.
  The tough terrorism financing language in the conference report will 
increase penalties for terrorism financing.
  In addition, the bill will add new predicate money laundering 
offenses to allow law enforcement to investigate and dismantle 
terrorist financing organizations.
  Finally, the original PATRIOT Act added a new forfeiture provision 
for individuals planning or perpetrating an act of terrorism against 
the United States.
  The language in the conference report adds a parallel provision for 
individuals planning or perpetrating an act of terrorism against a 
foreign state or international organizations acting within the 
jurisdiction of the United States.
  The language in the conference report builds on our current laws, to 
address some of the shortfalls that we have learned about since 
September 11.
  Terrorists work to find the holes in our laws and we must make sure 
that we continue to be diligent to update them so that we can cut off 
terrorist funds and stop future attacks against us and our allies in 
the war on terror.
  Mr. SKELTON. Madam Speaker, the PATRIOT Act has been an important law 
enforcement tool in the years following the dastardly terrorist attacks 
on our country, and taken as a whole, the bill has enhanced our 
national security. The United States and our allies are fighting a war 
like no other. It is an unconventional war that must be met with 
unconventional tools used by law enforcement professionals to protect 
the American people from those who would do us harm.
  The PATRIOT Act provides federal officers greater powers to trace and 
intercept terrorists' communications for law enforcement and foreign 
intelligence purposes. It reinforces federal anti-money laundering laws 
and regulations in an effort to deny terrorists the resources necessary 
for future attacks. It tightens laws pertaining to seaport security. 
And, it creates several new federal crimes, such as laws outlawing 
terrorists' attacks on mass transit and increases penalties for many 
other violations of the law.
  As is true of any law that empowers the government to collect 
security-related information domestically, evaluating the PATRIOT Act 
requires us to weigh a wide range of competing interests, like the 
ability of our government to detect and thwart terrorist attacks and 
the constitutional rights of the American people. Of course, proper 
oversight of the PATRIOT Act by Congress is essential to guaranteeing 
our constitutional rights are not trampled.
  Important for Missouri, the PATRIOT Act Conference Report also 
includes bipartisan language that helps fight the scourge of 
methamphetamine abuse in America. This drug epidemic has been 
especially hard on rural areas. The bill bans over-the-counter sales of 
cold medicines that contain ingredients commonly used to make 
methamphetamine, allowing the sale only from locked cabinets or behind 
the counter. It limits the monthly amount any individual could 
purchase, requires individuals to present photo identification in order 
to purchase such medicines, and requires stores to keep personal 
information about these customers for at least 2 years after the 
purchase of these medicines. The bill also allows judges to impose 
strict sentences for those who possess pseudoephedrine with the intent 
to distribute it for methamphetamine creation.
  I urge my colleagues to support reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act.
  Mr. KENNEDY of Minnesota. Madam Speaker, from keeping our children 
safe to winning the war on terrorism, we face many challenges, but few 
are like meth, which threatens lives, safety and health, at great cost 
to all of us.
  I am pleased that this conference report contains many significant 
provisions that I have authored, including 4 enhanced criminal 
penalties originally introduced in the Kennedy-Hooley SLAM Act.
  It also contains a drug certification provision of mine that will 
stop the flood of meth from international superlabs.
  We must send a signal to the pushers of this poison that they are not 
welcome in our communities.
  Madam Speaker, this bipartisan legislation deserves the support of 
both bodies because it is a comprehensive response to the 
methamphetamine problem in America.
  It will send a strong signal that Congress is serious about fighting 
the scourge of meth.
  While the criminal penalties in this bill would be more effective if 
they were as tough as what were originally introduced, Chairmen 
Sensenbrenner and Souder showed tremendous leadership in moving this 
bill to the Floor, and I urge the swift passage of this important 
legislation.
  Most importantly, our actions today will send a signal to the law 
enforcement officers who wake up every morning to protect our families 
that we stand with them in the fight against drugs and will work to 
give them every tool they need to be successful.
  Additionally, this conference report reauthorizes the USA PATRIOT 
Act, which fulfills the high responsibility of protecting our citizens 
while ensuring their fundamental privacy rights are not abused.
  For many years, law enforcement officers lacked the same tools for 
tracking down suspected terrorists as they had for drug dealers, 
mobsters and other criminals.
  Extending the provisions of the PATRIOT Act that are scheduled to 
expire on December 31 will allow law enforcement officers to monitor 
suspected terrorists' communications and share critical intelligence 
information.
  These are vital tools for law enforcement that we need to help keep 
America safe, tools that carry with them strict safeguards to prevent 
the abuse of our civil liberties.
  These safeguards will ensure that the PATRIOT Act is used only for 
its intended purposes, catching terrorists before they can do us harm, 
and not to curtail the strong tradition of personal privacy that 
Americans have long enjoyed.
  Madam Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues in both bodies to support 
this reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act, which contains important 
provisions in this Nation's fight against meth.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Speaker, I rise to explain my decision to vote 
against the Conference Report on the PATRIOT Act. Some of the 
provisions that are being authorized in this bill provide law 
enforcement officials with important tools that may be helpful in 
detecting and disrupting terrorist activities. I support those 
provisions. Other provisions, however, fail to provide adequate 
safeguards to ensure that the privacy rights of innocent citizens are 
protected. It is very important that, in our effort to defend the 
liberties that Americans cherish, we not enact measures that erode the 
very freedoms we seek to protect. We can ensure that the government has 
the necessary surveillance powers without sacrificing the privacy 
rights of Americans.
  In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, it is essential that we 
stregthen our ability to detect, deter, and disrupt terrorist 
activities. Many provisions in the PATRIOT Act accomplish this 
objective in a balanced way. Other provisions, however, leave citizens 
vulnerable to unchecked, unwarranted, and potentially abusive invasions 
of privacy. Many of these concerns were addressed in the Senate bill 
that passed by bipartisan, unanimous support. unfortunately, the 
Conference abandoned many of the safeguards in the final Conference 
agreement.
  The Conference Report falls short in a number of areas. Let me focus 
on 2 of these issues--the inadequate checks on the National Security 
Letters and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court orders.
  The ``National Security Letters'' provision: (1.) This authorization 
has no sunset; (2.) It provides no judicial review of a National 
Security Letter gag order. This is a departure from current law which 
allows the recipient of such a Letter to challenge it in court. The 
conference agreement requires the court to accept the government's 
assertion as ``conclusive''. (3.) Moreover, the conference report 
allows the government to maintain information gathered from the 
National Security Letters to be kept forever in government databases.
  ``Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act'' (FISA) Court Orders for 
Tangible Things (section 215): (1) Unlike the Senate bill, the 
Conference Report allows the government to obtain personal information 
on a mere showing of ``relevance'', thereby striking the safeguard 
contained in the Senate passed bill that required a 3-part test. This 
allows the government to obtain this information without demonstrating 
that the information that they are

