[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 26632-26639]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               MEJA EXPANSION AND ENFORCEMENT ACT OF 2007

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 702 and rule 
XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House 
on the state of the Union for the further consideration of the bill, 
H.R. 2740.

                              {time}  1105


                     In the Committee of the Whole

  Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the 
Whole House on the state of the Union for the further consideration of 
the bill (H.R. 2740) to require accountability for contractors and 
contract personnel under Federal contracts, and for other purposes, 
with Mr. Arcuri (Acting Chairman) in the chair.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. When the Committee of the Whole rose on 
Wednesday, October 3, 2007, the amendments made in order pursuant to 
House Resolution 702 had been disposed of.
  The question is on the committee amendment in the nature of a 
substitute, as amended.
  The committee amendment in the nature of a substitute, as amended, 
was agreed to.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. Under the rule, the Committee rises.
  Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. 
Ross) having assumed the chair, Mr. Arcuri, Acting Chairman of the 
Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, reported that 
that Committee, having had under consideration

[[Page 26633]]

the bill (H.R. 2740) to require accountability for contractors and 
contract personnel under Federal contracts, and for other purposes, 
pursuant to House Resolution 702, reported the bill back to the House 
with an amendment adopted by the Committee of the Whole.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the rule, the previous question is 
ordered.
  Is a separate vote demanded on any amendment to the amendment 
reported from the Committee of the Whole? If not, the question is on 
the amendment.
  The amendment was agreed to.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the engrossment and third 
reading of the bill.
  The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was 
read the third time.


                Motion to Recommit Offered by Mr. Forbes

  Mr. FORBES. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman opposed to the bill?
  Mr. FORBES. I am, Mr. Speaker, in its current form.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to 
recommit.
  The Clerk read as follows:
       Mr. Forbes moves to recommit the bill H.R. 2740 to the 
     Committee on the Judiciary with instructions to report the 
     same back to the House forthwith with the following 
     amendment:
       At the end of the text of the bill, insert the following:

     SEC. 6. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.

       Nothing in this Act shall be construed to affect 
     intelligence activities that are otherwise permissible prior 
     to the enactment of this Act.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Virginia is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FORBES. Mr. Speaker, the motion to recommit I have offered is 
straightforward. It preserves the ability of our intelligence community 
to protect America's national security.
  We all agree that it is important to hold contractors liable for 
criminal acts that they commit while working overseas. No one is above 
the law. But, unfortunately, H.R. 2740 in its present form will have 
significant dangerous consequences to the intelligence community and 
the vital role it plays in protecting America. The motion to recommit 
clarifies the application of H.R. 2740 to ensure that critical 
intelligence activities will be able to continue.
  The majority in its haste to score political points has ignored the 
intelligence community's concerns about the implications of the bill. 
Let me take a moment to outline some of the specific concerns that the 
majority has ignored.
  First, H.R. 2740 covers all agents of any Department or agency of the 
United States, including clandestine assets. If a clandestine asset was 
implicated in a crime, investigating and arresting that asset under 
traditional criminal procedures could expose other assets and 
compromise critical intelligence activities.
  Second, H.R. 2740 extends United States criminal jurisdiction without 
regard to the nationality of the offender. Host country nationals 
serving or assisting sensitive assets could become criminally liable 
for a felony violation of U.S. law and undermine critical intelligence 
activities.
  Third, H.R. 2740 applies the entire criminal code to the new category 
of potential offenders and could implicate the authorized business of 
the intelligence community employees and contractors.
  The bill also does not limit criminal liability to activities that 
occur in the course of employment, whether committed on duty or off 
duty, and increases the risk of exposing intelligence activities.
  We agree with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle that we 
must hold everyone accountable under the law. Our criminal code is 
aimed at ensuring peace and order in our country and should not be 
applied internationally to every aspect of our Nation's foreign 
activities.
  Our country relies on our intelligence community to preserve our 
national security and protect our citizens. We must legislate 
responsibly when it comes to applying our criminal code to overseas 
activities. Preserving our critical intelligence operations is 
paramount. Politics has no role in this decision.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the motion.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to accept the motion to recommit.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from 
Michigan is recognized for 5 minutes.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to thank the distinguished 
gentleman from Virginia, the ranking member, Randy Forbes, because we 
are willing on this side to accept the motion to recommit, with the 
understanding that we will work to clarify its scope, as has been 
indicated in the discussion, and that we do understand that this would 
not in any way weaken the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act or 
invalidate current law which is now in place.
  Mr. Speaker, with that agreement on the part of the ranking member, 
this side accepts the motion to recommit.
  Mr. HALL of New York. Mr. Speaker, today, the House took an important 
step to restore accountability to our involvement in Iraq by passing 
H.R. 2740, the MEJA Expansion and Enforcement Act of 2007. This bill 
serves an important purpose by bringing previously unaccountable 
private security contractors under the rule of U.S. law.
  By some estimates there are nearly 50,000 private security personnel 
working in Iraq. These contractors operate largely outside U.S. and 
Iraqi law, and episodes of significant contractor misconduct raise 
animosity toward Americans in the field and lose us hearts and minds in 
Iraq.
  The activities of one of the most prominent contractors, Blackwater, 
highlight why they are a counterproductive influence in Iraq and their 
activities must be curtailed. Two weeks ago, Blackwater personnel 
guarding a State Department group were involved in a shootout that 
resulted in the deaths of as many as 17 Iraqis. Yesterday, the 
Government Reform Committee disclosed that Blackwater has been involved 
in 195 escalation of force incidents since 2005 and in 80 percent of 
those Blackwater fired the first shots.
  These incidents combined with a host of other abuses clearly indicate 
that we need to stop putting contractors in Iraq and bring those there 
under control. That's why I was proud to cosponsor and vote for the 
MEJA Expansion and Enforcement Act to bring these contractors under 
U.S. jurisdiction if they commit criminal acts. Only by holding these 
contractors accountable can we actually begin to restore our standing 
in the world and win hearts and minds in Iraq.
  During consideration of this bill, the House of Representatives 
considered a motion to recommit forthwith that stated, ``Nothing in 
this Act shall be construed to affect intelligence activities that are 
otherwise permissible prior to the enactment of this Act.''
  I am an ardent supporter of our efforts to combat terrorism, prevent 
terrorist attacks, and bring terrorists to justice. I want our 
intelligence community to have all of the tools it needs to accomplish 
these tasks, and believe it can be successful in doing so within the 
rule of law. Some of my proudest votes on this floor have been to give 
our government new tools to fight terrorism and keep Americans safe. 
However, for the following reasons I could not in good conscience vote 
for this motion to recommit forthwith.
  It is often said that, ``the devil is in the details.'' In this case, 
I fear the level is in the lack of details. The drafting of this 
legislative language is extremely vague, and I have serious 
reservations about the scope of its impact. It seems that this language 
could be interpreted to provide legal cover to abuses committed by 
contractors, like those at Abu Ghraib, that undermine our national 
security and are contrary to the founding principles of our nation. On 
a day when the New York Times has reported at length on the concerted 
efforts of the Administration to twist the law to make practices like 
freezing and water-boarding legal, I could not support language that 
could be manipulated to provide cover for such illegal and 
counterproductive acts.
  I am doubly skeptical of this language because if it was not meant to 
provide cover for questionable acts, it would not be necessary. The 
MEJA Expansion and Enforcement Act does not make any previously legal 
acts illegal, it simply extends the jurisdiction of U.S. law. 
Previously uncovered contractors would

