[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3196-3197]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




ON FISA, PRESIDENT AND REPUBLICANS PLAY POLITICS WITH NATIONAL SECURITY

  (Mr. BRALEY of Iowa asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BRALEY of Iowa. Madam Speaker, while President Bush and 
congressional Republicans sit on the sideline demanding that this House 
rubber-stamp the Senate-passed FISA bill, House and Senate Democrats 
are doing exactly what's expected of us, working to iron out 
differences between different FISA bills passed earlier in the two 
Chambers.
  Last November, the House passed the RESTORE Act that modernizes the 
FISA law by giving the intelligence community the tools it needs to 
track terrorists while protecting the constitutional rights of innocent 
Americans.
  The Bush administration objects to our legislation because we oppose 
giving blanket immunity to telecommunications companies who turned over 
information about their customers. Today, our committees continue to 
review telecom documents so that we can ensure the companies' actions 
are thoroughly reviewed and they are held appropriately accountable.
  Madam Speaker, despite the fear-mongering from the President, his own 
administration says the intelligence community still has access to all 
the information it did last month. We have time to get this critical 
legislation right, and that's exactly what we plan to do.

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