[[Page 28301]]

seeking has some connection to a terrorist or a spy. (2) The conference 
report does not permit the recipient of a section 215 order to 
challenge its automatic, permanent gag order. Courts have held that 
similar restrictions violate the First Amendment of the Constitution. 
(3) Finally, the conference report allows the government to use secret 
evidence to oppose a judicial challenge to a section 215 order. The 
court must review any government submission in secret, whether or not 
it contains classified material.
  It is important that any policy that is advanced to enhance our 
nation's security always maintains appropriate ``sunshine'' and checks 
and balances on those law enforcement and intelligence agencies that 
are empowered to promote national security. History reminds us that 
these law enforcement tools can be overzealously used and may also be 
directed at innocent parties. The conference report on the PATRIOT Act 
that is before us today fails to strike the proper balance. The Senate 
version included many of the necessary safeguards. Unfortunately, many 
of those provisions were abandoned by the Conference Committee. As a 
result I voted in favor of Mr. Conyers' Motion to Recommit the 
Conference Report to the Conference Committee so that the conferees 
could return to the consideration of the Senate passed bill. 
Unfortunately, this motion was defeated. Therefore, I must vote against 
the passage of the Conference Report that is before us today.
  Mr. DINGELL. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the 
conference report to H.R. 3199. We should go back into conference and 
work on a bipartisan, balanced conference report.
  Instead of rushing to finalize a partisan conference report that 
dismisses concerns for Americans' civil liberties, we should pass a 3 
month extension and try to find a bipartisan balance.
  Unfortunately, the House leadership is unwilling to strike that 
balance and have put forth for consideration a conference report that 
no Democratic conferee signed. This is unconscionable.
  Madam Speaker, many objectionable provisions remain in this 
conference report, but two issues in particular were ignored by the 
majority. First, the conference report fails to provide a standard to 
challenge national security letters. We recently learned that over 
30,000 national security letters are issued every year to businesses of 
all types without court approval.
  Yet, this conference report provides little to no mechanism to allow 
for a citizen to challenge these letters in court, and sets no deadline 
for destroying the private information that has been collected. Shame 
on us for not allowing a citizen to redress his grievances, and, shame 
on us for not ensuring that private information is destroyed once it is 
collected.
  Second, this conference report fails to address the very real issue 
that has been of great concern to many Americans: Section 215 secret 
court orders for library, medical, and other personal records. It 
leaves the standard for obtaining ``any tangible thing'' at simply a 
``relevance'' standard to an investigation, basically allowing the 
government to conduct a fishing expedition if it deems appropriate.
  As I, along with several of my colleagues, said in a letter to 
Chairman Sensenbrenner and Chairman Specter, there is nothing in this 
standard to stop the FBI from asking a library to turn over its 
circulation list of everyone who had checked out a book on Islam since 
the September 11th attacks. Shame on us for allowing this to remain in 
the final conference report.
  Madam Speaker, I have heard a lot of talk during the last four years 
that we will not yield to the terrorists. That we will fight tyranny 
with freedom and democracy, and the power of our ideas will prevail. I 
agree with that sentiment.
  Yet, today, we are considering limiting freedoms by allowing 
provisions such as the Section 215 secret court orders and national 
security letters that I mentioned earlier. As a former prosecutor, I 
understand the need for tools to prosecute those who would do us harm. 
I also know that those same tools can be used to curtail freedoms of 
innocent Americans.
  We must provide common sense tools to prosecutors, but we must 
protect the liberty of all Americans. As I asked in June of this year, 
and as I ask again now, ``What will generations to come think when they 
have seen we have permanently lowered the bar in protecting their civil 
liberties?''
  Madam Speaker, whenever we discuss the PATRIOT Act, I am reminded of 
a very wise saying by one of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin. 
He said, ``They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little 
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.''
  I will vote against this conference report and urge my colleagues to 
do the same. We should go back to conference and craft a conference 
report that protects all of our civil liberties.
  Mr. LANGEVIN. Madam Speaker, today I rise in opposition to the 
conference report on H.R. 3199, the USA PATRIOT Act reauthorization. 
While I do not advocate permitting many of these important terrorism-
fighting tools to expire at the end of the year, the American people 
would be better served by a bill that strikes a more reasonable balance 
between protecting civil liberties and fighting the war on terrorism. I 
am disappointed that the conference report does not closely mirror the 
bipartisan compromise that unanimously passed the Senate. I urge my 
colleagues to reject this conference report and take a bipartisan 
approach to protecting Americans' lives and liberties.
  Since the USA PATRIOT Act was enacted shortly after 9/11, I have met 
with many constituents and countless groups to discuss the details of 
this controversial legislation. Last year, I hosted a town hall meeting 
to hear what my constituents thought about the USA PATRIOT Act. While 
some agreed that the act was necessary to prevent another terrorist 
attack, most of the crowd, as well as most Rhode Islanders, believed we 
have already ceded too much ground with respect to our civil liberties. 
In my State, seven cities and towns have passed resolutions opposing 
parts of the USA PATRIOT Act, and my constituents understand what this 
bill means to them and their freedom.
  Last week, the 9/11 Commission released a report card on the 
implementation of the group's recommendations. For ``balance between 
security and civil liberties,'' the government received a ``B,'' which 
is a high grade considering they were given more ``Fs'' than ``As.'' 
However, the report card cautioned that ``robust and continuing 
oversight, both within the Executive and by the Congress, will be 
essential.'' We should strive to move closer to A than F, but this 
conference report does not accomplish that goal. By making 14 of the 16 
expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act permanent, I worry that 
Congress will be less likely to engage in vigorous oversight to protect 
the civil liberties of law abiding Americans.
  The Senate proved that it is possible to protect both lives and 
liberties. Their legislation made permanent the less controversial 
portions of the act, but implemented commonsense changes to add a layer 
of protection for liberties while keeping America safe. Unfortunately, 
most of these improvements were not incorporated into the conference 
report. For instance, the Senate version required the government to 
show that a person is connected to terrorism or espionage before 
investigators could obtain medical, library or business records. The 
bill before us permits the government to go on fishing expeditions to 
look for information without probable cause. In addition, the Senate 
required new, strong protections for ``sneak and peak'' searches and 
roving wiretaps. These improvements are also absent, from the 
conference agreement. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the 
motion to recommit, which asks conferees to adopt the bipartisan Senate 
language.
  I recognize the need for our laws to keep pace with new technology 
and a changing world, and I am committed to ensuring our law 
enforcement has the tools they need to keep our Nation safe. However, 
providing these tools need not come at the expense of the liberties and 
freedoms that we hold so dear. If we cede these, we have already given 
up the very values the terrorists are trying to destroy.
  I am disappointed that conferees have decided to once again place 
partisanship over sound policy. Working together, we make America 
stronger, but Congress has again divided the American people. I urge my 
colleagues to join me in opposing H.R. 3199 and instead working to 
reauthorize the USA PATRIOT Act in a way that protects both our 
liberties and our country.
  Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent from the vote 
today on H.R. 3199, the ``USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization 
Act of 2005'' due to a family medical emergency. Had I been present and 
voting, I would have voted ``no'' on this bill as I have steadfastly 
opposed similar versions of the PATRIOT Act when they have come up in 
the past.
  Make no mistake, like all Americans I believe we should give law 
enforcement the tools it needs to investigate and fight terrorism. 
However, we can do this without sacrificing our American values. One of 
our most precious values is the right to be free from unwarranted 
government intrusion.
  I voted against the original PATRIOT Act when it passed Congress in 
2001 because it went too far in creating the potential for government 
abuses and violations of civil liberties. The bill today makes 
permanent almost all of the provisions enacted in 2001. While some

