[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 1876]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          CHECKS AND BALANCES

  (Mr. BURGESS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I would remind the gentleman from Ohio that 
Tulane Medical Center opened today with a lot of fanfare. That is one 
of those dreadful private, for-profit corporations; and they are the 
first such hospital back in business in New Orleans. Ray Nagin said he 
wished he could bottle that and extend it to other companies.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about the domestic surveillance 
that was in the news earlier. My colleagues may not have noticed a 
rather insightful op ed piece that appeared in the Washington Times on 
January 6 of this year penned by an Alan Nathan.
  Mr. Nathan writes that neither Congress nor the judiciary can remove 
this repeatedly court-recognized inherent authority granted to the 
President under the Constitution, just as the President cannot remove 
any of their powers guaranteed in the same great document.
  When called upon, all intelligence organizations in the United States 
are structured to operate in conjunction with the military and 
accordingly become an integral part of the President's domain as 
Commander in Chief. Congress voted for this on September 14, 2001, in 
the war resolution invoked under the War Powers Act of 1973 authorizing 
the President to use force against all nations.
  Given that the battleground includes this country, where the attacks 
were made, Democrats and Republicans objecting to his actions should be 
hard pressed to find him derelict in his duty.
  Mr. Speaker, we should take the words of Mr. Nathan to heart. They 
were germane January 6. They are germane now.

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