[[Page 26634]]

not be impeded in their work if they were acting and continue to act in 
accordance with the law.
  For these reasons, I voted to support the MEJA Expansion and 
Enforcement Act and voted against the motion to recommit forthwith.
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Virginia 
has offered a motion to recommit H.R. 2740 the MEJA Expansion and 
Enforcement Act, to the Judiciary Committee and to amend the 
legislation with regard to intelligence activities. I will support this 
motion, but with 2 important qualifications.
  The motion to recommit would amend H.R. 2740 with a rule of 
construction, stating, ``nothing in this Act shall be construed to 
affect intelligence activities that are otherwise permissible prior to 
the enactment of this Act.'' This amendment does not at all modify the 
force of my legislation, does not limit the scope of the MEJA 
jurisdiction, and does not grant immunity to anyone, including 
contractor employees of the intelligence community. Put simply, I am 
voting in support of this motion because it in no way alters the 
underlying bill before us.
  With that said, let me attach two qualifications to my support. 
First, the amendment is unnecessary in the context of both current law 
and this legislation. Second, the amendment raises serious questions 
about the activities its proponents may be seeking to protect.
  My legislation would indeed place contractor employees of non-defense 
related agencies under the extraterritorial jurisdiction of United 
States federal law, granting the Department of Justice authority to 
prosecute felony offenses committed by non-defense contractors. Defense 
contractors are already covered by MEJA, a point that seems lost on the 
authors of this motion. Given that the majority of the intelligence 
community falls under the Department of Defense, it stands to reason 
that many--if not most--contractors engaged in intelligence-related 
activities are already under the jurisdiction of federal law. Not only 
that, employees of the Defense Department intelligence agencies, 
including agents of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National 
Security Agency, and intelligence services of the different branches of 
the Armed Forces, among others, are covered by MEJA, and this coverage 
has not endangered our national security in the least. So concerns 
about my legislation, which deals with non-defense contractors, seem 
ill-founded in the context of current law.
  To my knowledge, there have never been significant concerns raised 
about the coverage of these Defense Department intelligence agents and 
contractors, for one major reason: prosecutorial discretion. The 
Department of Justice always has the discretion to refrain from 
prosecuting a case if it will endanger our national security interests. 
My legislation does not compel prosecution and it does not interfere 
with the prosecutor's discretion. If a prosecutor ever has concerns 
that prosecution of a contractor under MEJA would endanger state 
secrets, expose clandestine networks, or otherwise undermine our 
security interests, the prosecutor has the discretion not to prosecute 
the case. It's as simple as that.
  Let me also point out that this bill only affects contractors who 
commit felony crimes. So long as private contractors, including those 
who are engaged in intelligence-related activities, are conducting 
themselves within the bounds of the law, this legislation is irrelevant 
to them. However, if there are private, for-profit contractors tasked 
with duties that require them to commit felony offenses, Congress needs 
to know about it. Such a revelation would point to a need for a serious 
debate about whether we are using contractors appropriately.
  My second qualification is that this amendment raises serious 
questions about the activities it may be intended to protect. The 
question here is, given that my bill only targets activities that are 
unlawful, why do my colleagues feel the need to clarify that it does 
not affect activities that are permissible? What activities are 
contractors carrying out that are permissible but not lawful?
  I have great apprehension about what might be meant in this context, 
but first let me state clearly: the law is the highest authority in the 
land, other than the constitution. The law trumps executive orders, 
memorandums, and policies in all cases. I am voting for this motion 
with the understanding that there is no activity a contractor might be 
performing that could ever be permissible but not lawful. The 
activities that we assign to private contractors must be in accordance 
with the law on the books. Therefore, I interpret this motion simply to 
mean that nothing in my bill will have any effect on contractors 
working on lawful, permissible, appropriate intelligence activities.
  I raise this concern because, as my colleagues well know, Congress--
including members on both sides of the aisle--and this Administration 
have been at significant odds about the activities appropriate for our 
military and intelligence community to perform in certain contexts 
relating to the war in Iraq and the broader war against terrorism, 
especially with regard to the treatment of suspects in interrogations 
and detentions. There is rampant evidence that this Administration 
believes certain activities to be ``permissible'' which are clearly 
illegal under several statutes in United States Code.
  Just today, for example, the New York Times reported that the 
Department of Justice has issued secret memorandums that, in direct 
contrast to the policies they have publicly avowed, amounted to ``an 
expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever 
used by the Central Intelligence Agency'' and ``for the first time 
provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a 
combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including 
head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.'' I submit 
the full article for inclusion in the Record.
  The harshest forms of physical and psychological tactics outlined in 
this article are inappropriate and illegal for our military personnel 
and intelligence agents, to say nothing of private contractors, and it 
is abominable that this Administration continues to work to circumvent 
our time-honored values and laws to authorize behavior that is un-
American to its core.
  There are clear laws on the books prohibiting torture, including the 
War Crimes Act (18 U.S. Code 2441) and the federal anti-torture statute 
(18 U.S. Code 2340). Moreover, torture is prohibited by the Uniform 
Code of Military Justice (articles 77-134). And the United States is a 
ratified signatory to international treaties, including the Geneva 
Conventions (Common Article 3) and the Convention Against Torture, 
which specifically outlaw torture. Most importantly, the United States 
Constitution (amendments 5, 8, and 14) explicitly prohibits cruel, 
unusual, and inhumane treatment or punishment.
  The kinds of activities that, to the great shame of our nation, have 
been carried out at Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay detention 
facilities are not, in any circumstances, permissible. Let us be clear 
that, in the passage of this motion, we are in no way authorizing or 
legitimating these behaviors. Let us also be clear that, in this 
passage of this legislation, we are providing federal prosecutors the 
tools to arrest and prosecute any contractor working for this 
government who commits such abominable acts to the full extent of the 
law.

