[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 2085]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




ON FISA, PRESIDENT AND REPUBLICANS PLAY POLITICS WITH NATIONAL SECURITY

  (Mr. PALLONE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, President Bush and congressional 
Republicans are playing politics with our national security.
  After slowing down the process of withholding key documents in the 
Senate, President Bush and congressional Republicans are demanding the 
House take immediate action on a Senate FISA bill that just passed the 
Senate yesterday.
  The Protect America Act is a law that was pushed by the President, 
and yet today he says that he will oppose any attempts by Congress to 
extend that law for 3 additional weeks.
  The House has passed its own bill, the RESTORE Act, that will 
modernize FISA by giving the intelligence community the tools it needs 
to track terrorists while protecting the constitutional rights of 
innocent Americans.
  If Congress does not extend the Protect America Act, the intelligence 
community will still have all the tools it needs to continue current 
surveillance and begin new surveillance on any terrorist threat.
  Mr. Speaker, if the President was serious about our national 
security, he would stop playing politics over a very serious issue.

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