[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 1485-1495]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 514, EXTENDING COUNTERTERRORISM 
                              AUTHORITIES

  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 79 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                               H. Res. 79

       Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it 
     shall be in order to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 
     514) to extend expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT 
     Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 and Intelligence 
     Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 relating to 
     access to business records, individual terrorists as agents 
     of foreign powers, and roving wiretaps until December 8, 
     2011. All points of order against consideration of the bill 
     are waived. The bill shall be considered as read. All points 
     of order against provisions in the bill are waived. The 
     previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill 
     to final passage without intervening motion except: (1) one 
     hour of debate, with 40 minutes equally divided and 
     controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the 
     Committee on the Judiciary and 20 minutes equally divided and 
     controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the 
     Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; and (2) one 
     motion to recommit.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California is recognized 
for 1 hour.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield the customary 30 minutes 
to my good friend and Rules Committee colleague, the gentleman from 
Boulder (Mr. Polis), pending which I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, 18 days from now, three key provisions of the Patriot 
Act are set to expire, leaving a gap in our national security 
framework. Today's underlying legislation would temporarily--and I 
underscore the word, Mr. Speaker--temporarily extend these provisions 
to allow for the development of a long-term solution, with the many 
questions that are out there.

                              {time}  1340

  With strong bipartisan support, the previous Congress simply passed a 
blanket 1-year extension without addressing any of the underlying 
challenges, questions and controversies. I am the first to admit that 
there are challenges, questions and controversies that relate to the 
Patriot Act. Unfortunately--and again, it was by a vote of 315-97 on 
February 25 of last year, Mr. Speaker--we went through that entire 
year. But guess what. Not a single hearing was conducted subsequent to 
the passage of that extension. Not a single hearing over the past year 
has been held.
  I feel very confident that my colleagues who have joined me on the 
floor here from the Judiciary Committee--Mr. Lungren, who is here right 
now, Mr. Sensenbrenner, who chairs the Crime Subcommittee, and Mr. 
Gohmert--I mean, these gentlemen and I have just had a conversation, 
Mr. Speaker, in which they have made an absolute commitment that this 
Congress will not make the mistake that was made over the past year. 
Following this short-term extension, we will have a thorough oversight 
process in which the committees of jurisdiction will take a very close 
look at how we pursue the terrorists who threaten our homeland.
  Now, everybody acknowledges that this is not only controversial, not 
only filled with questions and not only filled with challenges, but 
that it is very, very complicated. The individuals and networks who 
seek to do harm to Americans change and adapt every single day. Mr. 
Lungren and I were just having a conversation in which we were looking 
at the situation that existed a decade ago, right after September 11. 
The threat is much different today than it was 10 years ago, and that's 
why we need to recognize that they are constantly changing and adapting 
their tactics to try and undo the United States of America and the free 
world. Staying one step ahead requires a tremendous amount of 
flexibility, ingenuity, coordination, and of course the right law 
enforcement tools.
  Just today, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said that 
the threat that exists today--and Mr. Gohmert just showed it to me on 
his iPad; it's on the front of one of the newspapers around here--is as 
great as it has been since September 11. Then when I said it to Mr. 
Lungren, he reminded me that it's a different threat, a different 
threat today than the one that we faced in the past. That's why 
flexibility, ingenuity, and coordination are absolutely essential if we 
are going to proceed.
  We need to ensure that we are taking all necessary steps while fully 
protecting the rights of all Americans. I want to underscore that this 
is one of the reasons that, going back 10 years, as we were legislating 
through the prism of September 11, I was very insistent that we have 
the ability to have oversight and to look and make sure that we are not 
undermining the rights of the American people. We need to ensure that 
that is a priority as we proceed.
  This process is going to be a lengthy process over the next 10 
months. It is not a process that can be resolved in the 7 legislative 
days that exist between now and February 28 when this is scheduled to 
expire. In the immediate term, it is imperative that we temporarily 
extend the expiring provisions to ensure that we do not suddenly create 
glaring loopholes in our national security. It is imperative that we 
commit to a comprehensive and, yes, transparent process. I had a 
conversation downstairs with my California colleague, Mr. Rohrabacher. 
All the way to when this measure comes to the floor, we want to ensure 
that we have an open and transparent process when it comes to changes/
modifications to the Patriot Act, and we want amendments to be 
considered. We want there to be a free-flowing debate as we proceed.
  Mr. Speaker, the last piece of legislation, the resolution that we 
were just discussing, has to do with job creation and economic growth 
because we want to unleash the potential of American workers by freeing 
them from the onerous regulations that have been imposed on them. Some 
might ask, Is this in fact a jobs bill? Well, I think about what 
happened to our Nation's economy following September 11 of 2001. We all 
know the devastation that took place. The New York Stock Exchange had 
to close down for a week. We saw tremendous disruptions in our economy 
and the job force.
  This measure is designed to ensure our national security. Without 
national security, we won't have the potential to save and create jobs 
in this country. So as we are enjoying economic recovery today, I see 
this measure as being critical to our quest for sustained job creation 
and economic growth, and believe that they are so inextricably tied 
that it is essential that we put this extension in place so that, over 
the next 10 months, nothing will be done to undermine the security and 
the safety of our fellow Americans.

[[Page 1486]]

  The five most important words in the middle of the Preamble of the 
Constitution, Mr. Speaker, are ``provide for the common defense.''
  That is what priority number one is.
  Mr. Lungren and I were talking about this yesterday morning at the 
Republican Conference. It is absolutely essential that we recognize 
that as our number one priority because providing for the common 
defense and ensuring our security ensures that our economic security 
with the potential for job creation will be able to be sustained.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues in a bipartisan way--since we had a 
vote of 315-97 on February 25 of last year and with, again, strong 
bipartisan support from many, many, many Democrats who, unfortunately, 
chose to vote ``no'' when we had this under suspension of the rules, 
now we are considering it under a process. This is bipartisan, by the 
way. When a measure is not successful under suspension of the rules, 
Democrats and Republicans alike bring measures to the floor under this 
process that we are considering this measure today.
  So I urge my colleagues to support this so that we can proceed with 
the very important work that Messrs. Sensenbrenner, Lungren, Gohmert, 
and others will be pursuing.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, the Patriot Act is a bill that has been 
plagued with abuse since it was first passed, and today's rule is yet 
another example of short-circuiting the system that our Founding 
Fathers set up. If there were ever the need for the close supervision 
and congressional oversight of a law, it is a law that discusses how 
and under what conditions a government can spy on its own citizens. 
After 10 years of public record, we all agree there are some clear 
sections of the law that can be improved; but instead of debating these 
sections of the law to better find that balance between protecting what 
makes it special to be Americans and protecting our national security, 
the Republican leadership has decided to ram through this bill with as 
little debate as possible.
  Mr. Speaker, we spent an hour earlier discussing how we will spend 
9\1/2\ hours discussing the organizational aspects of the House 
committee structure. Yet, for something that cuts to our core identity 
as Americans, we only have an hour under the rule and an hour under the 
bill to discuss it in its entirety.
  This bill would reauthorize three of the most troubling provisions in 
the Patriot Act. Again, instead of actually debating the merits of 
these provisions and coming up with solutions that both sides can agree 
on to protect what it means to be an American, the Republican 
leadership has attempted first to force it through under the suspension 
calendar and now under a closed rule, the most restrictive kind of 
rule.
  In spite of their plethora of promises to change the culture of 
Congress, this bill looks like it's being done under old business. On 
such an important issue, one that affects our national security and the 
civil liberties of every American, one that goes right to the heart of 
what it means to be an American and to our identity as citizens of this 
great Republic, the Republican majority has reverted to short-
circuiting the system and closing down discussion.
  Just yesterday, they held the vote open for more than half an hour, 
pressuring Members to switch votes. Thankfully, the effort failed to 
muster the majority, and that's why we are here before you today with 
an additional hour to discuss the Patriot Act, which is woefully 
insufficient; but I think the American people can be grateful that 
Members on both sides of the aisle stood up and said at least let's 
have more discussion about this. Only after failing to jam through the 
bill as a suspension bill did the Republican leadership bring it up 
under a rule.
  The Judiciary Committee, which the Republicans argue has not had time 
to look at this or to consider this under the normal process, has 
actually already had several hearings in the past few weeks on other 
topics. Apparently, the topic of abortion was important enough on which 
to have a discussion by the Judiciary Committee but not the topic of 
the security of the American people and our civil rights as Americans.

