[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5676-5677]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      MAJOR ISSUES AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE DEMANDING CONGRESS ADDRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Price) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Madam Speaker, it is now 5:10 p.m. on a 
Thursday afternoon. And for most individuals across this Nation, this 
is about the end of the fourth working day of the week. For the House, 
we've just completed less than two full days of work, but if you 
stretch it, it's really a little over two. Where's the House now? 
They've gone home. Where was the House on Monday? Home. Now, that's 
important because there are important things to do at home. But Madam 
Speaker, it's important to appreciate that there are major issues that 
the American people are demanding that Congress address.
  We heard about one of them this afternoon: Gas prices. Gas prices 
significantly increased over the last 12 to 15 months, and this 
Congress has done nothing except raise taxes on American oil producers.
  But the reason I want to bring focus to the issue of Congress going 
home is that we are now 55 days into a unilateral disarmament for our 
Nation. That is right, Madam Speaker. Fifty-five days ago, this House, 
the leadership in the House, chose to allow some amendments to the 
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to expire. Now, what did those 
amendments do? Those amendments which were adopted shortly after 9/11 
allowed, e-d, past tense, allowed our intelligence community to listen 
or surveil or intercept phone or electronic communication between, 
Madam Speaker, between a foreign individual in a foreign land talking 
or communicating to a foreign individual in a foreign land. That is 
right, Madam Speaker. If an individual who wishes to do our Nation harm 
is speaking to another individual who wishes to do us harm, up until 55 
days ago, we had an opportunity in this Nation to determine to listen 
to, to know what kind of communication that was. But 55 days ago, this 
leadership in this House chose to let that expire.
  Now why did they choose to let that expire? Well, what they believe 
is that American trial lawyers ought to have the ability to sue 
communications companies who share that information with the United 
States government, with our intelligence community, the folks trying to 
keep us safe.
  Madam Speaker, back in my district, the Sixth District of Georgia, 
the people don't understand the kind of leadership that would have the 
mentality to not allow our intelligence community to listen to a 
potential terrorist talking to another potential terrorist outside the 
United States. Not to an American, but to somebody who is not an 
American citizen. Consequently, Madam Speaker, we are now utilizing the 
same rules that we had in effect on September 10, 2001.
  Madam Speaker, you hear a lot of talk about crises across this 
Nation, and our friends on the other side of the aisle talk about the 
crisis in this and the crisis in that. I'll tell you what we've got a 
crisis of in this Congress, Madam Speaker, and that is a Congress of 
irresponsibility, a crisis of irresponsibility and a leadership that 
refuses to allow this Congress to do its number one job, which is to 
protect our citizens and our constituents.

                              {time}  1715

  Madam Speaker, I call on the Speaker and I call on the majority 
leader and I call on the majority party in the House of Representatives 
to bring the Protect America Act to the floor. It's a bill that has 
bipartisan support. A majority of individuals in the House have said 
they will support it. It would pass if it were brought up today. But 
what were we talking about today? Bills that didn't have to do with the 
security of the United States.
  I urge the Speaker and the majority leader to bring that bill to the 
floor, allow it to pass as it has in the Senate, in a bipartisan way, 
so that we can return home and tell our constituents that we acted 
positively to assist in protecting them and their families.

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