[[Page 28302]]

have been altered to make them slightly less egregious, not enough has 
changed to allow me to lend my support to this reauthorization.
  For example, section 109 of H.R. 3199 makes some changes to section 
215 of the original PATRIOT Act, which expanded what the government 
could seize under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA, of 
1978 to ``any tangible things.'' These include library, medical, tax, 
and gun records. The bill today maintains the weak threshold adopted in 
the original PATRIOT Act by again failing to require the materials 
requested be tied or connected to a specific terrorist or terrorist 
organization. The broad standard in current law makes it dangerously 
easy for the records of innocent Americans to be viewed by government. 
Additionally, recipients of requests for information under section 215 
are prevented from telling virtually anyone about the request and they 
cannot challenge this ``gag order'' in court.
  While this bill at least includes a 4-year sunset for section 215, 
there is no sunset for section 505, which expanded the power of 
government to obtain information via national security letters, NSLs. 
NSLs allow the government, with no prior court approval, access to 
financial records, credit reports, telephone records, and information 
from internet service providers. As with section 215, this bill fails 
to require the materials requested be tied or connected to a specific 
terrorist or terrorist organization. Tragically, this weak standard is 
made permanent. There is no sunset. Also, as is true under section 215, 
there is a ``gag order'' under section 505. While H.R. 3199 adds a new 
ability to challenge this ``gag order,'' it is a sham. Violating this 
gag order even carries criminal penalties.
  The bill also fails to adequately reform section 213 of the original 
PATRIOT Act, which expanded ``sneak and peek'' warrant authority. This 
allows the government to search American homes or businesses with 
delayed, not prior, notice. While the bill today does change the delay 
in notice allowed from a ``reasonable time'' to no more than 30 days, 
the bill allows for unlimited extensions. Limitations on instances in 
which delayed notice searches are allowed to remain broad. To protect 
our rights and privacy, the ability for the government to get into our 
personal lives and records without prior notice needs to be more 
narrowly crafted.
  These are just some examples of the problems with H.R. 3199. I am 
confident that if we work together, we can develop laws which would 
allow us to combat terrorism without making it too easy for government 
to intrude into the private lives of Americans.
  Mr. OXLEY. Madam Speaker, I support our action today to reauthorize 
the USA PATRIOT Act.
  Within weeks after the horrendous terrorist attacks of 2001, Congress 
responded with the PATRIOT Act, providing our law enforcement and 
intelligence communities with much-needed tools to track down 
terrorists, sever their communications and funding networks, and 
prevent future attacks on our citizens.
  As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, I was proud to 
help write the antiterrorist financing provisions of this act. Millions 
of dollars in terrorist assets have been frozen or seized since 9/11. 
We have broken up suspected terrorist financing networks, including one 
in my home State of Ohio. The terrorist financing tools included in the 
act were further supplemented by the intelligence reform legislation 
approved in the wake of the 9/11 Commission's report.
  As a former special agent of the FBI, I know that other sections of 
the PATRIOT Act have proven just as vital in assisting law enforcement 
combat the new threat of international terrorism. I am pleased that 
this reauthorization makes permanent all but a few of the act's 
expiring provisions, but regret that the 4-year sunset for the 
remaining authorities was made a part of this final product. Including 
any sunset sends the wrong signal to our law enforcement agencies, 
indicating that our trust in them is incomplete at a time when their 
services have helped prevent further terrorist attacks. They should 
have our full support and every reasonable tool we can give them to 
help fight the global war on terror.
  One of the provisions still subject to a sunset deals with the use of 
roving wiretaps. As one of the few Members of Congress who has 
conducted undercover surveillance, I can tell you now that the need for 
roving wiretap authority will not expire in 7 years. Tying intercept 
authority to an individual suspect rather than a particular 
communication device is simply common sense in this era of throwaway 
cell phones and e-mail.
  Further, there is absolutely no evidence that wiretap authority or 
any other USA PATRIOT Act provision has been used to violate the civil 
liberties of Americans. Congress recognizes the delicate balance 
between deterring terrorist activities and preserving the freedoms we 
hold so dear. I know beyond a doubt that terrorists make no such 
distinction.
  The PATRIOT Act has been a success, and we as a nation are safer for 
it. Its provisions are helping to put the FBI and CIA on a more equal 
footing with terrorists, who use every available technology to plot 
with impunity. The act refines our surveillance laws for the high-
technology era--something that has been long overdue.
  I support the reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act, and hope that 
Congress will work toward making the roving wiretap and other temporary 
provisions permanent.
  Mr. CARDIN. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the conference report 
for H.R. 3199, the USA PATRIOT and Terrorism Prevention Reauthorization 
Act of 2005.
  Through the PATRIOT Act Congress has attempted the essential task of 
modernizing law enforcement tools to effectively combat the 21st 
century terrorist, who can now use cell phones, the internet, and e-
mails to plan and coordinate attacks in the United States. As 
originally enacted in October 2001, many PATRIOT Act provisions are set 
to expire at the end of this month if Congress takes no action.
  The conference report before us extends and improves many provisions 
of the PATRIOT Act. It is a substantial improvement to the bill that 
was passed by the House in July 2005. I do have significant concerns 
and misgivings about the administration's use of the new powers of the 
PATRIOT Act, and I am pleased that this legislation addresses many of 
these concerns. This legislation: includes three sunset provisions for 
PATRIOT Act authorities; requires greater oversight by Congress and the 
judiciary of the Justice Department; and gives new rights to subjects 
of a government investigation. Given the complexity and importance of 
this measure, let me review these provisions in some detail.
  The 4-year sunsets adopted by the conference report apply to business 
records, roving wiretaps, and ``lone-wolf' terrorist suspects who 
operate alone rather than as an agent of a foreign power. Congress must 
revisit these provisions in 4 years, which will expire unless approved 
again. The conference report adopts the Senate position of 4-year 
sunsets, and rejected the House position of 10-year sunsets.
  Under the business records provision, section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, 
the bill provides that the government may seek a court order for ``any 
tangible item'' if law enforcement officials assert that the records 
are sought in an effort to obtain foreign intelligence or in a 
terrorism investigation. The application to the FISA court, the Foreign 
Intelligence Surveillance Act court, must provide a ``statement of 
facts'' proving that the information sought is ``relevant'' to the 
investigation. This bill provides greater protection than current law, 
which simply requires the government to certify the records were sought 
for an authorized investigation without any factual showing.
  The conference report also explicitly provides--unlike current law--
that anyone who receives a request for records under this provision may 
consult with an attorney in order to challenge the request in court. 
The bill requires new high-level approval by one of the top three FBI 
officials for certain records, including library records, medical 
records, educational records, and tax return records. The bill has 
several new requirements for the Justice Department, including: issuing 
``minimization procedures'' which limits the retention of, and 
prohibits dissemination of, information concerning U.S. persons; 
conducting two separate audits of the FBI's use of section 215 orders, 
which will examine any improper or illegal use of this authority, and 
the manner in which such information is collected, retained, analyzed, 
and disseminated by the FBI; and requiring the public reporting of the 
aggregate use of section 215 orders, and a breakdown of its use to 
Congress--comparisons of library, medical, educational records, for 
example.
  The roving wiretaps provision, section 206 of the PATRIOT Act, 
provides that the FISA court may issue ``roving'' wiretaps to conduct 
surveillance on a foreign power or their agent when the target of 
surveillance has taken steps to thwart the investigation by changing 
accommodations, cell phones, internet accounts, or other forms of 
communications. Court orders would apply to a person or persons, not a 
particular device or location, so that the government does not have to 
return to court each time that a target changes a communications device 
or moves to another location. The bill requires court orders for roving 
wiretaps to describe in detail the specific target in cases in which 
the target's identity is unknown, higher burden than current law, and 
requires more detailed and timely reporting by the FBI to the courts 
and Congress on the use of this authority.