                              {time}  1350

  So why can't the Judiciary Committee find the time to even hold a 
hearing to discuss an issue this important that cuts the very 
definition of what it means to be American? Even if a little more time 
is needed, a month, 2 months, why isn't there a 30-day extension, a 60-
day extension before us instead of a 10-month extension? It should not 
be used as an excuse to prevent all proceedings from moving forward.
  Mr. DREIER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. POLIS. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding.
  I will explain why it is that we have more than a 30-day extension. 
As I said, with the controversies, the challenge and the absolute 
humongous task that is faced, we know that the legislative process 
takes a while, and to have that 10 months' extension is essential for 
them to do their work.
  Mr. POLIS. Reclaiming my time, I think there would be broader 
agreement perhaps if there was a 60-day extension and then perhaps a 
need for another 60-day extension if there was no legislative business 
completed, but putting it off 10 months or a year can actually give an 
excuse not to bring to the forefront these very important issues that 
need to be dealt with.
  This body can produce results. The single most significant bill was 
H.R. 2, the repeal of an entire body of health care law, and somehow 
there was the ability to bring that to the floor within days of the 
opening of the new Congress.
  You know, both parties want to ensure that the government has the 
tools we need to fight terrorism. We can all agree that the Patriot Act 
has issues that need to be resolved. If we can move this bill through 
the regular order, I'm confident that the Judiciary Committee can make 
improvements that they've already discussed in prior session. In fact, 
just last year, the Judiciary Committee reported out by voice vote 
reform measures that would improve the Patriot Act and add real 
oversight.
  It's clear that there is bipartisan support to improve this bill. 
Even as we speak, the Senate is debating three different versions of 
the reauthorization bill, and yet here in the House, we have only this 
one, originally scheduled with hardly any debate and now with a very 
closed structure and no ability for Members of either party to offer 
amendments.
  Apart from its procedural flaws, the reauthorization fails to provide 
the administration the tools and support it truly needs. The 
administration, which does support reauthorizing the Patriot Act, has 
repeatedly asked for a real reauthorization rather than the short-term 
extensions that increase the uncertainty surrounding long-term 
planning, intelligence, and law enforcement as they carry out this 
mission. Instead of a patch that will get us through another few months 
at the expense of the civil liberties of the American people, we need 
the opportunity to truly work together to fix this bill.
  Specifically, this bill would reauthorize three provisions: section 
215, 206, and 6001 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention 
Act.
  Section 215 allows the government to capture any tangible thing that 
might be relevant to terrorist investigations. This includes your 
medical records, your diary, even what books you've checked out of the 
library and what Web sites you visited. In the past, these orders were 
limited to narrow classes of business and records, but the specific 
facts pertain to any agent of a foreign power, and the Patriot Act has 
swept away these basic requirements. In fact, it was reported by a 
bookstore that the information regarding everybody who purchased 
biographical books about Osama bin Laden had been requested.
  The justification used for this provision is that the government 
needs to have the ability to protect our national security, and yet 
this goes against the basic constitutional notions of search

[[Page 1487]]

and seizure. We ought to seriously consider making changes to this 
section instead of blindly giving the government the ability to spy on 
its citizens.
  Let me just give a few examples--and I think this will come as some 
surprise to many people--of the transgressions that have already 
occurred, the affronts to our civil liberties and freedoms as Americans 
that have already occurred under the Patriot Act.
  Perhaps some of us have taken Christmas vacations to Las Vegas. Well, 
there is a list of 300,000 people that visited Las Vegas in Christmas 
of 2003 that according to an article in the Las Vegas Review Journal 
said the casino operators said they turned over the names and other 
guest information on an estimated 270,000 visitors. Now, I think a lot 
of people don't expect that to happen when they visit Las Vegas.
  There needs to be an oversight process in place to ensure that, when 
extreme measures are necessary that interfere with our privacy, it goes 
through the right channels. This particular incident, even the FBI 
conceded that the personal records had not borne out a particular 
threat.
  The Patriot Act has been used more than 150 times to secretly search 
individuals' homes, and 90 percent of those cases have had nothing to 
do with terrorism.
  The Patriot Act was used against Brandon Mayfield, a Muslim American, 
innocent of any crime, to tap his phones, seize his property, copy his 
computer files, spy on his children, take his DNA, all without his 
knowledge, Mr. Speaker.
  It's been used to coerce an Internet service provider to divulge 
information about Web surfing and Internet activity and then gagged 
that provider, preventing them from even saying that their information 
had been compromised.
  It's been used to charge, obtain, and prosecute a Muslim student in 
Idaho for posting Internet Web site links to materials that were found 
objectionable by some, even though those same links were available on a 
U.S. Government Web site.
  Mr. Speaker, part of what makes America special is the balance 
between our civil liberties and our rights as Americans and our 
national security. When so many Members of Congress, so many Americans 
on both sides of the aisle, of all ideologies, feel that we can do 
better, I think we owe it to the people of this country to do better 
and have a better process as a Congress, to improve the Patriot Act to 
help protect our liberties and keep us safe over the long term.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say that I 
agree with much of what my friend from Boulder has said.
  I will say this. It was February 25 of last year that a 1-year 
extension was provided and not a single hearing held. It is very 
important that we deal with these questions that my friend has raised, 
and we have them as well. They need to be addressed.
  The administration has come out in strong support of this extension. 
They'd like to have the extension not a 30- or 60-day; they'd like this 
extension to go to December of 2013 if they had their way. That's what 
the Statement of Administration Policy says.
  And so, Mr. Speaker, I've got to say that I believe that we are very 
much on the right track to ensure that we get those issues addressed.
  I now yield 4 minutes to my friend from Menomonee Falls (Mr. 
Sensenbrenner), the author of this extension and the chairman of the 
Crime Subcommittee, who will be explaining in great detail the 
challenges that we face.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, first of all, the argument that has 
been advanced by my colleague from Colorado just doesn't mesh with the 
facts, and maybe I can give him a little bit of historical background.
  First of all, I was the chairman of the full Judiciary Committee on 
September 11. When the Patriot Act was introduced, we had two hearings 
and a full committee markup. The Senate didn't have that, even though 
it was controlled by the Democrats, and there were long negotiations to 
come up with the original Patriot Act that the President signed.
  At that time, I insisted that there be a sunset provision on all of 
the 16 additional provisions of the Patriot Act that expanded law 
enforcement powers, and I gave the commitment as chairman of the 
committee I would hold hearings on each of these 16 provisions, 
subsequently increased to 17, before the sunset expired, and I did.
  At that time, the testimony was very clear that there was no 
controversy over making permanent 14 of the 16 provisions, and the 
Patriot Act extension did that. The three provisions that were not made 
permanent were the ones that were in controversy, and most of the 
complaints advanced by my friend from Colorado (Mr. Polis) were on the 
14 provisions, that there were no abuses that were brought out during 
the 2005 hearings.
  Now, let me talk about the three provisions that do expire that are 
the subject of the underlying bill.
  First of all, section 206, the roving wiretap authority. Law 
enforcement has had this authority on organized crime and drug pushing 
since 1986. The Patriot Act expanded it to include terrorism. There has 
been no constitutional challenge that has been filed against section 
206.
  Section 6001, which was the 17th provision and the lone wolf 
provision, says that someone who can be investigated under the Patriot 
Act doesn't have to be a member of an identifiable group like al Qaeda 
in order for the Patriot Act's provisions to come into play. 
Constitutionality of that is unchallenged.

                              {time}  1400

  Now section 215, which is the business records provision, there was a 
constitutional challenge and it was withdrawn. The challenge was in the 
case of Muslim Community Association v. Ashcroft which was filed in the 
Eastern District of Michigan. The plaintiff in that case alleged that 
section 215 violated the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the 
Constitution. The 2005 reauthorization of the Patriot Act amended 
section 215, and as a result of the amendment, the plaintiffs withdrew 
their complaint. We had solved those problems.
  So, much of what we hear today are about issues that were made 
permanent because there really wasn't an issue, or something that 
involves other types of law enforcement activity other than the Patriot 
Act.
  This Congress, I am the chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime, and we 
will have those hearings before this extension expires on December 8, 
and we will give everybody a chance to thoroughly air their complaints 
just like I promised and just like I delivered in 2005. And when the 
record is brought up to date, I hope that the Members will confine 
their debate to what is actually in the expiring provisions of the 
Patriot Act rather than talking about a lot of other things, some of 
which don't even involve the Patriot Act whatsoever.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Johnson), a member of the Judiciary Committee.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the historical 
account that was just delivered by my colleague on the Judiciary 
Committee, former Chairman Sensenbrenner, and I have abundant respect 
and admiration for him and his motives and his desire to protect the 
civil rights that we all hold dear. But I find it disturbing that today 
we're going to start out on a 9\1/2\-hour debate on a meaningless, 
redundant measure that simply instructs Congress and its committees to 
review regulations and we could be spending that time dealing with such 
a very important, serious issue such as reauthorization of this so-
called Patriot Act.
  This bill is too serious, it's too important, to be reauthorized 
without any hearings, no markups, no opportunity for amendments. I was 
glad to be one of the true patriots to vote against this measure when 
it was brought to the floor yesterday on a suspension of the rules 
without due consideration by our Judiciary Committee.

