[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 3]
[House]
[Page 4417]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1445
            A CONSTITUTION THAT ALWAYS LIVES AND NEVER DIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I applaud your leadership, and 
I am delighted to have the opportunity to address the day's and the 
week's events, because many times, as we discuss these matters on the 
floor of the House, many of our constituents and Americans sometimes 
wonder the order of our words.
  This afternoon we did an important and major leap towards securing 
this Nation and providing it with the protection of civil liberties. 
Although in the course of the discussion there may have been 
accusations, the FISA bill, the amendments to the Senate bill, was the 
right approach and the right direction to take.
  You know, we had an opportunity last evening for a secret session, 
and I was on the floor questioning the validity of such, because I 
always believe what we do in America should be in the eyes of America, 
although we recognize in this time of terrorism there is a necessity 
for classified documents or top secret documents, but there is never a 
time to close the door on America's knowledge.
  I would not want this debate that many of you may have heard to be 
characterized as one of a coverup that we are doing something that does 
not provide the absolute safety and wise direction that America should 
take. I wanted to simply add to my statements that will be put into the 
Record the idea that this bill provides the opportunity to secure 
foreign-to-foreign surveillance, but it also avoids the targeting of 
Americans without the intervention of the court so that if you were, by 
chance, talking to a relative in a foreign land that might, without 
your knowledge, be targeted or through some way, might be connected, 
that would draw surveillance, you can be assured that as an American, 
unlike the occurrence with Martin Luther King and some Americans during 
the Vietnam War, that you have the intervention of a court established 
first in 1978 under President Carter.
  We have streamlined that. The language called ``reverse targeting'' 
was an amendment that I submitted into the Judiciary Committee that 
would avoid targeting an American without the intervention of a court, 
not a court for 6 days or 6 weeks, but an automatic intervention that 
is given to you within hours.
  We have a system where the Attorney General now must, along with the 
Director of Intelligence, put in guidelines to be able to oversee what 
happens when an American is targeted. I can ask any American whether or 
not that is a reasonable approach. If they study the question, I think 
they would understand that no intelligence and no opportunity to secure 
or to capture a terrorist has been intervened with while we have been 
having these debates, because we had the security of the bill that has 
been in place, the Protect America Act, for over a year.
  Authorities still exist, even through the recess that we will take, 
to provide the intelligence community with any tools that they will 
need. But it is a sad state of affairs in America if we allow the 
terrorists to terrorize us and to, in essence, tear up the 
Constitution.
  That is what we did today. We protected the Constitution, and we 
ensured that those who are concerned, the telecommunications company, 
many of them, we know their names, are, in fact, protected.
  One, we protect them going forward. Two, we give them a cure for the 
litigation that is going on today, because we don't prohibit the review 
of top secret documents in camera. The cases that are going on now, 
those telecommunications companies will be protected because they will 
have the ability to review the evidence so that they can convince the 
court that they were operating within the law.
  Going forward, we will get a certified letter from the Attorney 
General or the Director of Intelligence to say we need information from 
you. We will tell them that they are not breaking the law. We will also 
tell them that they will be in compliance with all laws. Out of that 
they will get absolute immunity to provide our Central Intelligence 
Agency and others the necessary information that we would have.
  I think it is important that debate, sometimes looking as if they are 
accusatory, and one side looking like they have the upper hand, 
suggesting that we are in crisis, leaving in a recess, that America is 
unprotected, needs to be clarified. America will be protected. We do 
have authority in place that could provide the Central Intelligence or 
other national intelligence agencies any information that they need.
  God knows after 9/11 all of us are committed to the war on terror, 
but we are all recognizing that a Constitution survives no matter what 
condition America is in. The Constitution survived the Civil War. It 
survived World War I. It survived World War II, the Vietnam War. It 
survived the Korean War, the Gulf War and now the Iraq war.
  I would ask America, can we not secure ourselves and keep the civil 
liberties of Americans and the Constitution intact? Today, in voting 
for this bill, I proudly supported both concepts. I am grateful to be 
an American, grateful that we have a Constitution that always lives and 
never dies.
  God bless the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and on the front 
lines. I look forward to visiting with those soldiers in the next 
couple of days in Iraq.

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