[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9327-9328]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, over the last few days, this Chamber has 
been discussing the Defense authorization bill, thus fulfilling one of 
our basic responsibilities as part of the Federal Government; that is, 
our national security, and in the process making sure our warfighters--
the people who are on the cutting edge of the knife, so to speak, in 
terms of our national security--have the resources we are morally 
committed and duty-bound to provide them.
  So when voting for the Defense authorization bill, we as legislators 
are fulfilling our responsibilities, just as those who wear the uniform 
are performing their duties--no more, no less--although I must say ours 
is a tad safer than they are experiencing, to be sure.
  With so much at stake for the security of our country, the well-being 
of our folks in uniform as well as the families of those servicemembers 
hanging in the balance, as I mentioned yesterday, it is particularly 
disappointing that the Democratic leader has characterized the 
discussion of this bill as ``a waste of time.'' I really have to 
believe he would want to take those words back because it certainly is 
not a waste of time.
  Unfortunately, it is becoming more and more evident that the threats 
of the Democratic leader and the President of the United States to 
stall Republicans' efforts to get this bill passed quickly is just the 
first step to a larger political strategy. The reason I know that is 
not because it just occurred to me--an epiphany--it is because they 
said so in the pages of the Washington Post just yesterday.
  The headline says it all: ``Democrats prepare for filibuster 
summer.'' That is the headline in the Washington Post yesterday.
  The article goes on to say: ``Democrats have decided to block all 
spending bills starting with the defense appropriations measure headed 
to the floor next week.''
  So imagine my surprise when yesterday the Democratic leader came to 
the floor and accused Republicans of threatening to shut down the 
government, the same day his colleague, the senior Senator from New 
York, detailed their strategy to block all appropriations bills, in the 
Washington Post.
  One thing we have to love about our friends across the aisle: They 
are not unclear, nor are they timid, about telling us what their plans 
are. Indeed, it is there for the world to read and for us to read.
  But let me say it again. Hours after the Democratic leader laid out 
their plans to filibuster all government spending bills, their leader 
claimed Republicans were the ones threatening a shutdown.
  This type of cynical political maneuvering is what the American 
people so soundly rejected in the last election on November 4. Stifling 
debate and shutting down the Senate are not what the American people 
sent us to do, and it is certainly not what my constituents expect me 
to do on their behalf.
  Today, our colleagues across the aisle have now blocked an amendment 
that would provide for greater sharing of information to address the 
rampant and growing cyber threat this country faces. The sharing of 
cyber threat information will help us as a country deter future cyber 
attacks, and it helps both the public and the private sector to act in 
a more nimble way when attacks are detected. So the fact that seven 
Democrats joined virtually all Republicans to move forward with this 
bill, tells me the Democratic position is not monolithic. In other 
words, when the Democratic leader and the senior Senator from New York 
say it is our plan to shut down the Senate and not to cooperate to get 
the people's work done, not every Member of the Democratic minority are 
comfortable with that cynical strategy--and good for them.
  The refusal to move forward with this legislation, particularly the 
cyber security part of this discussion, is just unconscionable.
  Let me give my colleagues some other headlines. Just last week, there 
was a massive breach at the Office of Personnel Management. The 
sensitive personal information of up to 4 million--4 million--current 
and former Federal employees may have been compromised. There are now 
reports that the stolen data includes login information and credentials 
that is actively being traded, bought, and sold online.
  Now, we will await the details of the current investigation into 
this, but we know it has great potential to harm not only the privacy 
interests and the financial interests of the people affected but also 
our national security. We know there are state actors--notably China 
and Russia--who are, on a regular basis, engaged in cyber attacks 
against the United States in an effort to steal our intellectual 
property as well as in order to do intelligence operations using the 
Internet and using cyber space.
  Now, in terms of the personal interests of these employees, it may 
expose them--many of whom may work with national security matters--to 
further targeting by hackers, identity thieves, and even foreign 
intelligence agents.
  At the end of last month, it was reported that the data of more than 
100,000 taxpayers was stolen at the IRS. Just so colleagues understand 
the reason for my concern, the former Acting Director of the CIA, on 
June 11, 2015, when asked about former Senator and former Secretary of 
State Hillary Clinton's decision to put all of her official emails at 
the Secretary of State's office on a private email server, Michael 
Morell said: ``I think that foreign intelligence services, the good 
ones, have everything on any unclassified network that the government 
uses.''
  So not only do they have it on unclassified networks such as the one 
Hillary Clinton maintained, but also if they are able to breach the 
security measures we have in place on government networks, they are 
happy to steal that for whatever their purpose may be, whether it is 
intelligence-gathering or whether it is economic harm that they can 
impose on American citizens by hacking their identity or stealing their 
bank accounts or what have you.
  So we also have to be worried about the 100,000 people whose accounts 
were hacked at the IRS. The suggestion that was made by the IRS 
Commissioner at the Finance Committee recently is that these identity 
thieves steal this information so they can then file false tax returns 
and then claim the refunds or the other credit that those taxpayers 
would have otherwise been able to receive. Imagine when these 100,000 
or so taxpayers go about the business of filing their own tax returns, 
only to find out that a cyber thief has stolen their identity and filed 
a tax return and taken their refund or their tax credit before they 
ever had a chance to do it.