[[Page 1488]]

  There is bipartisan consensus that these provisions need some 
improvement--roving wiretaps, the lone wolf provisions, especially 
business records. While the threat of terrorism is real and law 
enforcement must have the right tools to protect Americans, any 
counterterrorism measure must have a solid constitutional footing and 
respect the privacy and civil liberties of the American people.
  If Congress reauthorizes these provisions with no changes, Americans 
will remain subject to warrantless intrusions into their personal 
affairs and a gross overreach of Federal investigative authority that 
could be and has been abused. It's just not how we do things in this 
country, ladies and gentlemen.
  Rather than taking the time to craft reforms that will better protect 
private citizens' communications and privacy from overbroad government 
surveillance, the Republican Party simply wants to ram this bill 
through without providing any opportunity for anybody to offer 
amendments that would improve the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kingston). The time of the gentleman has 
expired.
  Mr. POLIS. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. We all acknowledge that law enforcement needs 
new tools to keep up with 21st century threats, but surely it's our 
responsibility in Congress to reexamine legislation that was hurried 
through Congress in the wake of 9/11 to make sure it lives up to our 
national ideals.
  Because this bill fails to contain any checks and balances to prevent 
law enforcement abuses and protect civil liberties, I must oppose the 
rule and the underlying bill, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to say to my good 
friend from Georgia that no one is trying to ram anything through at 
this point. President Obama strongly supports this extension, I would 
say to my friend. He, in fact, wants it to go to December of 2013. We 
had a 1-year extension that was put into place, passed here by a vote 
of 315-97 on February 25, 2010.
  There was a commitment then, and certainly people inferred, that we 
would have hearings. There was not a single hearing held during that 
entire period of time, and we've made an absolute commitment. We've 
just heard from the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner). We 
are about to hear from the gentleman from California (Mr. Lungren), the 
chairman of the Cybersecurity Subcommittee, that we are going to, in 
fact, have the process that my friend desires.
  Mr. Speaker, I now yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Gold River, 
California (Mr. Lungren), the chairman of the Cybersecurity 
Subcommittee.
  Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. I thank the chairman of the 
Rules Committee for granting me this time.
  I sit on this floor as the author of the sunset provision that 
requires us to consider these three portions of the Patriot Act. I 
offered that when we had the reauthorization of the overall bill 
because I thought these were three sections that were at that time 
controversial and that we ought to be required to review it. So I did 
support the authorization for a year that we had last year, but I fully 
expected that the Judiciary Committee would hold hearings so that 
before this date we would have acted on any changes that anyone deemed 
necessary.
  I would say, I am not aware of any changes that are necessary, and I 
have followed this ever since they put the sunset provisions in. But 
nonetheless I had thought that during the last year while my friends on 
the other side were in charge, we would have acted. As a matter of 
fact, I believe our committee passed out a full reauthorization of the 
Patriot Act, that is, the Judiciary Committee, under the leadership of 
Chairman Conyers, but it was never brought to the floor for us to 
consider, under any rule, open or closed.
  So what we are asking for, in concert with the President of the 
United States, is to extend it to the end of this year so that we can 
carry out the constitutionally mandated obligation of oversight.
  Chairman Sensenbrenner, chairman of the Crime Subcommittee, has a 
track record. I believe it was 13 hearings that we held on these 
subjects. We went through chapter and verse. We had the FBI before us. 
We had the Attorney General before us. We had the head of the criminal 
division before us. We had the ACLU before us. We had classified 
briefings as well as public hearings. We made some changes in 2005 
pursuant to requests and information that was presented to us.
  Now, I know some of our members said after they voted against this on 
the suspension calendar, ``Well, look this bill's been in effect for 10 
years. Times have changed.'' Yes, they have. And if we would examine 
the changes, we would see that these three provisions are more 
necessary today than they were when we first put them into the law. 
Why? Because as Secretary Napolitano, the Secretary in the Obama 
administration, stated just today, we are on as high alert today, as 
far as she's concerned in terms of the threat, as we have been at any 
time since 9/11. And as the two cochairs of the 9/11 Commission said in 
testimony last year, which is basically repeated by Secretary 
Napolitano and the head of the NCTC in testimony this week, we have a 
different threat today.

                              {time}  1410

  We have the continuing threat of those of al Qaeda on the 
international scene, still attempting to probe and find where they 
might be able to provide a catastrophic event against the United 
States. But the new facts show that the greater threat to us today is, 
as they have said, less consequential attacks from smaller groups, some 
not even officially allied with al Qaeda, sometimes inspired by them, 
sometimes incited by them. And these three provisions go directly to 
the investigations that are necessary for us to deter that.
  This is not the regular criminal justice system where you examine the 
evidence after the crime has been committed to try to convict the 
individual. This is in the essence of deterrence, to make sure that 
we're not collecting body parts after the attack has occurred. As a 
result, we have tried to make changes in the law that will allow us to 
do what the 9/11 Commission said we couldn't do beforehand, connect the 
dots.
  Why do we have the lone wolf provision in here? Because that is more 
and more the concern we have to have. Now, this would not apply to 
Major Hasan because he is an American citizen. We are talking about 
lone wolf provisions for those who are not U.S. citizens. But he was a 
lone wolf, if you want to understand what a lone wolf is. He wasn't 
officially connected with al Qaeda or anybody else, but he was in 
conversation. He was incited by or inspired by. And if anybody doesn't 
believe that he committed a terrorist attack, they don't know what 
terrorism is.
  You talk about a lone wolf. How about the guy who was on the airplane 
on Christmas a little over a year ago? That would be a lone wolf. We 
might have been able to collect information on him had we had an 
opportunity to get some of this information.
  Mr. DREIER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. I yield to the gentleman from 
California.
  Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, we have the benefit of having my friend from Gold River, 
my friend from Menomonee Falls here on the floor, and I would like to 
ask each of them, if I might, if they would underscore the commitment 
that was raised by the gentleman from Georgia.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes.
  I would like to inquire of both my friends what kind of commitment 
they are prepared to make in dealing with this, in light of the fact 
that we have gone for an entire year following the 315-97 vote passage 
of this measure without a single hearing being held.
  First, I yield to my friend from Menomonee Falls, the chairman of the 
Crime Subcommittee.

[[Page 1489]]


