[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 2172-2173]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          PROTECT AMERICA ACT

  (Ms. GRANGER asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Ms. GRANGER. Mr. Speaker, once again the Protect America Act is set 
to expire. If the bipartisan Senate FISA bill is not passed in time, 
our intelligence agency will be blinded to our enemies' plans and 
required to consult a lawyer before eavesdropping on foreign 
terrorists.
  The House should immediately pass the Senate's bipartisan bill which

[[Page 2173]]

passed the Senate by a 68-29 vote. Our intelligence community needs a 
long-term fix in our intelligence laws, not a month-to-month extension.
  More importantly, the Senate FISA bill grants liability protection to 
telecommunications companies that helped the government after September 
11. Allowing these companies to be subjected to frivolous lawsuits 
threatens their cooperation in the future. This could have a crippling 
effect on America's counterterrorism efforts.
  Yesterday, the Democrat majority chose partisan politics in the face 
of a strong bipartisan solution that directly determines the fate of 
our intelligence gathering abilities, and the House Democrat leadership 
failed. The American people have asked for solutions, not political 
grandstanding.
  We should take up the bipartisan Senate FISA bill immediately. This 
cannot wait until we return from the President's Day recess.

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