                [From the New York Times, Oct. 4, 2007]

            Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations

            (By Scott Shane, David Johnston and James Risen)

       Washington, Oct. 3.--When the Justice Department publicly 
     declared torture ``abhorrent'' in a legal opinion in December 
     2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its 
     assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order 
     brutal interrogations.
       But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales's arrival as attorney 
     general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued 
     another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different 
     document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive 
     endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever 
     used by the Central Intelligence Agency.
       The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time 
     provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects 
     with a combination of painful physical and psychological 
     tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and 
     frigid temperatures.
       Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on ``combined 
     effects'' over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy 
     attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising 
     clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed 
     as the opinion's overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told 
     colleagues at the department that they would all be 
     ``ashamed'' when the world eventually learned of it.
       Later that year, as Congress moved toward outlawing 
     ``cruel, inhuman and degrading'' treatment, the Justice 
     Department issued another secret opinion, one most lawmakers 
     did not know existed, current and former officials said. The 
     Justice Department document declared that none of the C.I.A. 
     interrogation methods violated that standard.
       The classified opinions, never previously disclosed, are a 
     hidden legacy of President Bush's second term and Mr. 
     Gonzales's tenure at the Justice Department, where he moved 
     quickly to align it with the White House after a 2004 
     rebellion by staff lawyers that had thrown policies on 
     surveillance and detention into turmoil.
       Congress and the Supreme Court have intervened repeatedly 
     in the last two years to impose limits on interrogations, and 
     the administration has responded as a policy matter by 
     dropping the most extreme techniques. But the 2005 Justice 
     Department opinions remain in effect, and their legal

[[Page 26635]]