  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I plan on doing, with this reauthorization of the Patriot Act, the 
same thing I did with the 2005 reauthorization of the Patriot Act. 
Examine every one of the expiring provisions, let everybody speak their 
piece, and let the House of Representatives work its will.
  There have been no civil liberties violations on these three expiring 
provisions. They have all been upheld as constitutional or not 
challenged. And we did have a problem with business records, and we 
solved that in 2005. So all of the fears that the gentleman from 
Colorado is making I think are a red herring. We did it when we were in 
the majority in the Judiciary Committee; and unfortunately, when the 
other side was in the majority, they didn't do it. That's why we are 
here today.
  Mr. DREIER. Reclaiming my time, I would say to my friend that I think 
it's very important to note that, as those hearings proceed, issues 
that relate to civil liberties will clearly be part of the hearing 
process and part of the debate.
  Am I correct in concluding that?
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. You are absolutely right. I did it 5\1/2\ years 
ago, and you have my commitment I will do it again.
  Mr. DREIER. I appreciate that.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself an additional 45 seconds.
  And I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Gold River to respond 
to the question I propounded earlier.
  Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Absolutely. I mean, the reason I 
came to the House of Representatives was in response to 9/11, to try to 
make sure we had the tools necessary to protect this country from these 
kinds of attacks and, at the same time, as someone who has devoted his 
entire life to enforcing the law but with the protection of civil 
liberties, to make sure that is done in this case as well.
  Let me just say one last thing about the roving wiretap. It is not 
controversial. It has been used in domestic criminal cases since at 
least 1980. And all it does is respond to new technology.
  You have a wiretap that now grants authority--once proven--grants 
authority to follow the person with whatever device he uses because--
guess what?--most people are not confined to a single landline today. 
That's all this does. And you would think that we would have the same 
provisions we use against criminals, that we could use those against 
those who would want to destroy Americans and America, terrorists.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has again expired.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself an additional 30 seconds.
  I would just like to say in response to my friend on the roving 
wiretap issue, it is fascinating. As I began my opening remarks, I was 
talking about the fact that Mr. Gohmert showed me his iPad, which had 
the headline on that iPad that the Secretary of Homeland Security, 
Janet Napolitano, has indicated that the threat that exists today is 
greater than it has been at any time since September 11, 2001. That 
technology didn't exist back in 2001 or certainly back in 1980. The 
roving wiretap is designed to focus on the potential terrorist and not 
on some antiquated technology that we have.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. POLIS. I yield myself 30 seconds.
  The gentleman from Wisconsin mentioned that he is not aware of abuses 
under section 215. I would remind my colleagues that most of the uses 
are classified under 215, and there has not yet been a briefing for 
Members this Congress for us to make our assessment of whether there 
have been abuses of section 215. I have not had a briefing nor has 
there been one offered here to the Members of the 112th Congress. And I 
think before we make a decision about section 215, we need to know how 
it has been used. That's a very simple request.
  With that, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Kucinich).
  Mr. KUCINICH. I would like to get back to first principles here. The 
First Amendment, ``Congress shall make no law respecting an 
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or 
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the 
people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a 
redress of grievances.''
  This Patriot Act represents a wholesale abandonment of the right to 
assemble peaceably, of the right of freedom of association. This 
Patriot Act is a square violation of the Fourth Amendment, ``The right 
of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and 
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.''
  Now, I can trust my friends on the other side of the aisle. They are 
decent people. This isn't about Democrat versus Republican. It's not 
about a Democratic President. It's not about if there was a Republican 
President or if we will have one in the future. This is about something 
actually much more important than all of us and then whoever might be 
an executive. It's about the Constitution of the United States.
  Congress made a mistake when it passed the Patriot Act. Instead of 
sunsetting it and being done with it, we kept the provisions going. 
Some of them were made permanent. This law today, we seek to 
reauthorize certain sections of the Patriot Act. What I maintain is 
that what we have here is a destructive undermining of constitutional 
principles. We can't just say, well, let's trust our friends to do the 
right thing. This is about the Constitution. This is beyond friendship. 
This is beyond party. This is beyond who is the President. So I 
disagree with President Obama on this.
  It's interesting. At this very moment that our President is on 
television celebrating the tremendous movement towards the free will of 
the people of Egypt who have suffered real repression and suppression 
of their basic liberties, we can celebrate something happening 
thousands of miles away, but it would be much better for America if we 
celebrated our Constitution.
  What we have done with the Patriot Act, we have given the government 
enormous power. We have given the government the authority to reach 
deeply into people's private lives, into their business affairs without 
a court order. We need to think about that. Some people say they don't 
want government involved in certain things. Well, government is 
involved in a way that is devastating when you come to the devastation 
of constitutional principles, you give the FBI the ability to reach 
into people's private lives without a court order.

                              {time}  1420

  I'm telling you, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, this is a 
very dangerous thing that we're doing here.
  Stand up for the Constitution.

                [From the New York Times, Jan. 9, 2011]

         Twitter Shines a Spotlight on Secret F.B.I. Subpoenas

                            (By Noam Cohen)

       The news that federal prosecutors have demanded that the 
     microblogging site Twitter provide the account details of 
     people connected to the WikiLeaks easel including its 
     founder, Julian Assange, isn't noteworthy because the 
     government's request was unusual or intrusive. It is 
     noteworthy because it became public.
       Even as Web sites, social networking services and telephone 
     companies amass more and more information about their users, 
     the government--in the course of conducting inquiries--has 
     been able to looke through much of the information without 
     the knowledge of the people being investigated.
       For the Twitter request, the government obtained a secret 
     subpoena from a federal court. Twitter challenged the 
     secrecy, not the subpoena itself, and won the right to inform 
     the people whose records the government was seeking. 
     WikiLeaks says it suspects that other large sites like Google 
     and Facebook have received similar requests and simply went 
     along with the government.
       This kind of order is far more common than one may think, 
     and in the case of terrorism and espionage investigations the 
     government can issue them without a court order. The 
     government says more than 50,000 of these requests, known as 
     national security letters, are sent each year, but they come 
     with gag orders that prevent those contacted from revealing 
     what the agency has been seeking or even the existence of the 
     gag orders.

[[Page 1490]]

       ``It's a perfect example of how the government can use its 
     broad powers to silence people,'' said Nicholas Merrill, who 
     was the first person to file a constitutional challenge 
     against the use of national security letters, authorized by 
     the USA Patriot Act. Until August, he was forbidden to 
     acknowledge the existence of a 2004 letter that the company 
     he founded, the Calyx Internet Access Corporation, received 
     from the F.B.I.
       Mr. Merrill is now free to speak about the request, but 
     part of the gag order remains in place, and he is still 
     barred from discussing what information he had been asked to 
     provide. As a result, he said, before he gives a talk he 
     consults a six-page guide prepared by his lawyers at the 
     American Civil Liberties Union to be sure that he complies 
     with the order to avoid risking a punishment of five years in 
     prison.
       The government cites national security as the reason the 
     contents of the letters--even their existence--are kept 
     secret. The F.B.I. is trying to prevent plots as they are 
     being hatched, according to Valerie Caproni, the general 
     counsel of the agency, and thus needs stealth.
       In the case of a small Internet service provider like 
     Calyx, which was located in downtown Manhattan and had 
     hundreds of customers, even mentioning that the F.B.I. had 
     been sniffing around could harm an investigation, she said, 
     especially if ``the target is antsy anyway.''
       Mr. Merrill, a 38-year-old from Brooklyn who studied 
     computer science and philosophy, said he created Calyx in 
     1994 when it was ``really pretty easy, there wasn't really 
     any competition.'' His clients included ``dozens of nonprofit 
     organizations and alternative media outlets.''
       Mr. Merrill challenged the constitutionality of the letter 
     he received in 2004, saying the request raised ``red flags'' 
     of being politically motivated. As a result of his suit and 
     two later ones, the law governing the letters has been 
     overturned and then revised by Congress.
       In 2007, the F.B.I.'s inspector general found that the 
     agency had abused its own guidelines by including too many 
     peripheral people in its searches. The letters now receive 
     the ``individualized scrutiny'' of the agents who are filing 
     them, Ms. Caproni said.
       All sides agree that it has become significantly easier to 
     challenge the letters' requests as well as their secrecy. At 
     the moment, there are no new challenges in the court system, 
     the government and the A.C.L.U. say.
       The program, whose use has ``ticked up'' a bit in recent 
     years, Ms. Caproni said, is humming along. She added, 
     however, that the government had become more selective about 
     the types of companies to which it sent letters. ``All other 
     things being the same, one of the things investigators think 
     about is, `Who are we serving this? Are they comfortable with 
     this?''' she said. ``Most of these N.S.L.'s are filed on 
     large companies. Why would they want to disclose that? Most 
     companies view it as good corporate citizenry.''
       One critic of the law, former Senator Russ Feingold, said 
     in a statement that it was long past time for Congress ``to 
     rein in the use of national security letters.''
       ``This is not a partisan issue,'' Mr. Feingold said, ``it 
     is about the legislative branch providing an adequate check 
     on the executive branch. Republicans advocating limited 
     government should take a close look at these statutes and 
     consider supporting changes.''
       Mr. Merrill argues that the blanket gag orders have 
     prevented a full public debate on the subject. He himself 
     largely left the I.S.P. business in 2004, independent of his 
     legal case, and only now has returned to hosting a couple of 
     clients as part of a nonprofit project, the Calyx Institute, 
     which aims to study how to protect consumers' privacy.
       Regarding the news about Twitter, he wrote in an e-mail: 
     ``I commend Twitter's policy of notifying their customers of 
     government requests for their private data and for their 
     challenging and subsequently removing the gag order. This is 
     a great example of the government's misuse of secrecy 
     provisions and of exemplary privacy ethics on behalf of 
     Twitter.''
       Ms. Caproni, who has testified before Congress about the 
     program, said that it had been more than amply debated. 
     ``People at the A.C.L.U. and the press'' think the letters 
     are ``a bigger deal than the companies.''
       To one of Mr. Merrill's A.C.L.U. lawyers, Jameel Jaffer, 
     the smooth operation of the system is a sign that it is not 
     working. The privacy rights at stake are not those of the 
     companies who hold the information, Mr. Jaffer said, but 
     ``about people whose records are held.'' And those people 
     should be told, he said.
       ``People used to be the custodians of their own records, 
     their own diaries. Now third parties are custodians of all 
     that,'' he said. ``Everything you do online is entrusted to 
     someone else--unless you want to go completely off the grid, 
     and I'm not even sure that is possible.''
                                  ____