[[Page 28303]]

  The conference report also makes substantial improvements to the 
national security letter, NSL, process, which existed before Congress 
enacted the PATRIOT Act in 2001. NSLs allow the FBI to request customer 
records from communications companies and financial institutions 
related to an investigation. The bill explicitly provides a new right 
to NSL recipients to consult with an attorney to challenge the letter 
in court. The court is also given a new explicit right to review NSL 
requests. The bill provides that courts may block an NSL if it is 
``unreasonable, oppressive, or otherwise unlawful'' (same standard as 
used to modify or quash a subpoena in a criminal case). Recipients are 
also given a new right to challenge the nondisclosure requirement in 
court. Congress also requires the Justice Department to report to 
Congress on the number of NSLs sent to U.S. persons or entities, and 
requires the department's inspector general to conduct an audit of the 
effectiveness of NSLs. The bill also provides that the Justice 
Department submit to Congress the annual aggregate number of requests 
made concerning different U.S. persons in an unclassified format.
  Finally, the conference reports places some new restrictions on 
delayed notice search warrants, commonly called ``sneak and peek'', 
under section 213 of the PATRIOT Act. This type of search warrant, 
which existed before the PATRIOT Act was adopted, requires that a 
Federal judge must find that there is probable cause to believe that: 
(1) A crime has been or is about to be committed; (2) evidence of those 
crimes will be found at the location to be searched; and (3) immediate 
notice would cause harm under certain specified criteria. The 
conference report restricts the government's authority to delay notice 
to 30 days, and allows for an extension only if approved by a court. 
The bill also requires new reporting to Congress on the use of this 
provision.
  Madam Speaker, we must not repeat the mistakes of the past, when the 
United States sacrificed the civil rights of particular individuals or 
groups in the name of security. Whether in times of war or peace, 
finding the proper balance between government power and the rights of 
the American people is a delicate and extremely important process. It 
is a task that rightly calls into play the checks and balances that the 
Founders created in our system of government. All three branches of 
government have their proper roles to play in making sure the line is 
drawn appropriately, as we uphold our oaths to support the 
Constitution. This legislation attempts to strike a balance as we seek 
to prevent another terrorist attack on U.S. soil, while protecting 
Americans' constitutional civil liberties. I will continue to work in 
Congress to exercise our critical oversight responsibilities to protect 
our civil liberties.
  Mr. HONDA. Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the 
conference report on H.R. 3199, the USA PATRIOT and Terrorism 
Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2005.
  Last week, Republican House and Senate negotiators reached an 
agreement to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act. As part of the deal agreed to 
by House and Senate Republican conferees, Federal law enforcement 
authorities will retain the right to: Investigate American citizens 
without judicial oversight, a power that is invoked more than 30,000 
times each year; search individuals' private property without notifying 
them; access citizens' library records, medical records, school 
records, and financial records virtually unchecked by the judiciary.
  The House-Senate conference committee had an opportunity to revise 
the PATRIOT Act's expiring provisions to protect the rights and 
liberties of all Americans more effectively. Regrettably, the 
opportunity was lost when Democratic conferees were excluded from key 
negotiations. The resulting conference report falls short of what the 
American people have every reason to expect Congress to achieve in 
defending their rights while advancing their security.
  The conference report drops key protections in the Senate-passed bill 
regarding ``national security letters.'' National security letters, 
NSLs, are, in effect, a form of secret administrative subpoena. They 
are issued by Federal authorities--most often FBI agents--without any 
court supervision, and recipients are prohibited from telling anyone 
that they have been served. The conference report also fails to protect 
the records of innocent Americans collected by means of these NSLs. 
Under the conference report, such records may be kept forever in 
government databases, shared with the intelligence community, and used 
for data-mining.
  There is no more difficult task I have as a legislator than balancing 
the Nation's security with our civil liberties, but this task is not a 
zero sum game. By passing a conference report that allows the troubling 
aspects of the PATRIOT Act to continue, we pursue a false sense of 
national security at the expense of our civil liberties. I opposed the 
PATRIOT Act when it first came to us in 2001 and I vote against it 
today.
  Mr. POMBO. Madam Speaker, today the House passed the conference 
report to H.R. 3199, reauthorizing the Patriot Act. While much has 
already been said about the national security aspects of this report, I 
would like to commend my colleagues for including the Combat Meth Act 
in the report. The meth epidemic is sweeping the nation, and has become 
a major law enforcement problem in California's 11th District.
  All the law enforcement officers I meet with tell me that meth is the 
number one problem they face today. From manufacturers to dealers, and 
the attendant social crimes they create, meth is devastating 
communities across the country. Methamphetamine production and 
distribution leads to murders, assaults and property crimes. 
Additionally, there is an associated increase in domestic abuse, 
prostitution, child abuse and neglect, and homelessness. The provisions 
included in H.R. 3199 are a positive development in the fight against 
this scourge.
  H.R. 3199 will repeal the so-called ``blister pack exemption,'' which 
currently allows the sale of unlimited quantities of pseudoephedrine. 
Pseudoephedrine and other major precursor chemicals in meth production 
will now be classified as ``Schedule Listed Chemicals'' with a daily 
purchase limit of 3.6 grams. These drugs will now be kept in locked 
cabinets or behind the counter at drug stores and other retailers. 
These measures will help reduce the manufacture of meth in the United 
States.
  As meth is an international problem, the bill contains provisions for 
international monitoring, and funding for cooperative efforts with 
Mexico, a source of much of the meth in California. It also strengthens 
federal penalties against meth smugglers and traffickers.
  Finally, there is language to clarify that employers registered under 
the Controlled Substances Act may ask prospective employees about prior 
drug convictions, as a safeguard to ensure that people with access to 
controlled substances do not pose risks to the public welfare. This 
clarification is necessary to stop the diversion of drugs from 
pharmacies for illegal purposes. Currently, in many states, employers 
are not allowed to ask this critical question.
  Madam Speaker, as a member of the Methamphetamine Caucus, I applaud 
the passage of this important language. While we still have a long way 
to go in the war on meth, this is certainly a step in the right 
direction.
  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Madam Speaker, four years ago I voted against 
the bill that became the ``USA PATRIOT Act,'' more commonly called 
simply the ``PATRIOT Act.''

