[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12375-12376]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       FAA SUNSETS EXTENSION ACT

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, on July 19, the Judiciary Committee 
considered legislation to reauthorize the title VII provisions of the 
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. These surveillance authorities 
are vital to our national security, and it is imperative that they be 
reauthorized before they expire at the end of this year. The 
reauthorization bill is narrow in scope, and many amendments were 
proposed at the committee markup that had little or nothing to do with 
the reauthorization of FISA. As I stated during the markup, I may have 
supported or been open to working out a compromise on several of the 
amendments in other contexts. However, I voted in opposition to all of 
the extraneous amendments offered because I felt their adoption would 
threaten the timely passage of the FISA reauthorization bill. That is 
not a risk I was willing to take.
  In particular, as for Senator Kyl's amendment to criminalize certain 
behavior that would reward past terrorist acts and Senator Grassley's 
amendment to impose the death penalty on terrorists who use weapons of 
mass destruction, I want to make clear that I strongly oppose the 
funding of terrorism and I believe that terrorists should be subject to 
the death penalty. I support the objectives of both of these 
amendments, but I was concerned that their adoption by the committee 
could delay or prevent passage of the FISA reauthorization bill. I am 
prepared to work with Senator Kyl and Senator Grassley to address these 
important issues at a more appropriate time going forward.
  I hope that these amendments and others are raised in the appropriate 
context so they can be adequately addressed.

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