                [From the New York Times, Mar. 13, 2008]

            F.B.I. Made `Blanket' Demands for Phone Records

                          (By Eric Lichtblau)

       Washington.--Senior officials of the Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation repeatedly approved the use of ``blanket'' 
     records demands to justify the improper collection of 
     thousands of phone records, according to officials briefed on 
     the practice.
       The bureau appears to have used the blanket records demands 
     at least 11 times in 2006 alone as a quick way to clean up 
     mistakes made over several years after the Sept. 11, 2001, 
     attacks, according to a letter provided to Congress by a 
     lawyer for an F.B.I. agent who witnessed the missteps.
       The F.B.I. has come under fire for its use of so-called 
     national security letters to inappropriately gather records 
     on Americans in terrorism investigations, but details have 
     not previously been disclosed about its use of ``blanket'' 
     warrants, a one-step operation used to justify the collection 
     of hundreds of phone and e-mail records at a time.
       Under the USA Patriot Act, the F.B.I. received broadened 
     authority to issue the national security letters on its own 
     authority--without the approval of a judge--to gather records 
     like phone bills or e-mail transactions that might be 
     considered relevant to a particular terrorism investigation. 
     The Justice Department inspector general found in March 2007 
     that the F.B.I. had routinely violated the standards for 
     using the letters and that officials often cited ``exigent'' 
     or emergency situations that did not really exist in issuing 
     them to phone providers and other private companies.
       In an updated report due out on Thursday, the inspector 
     general is expected to report that the violations continued 
     through 2006, when the F.B.I. instituted new internal 
     procedures.
       The inspector general's ongoing investigation is also said 
     to be focusing on the F.B.I.'s use of the blanket letters as 
     a way of justifying the collection of large amounts of 
     records at one time. F.B.I. officials acknowledged the 
     problem Wednesday, calling it inadvertent, and said officials 
     had been instructed that they could no longer issue blanket 
     orders. Instead, officials have to determine why particular 
     records are considered relevant.
       A letter sent last week to Senator Charles E. Grassley, 
     Republican of Iowa, provides new details on the F.B.I.'s use 
     of the national security letters, including the practice of 
     issuing the blanket demands.
       A copy of the letter was provided to The Times. It was 
     written by Stephen M. Kohn, a Washington lawyer representing 
     Bassem Youssef, an F.B.I. agent who reported what he thought 
     were abuses in the use of national security letters and was 
     interviewed for three days by the inspector general. In a 
     separate matter, Mr. Youssef is suing the F.B.I. in a 
     discrimination claim.
       Mr. Grassley said Wednesday that he was concerned by the 
     issues raised in Mr. Kohn's letter.
       ``In the past, the F.B.I. has shown a propensity to act as 
     if it were above the law,'' he said. ``That attitude clearly 
     needs to stop. Part of the way we can help the F.B.I. clean 
     up its act is to pay close attention to information from 
     whistle-blowers like Bassem Youssef. We need aggressive 
     follow-up from the inspector general to ensure accountability 
     and reform.''
       By 2006, F.B.I. officials began learning that the bureau 
     had issued thousands of ``exigent'' or emergency records 
     demands to phone providers in situations where no life-
     threatening emergency existed, according to the account of 
     Mr. Youssef, who worked with the phone companies in 
     collecting records in terrorism investigations. In these 
     situations, the F.B.I. had promised the private companies 
     that the emergency records demands would be followed up with 
     formal subpoenas or properly processed letters, but often, 
     the follow-up material never came.
       This created a backlog of records that the F.B.I. had 
     obtained without going through proper procedures. In 
     response, the letter said, the F.B.I. devised a plan: rather 
     than issuing national security letters retroactively for each 
     individual investigation, it would issue the blanket letters 
     to cover all the records obtained from a particular phone 
     company.
       ``When Mr. Youssef was first informed of this concept, he 
     was very uncomfortable with it,'' his lawyer, Mr. Kohn, said 
     in his letter to Senator Grassley. But the plan was 
     ultimately approved in 2006 by three senior officials at 
     highest levels of the F.B.I., and in the process, Mr. Kohn 
     maintains, the solution may have worsened the problem.
       ``They made a mistake in cleaning up a mistake,'' Mr. Kohn 
     said, ``because they didn't know the law.''
       An F.B.I. official who asked for anonymity because the 
     inspector general is still examining the blanket warrant 
     issue said the practice was ``an attempt to fix a problem.''
       ``This was ham-handed but pure of heart,'' the official 
     said. ``This was nothing evil, but it was not the right way 
     to do it.''

  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner).
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, the Patriot Act has been the law for 
over 9 years, and not one of those 17 sections has been declared 
unconstitutional by any court in the United States. The argument that 
has been advanced by the gentleman from Ohio is

[[Page 1491]]

just plain wrong. There has been plenty of opportunity to sue and to 
get parts of the Patriot Act declared unconstitutional. Most of these 
provisions haven't been challenged. So let's stick to the facts, rather 
than making up arguments that simply do not exist with the Patriot Act.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), a member of the Judiciary Committee.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, we are not the judiciary. We 
are the people's voice. We are the United States Congress. The issue of 
whether a court has ruled any of this unconstitutional is the 
prerogative of that court, but we have the prerogative to address the 
issues dealing with the people's voice. And so I am disturbed that this 
comes to the floor, first, as a suspension, which was defeated by the 
people's voice, and then now through some unique trickery to come with 
a closed rule so that the people's voice is shut down. This 
Constitution deserve more.
  The Founding Fathers were wise enough to establish three branches of 
government. This House is called the people's House and, therefore, we 
have the right to have a voice. That voice was already expressed by 
Members on both sides of the aisles, Republicans and Democrats, who 
voted this down because of the lack of opportunity to engage on behalf 
of the people. What more needs to be said?
  Now, let me say this about the Constitution and about this process. 
First of all, we have been in some very difficult times, and we 
understand the crisis of terrorism and the aftermath of 9/11; but let 
us be reminded that in those early stages when we developed this 
Constitution, those men who were on this floor had to be concerned 
about the oppressiveness of the state that owned and dominated this 
country before it was. Yet they did not yield to not putting in the 
Constitution the Fourth Amendment, which says that we should not be 
subjected to unreasonable search and seizure.
  I want to remind my friends that when the Democrats attempted to have 
open hearings in 2005, the Republicans shut us down. They would not 
allow us to have people of a different perspective. They turned off the 
lights. They sent us home. They wouldn't let the people be heard. Is 
that what we're going to get now?
  And so I raise the question about the roving wiretap. My friend on 
the other side of the aisle is incorrect. This is more restrictive than 
general criminal law, and all we ask is allow us to amend it so it 
conforms to general criminal laws. That is the point.
  I offered an amendment with Mr. Conyers that talks about requiring a 
different standard other than the knowledge requirement when someone 
breaks into your house. When they come into your house and come into 
your office, we need to have a standard that is articulated so that 
innocent persons are protected.
  We realize that we live under a cover of terrorism. We are patriots 
as well. We join with the Patriot Act.
  And I must say to my good friend from Wisconsin, the most shining 
moment of the Judiciary Committee was after 9/11 when we constructed 
together, Republicans and Democrats, I believe, the best Patriot Act 
going forward. But, unfortunately, his majority at that time took that 
bill that we had developed in the Judiciary Committee in a responsible 
bipartisan manner with the emotion and the backdrop of 9/11 behind us 
and skewed it in a way that, frankly, narrowed the rights of Americans.
  It doesn't matter whether these cases have been selected.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman another 30 seconds.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. It doesn't matter if these cases have been 
challenged by the court, Mr. Speaker. It matters whether the people of 
this place, the people's House, have a time to respond.
  Mr. DREIER. Will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. I yield to the gentleman for a few seconds.
  Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding. And I would just say, 
first of all, I appreciate the bipartisan support for the effort led by 
our friend from Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, which I think is terrific.
  The question that I would propound to my friend is, if we look at the 
February 25 passage of this measure by a vote of 315-97 and the 1-year 
period of time, I know that the gentlewoman, as a member of the 
Judiciary Committee and the Homeland Security Committee, certainly 
would have wanted to have hearings or support the notion of hearings. I 
wonder why there weren't hearings held during that 1-year period of 
time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has again 
expired.
  Mr. POLIS. I yield the gentlewoman another minute.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. As the gentleman well knows, February 25 is 
coming up. So the very fact that hearings had not been held----
  Mr. DREIER. I am talking about February 25 of last year. Last year 
was when this was passed, a year ago.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Hearings had not been held as of December 
2010. He knows that if we were in charge we would have had the 
appropriate hearings necessary to go forward before February 25.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has again 
expired.
  Mr. POLIS. I yield the gentlewoman another 15 seconds.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, if hearings were not held by 
December 31, 2010, the gentleman knows that he cannot question whether 
or not we would have had the appropriate hearings before February 25 
because we are not in charge. And why we're asking you to let the voice 
of the people speak, and 2 days ago the voice of this House spoke, 
Republicans and Democrats voted this down because they believed the 
voice of the people should ensure that the Fourth Amendment of 
unreasonable search and seizure has not been violated. And by the 
passage of this bill today we thwart that and we fly in the face of 
those constitutional supporters that we can still have freedom.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.
  The point is, February 25 of 2010 there was an entire session of 
Congress. It was when the Democrats were in the majority. During that 
period of time, through the entire 1-year extension, there was not a 
single hearing held; and I know that my friend, as a member of the 
Homeland Security Committee and the Judiciary Committee, would have 
been a strong proponent of holding those hearings. And that's why it 
just surprises me that, assuming that she did insist on them, that she 
was unsuccessful, Mr. Speaker, in the quest to get those hearings.
  And I should add that the organization for the 112th Congress is just 
under way today, in fact, due to the fact that the minority has refused 
to allow the organization to take place. So there has been a year 
period of time. And I wish very much, Mr. Speaker, that there had, in 
fact, been hearings over the last year.
  I am happy to yield 3 minutes to my very good friend from Tyler, 
Texas (Mr. Gohmert), the vice chairman of Mr. Sensenbrenner's Crime 
Subcommittee.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, there have been some great questions raised 
about these provisions in the Patriot Act; but it's hard to believe 
that for all of last year, when Democrats had the majority in this 
body, that if those same arguments had been made to Speaker Pelosi and 
to Chairman Conyers, that they would have just continued to deny for an 
entire year the chance to have a hearing on these things. Either, 
surely, they were not asked for the hearings on those things when they 
had the majority and could have done it, or they did ask. But if they 
did ask, why would they elect the same Speaker to be their leader going 
into this term if she was so entirely nonresponsive to their pleas like 
they've made on the floor this year?
  Now, look, going back to 2005, for that first extension, we had some 
very heated debates, as Chairman Sensenbrenner will remember, in 
private