  I agreed that our law-enforcement agencies needed increased power and 
more tools to fight terrorists. But I also thought then--and still 
think today--it was imperative for Congress to proceed carefully in 
order to protect Americans' civil liberties. However, I took some 
comfort from the fact that a number of the most troublesome provisions 
of the new law were temporary and would expire at the end of this year 
unless Congress acts to renew them.

  The imminent expiration of those provisions is why the House 
considered this legislation in July, and provides the impetus for the 
conference report before us today.

  I think the value of such ``sunset'' provisions is shown by the 
debate on that bill and today's debate on the conference report. It is 
evidence that requiring Congressional action to renew agencies' 
authorities can and does result in ongoing Congressional oversight and 
periodic reconsideration.

  In July, I voted against the bill because it would have made 
permanent no fewer than 14 of the 16 provisions of the original 
``Patriot Act'' that were covered by the law's ``sunset'' clause--as 
well as other new authorities provided by last year's bill to reform 
the intelligence community--and under the bill the other two would not 
have faced a ``sunset'' for a full 10 years.

  However, at the same time I noted that there was considerable support 
in the other body--by Senators on both sides of the aisle--for 
provisions that would improve on this legislation. And I hoped and 
expected that once the Senate had acted and the conference was 
completed, the result would be a measure that deserves the support of 
all Members of Congress.

  Unfortunately, after careful review I have concluded that this 
conference report, while an improvement over the bill the House passed 
in July, is still so seriously flawed that I cannot support it.

  The conference report does not do enough to reduce the potential that 
the authority it

[[Page 28304]]

gives to the FBI and other agencies could be abused or misused in ways 
that intrude on Americans' privacy and civil liberties--a potential 
that has led more than 300 communities and seven States, including 
Colorado--governments representing over 62 million people--to pass 
resolutions opposing parts of the Patriot Act.

  The Senate, to its credit, did a better job than the House in 
responding to the concerns that prompted such resolutions, while still 
providing ample tools that the government can use to work against the 
threat of more terrorist attacks, at home and abroad.

  I could have supported enactment of the bill as passed by the Senate. 
That is why I voted for the motion to recommit. But I cannot support 
this conference report as it stands.
  Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Madam Speaker, I rise today to explain my vote 
against a democrat motion to instruct conferees on December 14, 2005.
  Although President Bush and Secretary Rice have made it clear that 
under no circumstance will the United States use torture, I am also 
sympathetic to Senator McCain's wish to establish a clear set of rules 
to govern interrogations of persons under the detention of the 
Department of Defense. With this said, I don't believe it is beneficial 
to instruct conferees on an issue that is already under negotiations 
between the White House, Senator McCain and the United States House of 
Representatives. These negotiations could yield a much more favorable 
outcome than what Senator McCain originally requested and it also 
undermines the legislative process. However, if no compromise is agreed 
to, I would support the McCain language as our policy toward torture.
  Ms. McCOLLUM of Minnesota. Madam Speaker, I rise to express my 
opposition to the conference report to the reauthorization of the USA 
PATRIOT Act.
  Mr. Speaker, I stated after the House voted on H.R. 3199 in July, 
that it was my hope that the conference committee would temper the 
extremes that are present in this legislation, and that the conferees 
would keep the American people's respect for privacy and desire for 
freedom in mind, I do not believe that this conference report reflects 
those ideals.
  National security, homeland security and the collection of 
intelligence need to be balanced with the fundamental freedoms and 
civil liberties granted to Americans by our Constitution. Terrorism is 
a real threat to our security, but so are laws that threaten our 
liberty by allowing an over-zealous government to infringe on the 
privacy of individuals, based on vague, undefined, and at times, 
``classified'' evidence. It is possible to be safe, and free, and to 
protect security while still respecting civil liberties. Unfortunately, 
this conference report fails to recognize this reality and come to 
bipartisan agreement in protecting both the security and civil 
liberties of Americans.
  I voted in favor of the motion to recommit, which would have replaced 
the text of the conference report with the text of the original bill 
passed by the Senate. The original Senate bill included far more 
protections for civil liberties than this conference report. That 
Senate-passed bill would have included a process of judicial review for 
recipients of a National Security Letter, as well as a standard 
requiring the Government to show a connection to a suspected terrorist 
or organization when requesting business or library records. This 
conference report before me today only requires the Government to 
demonstrate ``relevance'' in an investigation.
  This conference report makes 14 of 16 controversial PATRIOT Act 
provisions permanent. In making these provisions permanent, Congress is 
relinquishing its responsibility to review their use, granting more 
permanent power to the executive branch. Congressional oversight has 
been maintained only through the two provisions scheduled to sunset in 
4 years, as well as through the inclusion of a ``lone wolf' provision, 
also scheduled to sunset in 4 years. Congress has a responsibility to 
check the power of the executive branch, not cede that authority, 
potentially threatening the civil liberties of our citizens. The 
conference report voted on today unfortunately fails to safeguard 
individual privacy rights, and allows the Government, with little 
burden of proof, to scrutinize nearly every aspect of a person's life.
  It has been said in this debate that we must sacrifice some of our 
freedoms in the name of security. This is the wrong approach, and the 
American people have the right to expect better from Congress. We 
cannot allow terrorism to erode either our national security or our 
civil liberties--both present a danger to this country. I urge my 
colleagues to vote against this conference report, and support both the 
rights and security of the American people.
  Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, I would like to comment on section 507 of 
today's PATRIOT Act conference report, which authorizes the U.S. 
Attorney General to certify whether a state has qualified for the 
expedited habeas corpus procedures in chapter 154 of title 28 of the 
U.S. Code. Section 507 is of particular importance to my home State of 
Arizona, which for many years has satisfied the post-conviction counsel 
requirements of chapter 154, but which has been unfairly denied the 
procedural benefits of that chapter by the Ninth Circuit.
  Section 507 is similar to a section of the Streamlined Procedures 
Act, a general habeas corpus reform bill that was introduced earlier 
this year in the House by Mr. Lungren of California, and in the Senate 
by my Home state colleague, Senator Kyl. Section 507 is also virtually 
identical to an amendment that I filed and sought to offer last month 
to H.R. 1751, the Secure Access to Justice and Court Security Act of 
2005. My amendment had been made in order by the Rules Committee and 
was listed in House Report 109-279. At the last minute, however, 
various political objections were made to my amendment and Chairman 
Sensenbrenner asked me not to offer it to H.R. 1751. The Chairman 
assured me that he would accommodate me with regard to this matter on 
some other legislation. I am pleased to see that he was able to do so 
on the PATRIOT Act, which now appears that it will be enacted into law 
sooner than H.R. 1751.
  My amendment is designed to give States a real incentive to provide 
quality counsel to death row prisoners in State habeas proceedings. It 
is also designed to keep a bargain that the Federal Government made 
with the States in 1996. The amendment assigns the U.S. Attorney 
General to evaluate whether a State is providing qualified counsel to 
capital prisoners in State habeas proceedings, a condition for 
receiving the benefits of the expedited habeas procedures of chapter 
154 of the U.S. Code. The amendment thus gives States a real chance to 
qualify for chapter 154 treatment. By ensuring that States will receive 
streamlined proceedings in Federal court if they provide quality 
counsel in State habeas court, the amendment will reduce delays in 
death penalty appeals.
  This is a goal that everyone, left and right, should agree with. Even 
those who passionately oppose the death penalty should want the system 
to be fair to victims. No one should support a system that routinely 
forces the family of a murder victim to endure 10, 15, or even 20 years 
of appeals. Yet in too many cases, that is exactly how our current 
system works even in cases where there is no real dispute over guilt. 
In my home State of Arizona, over two-thirds of death row prisoners 
have finished all of their State appeals and are engaged in Federal 
habeas litigation. Most of these cases have now been in the Federal 
courts for five years or more. Ten cases have been in Federal court for 
8 years or more, and 5 cases have been in Federal court for more than 
15 years. And this is all on top of the time that it takes to complete 
all state appeals, which usually requires 5 or 6 years.
  Under the current system, victims' families are forced to repeatedly 
relive an awful event throughout the progress of this lengthy 
litigation. During that process, they must wonder if they will be 
forced to appear at another hearing, if there will be another trial, or 
if the person who killed their son or daughter will even be released. 
They literally are denied closure, the right to forget about the person 
who killed their loved one and to move on with their lives. And this 
frequently goes on for more than 15 years. A system that treats crime 
victims this way is intolerable.
  The amendment that I offer today is particularly important to my home 
State of Arizona. Arizona is both a State that has experienced extreme 
delays in Federal-court review of capital cases, and a State that has 
acted to provide quality counsel in state habeas proceeding in response 
to the offer that the congress made in 1996. The habeas reform of that 
year created chapter 154 of title 28. This chapter told the States 
that, if they provide qualified state habeas counsel to capital 
defendants, the Federal government would streamline Federal court 
review of capital cases. In Federal court, chapter 154 would limit the 
claims that defendants could raise, barring virtually all claims that 
were not properly raised and addressed on the merits in state court. 
Chapter 154 would apply strict deadlines to Federal court review, 
requiring the district court to decide the case in 6 months and the 
court of appeals to rule in 4 months.
  Shortly after the 1996 reforms were enacted, the Arizona legislature 
and the State supreme court implemented a system that would allow the 
State to opt in to chapter 154. The State created mandatory competency 
standards for capital post-conviction counsel, and provided funds to 
attract good lawyers and allow them to hire necessary experts. The

