[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Page 3503]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  FISA

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, nearly an entire year has passed since 
the nonpartisan Director of National Intelligence, ADM Mike McConnell, 
warned Congress that America's electronic surveillance law was 
dangerously out of date and in critical need of repair. The old law was 
causing us to miss substantial amounts of intelligence on terrorist 
suspects overseas, and it needed to be fixed.
  Yet nearly a year later the problem has still not been resolved. For 
no good reason, the dangers posed by the old law remain. The Senate has 
done its part to correct the problem. Last month, we passed a broadly 
bipartisan bill that fixed the outdated FISA law as well as the 
temporary bill that replaced it in August.
  The only thing now standing in the way of intelligence officials 
having all the tools they need to monitor terrorists is the House 
Democratic leadership which is blocking the will of its own majority by 
refusing to vote on the Senate-passed version of the bill.
  The House leadership's actions are quite irresponsible. Worse, they 
are dangerous. When a temporary 6-month revision of the FISA bill 
expired last month, House leaders said they needed 15 days to 
deliberate over a new revision that included legal protections for 
phone companies that stepped forward after 9/11 to help in the hunt for 
terrorists.
  When those 15 days were up, House Democrats said they needed 3 more 
weeks. Then they left town for a vacation without acting, despite the 
urgent pleas of the Director of National Intelligence not to leave the 
bill undone.
  Now, 3 weeks after House Democratic leaders said they needed 3 weeks 
to work out their concerns, they are ready to go on vacation without 
acting again, this time on a 2-week spring break. The patience of the 
American people is wearing thin. It is long past time for the 
Democratic leadership in the House to do its part.
  They face a simple choice: Either take up the Senate-passed 
bipartisan bill that is guaranteed to pass their Chamber and be signed 
into law or go on another vacation, leaving the intelligence agents 
without the tools they need and America more vulnerable to terrorist 
attack.
  Some cynics in the House think there is a third option: They want to 
pass a new bill that sounds acceptable but which they know would not be 
signed into law. This is a distinction without a difference. Passing a 
bill that will not become law is no better than passing no bill at all.
  Some news reports, quoting senior Democratic aides, have suggested 
that a stalemate on the surveillance issue is helpful to both sides 
politically. This should offend anyone who takes America's security 
seriously. And it is refuted by the 68 Members of the Senate, 
Democratic and Republican, who voted last month to put the 
recommendation of the Director of National Intelligence into law.
  The Senate's solid bipartisan action followed months of hard work 
between the two parties on the bill that met three basic criteria: It 
allowed intelligence professionals to gather information from 
terrorists overseas, it protected companies that stepped forward in a 
time of urgent national need to cooperate in the hunt for terrorists, 
and it was guaranteed to be signed into law by the President.
  If the House Democratic leadership acts responsibly, it will follow 
the same three criteria by sending a good bill to the White House 
before the end of next week. The most efficient path to success is to 
take up the Senate-passed bill which a majority of House Members, we 
already know, support.
  The time for action has long since passed. Democrats have had nearly 
a year to address this problem. Again and again they have asked for 
extensions, then failed to act once the deadline ran out. They are akin 
to students who continually put off their homework then ask the teacher 
for more time, hoping the final deadline will never come.
  The acts of the House Democratic leadership make their purpose 
abundantly clear. If they had their way, an improved surveillance law 
would never pass in the only manner that is acceptable to the Director 
of National Intelligence.
  It is not too late for the House to do the right thing. They have a 
full legislative week ahead to allow a simple up-or-down vote on the 
Senate bill. Our forces fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan will not be 
leaving their units for spring break. The House should not recess for 
theirs until they have voted on the Senate's bipartisan FISA reform 
legislation; to do anything less would be grossly irresponsible.

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