[[Page 1492]]

over what we should do. And there were a couple of us that fought hard 
in private to have sunsets on those provisions.
  And my friend, Mr. Lungren, happened to have the amendment there that 
would allow the sunsets on these.

                              {time}  1430

  And some of those concerns are the very concerns that have been 
brought up by my Democratic friends here. We want to make sure the 
abuses are not occurring, but so far we have not gotten the information 
from this administration to tell us what they have been doing. And one 
of the reasons we have sunsets on there is so that we can force them to 
be accountable as they have not for the last 2 years.
  I want those hearings. You have been assured we will have those 
hearings that you couldn't get from your own party last year. We are 
going to have them. We are going to find out if there are any abuses, 
and then we will be able to know what should be done.
  But please know, under the Fourth Amendment, of course, a person has 
the reasonable expectation of privacy in their own person, house, or 
place. And that does not apply here. This is not to an expectation of 
privacy in somebody else's property. That's not what the Fourth 
Amendment addresses. But I want to find out how this has been used.
  Please know that last year in the extension, all the things that my 
friends across the aisle are screaming about, we didn't have a chance 
to amend; we didn't have a chance to recommit. You have got that on 
this bill.
  And as far as the vote on Monday, it was under suspension, had to be 
two thirds. I think it was stupid to bring it under suspension, because 
if they had brought it under a rule it passed because the vote was 277-
148. Now they are doing what they should have done the other day. They 
are new at leadership. They are living and learning; hopefully, they 
are not just living. But we will have the hearings. We will address 
these matters, and we will find out if it should be done for more than 
1 year. But in the meantime, we appreciate the concern and hope you 
will express it this year.
  Mr. POLIS. I yield myself 1 minute to respond.
  At this point in the 112th Congress, the Judiciary Committee has 
found time to hold several hearings. I have been informed that they 
have held hearings on topics that are certainly important--immigration, 
relating to health care and malpractice--and yet this topic that is 
being discussed today, something that is so fundamental to our identity 
as Americans, has not benefited from a single hearing in the 112th 
Congress.
  And one cannot say, oh, it's because they haven't had hearings or 
they're just reconstituting themselves. I have been informed that they 
have actually had several hearings to date; they have just simply been 
on other topics. Apparently, this hearing isn't important enough to 
warrant a hearing in the early part of the 112th Congress.
  One of the difficulties in exercising oversight with regard to 
section 215 is that the orders are prohibited from being disclosed that 
they got an order to anyone but their attorneys. So we have very little 
ability, absent a classified briefing, which we have not been offered, 
to even find out if section 215 has been abused or not.
  With that, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Kucinich).
  Mr. KUCINICH. The gentleman makes a point; and that is, if you are 
under a gag order, how are we supposed to know if there are any abuses? 
Hello.
  What Mr. Gohmert said a moment ago, I want to associate myself with 
much of his remarks. And I have here, to submit for the Record, 
correspondence that I submitted on November 3, 2009, asking for review 
of the provisions of the Patriot Act that actually we are looking at 
today.
  We create government to secure our rights, not to give them away. The 
Patriot Act represents giving away rights, not securing them. It's 
said, well, it hasn't been adjudicated.
  The laws that we make derive from our constitutional authority, and 
that's not just a matter of political will but it's about moral 
reasoning. And when we look at section 215, which lets the government 
obtain orders for private records or items from people who are not 
connected to any investigation----
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. POLIS. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. KUCINICH. When we look at section 206, which allows the FBI to 
obtain an order from FISA to wiretap a target without having to specify 
the target or device; when we look at section 6001, which authorizes 
the government to conduct investigations of non-U.S. individuals not 
connected to a foreign power or terrorist group, effectively allows the 
government to circumvent standards that are required to obtain 
electronic surveillance orders from criminal courts; when we look at 
these things, these provisions are divorced from our constitutional 
experience. They are divorced from what we know are commonsense 
provisions of what our rights ought to be. That's why I'm opposed to 
the extension of the Patriot Act and why, if we had any sense, we would 
repeal the whole thing.

                                                 November 3, 2009.
     Hon. John Conyers, Jr.
     Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, House of 
         Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Chairman Conyers: I applaud you for your leadership on 
     reconsideration of various provisions of the Patriot 
     Amendments Act and FISA Amendments Act of 2009. These bills 
     provide a number of significant reforms that are important 
     steps toward restoring Congressional oversight of government 
     surveillance and civil liberties protections. I urge you to 
     protect the Constitutional rights and the civil liberties of 
     all Americans by ensuring that the legislation includes the 
     following essential reforms:
       Enact stringent requirements for obtaining ``Roving 
     Wiretaps'': Section 206 of the USA PATRIOT Act, known as the 
     ``John Doe wiretap'' currently allows the Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation (FBI) to obtain an order from the Foreign 
     Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to wiretap a target 
     without having to specify the target or the device. Any 
     reauthorization must include reforms that require the FBI to 
     identify the device(s) to be wiretapped and to provide 
     evidence that the person they are targeting is ``an agent of 
     a foreign power'' and is using the device prior to 
     wiretapping the device(s).
       ``Lone Wolf'' surveillance provision must not be 
     reauthorized: Section 6001 of the Intelligence Reform and 
     Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 authorizes the government to 
     conduct investigations of non-U.S. individuals not connected 
     to a foreign power or terrorist group. The government has 
     never had to use this provision. The likelihood of someone 
     acting alone while engaging in international terrorism is 
     highly unlikely. This provision must not be reauthorized.
       Repeal blanket authorities in Section 215 of the PATRIOT 
     Act: Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, known as the 
     ``Business Records'' provision, allows the FBI to order any 
     entity (person or business) to turn over ``any tangible 
     things'' as long as it specifies it is for ``an authorized 
     investigation.'' Section 215 orders constitute a serious 
     violation of Fourth Amendment and First Amendment rights`` by 
     allowing the government to demand access to records often 
     associated with the exercise of First Amendment rights such 
     as library records and medical records. Authorization that 
     allows the FBI to demand information from or about innocent 
     Americans who are not a target of an investigation or who are 
     not ``agents of a foreign power'' must be repealed.
       Reform National Security Letter (NSL) Issuance: The Justice 
     Department's Inspector General has found that upwards of 
     50,000 NSLs are issued every year, many against innocent 
     people two and three times removed from a terror suspect. The 
     Department of Justice Inspector General report in 2008 on the 
     FBI's use of NSLs stated that 57 percent of all NSLs were 
     issued to gather information on Americans. Judicial review 
     must be reinstated and any legislation that includes this 
     powerful tool that can collect communication, financial and 
     credit information must only be used against suspected 
     terrorists.
       Reform NSL Gag Orders: NSLs come with a draconian gag order 
     that is almost impossible to fight in court because they 
     simply are not allowed to communicate about it. If the 
     government certifies to a judge that national security would 
     be harmed without a gag on the recipient of an NSL, the court 
     must find that certification conclusive. This bill must force 
     the government to justify a gag order to a judge and permit 
     that judge to engage in long standing First amendment 
     analysis before ruling.
       Reform Material Support Statute: The government has used 
     the material support statute of the USA PATRIOT Act to 
     criminalize humanitarian aid by penalizing individuals or 
     groups that provide aid to communities in conflict zones. 
     Inside these zones,