[[Page 28305]]

State now spends a lot of money on post-conviction representation for 
death-row inmates--the median case costs the State $64,000, while one 
case cost $138,000. Again, this is just for State habeas review. It 
does not include the State's expenses to provide counsel at trial or on 
direct appeal from the trial. For example, Arizona also guarantees a 
capital defendant two highly qualified attorneys at trial.
  One might think that, in light of all that the State of Arizona has 
done to provide high-quality counsel to capital defendants, surely it 
must have qualified for chapter 154 by now and must be enjoying the 
benefits of that chapter. But that is not what has happened. The 
problem is simple: under current law, the local Federal court of 
appeals decides whether a State has opted in to chapter 154. In 
Arizona, the Ninth Circuit has refused to grant Arizona the benefits of 
chapter 154. Even though Arizona has lived up to its end of the 
bargain, the Ninth Circuit refuses to allow the Federal government to 
abide by its end of the deal.
  A case that illustrates the problem is the Ninth Circuit's 
extraordinary decision in Spears v. Stewart, 283 F.3d 992 (2002). The 
three-judge panel in Spears found that Arizona's system for providing 
post-conviction counsel complied with chapter 154. The court concluded 
that Arizona's system sets mandatory and binding competency standards 
for counsel, provides reasonable compensation to counsel, pays 
reasonable litigation expenses, and offers such counsel to all capital 
defendants. The court nevertheless managed to find that Arizona could 
not receive the benefits of chapter 154 because of a delay in 
appointing counsel. Defense lawyers initially had boycotted this 
system, and in some cases this resulted in delays. The defendant in 
Spears did not even allege that this delay prejudiced his case. But the 
Ninth Circuit found this delay a sufficient excuse to deny Arizona the 
benefit of chapter 154, even though Arizona's system complied with that 
chapter.
  The decision of the Spears three-judge panel alone is troubling. The 
chapter 154 qualification decision is supposed to be a one-time 
decision. Once a State's system qualifies, the issue is not supposed to 
be litigated again on a case-by-case basis. Even more disturbing than 
the three-judge panel's decision, however, is a dissent from the full 
court's refusal to rehear the case that was signed by 11 active judges 
of the Ninth Circuit. These 11 judges stated that the panel's decision 
that Arizona's system qualifies for chapter 154 is merely dicta and not 
binding in future cases. Although the issue of Arizona's 154 status was 
squarely before the three-judge panel and was decided by that panel, 
this gang of 11 judges declared that they would not follow that 
decision in future cases. As they said: ``To put it bluntly, neither 
we, nor any other court is bound by the panel's advisory declarations 
in this case.'' Spears, 283 F.3d at 998 (Reinhardt, J., dissenting from 
denial of rehearing).
  A statement by 11 judges that they will refuse to follow their own 
court's final decision itself is extraordinary, as several other judges 
noted in Spears a concurrence to the denial of rehearing. If a court 
refuses to abide by its own precedents, litigants can have no way of 
knowing what the law is and how they should arrange their affairs. Such 
behavior does substantial damage to the rule of law.
  What such behavior also demonstrates is a refusal to enforce the laws 
enacted by Congress. It shows that chapter 154 will remain a dead 
letter so long as the obligation to enforce it remains in the hands of 
courts such as the Ninth Circuit. It is clear that, if any two of the 
11 judges who joined the Spears rehearing dissent are assigned to a 
future Arizona 154 case, they will not feel obligated to follow Spears 
and the State will be relitigating the issue of its 154 status from 
scratch. Indeed, portions of the Spears dissent argue that Arizona's 
``statutory scheme did not comply with Chapter 154's requirements.'' 
Spears, 283 F.3d at 1002 (Reinhardt, J., dissenting from denial of 
rehearing). The tone of the 11-judge dissent also betrays an open 
hostility to the chapter 154 system.
  The trouble with chapter 154 is that the courts assigned to decide 
when it applies are the same courts that would be bound by the 
chapter's strict deadlines if a State is found to qualify. Simply put, 
the regional courts of appeals have a conflict of interest. They decide 
whether the States are entitled to a benefit which places a burden on 
the courts themselves. Some prosecutors also believe that refusal to 
enforce chapter 154 also reflects a hostility to the death penalty--
that some judges are ignoring the law because they do not want to see 
death sentences carried out. If this is true, it is absolutely 
unacceptable. A judge has an obligation to uphold and enforce a valid 
law, whether or not he agrees with it.
  My amendment makes several changes to chapter 154 to ensure that it 
provides real and meaningful benefits to States that provide quality 
post-conviction counsel. First and most importantly, it assigns the 154 
certification decision to the U.S. Attorney General and the DC Circuit, 
rather than the local courts of appeals that have an interest in the 
case. The Attorney General receives no benefits from chapter 154, and 
he has expertise in evaluating State criminal justice systems. Just 
last year, for example, Congress assigned the Attorney General to 
evaluate State DNA testing and capital counsel systems in the Justice 
for All Act. Review of the Attorney General's decision in the DC 
Circuit also is appropriate. Because there is no Federal habeas review 
of criminal convictions in the District of Columbia, the DC Circuit 
also has no stake in whether or not a State qualifies for chapter 154.
  My amendment, like subsection (d) of section 507, also makes clear 
that a determination that a State has satisfied the chapter 154 
standard as of a particular date will apply retroactively to all 
pending habeas cases for which the prisoner received State habeas after 
the certified date. This will ensure that a State will receive all of 
the procedural and litigation benefits that it should have received had 
the Federal habeas claim been governed by chapter 154 from the day that 
it was filed, as it should have been. The proposed paragraph 28 U.S.C. 
2265(a)(2) in my amendment makes clear that, once the Attorney General 
determines that a State established a post-conviction capital-counsel 