     conclusions have been confirmed by several more recent 
     memorandums, officials said. They show how the White House 
     has succeeded in preserving the broadest possible legal 
     latitude for harsh tactics.
       A White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, said Wednesday that 
     he would not comment on any legal opinion related to 
     interrogations. Mr. Fratto added, ``We have gone to great 
     lengths, including statutory efforts and the recent executive 
     order, to make it clear that the intelligence community and 
     our practices fall within U.S. law'' and international 
     agreements.
       More than two dozen current and former officials involved 
     in counterterrorism were interviewed over the past three 
     months about the opinions and the deliberations on 
     interrogation policy. Most officials would speak only on the 
     condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the 
     documents and the C.I.A. detention operations they govern.
       When he stepped down as attorney general in September after 
     widespread criticism of the firing of federal prosecutors and 
     withering attacks on his credibility, Mr. Gonzales talked 
     proudly in a farewell speech of how his department was ``a 
     place of inspiration'' that had balanced the necessary 
     flexibility to conduct the war on terrorism with the need to 
     uphold the law.
       Associates at the Justice Department said Mr. Gonzales 
     seldom resisted pressure from Vice President Dick Cheney and 
     David S. Addington, Mr. Cheney's counsel, to endorse policies 
     that they saw as effective in safeguarding Americans, even 
     though the practices brought the condemnation of other 
     governments, human rights groups and Democrats in Congress. 
     Critics say Mr. Gonzales turned his agency into an arm of the 
     Bush White House, undermining the department's independence.
       The interrogation opinions were signed by Steven G. 
     Bradbury, who since 2005 has headed the elite Office of Legal 
     Counsel at the Justice Department. He has become a frequent 
     public defender of the National Security Agency's domestic 
     surveillance program and detention policies at Congressional 
     hearings and press briefings, a role that some legal scholars 
     say is at odds with the office's tradition of avoiding 
     political advocacy.
       Mr. Bradbury defended the work of his office as the 
     government's most authoritative interpreter of the law. ``In 
     my experience, the White House has not told me how an opinion 
     should come out,'' he said in an interview. ``The White House 
     has accepted and respected our opinions, even when they 
     didn't like the advice being given.''
       The debate over how terrorism suspects should be held and 
     questioned began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, 
     when the Bush administration adopted secret detention and 
     coercive interrogation, both practices the United States had 
     previously denounced when used by other countries. It adopted 
     the new measures without public debate or Congressional vote, 
     choosing to rely instead on the confidential legal advice of 
     a handful of appointees.
       The policies set off bruising internal battles, pitting 
     administration moderates against hard-liners, military 
     lawyers against Pentagon chiefs and, most surprising, a 
     handful of conservative lawyers at the Justice Department 
     against the White House in the stunning mutiny of 2004. But 
     under Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Bradbury, the Justice Department 
     was wrenched back into line with the White House.
       After the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the Geneva 
     Conventions applied to prisoners who belonged to Al Qaeda, 
     President Bush for the first time acknowledged the C.I.A.'s 
     secret jails and ordered their inmates moved to Guantanamo 
     Bay, Cuba. The C.I.A. halted its use of waterboarding, or 
     pouring water over a bound prisoner's cloth-covered face to 
     induce fear of suffocation.
       But in July, after a monthlong debate inside the 
     administration, President Bush signed a new executive order 
     authorizing the use of what the administration calls 
     ``enhanced'' interrogation techniques--the details remain 
     secret--and officials say the C.I.A. again is holding 
     prisoners in ``black sites'' overseas. The executive order 
     was reviewed and approved by Mr. Bradbury and the Office of 
     Legal Counsel.
       Douglas W. Kmiec, who headed that office under President 
     Ronald Reagan and the first President George Bush and wrote a 
     book about it, said he believed the intense pressures of the 
     campaign against terrorism have warped the office's proper 
     role.
       ``The office was designed to insulate against any need to 
     be an advocate,'' said Mr. Kmiec, now a conservative scholar 
     at Pepperdine University law school. But at times in recent 
     years, Mr. Kmiec said, the office, headed by William H. 
     Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia before they served on the 
     Supreme Court, ``lost its ability to say no.'' ``The approach 
     changed dramatically with opinions on the war on terror,'' 
     Mr. Kmiec said. ``The office became an advocate for the 
     president's policies.''
       From the secret sites in Afghanistan, Thailand and Eastern 
     Europe where C.I.A. teams held Qaeda terrorists, questions 
     for the lawyers at C.I.A. headquarters arrived daily. Nervous 
     interrogators wanted to know: Are we breaking the laws 
     against torture? The Bush administration had entered 
     uncharted legal territory beginning in 2002, holding 
     prisoners outside the scrutiny of the International Red Cross 
     and subjecting them to harrowing pressure tactics. They 
     included slaps to the head; hours held naked in a frigid 
     cell; days and nights without sleep while battered by 
     thundering rock music; long periods manacled in stress 
     positions; or the ultimate, waterboarding.
       Never in history had the United States authorized such 
     tactics. While President Bush and C.I.A. officials would 
     later insist that the harsh measures produced crucial 
     intelligence, many veteran interrogators, psychologists and 
     other experts say that less coercive methods are equally or 
     more effective.
       With virtually no experience in interrogations, the C.I.A. 
     had constructed its program in a few harried months by 
     consulting Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials and 
     copying Soviet interrogation methods long used in training 
     American service men to withstand capture. The agency 
     officers questioning prisoners constantly sought advice from 
     lawyers thousands of miles away.
       ``We were getting asked about combinations--`Can we do this 
     and this at the same time?' '' recalled Paul C. Kelbaugh, a 
     veteran intelligence lawyer who was deputy legal counsel at 
     the C.I.A.'s Counterterrorist Center from 2001 to 2003.
       Interrogators were worried that even approved techniques 
     had such a painful, multiplying effect when combined that 
     they might cross the legal line, Mr. Kelbaugh said. He 
     recalled agency officers asking: ``These approved techniques, 
     say, withholding food, and 50-degree temperature--can they be 
     combined?'' Or ``Do I have to do the less extreme before the 
     more extreme?''
       The questions came more frequently, Mr. Kelbaugh said, as 
     word spread about a C.I.A. inspector general inquiry 
     unrelated to the war on terrorism. Some veteran C.I.A. 
     officers came under scrutiny because they were advisers to 
     Peruvian officers who in early 2001 shot down a missionary 
     flight they had mistaken for a drug-running aircraft. The 
     Americans were not charged with crimes, but they endured 
     three years of investigation, saw their careers derailed and 
     ran up big legal bills.
       That experience shook the Qaeda interrogation team, Mr. 
     Kelbaugh said. ``You think you're making a difference and 
     maybe saving 3,000 American lives from the next attack. And 
     someone tells you, `Well, that guidance was a little vague, 
     and the inspector general wants to talk to you,' '' he 
     recalled. ``We couldn't tell them, `Do the best you can,' 
     because the people who did the best they could in Peru were 
     looking at a grand jury.'' Mr. Kelbaugh said the questions 
     were sometimes close calls that required consultation with 
     the Justice Department. But in August 2002, the department 
     provided a sweeping legal justification for even the harshest 
     tactics.
       That opinion, which would become infamous as ``the torture 
     memo'' after it was leaked, was written largely by John Yoo, 
     a young Berkeley law professor serving in the Office of Legal 
     Counsel. His broad views of presidential power were shared by 
     Mr. Addington, the vice president's adviser. Their close 
     alliance provoked John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, 
     to refer privately to Mr. Yoo as Dr. Yes for his seeming 
     eagerness to give the White House whatever legal 
     justifications it desired, a Justice Department official 
     recalled.
       Mr. Yoo's memorandum said no interrogation practices were 
     illegal unless they produced pain equivalent to organ failure 
     or ``even death.'' A second memo produced at the same time 
     spelled out the approved practices and how often or how long 
     they could be used. Despite that guidance, in March 2003, 
     when the C.I.A. caught Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the chief 
     planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, interrogators were again 
     haunted by uncertainty. Former intelligence officials, for 
     the first time, disclosed that a variety of tough 
     interrogation tactics were used about 100 times over two 
     weeks on Mr. Mohammed. Agency officials then ordered a halt, 
     fearing the combined assault might have amounted to illegal 
     torture. A C.I.A. spokesman, George Little, declined to 
     discuss the handling of Mr. Mohammed. Mr. Little said the 
     program ``has been conducted lawfully, with great care and 
     close review'' and ``has helped our country disrupt terrorist 
     plots and save innocent lives.''
       ``The agency has always sought a clear legal framework, 
     conducting the program in strict accord with U.S. law, and 
     protecting the officers who go face-to-face with ruthless 
     terrorists,'' Mr. Little added.
       Some intelligence officers say that many of Mr. Mohammed's 
     statements proved exaggerated or false. One problem, a former 
     senior agency official said, was that the C.I.A.'s initial 
     interrogators were not experts on Mr. Mohammed's background 
     or Al Qaeda, and it took about a month to get such an expert 
     to the secret prison. The former official said many C.I.A. 
     professionals now believe patient, repeated questioning by 
     well-informed experts is more effective than harsh physical 
     pressure.
       Other intelligence officers, including Mr. Kelbaugh, insist 
     that the harsh treatment produced invaluable insights into Al 
     Qaeda's structure and plans. ``We leaned in pretty hard on 
     K.S.M.,'' Mr. Kelbaugh said, referring to Mr. Mohammed. ``We 
     were getting