[[Page 1493]]

     groups that are often included on the Treasury's Foreign 
     Terrorist Organization (FTO) list control schools, refugee 
     camps and hospitals. The statute as currently written does 
     not require the government to prove the individual or group 
     accused of supporting an FTO had any specific intention of 
     directing aid to the FTO. This statute must be reformed by 
     requiring the government to provide ``specific and 
     articulable'' facts that make the case that there was a 
     specific intention to direct aid to an FTO.
       Repeal de-facto immunity to telecomm companies for illegal 
     spying: The FISA Amendments Act of 2009 repeals de-facto 
     immunity afforded to telecommunication companies that spy on 
     Americans as allowed by the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. The 
     government and telecommunication companies must be held 
     accountable for violating privacy and First Amendment rights 
     of Americans. This year's reauthorization must ensure that 
     immunity for telecommunication companies is repealed.
       Enact a ban on ``bulk collection'' under FISA: The FISA 
     Amendments Act of 2008 allowed the dragnet collection of all 
     international phone calls and emails of U.S. residents 
     without warrants or even suspicion. We must ensure that the 
     surveillance of suspected terrorists abroad does not infringe 
     the civil liberties and Fourth Amendment rights of Americans. 
     Any language regarding surveillance of international phone 
     calls and emails of U.S. residents must ensure that the 
     government is required to provide evidence that the targeted 
     communication pertains to a foreign power.
       Thank you for consideration of these legislative 
     benchmarks. I and my staff stand ready to work with you in 
     your efforts to restore Constitutional protections and civil 
     liberties to the American people.
           Sincerely,
                                               Dennis J. Kucinich,
                                               Member of Congress.

  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the 
distinguished chair of the Intelligence Committee, our friend from 
Brighton, Michigan (Mr. Rogers).
  Mr. ROGERS of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I am excited at my colleague's 
renewed interest in the Constitution. This is a good day for this House 
and this country, but I can't think of a bill and provisions that have 
been more misrepresented than what happens in this Patriot Act 
extension. And, A, I think they make all the arguments in the world why 
we don't make this permanent: Let's give this an extension so you have 
time to talk about it. But there is an inescapable fact at hand: By the 
end of this month, these provisions will expire.
  There are agents in law enforcement and our intelligence community 
who are preparing briefs to go to the court, the FISA court, to use 
these provisions. They will not be able to do it on March 1. Why would 
we let that happen? Let me give you a great example.
  I used to be an FBI agent. I worked organized crime. When they were 
involved in drugs, we went out. We built a case. We did a brief. We 
took it to the judge and we got a court order to do whatever, roving 
wiretaps. Yes, before this bill, roving wiretaps. Why? Because they 
would use different phones to conceal the criminality of their efforts.
  Well, guess what? We have that happening now with terrorists. They go 
and buy a thousand--a thousand phones that you buy that are already 
preprogrammed. They will use it for one call and throw it away.
  What you are saying is we don't care that somehow it's okay for you 
to go after a drug dealer, a Mafia don who uses his brother-in-law's 
phone, but you don't want to use this provision to go after a terrorist 
who is trying to hide their identity and their conversations and their 
contents to build a radiological bomb. It's ludicrous. Why would we do 
that to ourselves? And make no mistake; you are putting Americans in 
danger when you let this expire.
  On the roving wiretap, the FBI Director today said, in an open 
hearing, less than 500 times it has even been used. It is hard to get a 
wiretap. But what you are saying is, after March 1, well, we can 
continue to do it for a drug dealer, but you can't go to the FISA court 
and get a wiretap on a terrorist who is using these phones for God 
knows what. Why would we do that to ourselves? Why would we jeopardize 
American safety?
  When it comes to business records, at the New York Times, if you got 
him before he wanted to do his event, you could actually go to the 
hardware store and get those business records where he was buying 
materials to assemble a bomb, under the FISA court and Patriot Act. But 
what you are saying is we would rather wait until it explodes and kills 
thousands and thousands of people, and the FBI can go to the same 
hardware store and use a criminal subpoena to get the same records.
  It makes no sense whatsoever that we would let this bill expire at 
the end of the month and jeopardize the safety and security of the 
United States.
  When you look at the lone wolf provision, if you heard what the 
Director of the NCTC today and yesterday was talking about, that the 
most dangerous threat that we have is somebody like Awlaki from Yemen 
trying to radicalize an individual and get them to do something God 
awful, like The New York Times Square bomber, like the Christmas Day 
bomber, like the Hasan shooting at Fort Hood. That's their interest. If 
you take away the lone wolf provision and the government can't quite 
prove that they are a part of al Qaeda but we know they are doing 
something, you have handcuffed them to stop it before it happens.
  One of the reasons that we don't have an attack here is because this 
act has been in place and they have used it judiciously. There have 
been no civil liberties violations, Mr. Speaker.
  I urge this body's appreciation to pass this rule.

                              {time}  1440


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would remind Members to address 
their remarks to the Chair.
  Mr. POLIS. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to a hardworking new 
Member of this body, my friend from Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Meehan).
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to be here as a 
Congressman, but before I came here, I served as a prosecutor, both a 
Federal prosecutor and a State prosecutor, and I have actually been 
probably one of the few people who has actually been involved in 
investigations who have used the Patriot Act, used the Patriot Act 
against the proclaimed Imperial Wizard of the KKK in plotting to take 
handgrenades to blow up an abortion clinic. It helped us to be able to 
resolve a case and see a just sentence.
  But what is happening today by virtue of these provisions is the 
ability for us not to just use what was important then in 2003, but to 
appreciate the changing nature of technology and the need for law 
enforcement to be able to keep pace with that.
  This roving wiretap simply allows law enforcement to be able to track 
the individual rather than the phone. You have to appreciate that law 
enforcement is operating in real time. I have heard many references as 
well to the idea of the sort of lack of due process, and because we are 
dealing with the issue of a potential terrorist, we are looking at it 
differently from the context of the probable cause context, but we are 
going before the FISA court.
  Mr. Rogers explained specifically about the need to take this same 
information of probable cause before a court, and even if that phone is 
changed after the fact, we have to report back to the judge about what 
has been done with that phone. The protections have been built in with 
what Congress did. I was in the Justice Department when we came before 
you, and you fixed these provisions significantly.
  Lastly, I now chair a subcommittee of Homeland Security dealing with 
the issue of terrorism and the lone wolf provision. It was Janet 
Napolitano who talked about the changing nature of the threat and this 
being one of the most serious times since 9/11.
  Mr. Speaker, we must stand together and support those that are on the 
front line with these commonsense changes that have already been put 
into the bill. We are not going over new territory here. What we are 
doing is allowing those on the front line to use the tools before them 
to keep America safe. I urge support for this provision.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I want to again bring your attention to 
section 215 and the difficulty which we in this