system by a particular date, the chapter 154 eligibility certification 
shall be effective as of that date. Thus, if a capital prisoner 
received State habeas counsel after that effective date, the case is 
governed by chapter 154 in Federal proceedings.
  However, some courts might construe 2265(a)(2) to mean that while the 
chapter 154 system thereafter governs Federal habeas applications that 
have already been filed, the actual procedural benefits of that 
chapter--especially the claims limitations and amendment limits would 
only apply on a going-forward basis--i.e., only to claims or amendments 
filed after the date of enactment of this law. Thus when I added a few 
other provisions to the amendment, I also inserted subsection (g), 
which is the same as subsection (d) of section 507. This subsection, by 
explicitly applying section 507 and the changes that it makes to all 
qualified pending Federal habeas cases, should make clear that when 
Congress says that it wants the new law to apply retroactively, it 
means that the law will apply retroactively--that it will govern new 
claims as if it had been in effect as of the effective date of the 
chapter 154 certification.
  Any non-retroactive application of chapter 154 would be fundamentally 
unfair to States such as Arizona, which has been providing post-
conviction counsel to State prisoners for nearly a decade but has been 
inappropriately denied the benefits of chapter 154 for some cases that 
already have progressed to Federal habeas. In the Spears case, for 
example, the Ninth Circuit even found that Arizona's counsel system met 
chapter 154 standards, but the court nevertheless came up with an 
excuse for refusing to apply chapter 154 to that case. If the Attorney 
General and the DC Circuit conclude that Arizona met chapter 154 
standards prior to Spears's receipt of counsel, as I am confident that 
they will, Arizona should receive all of the benefits of chapter 154 
for that case and subsequent cases, as if chapter 154 had governed the 
Federal petition as of the day it had been filed (as it should have). 
Chapter 154, for example, does not allow cases to be remanded to State 
court to exhaust new claims (a considerable source of delay on Federal 
habeas), and it places very sharp limits on amendment to petitions. 
Arizona should not be forced to litigate claims in Spears's petition 
that were defaulted, that were unexhausted and sent back to State 
court, or that otherwise were not addressed by State courts when Spears 
first filed the petition (unless those claims meet the narrow 
exceptions in subsection 2264(a)). Nor should the State be forced to 
litigate claims that were added to the petition in amendments that do 
not satisfy chapter 154's limits on amendments.
  Applying chapter 154 retroactively may seem harsh, but it is 
important to recall that any prisoner whose Federal petition will be 
governed by 154 necessarily received counsel in State post-conviction 
proceedings. Unlike the typical uncounseled State habeas petitioner, 
who may not have been aware of State procedural rules or of all the 
potential legal claims available to him, a chapter 154 habeas 
petitioner will have no excuse for not making sure that all of his 
claims were addressed on the merits in State court. (Or rather, any 
excuse will be limited to those authorized in 28 U.S.C. 2264(a).) I 
believe that, given the resources Arizona has devoted to providing

[[Page 28306]]

post-conviction counsel, the State should easily qualify for chapter 
154. The Ninth Circuit has treated Arizona unfairly by denying it 
chapter 154 status. If the U.S. Attorney General and DC Circuit agree 
that Arizona should have been 154-certified when Spears filed his 
Federal petition, Arizona should be placed in the same position that it 
would be in today had the Spears case proceeded under chapter 154 from 
the beginning.
  My amendment also extends the time for a district court to rule on a 
154 petition from 6 months to 15 months. I have been informed that the 
bill that became the 1996 Act originally adopted 6 months as the limit 
as an initial bargaining position. The intention had been to eventually 
extend this to 12 months, but because of the politics of the enactment 
of AEDPA, it was not possible to change this deadline later in the 
legislative process. My amendment is even more generous than the 
original authors' intention, giving the district courts 15 months, in 
recognition of their burdensome caseloads and the fact that they do the 
real work in Federal habeas cases--they are the courts that hold 
hearings, if necessary, to identify the truth of a case. This same 
change was included in subsection (e) of section 507.
  Subsection (f) of section 507 is the same as a provision in 
subsection (e) of my amendment. This subsection codifies the rule of 
McFarland v. Scott, 512 U.S. 849 (1994), which allows a stay to issue 
on the basis of an application for appointment of Federal habeas 
counsel (without the actual filing of a petition), but it limits such 
stays to a reasonable period after counsel is actually appointed or the 
application for appointment of counsel is withdrawn or denied.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my 
time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Biggert). Without objection, the 
previous question is ordered on the conference report.
  There was no objection.


               Motion to Recommit Offered by Mr. Conyers

  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman opposed to the conference 
report?
  Mr. CONYERS. Yes, I am, in its present form.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to 
recommit.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Conyers of Michigan moves to recommit the conference 
     report on the bill H.R. 3199 to the committee of conference 
     with instructions to the managers on the part of the House to 
     recede from disagreement with the Senate amendment.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, parliamentary inquiry, is it 
permissible to include instructions in the motion to recommit to 
conference?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Yes, it is proper.
  Without objection, the previous question is ordered on the motion to 
recommit.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 9 of rule XX, the Chair 
will reduce to 5 minutes the minimum time for any electronic vote on 
the question of adopting the conference report.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 202, 
noes 224, not voting 7, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 626]