[[Page 26636]]

     good information, and then they were told: ``Slow it down. It 
     may not be correct. Wait for some legal clarification.''
       The doubts at the C.I.A. proved prophetic. In late 2003, 
     after Mr. Yoo left the Justice Department, the new head of 
     the Office of Legal Counsel, Jack Goldsmith, began reviewing 
     his work, which he found deeply flawed. Mr. Goldsmith 
     infuriated White House officials, first by rejecting part of 
     the National Security Agency's surveillance program, 
     prompting the threat of mass resignations by top Justice 
     Department officials, including Mr. Ashcroft and Mr. Comey, 
     and a showdown at the attorney general's hospital bedside.
       Then, in June 2004, Mr. Goldsmith formally withdrew the 
     August 2002 Yoo memorandum on interrogation, which he found 
     overreaching and poorly reasoned. Mr. Goldsmith left the 
     Justice Department soon afterward. He first spoke at length 
     about his dissenting views to The New York Times last month, 
     and testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on 
     Tuesday.
       Six months later, the Justice Department quietly posted on 
     its Web site a new legal opinion that appeared to end any 
     flirtation with torture, starting with its clarionlike 
     opening: ``Torture is abhorrent both to American law and 
     values and to international norms.''
       A single footnote--added to reassure the C.I.A.--suggested 
     that the Justice Department was not declaring the agency's 
     previous actions illegal. But the opinion was unmistakably a 
     retreat. Some White House officials had opposed publicizing 
     the document, but acquiesced to Justice Department officials 
     who argued that doing so would help clear the way for Mr. 
     Gonzales's confirmation as attorney general.
       If President Bush wanted to make sure the Justice 
     Department did not rebel again, Mr. Gonzales was the ideal 
     choice. As White House counsel, he had been a fierce 
     protector of the president's prerogatives. Deeply loyal to 
     Mr. Bush for championing his career from their days in Texas, 
     Mr. Gonzales would sometimes tell colleagues that he had just 
     one regret about becoming attorney general: He did not see 
     nearly as much of the president as he had in his previous 
     post.
       Among his first tasks at the Justice Department was to find 
     a trusted chief for the Office of Legal Counsel. First he 
     informed Daniel Levin, the acting head who had backed Mr. 
     Goldsmith's dissents and signed the new opinion renouncing 
     torture, that he would not get the job. He encouraged Mr. 
     Levin to take a position at the National Security Council, in 
     effect sidelining him.
       Mr. Bradbury soon emerged as the presumed favorite. But 
     White House officials, still smarting from Mr. Goldsmith's 
     rebuffs, chose to delay his nomination. Harriet E. Miers, the 
     new White House counsel, ``decided to watch Bradbury for a 
     month or two. He was sort of on trial,'' one Justice 
     Department official recalled.
       Mr. Bradbury's biography had a Horatio Alger element that 
     appealed to a succession of bosses, including Justice 
     Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court and Mr. Gonzales, the 
     son of poor immigrants. Mr. Bradbury's father had died when 
     he was an infant, and his mother took in laundry to support 
     her children. The first in his family to go to college, he 
     attended Stanford and the University of Michigan Law School. 
     He joined the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, where he came 
     under the tutelage of Kenneth W. Starr, the Whitewater 
     independent prosecutor.
       Mr. Bradbury belonged to the same circle as his 
     predecessors: young, conservative lawyers with sterling 
     credentials, often with clerkships for prominent conservative 
     judges and ties to the Federalist Society, a powerhouse of 
     the legal right. Mr. Yoo, in fact, had proposed his old 
     friend Mr. Goldsmith for the Office of Legal Counsel job; Mr. 
     Goldsmith had hired Mr. Bradbury as his top deputy.
       ``We all grew up together,'' said Viet D. Dinh, an 
     assistant attorney general from 2001 to 2003 and very much a 
     member of the club. ``You start with a small universe of 
     Supreme Court clerks, and you narrow it down from there.''
       But what might have been subtle differences in quieter 
     times now cleaved them into warring camps.
       Justice Department colleagues say Mr. Gonzales was soon 
     meeting frequently with Mr. Bradbury on national security 
     issues, a White House priority. Admirers describe Mr. 
     Bradbury as low-key but highly skilled, a conciliator who 
     brought from 10 years of corporate practice a more pragmatic 
     approach to the job than Mr. Yoo and Mr. Goldsmith, both from 
     the academic world.
       ``As a practicing lawyer, you know how to address real 
     problems,'' said Noel J. Francisco, who worked at the Justice 
     Department from 2003 to 2005. ``At O.L.C., you're not writing 
     law review articles and you're not theorizing. You're giving 
     a client practical advice on a real problem.''
       As he had at the White House, Mr. Gonzales usually said 
     little in meetings with other officials, often deferring to 
     the hard-driving Mr. Addington. Mr. Bradbury also often 
     appeared in accord with the vice president's lawyer.
       Mr. Bradbury appeared to be ``fundamentally sympathetic to 
     what the White House and the C.I.A. wanted to do,'' recalled 
     Philip Zelikow, a former top State Department official. At 
     interagency meetings on detention and interrogation, Mr. 
     Addington was at times ``vituperative,'' said Mr. Zelikow, 
     but Mr. Bradbury, while taking similar positions, was 
     ``professional and collegial.''
       While waiting to learn whether he would be nominated to 
     head the Office of Legal Counsel, Mr. Bradbury was in an 
     awkward position, knowing that a decision contrary to White 
     House wishes could kill his chances.
       Charles J. Cooper, who headed the Office of Legal Counsel 
     under President Reagan, said he was ``very troubled'' at the 
     notion of a probationary period.
       ``If the purpose of the delay was a tryout, I think they 
     should have avoided it,'' Mr. Cooper said. ``You're implying 
     that the acting official is molding his or her legal analysis 
     to win the job.''
       Mr. Bradbury said he made no such concessions. ``No one 
     ever suggested to me that my nomination depended on how I 
     ruled on any opinion,'' he said. ``Every opinion I've signed 
     at the Office of Legal Counsel represents my best judgment of 
     what the law requires.''
       Scott Horton, an attorney affiliated with Human Rights 
     First who has closely followed the interrogation debate, said 
     any official offering legal advice on the campaign against 
     terror was on treacherous ground.
       ``For government lawyers, the national security issues they 
     were deciding were like working with nuclear waste--extremely 
     hazardous to their health,'' Mr. Horton said. ``If you give 
     the administration what it wants, you'll lose credibility in 
     the academic community,'' he said. ``But if you hold back, 
     you'll be vilified by conservatives and the administration.''
       In any case, the White House grew comfortable with Mr. 
     Bradbury's approach. He helped block the appointment of a 
     liberal Ivy League law professor to a career post in the 
     Office of Legal Counsel. And he signed the opinion approving 
     combined interrogation techniques.
       Mr. Comey strongly objected and told associates that he 
     advised Mr. Gonzales not to endorse the opinion. But the 
     attorney general made clear that the White House was adamant 
     about it, and that he would do nothing to resist.
       Under Mr. Ashcroft, Mr. Comey's opposition might have 
     killed the opinion. An imposing former prosecutor and self-
     described conservative who stands 6-foot-8, he was the rare 
     administration official who was willing to confront Mr. 
     Addington. At one testy 2004 White House meeting, when Mr. 
     Comey stated that ``no lawyer'' would endorse Mr. Yoo's 
     justification for the N.S.A. program, Mr. Addington demurred, 
     saying he was a lawyer and found it convincing. Mr. Comey 
     shot back: ``No good lawyer,'' according to someone present.
       But under Mr. Gonzales, and after the departure of Mr. 
     Goldsmith and other allies, the deputy attorney general found 
     himself isolated. His troublemaking on N.S.A. and on 
     interrogation, and in appointing his friend Patrick J. 
     Fitzgerald as special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case, 
     which would lead to the perjury conviction of I. Lewis Libby, 
     Mr. Cheney's chief of staff, had irreparably offended the 
     White House.
       ``On national security matters generally, there was a sense 
     that Comey was a wimp and that Comey was disloyal,'' said one 
     Justice Department official who heard the White House talk, 
     expressed with particular force by Mr. Addington.
       Mr. Comey provided some hints of his thinking about 
     interrogation and related issues in a speech that spring. 
     Speaking at the N.S.A.'s Fort Meade campus on Law Day--a 
     noteworthy setting for the man who had helped lead the 
     dissent a year earlier that forced some changes in the N.S.A. 
     program--Mr. Comey spoke of the ``agonizing collisions'' of 
     the law and the desire to protect Americans.
       ``We are likely to hear the words: `If we don't do this, 
     people will die,' '' Mr. Comey said. But he argued that 
     government lawyers must uphold the principles of their great 
     institutions.
       ``It takes far more than a sharp legal mind to say `no' 
     when it matters most,'' he said. ``It takes moral character. 
     It takes an understanding that in the long run, intelligence 
     under law is the only sustainable intelligence in this 
     country.''
       Mr. Gonzales's aides were happy to see Mr. Comey depart in 
     the summer of 2005. That June, President Bush nominated Mr. 
     Bradbury to head the Office of Legal Counsel, which some 
     colleagues viewed as a sign that he had passed a loyalty 
     test. Soon Mr. Bradbury applied his practical approach to a 
     new challenge to the C.I.A.'s methods.
       The administration had always asserted that the C.I.A.'s 
     pressure tactics did not amount to torture, which is banned 
     by federal law and international treaty. But officials had 
     privately decided the agency did not have to comply with 
     another provision in the Convention Against Torture--the 
     prohibition on ``cruel, inhuman, or degrading'' treatment.
       Now that loophole was about to be closed. First Senator 
     Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and then Senator 
     John McCain, the Arizona Republican who had been tortured as 
     a prisoner in North Vietnam, proposed legislation to ban such 
     treatment. At the administration's request, Mr. Bradbury