[[Page 1494]]

body and the American people as a whole have with regard to exercising 
oversight over abuse of government authority.
  An example that I gave earlier, the American Library Association 
confirmed that the Federal Government went into a library and asked for 
the list of everybody who checked out a book on Osama bin Laden. Now, 
recipients of 215 orders can't even disclose that they received such an 
order to anybody but their attorneys. So what ability do we have as the 
People's House to exercise oversight about whether there are abuses?
  It has been brought out by several people on the other side, my 
colleague from Wisconsin, oh, there aren't abuses. Well, if there is a 
secretive process that prevents us from knowing about abuses, how are 
we to know in fact whether there are abuses?
  I also want to discuss section 206 that we are discussing the renewal 
of here today, the provision of the bill that allows the government to 
conduct the roving wiretaps. This allows the government to obtain 
surveillance warrants that don't even specify the person or the object 
that is being tapped. It could involve tapping an entire neighborhood 
of telephones that a suspect might use--an unnamed suspect--might use 
or might not use. There is nothing even to specifically prohibit it 
from being an entire city of telephone calls being tapped. And we don't 
know how it has been used. The Fourth Amendment clearly states that 
warrants need to specify the person and places to be seized and 
searched with particularity.
  Mr. Speaker, we began this session of Congress by reading the United 
States Constitution, including the Fourth Amendment, here in the House 
of Representatives. We did that to help make sure that the executive 
branch or the legislative branch don't have unfettered power to decide 
singlehandedly who and how to search private citizens and seize their 
properties.
  The Founding Fathers were rightfully worried about the possibility of 
the central government issuing general warrants that would give it far-
reaching power to spy on its citizens and intervene in their private 
lives. We should honor the Founding Fathers' clear wishes expressed in 
our Constitution instead of authorizing our Federal Government this 
kind of power.
  Now, the justification used for this provision is that the government 
needs to have the ability to spy on a suspect as they move from phone 
to phone. No, no one objects to that authority when the security of the 
American people is at stake. But that doesn't mean that the government 
shouldn't have to specify who they are going to spy on and under what 
conditions. In fact, under Federal criminal law, the government is 
already required to state either the person or the place that is 
subject to the wiretap.
  It is these sorts of commonsense revisions that I think we could 
achieve bipartisan consensus on to provide a longer-term stability with 
regard to the necessary provisions of the Patriot Act.
  The final section that will be reauthorized in the bill, section 
6001, deals with the ``lone wolf'' provisions which were alluded to by 
the last two speakers which allows secret surveillance of noncitizens 
in the U.S. even if they are not connected to any terrorist group or 
foreign power.
  Now, this authority is only granted in secret courts and again 
threatens our understanding of the limits of our Federal Government's 
investigatory powers within the borders of our own country. It blurs 
the line between domestic national security and foreign intelligence. 
It is clear that we allow a process to improve this.
  My friends on the other side of the aisle say they are worried about 
the growth of government, yet in spite of all the rhetoric about how 
the government is trying to take over your lives, this, their fifth 
bill under a rule, actually gives the government the ability to spy on 
innocent Americans. No wonder so many Republicans joined so many 
Democrats in voting against this bill earlier this week.
  I urge all of my colleagues who are worried about the unchecked 
growth of the state, anyone who seriously believes in protecting the 
rights and liberties of Americans, or anyone who simply thinks that we 
need to take some time to seriously look at these issues to debate 
them, to vote ``no'' on this bill, to force a discussion of these 
issues, rather than vague promises of future hearings or markups to 
improve this bill. Let's accelerate that timeline, Mr. Speaker, to 
ensure that the concerns of the American people to help protect what it 
means to be an American, what is so close to our identity as Americans, 
protecting our individual liberties according to the Founding Fathers 
as articulated in our Constitution, we can reconcile that with the need 
to protect the American people's safety, and let us begin that work.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, the only way for us to guarantee the rights of every 
American and to ensure that we will be going down the road to be a safe 
nation is to pass this extension so that these very able gentleman can 
proceed with the kinds of hearings that are necessary so that we assure 
that all the rights we need are protected and that we are a safe and 
secure country.
  I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question 
on the resolution.
  The previous question was ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, this 15-
minute vote on adoption of House Resolution 79 will be followed by 5-
minute votes on ordering the previous question on House Resolution 73 
and adopting House Resolution 73, if ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 248, 
nays 176, not voting 9, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 29]

                               YEAS--248

     Ackerman
     Adams
     Aderholt
     Akin
     Alexander
     Altmire
     Amash
     Austria
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Barletta
     Bartlett
     Barton (TX)
     Bass (NH)
     Benishek
     Berg
     Biggert
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Bishop (UT)
     Black
     Blackburn
     Bonner
     Bono Mack
     Boren
     Boswell
     Boustany
     Brady (TX)
     Brooks
     Broun (GA)
     Buchanan
     Bucshon
     Buerkle
     Burgess
     Burton (IN)
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canseco
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carter
     Cassidy
     Chabot
     Chaffetz
     Chandler
     Coble
     Coffman (CO)
     Cole
     Conaway
     Cooper
     Costa
     Cravaack
     Crawford
     Crenshaw
     Culberson
     Davis (KY)
     Denham
     Dent
     DesJarlais
     Diaz-Balart
     Dold
     Dreier
     Duffy
     Duncan (SC)
     Duncan (TN)
     Ellmers
     Emerson
     Farenthold
     Fincher
     Fitzpatrick
     Flake
     Fleischmann
     Fleming
     Flores
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Gardner
     Garrett
     Gerlach
     Gibbs
     Gingrey (GA)
     Gohmert
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Granger
     Graves (GA)
     Graves (MO)
     Griffin (AR)
     Griffith (VA)
     Grimm
     Guinta
     Guthrie
     Hall
     Hanna
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Heck
     Heller
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Herrera Beutler
     Huelskamp
     Huizenga (MI)
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurt
     Issa
     Jenkins
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Jordan
     Kelly
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kinzinger (IL)
     Kissell
     Kline
     Lamborn
     Lance
     Landry
     Lankford
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Latta
     Lewis (CA)
     LoBiondo
     Long
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     Lummis
     Lungren, Daniel E.
     Mack
     Manzullo
     Marchant
     Marino
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCaul
     McCotter
     McHenry
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McKinley
     McMorris Rodgers
     Meehan
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Mulvaney
     Murphy (PA)
     Myrick
     Neugebauer
     Noem
     Nugent
     Nunes
     Nunnelee
     Olson
     Palazzo
     Paulsen
     Pearce
     Pence
     Peters
     Peterson
     Petri
     Pitts
     Poe (TX)
     Pompeo
     Posey
     Price (GA)
     Quayle
     Reed
     Rehberg
     Reichert
     Renacci
     Ribble
     Rigell
     Rivera
     Roby
     Roe (TN)
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Rokita
     Rooney
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Ross (AR)

[[Page 1495]]


     Ross (FL)
     Royce
     Runyan
     Ryan (WI)
     Scalise
     Schilling
     Schmidt
     Schock
     Schweikert
     Scott (SC)
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shimkus
     Simpson
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Southerland
     Stearns
     Stivers
     Stutzman
     Sullivan
     Terry
     Thompson (PA)
     Thornberry
     Tiberi
     Tipton
     Turner
     Upton
     Walberg
     Walden
     Walsh (IL)
     Webster
     West
     Westmoreland
     Whitfield
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Wolf
     Womack
     Woodall
     Yoder
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Young (IN)

                               NAYS--176

     Andrews
     Baca
     Baldwin
     Barrow
     Bass (CA)
     Berkley
     Berman
     Blumenauer
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Brown (FL)
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardoza
     Carnahan
     Carney
     Carson (IN)
     Castor (FL)
     Chu
     Cicilline
     Clarke (MI)
     Clarke (NY)
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Cohen
     Connolly (VA)
     Conyers
     Costello
     Courtney
     Critz
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     DeLauro
     Deutch
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Donnelly (IN)
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Ellison
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Frank (MA)
     Fudge
     Gibson
     Gonzalez
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hanabusa
     Hastings (FL)
     Heinrich
     Higgins
     Himes
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hirono
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson Lee (TX)
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kaptur
     Keating
     Kildee
     Kind
     Kucinich
     Labrador
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee (CA)
     Levin
     Lipinski
     Loebsack
     Lofgren, Zoe
     Lowey
     Lujan
     Lynch
     Maloney
     Markey
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McClintock
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McNerney
     Meeks
     Michaud
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, George
     Moore
     Moran
     Murphy (CT)
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal
     Olver
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor (AZ)
     Paul
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Perlmutter
     Pingree (ME)
     Polis
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Richardson
     Richmond
     Rothman (NJ)
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schrader
     Schwartz
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sewell
     Sherman
     Shuler
     Sires
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Speier
     Stark
     Sutton
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Tonko
     Towns
     Tsongas
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walz (MN)
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Watt
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Welch
     Wilson (FL)
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Yarmuth

                             NOT VOTING--9

     Becerra
     Bilbray
     Garamendi
     Giffords
     Harman
     Lewis (GA)
     Platts
     Ryan (OH)
     Shuster

                              {time}  1511

  Messrs. INSLEE, LARSON of Connecticut, and RANGEL changed their vote 
from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Mr. MACK changed his vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  Mr. JOHNSON of Illinois changed his vote from ``present'' to ``yea.''
  So the resolution was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________