                               AYES--202

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baird
     Baldwin
     Barrow
     Bean
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Boren
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brady (PA)
     Brown (OH)
     Brown, Corrine
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Cardoza
     Carnahan
     Carson
     Case
     Chandler
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costa
     Cramer
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     Davis (TN)
     DeFazio
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Emanuel
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Herseth
     Higgins
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hooley
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick (MI)
     Kind
     Kucinich
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Leach
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Lofgren, Zoe
     Lowey
     Lynch
     Maloney
     Markey
     Marshall
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy
     McCollum (MN)
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Melancon
     Menendez
     Michaud
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, George
     Mollohan
     Moore (KS)
     Moore (WI)
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal (MA)
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Otter
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Paul
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Ross
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sabo
     Salazar
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sanders
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schwartz (PA)
     Scott (GA)
     Scott (VA)
     Shays
     Sherman
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Solis
     Spratt
     Stark
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor (MS)
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Towns
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Watson
     Watt
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Wexler
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn

                               NOES--224

     Aderholt
     Akin
     Alexander
     Bachus
     Baker
     Barrett (SC)
     Bartlett (MD)
     Barton (TX)
     Bass
     Beauprez
     Biggert
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonner
     Bono
     Boozman
     Boustany
     Bradley (NH)
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (SC)
     Brown-Waite, Ginny
     Burgess
     Burton (IN)
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Camp (MI)
     Campbell (CA)
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carter
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chocola
     Coble
     Cole (OK)
     Conaway
     Costello
     Crenshaw
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Davis (KY)
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     Deal (GA)
     DeLay
     Dent
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Doolittle
     Drake
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Emerson
     English (PA)
     Everett
     Feeney
     Ferguson
     Fitzpatrick (PA)
     Flake
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Fossella
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Garrett (NJ)
     Gerlach
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gingrey
     Gohmert
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Granger
     Graves
     Green (WI)
     Gutknecht
     Hall
     Harris
     Hart
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Hostettler
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Inglis (SC)
     Issa
     Istook
     Jenkins
     Jindal
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Keller
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MN)
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Kline
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kuhl (NY)
     LaHood
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     LoBiondo
     Lucas
     Lungren, Daniel E.
     Mack
     Manzullo
     Marchant
     McCaul (TX)
     McCotter
     McCrery
     McHenry
     McHugh
     McKeon
     McMorris
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Moran (KS)
     Murphy
     Musgrave
     Myrick
     Neugebauer
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nunes
     Nussle
     Osborne
     Oxley
     Pearce
     Pence
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Pombo
     Porter
     Price (GA)
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Reichert
     Renzi
     Reynolds
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Saxton
     Schmidt
     Schwarz (MI)
     Sensenbrenner
     Serrano
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simmons
     Simpson
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Sodrel
     Souder
     Stearns
     Sullivan
     Sweeney
     Tancredo
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Turner
     Upton
     Walden (OR)
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Westmoreland
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                             NOT VOTING--7

     DeGette
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Hyde
     McDermott
     Payne
     Poe
     Ros-Lehtinen


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Biggert) (during the vote). Members are 
advised there are 2 minutes remaining.

[[Page 28307]]



                              {time}  1356

  Messrs. BRADLEY of New Hampshire, DeLAY, ROHRABACHER, McHENRY, Ms. 
HART and Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut changed their vote from ``aye'' to 
``no.''
  Mr. SALAZAR changed his vote from ``no'' to ``aye.''
  So the motion to recommit was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the conference report.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. This will be a 5-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 251, 
nays 174, not voting 9, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 627]

                               YEAS--251

     Aderholt
     Akin
     Alexander
     Andrews
     Bachus
     Baker
     Barrett (SC)
     Barrow
     Barton (TX)
     Bass
     Bean
     Beauprez
     Biggert
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (GA)
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonner
     Bono
     Boozman
     Boren
     Boswell
     Boustany
     Boyd
     Bradley (NH)
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (SC)
     Brown-Waite, Ginny
     Burgess
     Burton (IN)
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Camp (MI)
     Campbell (CA)
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carnahan
     Carter
     Case
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chandler
     Chocola
     Coble
     Cole (OK)
     Conaway
     Cooper
     Costa
     Cramer
     Crenshaw
     Cubin
     Cuellar
     Culberson
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (KY)
     Davis (TN)
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     Deal (GA)
     DeLay
     Dent
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Doolittle
     Drake
     Dreier
     Edwards
     Emanuel
     Emerson
     English (PA)
     Etheridge
     Everett
     Feeney
     Ferguson
     Flake
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Fossella
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Garrett (NJ)
     Gerlach
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gingrey
     Gohmert
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Granger
     Graves
     Green (WI)
     Gutknecht
     Hall
     Harman
     Harris
     Hart
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Herseth
     Higgins
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Hostettler
     Hoyer
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Inglis (SC)
     Issa
     Istook
     Jenkins
     Jindal
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson, Sam
     Keller
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MN)
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Kline
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kuhl (NY)
     LaHood
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Lungren, Daniel E.
     Marchant
     Marshall
     McCarthy
     McCaul (TX)
     McCotter
     McCrery
     McHenry
     McHugh
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McMorris
     Melancon
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, Gary
     Moore (KS)
     Moran (KS)
     Murphy
     Musgrave
     Myrick
     Neugebauer
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nunes
     Nussle
     Osborne
     Oxley
     Pearce
     Pence
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Porter
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Reichert
     Renzi
     Reyes
     Reynolds
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Ross
     Rothman
     Royce
     Ruppersberger
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Saxton
     Schiff
     Schmidt
     Schwartz (PA)
     Schwarz (MI)
     Scott (GA)
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simmons
     Simpson
     Skelton
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Sodrel
     Souder
     Spratt
     Stearns
     Sullivan
     Tancredo
     Taylor (MS)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Turner
     Upton
     Walden (OR)
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Westmoreland
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Young (FL)

                               NAYS--174

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Baca
     Baird
     Baldwin
     Bartlett (MD)
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop (NY)
     Bishop (UT)
     Blumenauer
     Boucher
     Brady (PA)
     Brown (OH)
     Brown, Corrine
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardoza
     Carson
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Conyers
     Costello
     Crowley
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Duncan
     Ehlers
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Fitzpatrick (PA)
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hastings (FL)
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Holt
     Honda
     Hooley
     Inslee
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (NC)
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick (MI)
     Kind
     Kucinich
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lofgren, Zoe
     Lowey
     Lucas
     Lynch
     Mack
     Maloney
     Manzullo
     Markey
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCollum (MN)
     McGovern
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Menendez
     Michaud
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller, George
     Mollohan
     Moore (WI)
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal (MA)
     Ney
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Otter
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Paul
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Price (GA)
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Rohrabacher
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sabo
     Salazar
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sanders
     Schakowsky
     Scott (VA)
     Serrano
     Sherman
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Solis
     Stark
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Sweeney
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor (NC)
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Towns
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Watson
     Watt
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Wexler
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn
     Young (AK)

                             NOT VOTING--9

     DeGette
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Hyde
     McDermott
     Ortiz
     Peterson (PA)
     Poe
     Radanovich
     Ros-Lehtinen


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Biggert) (during the vote). Members are 
reminded there are 2 minutes remaining in this vote.

                              {time}  1407

  Mr. ISRAEL and Mr. BISHOP of Utah changed their vote from ``yea'' to 
``nay.''
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi and Mr. BOYD changed their vote from 
``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So the conference report 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. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 627. I was 
inadvertently detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

                          ____________________