[[Page 26637]]

     assessed whether the proposed legislation would outlaw any 
     C.I.A. methods, a legal question that had never before been 
     answered by the Justice Department.
       At least a few administration officials argued that no 
     reasonable interpretation of ``cruel, inhuman or degrading'' 
     would permit the most extreme C.I.A. methods, like 
     waterboarding. Mr. Bradbury was placed in a tough spot, said 
     Mr. Zelikow, the State Department counselor, who was working 
     at the time to rein in interrogation policy. ``If Justice 
     says some practices are in violation of the C.I.D. 
     standard,'' Mr. Zelikow said, referring to cruel, inhuman or 
     degrading, ``then they are now saying that officials broke 
     current law.''
       In the end, Mr. Bradbury's opinion delivered what the White 
     House wanted: a statement that the standard imposed by Mr. 
     McCain's Detainee Treatment Act would not force any change in 
     the C.I.A.'s practices, according to officials familiar with 
     the memo. Relying on a Supreme Court finding that only 
     conduct that ``shocks the conscience'' was unconstitutional, 
     the opinion found that in some circumstances not even 
     waterboarding was necessarily cruel, inhuman or degrading, 
     if, for example, a suspect was believed to possess crucial 
     intelligence about a planned terrorist attack, the officials 
     familiar with the legal finding said.
       In a frequent practice, Mr. Bush attached a statement to 
     the new law when he signed it, declaring his authority to set 
     aside the restrictions if they interfered with his 
     constitutional powers. At the same time, though, the 
     administration responded to pressure from Mr. McCain and 
     other lawmakers by reviewing interrogation policy and giving 
     up several C.I.A. techniques.
       Since late 2005, Mr. Bradbury has become a linchpin of the 
     administration's defense of counterterrorism programs, 
     helping to negotiate the Military Commissions Act last year 
     and frequently testifying about the N.S.A. surveillance 
     program. Once, he answered questions about administration 
     detention policies for an ``Ask the White House'' feature on 
     a Web site.
       Mr. Kmiec, the former Office of Legal Counsel head now at 
     Pepperdine, called Mr. Bradbury's public activities a 
     departure for an office that traditionally has shunned any 
     advocacy role.
       A senior administration official called Mr. Bradbury's 
     active role in shaping legislation and speaking to Congress 
     and the press ``entirely appropriate'' and consistent with 
     past practice. The official, who spoke on the condition of 
     anonymity, said Mr. Bradbury ``has played a critical role in 
     achieving greater transparency'' on the legal basis for 
     detention and surveillance programs.
       Though President Bush repeatedly nominated Mr. Bradbury as 
     the Office of Legal Counsel's assistant attorney general, 
     Democratic senators have blocked the nomination. Senator 
     Durbin said the Justice Department would not turn over copies 
     of his opinions or other evidence of Mr. Bradbury's role in 
     interrogation policy.
       ``There are fundamental questions about whether Mr. 
     Bradbury approved interrogation methods that are clearly 
     unacceptable,'' Mr. Durbin said.
       John D. Hutson, who served as the Navy's top lawyer from 
     1997 to 2000, said he believed that the existence of legal 
     opinions justifying abusive treatment is pernicious, 
     potentially blurring the rules for Americans handling 
     prisoners.
       ``I know from the military that if you tell someone they 
     can do a little of this for the country's good, some people 
     will do a lot of it for the country's better,'' Mr. Hutson 
     said. Like other military lawyers, he also fears that 
     official American acceptance of such treatment could endanger 
     Americans in the future.
       ``The problem is, once you've got a legal opinion that says 
     such a technique is O.K., what happens when one of our people 
     is captured and they do it to him? How do we protest then?'' 
     he asked.

  Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, I have followed with interest news reports 
from Iraq documenting some of the terrible atrocities that have been 
committed at the hands of military contractors hired by the United 
States. I have been keenly interested in the recent congressional 
hearings that have been held on this matter. Based on what I have 
learned, I am pleased today that the House of Representatives is 
considering this bill, which would ensure that those who do business 
with the United States Government in Iraq can be held accountable when 
they commit criminal acts. Unfortunately, I cannot be present for the 
vote today, but I wanted to ensure I submitted this statement of 
support so the record will reflect that I am strongly in favor of the 
goals of this important bill.
  This bill is a fair and sensible way to ensure that military 
contractors can be prosecuted for their criminal actions in a U.S. 
court. This is important both because it gives the government a way to 
police the behavior of these contractors, and also because it shows the 
Iraqi people that the United States is serious about the rule of law. 
While I am glad Congress is taking this action now, I remain concerned 
about the Bush Administration's failure to take steps to investigate or 
prosecute those who committed wrongdoing in the past. I believe 
Congress should continue to investigate these incidents and ensure that 
those responsible are held accountable.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Virginia has offered a 
motion to recommit H.R. 2740, the MEJA Expansion and Enforcement Act, 
to the Judiciary Committee and to modify the legislation with regard to 
intelligence activities. I will support this motion to recommit, but 
wish to clearly state my understanding of the motion.
  The motion to recommit would amend H.R. 2740 with a rule of 
construction, stating, ``nothing in this Act shall be construed to 
affect intelligence activities that are otherwise permissible prior to 
the enactment of this Act.'' This amendment does not change the force 
of the legislation, does not limit the scope of the MEJA jurisdiction, 
and does not grant immunity to anyone, including contractor employees 
of the intelligence community. I am voting in support of this motion 
because it simply restates existing law.
  Mr. Price's legislation would place contractor employees of non-
defense related agencies under the extraterritorial jurisdiction of 
United States federal law, granting the Department of Justice authority 
to prosecute felony offenses committed by non-defense contractors. The 
motion to recommit restates what the underlying bill requires--that 
intelligence activities are subject to the requirements of MEJA. 
Nothing in this motion to recommit or the legislation should ever be 
construed to authorize, condone or legitimize the abuse of prisoners 
during detention or interrogations. It is with this understanding alone 
that I support this motion to recommit.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. 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 ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. FORBES. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 and clause 9 of rule 
XX, this 15-minute vote on the motion to recommit will be followed by 
5-minutes votes on passage of H.R. 2740, if ordered; ordering the 
previous question on H. Res. 704; adoption of H. Res. 704, if ordered; 
ordering the previous question on H. Res. 703; and adoption of H. Res. 
703, if ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 342, 
nays 75, not voting 15, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 939]

                               YEAS--342

     Ackerman
     Aderholt
     Akin
     Alexander
     Allen
     Altmire
     Arcuri
     Baca
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Baird
     Baker
     Barrow
     Barton (TX)
     Bean
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Blumenauer
     Blunt
     Boehner
     Bonner
     Bono
     Boozman
     Boren
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boustany
     Boyd (FL)
     Boyda (KS)
     Brady (PA)
     Brady (TX)
     Broun (GA)
     Brown (SC)
     Brown, Corrine
     Brown-Waite, Ginny
     Buchanan
     Burgess
     Burton (IN)
     Butterfield
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Camp (MI)
     Campbell (CA)
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Capito
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardoza
     Carnahan
     Carney
     Carter
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chandler
     Coble
     Cole (OK)
     Conaway
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costa
     Costello
     Courtney
     Cramer
     Crenshaw
     Cuellar
     Culberson
     Cummings
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (KY)
     Davis, David
     Davis, Lincoln
     Davis, Tom
     Deal (GA)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     DeLauro
     Dent
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Dicks
     Donnelly
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Drake
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Ellsworth
     Emanuel
     Emerson
     Engel
     English (PA)
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Everett
     Fallin
     Fattah
     Feeney
     Ferguson
     Flake
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Fossella
     Foxx
     Frank (MA)
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Garrett (NJ)
     Giffords
     Gilchrest
     Gillibrand
     Gingrey
     Gohmert
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Gordon
     Granger
     Graves
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Hall (TX)
     Hare
     Harman
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Heller
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Herseth Sandlin
     Higgins
     Hill
     Hinojosa
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Hooley
     Hoyer
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Inglis (SC)
     Israel
     Issa
     Jefferson
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Jordan
     Kagen

[[Page 26638]]


     Kaptur
     Keller
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kind
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Klein (FL)
     Kline (MN)
     Knollenberg
     Kuhl (NY)
     LaHood
     Lamborn
     Lampson
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Levin
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Loebsack
     Lofgren, Zoe
     Lowey
     Lucas
     Lungren, Daniel E.
     Lynch
     Mack
     Mahoney (FL)
     Maloney (NY)
     Manzullo
     Marchant
     Marshall
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCaul (TX)
     McCotter
     McCrery
     McHenry
     McHugh
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McMorris Rodgers
     McNerney
     McNulty
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Melancon
     Mica
     Michaud
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, Gary
     Mitchell
     Moore (KS)
     Moran (KS)
     Murphy (CT)
     Murphy, Patrick
     Murphy, Tim
     Musgrave
     Myrick
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal (MA)
     Neugebauer
     Nunes
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Ortiz
     Paul
     Pearce
     Pence
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pitts
     Platts
     Poe
     Pomeroy
     Porter
     Price (GA)
     Price (NC)
     Putnam
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Reichert
     Reyes
     Reynolds
     Richardson
     Rodriguez
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Ross
     Royce
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Ryan (WI)
     Salazar
     Sali
     Sarbanes
     Saxton
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schmidt
     Schwartz
     Scott (GA)
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Sestak
     Shadegg
     Shays
     Shea-Porter
     Sherman
     Shimkus
     Shuler
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Skelton
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Souder
     Space
     Spratt
     Stearns
     Stupak
     Sullivan
     Tancredo
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor
     Terry
     Thompson (CA)
     Thornberry
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Turner
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Upton
     Van Hollen
     Walberg
     Walden (OR)
     Walsh (NY)
     Walz (MN)
     Wamp
     Wasserman Schultz
     Weiner
     Welch (VT)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weller
     Westmoreland
     Wexler
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (OH)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Wu
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                                NAYS--75

     Abercrombie
     Andrews
     Baldwin
     Becerra
     Braley (IA)
     Castor
     Clarke
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Cohen
     Crowley
     Davis (IL)
     Doggett
     Ellison
     Farr
     Filner
     Gonzalez
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hall (NY)
     Hastings (FL)
     Hinchey
     Hirono
     Hodes
     Holt
     Honda
     Inslee
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kilpatrick
     Kucinich
     Lewis (GA)
     Markey
     McCollum (MN)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     Miller, George
     Mollohan
     Moore (WI)
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Olver
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Scott (VA)
     Serrano
     Sires
     Slaughter
     Solis
     Stark
     Sutton
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Towns
     Velazquez
     Waters
     Watson
     Watt
     Waxman
     Woolsey
     Wynn
     Yarmuth

                             NOT VOTING--15

     Barrett (SC)
     Bartlett (MD)
     Carson
     Cubin
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Delahunt
     Dingell
     Gerlach
     Jindal
     Lee
     Perlmutter
     Pickering
     Pryce (OH)
     Renzi
     Visclosky

                              {time}  1141

  Mr. McGOVERN, Mr. ROTHMAN, Ms. VELAZQUEZ, Mr. HONDA, Mr. FARR, Ms. 
LORETTA SANCHEZ of California, Mr. BECERRA, Mr. WAXMAN, Ms. MOORE of 
Wisconsin, Mr. MOLLOHAN, Mr. GRIJALVA, Ms. LINDA T. SANCHEZ of 
California, Mr. HODES, Ms. WATERS, Mr. OLVER and Mr. TIERNEY changed 
their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Messrs. LaHOOD, CAPUANO, WILSON of Ohio, HARE, BRADY of Pennsylvania, 
ISRAEL, EMANUEL, FATTAH, AL GREEN of Texas, BOEHNER, MEEKS of New York, 
LARSON of Connecticut, Ms. MATSUI, Mr. THOMPSON of California, Mrs. 
CAPPS and Mr. NADLER changed their vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So the motion to recommit was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the instructions of the House 
in the motion to recommit, I report the bill, H.R. 2740, back to the 
House with an amendment.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment:
       At the end of the text of the bill, insert the following:

     SEC. 6. RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.

       Nothing in this Act shall be construed to affect 
     intelligence activities that are otherwise permissible prior 
     to the enactment of this Act.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the amendment.
  The amendment was agreed to.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the engrossment and third 
reading of the bill.
  The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was 
read the third time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the passage of the bill.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. This will be a 5-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 389, 
noes 30, not voting 13, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 940]

                               AYES--389

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Aderholt
     Akin
     Allen
     Altmire
     Andrews
     Arcuri
     Baca
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Baird
     Baldwin
     Barrow
     Bartlett (MD)
     Bean
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Blumenauer
     Blunt
     Boehner
     Bonner
     Bono
     Boozman
     Boren
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd (FL)
     Boyda (KS)
     Brady (PA)
     Brady (TX)
     Braley (IA)
     Brown (SC)
     Brown, Corrine
     Brown-Waite, Ginny
     Buchanan
     Burton (IN)
     Butterfield
     Calvert
     Camp (MI)
     Campbell (CA)
     Cantor
     Capito
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardoza
     Carnahan
     Carney
     Carter
     Castle
     Castor
     Chabot
     Chandler
     Clarke
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Coble
     Cohen
     Cole (OK)
     Conaway
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costa
     Costello
     Courtney
     Cramer
     Crenshaw
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Culberson
     Cummings
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (IL)
     Davis (KY)
     Davis, David
     Davis, Lincoln
     Davis, Tom
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     DeLauro
     Dent
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Dicks
     Doggett
     Donnelly
     Doyle
     Drake
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Ellison
     Ellsworth
     Emanuel
     Emerson
     Engel
     English (PA)
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Everett
     Fallin
     Farr
     Fattah
     Feeney
     Ferguson
     Filner
     Flake
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Fossella
     Foxx
     Frank (MA)
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[[Page 26639]]


     Sali
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
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     Schmidt
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     Scott (GA)
     Scott (VA)
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     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
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     Terry
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     Wicker
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     Wilson (OH)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
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     Wu
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     Yarmuth
     Young (FL)

                                NOES--30

     Alexander
     Baker
     Barton (TX)
     Boustany
     Broun (GA)
     Burgess
     Buyer
     Cannon
     Deal (GA)
     Doolittle
     Franks (AZ)
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     Miller, Gary
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     Price (GA)
     Renzi
     Rogers (AL)
     Rohrabacher
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Tancredo
     Westmoreland
     Young (AK)

                             NOT VOTING--13

     Barrett (SC)
     Carson
     Cubin
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Delahunt
     Dingell
     Gerlach
     Jindal
     Lee
     Perlmutter
     Pickering
     Pryce (OH)
     Visclosky


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

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

                              {time}  1150

  So the bill was passed.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________