  At the IRS, we know the breach included access to past tax returns. 
As we all know, we have to put a lot of

[[Page 9328]]

sensitive information on tax returns. That is why they are not public 
information. But they also include sensitive information such as Social 
Security numbers, addresses, birth dates--all stolen and potentially in 
the hands of criminals.
  The hypocrisy of the administration in this area is just 
breathtaking. It was just June 6--last Saturday--that Josh Earnest, the 
White House Press Secretary, chastised Congress, on behalf of the 
President of the United States, for not acting urgently enough on the 
issue of cyber security. Here is what Mr. Earnest said: ``We need the 
United States Congress to come out of the Dark Ages and actually join 
us here in the 21st century to make sure that we have the kinds of 
defenses that are necessary to protect a modern computer system.''
  That is what White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said on June 6, 
2015.
  Then our colleagues on the Democratic side have the temerity to come 
here and block the very type of legislation that the White House has 
called for. How hypocritical can you get? How cynical can you get? 
Indeed, the Democratic leader then says, well, they are doing 
everything the way they should be doing it, and it is really a 
Republican conspiracy to shut down the government.
  These are just the most recent examples of a threat that should be 
keeping us up at night--a threat that should cause us to quickly act to 
find solutions to the cyber security threat to the American people and 
to the United States Government and, yes, to our national security.
  Some of our Democratic friends act as if the fact that we have 
decided to file an amendment to the Defense authorization bill, which 
represents an almost unanimous vote of the bipartisan vote of the 
Senate Intelligence Committee, was some sort of dirty trick--that we 
pulled a fast one on them. Well, this legislation has been out there 
for the world to see for quite a while now, and it was negotiated by 
the senior Senator from California, the ranking member on the Senate 
Intelligence Committee, Senator Feinstein, and Senator Burr, the 
chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and as I said, it only had one 
dissenting vote in the Senate Intelligence Committee. So to have the 
gall to come on the Senate floor and act as if this is some sort of 
pulling a fast one or some sort of trick is just disingenuous. I could 
probably think of some other words to describe it, too, but 
``disingenuous'' will have to suffice for now.
  To come out here and to block debate on a vote on a cyber security 
bill at a time when the news is chock-full of the nature of this threat 
and its intrusive invasion into the privacy of the American people and 
its danger to our national security is just flat out irresponsible. 
These are not threats we can afford to ignore.
  And here is the coup de grace--the icing on the cake. Two months ago 
the Democratic leader came to the floor and said he was ``committed'' 
to getting cyber security legislation done, and that was before these 
most recent attacks. So for the Democratic leader to claim this morning 
that Senate Republicans were--these are his words--using ``deceitful 
ploys'' to ensure our Nation is safe from these threats is really 
beyond the pale.
  In addition to the clear and undeniable urgency of the problem, I 
would like to also point out that this was the same language that was, 
as I said, passed out of the Intelligence Committee in March. So 
perhaps you can understand why I am so confused by our Democratic 
colleagues' position and actually by the White House's position.
  The White House called for cyber security legislation. Cyber security 
legislation gets voted out of the Senate Intelligence Committee 14 to 
1. The Democratic leader said we need to act on cyber security, and we 
try to act on cyber security legislation, only to be blocked by the 
Democratic leader. All I can see is the Democratic leader's 
``commitment'' to work on cyber legislation has given way to partisan 
gamesmanship by our Democratic colleagues who are promising ``a 
filibuster summer.'' Well, welcome to the filibuster summer.
  But this is not what the American people deserve. This isn't why they 
sent us here, and this is what they affirmatively rejected this last 
election. But somehow our Democratic colleagues just can't stand it 
that we have actually turned things around and we have been able to 
make some slow, incremental progress. We passed the first budget since 
2009. You know, that should be a scandal, but I guess it represents 
progress that we finally have been able to do it with the new majority 
starting in January. We have worked with the White House to pass trade 
promotion authority and some things that are tough and are 
controversial on both sides of the aisle. We have taken a number of 
positive steps on child trafficking and on a number of other topics. 
Now we are trying to do our most basic duty and deal with our Nation's 
defense, and that includes protecting our Nation's cyber security 
infrastructure while we fund our Armed Forces to make sure they have 
the resources to do what they volunteered to do so bravely on our 
behalf.
  The men and women of this country and particularly the men and women 
who wear the uniform of the U.S. military deserve better. This National 
Defense Authorization Act, this basic bill to which the cyber security 
language was being offered, has strong bipartisan support, and it 
passed out of the Armed Services Committee overwhelmingly. And do you 
know what? It even authorizes funding levels at the figure requested by 
the President of the United States. Yet our Senate Democratic 
colleagues are still dragging their feet, refusing to allow us to vote 
on amendments to this bill and defeating the very cyber security 
provision that the Democratic leader said we ought to get to and that 
Josh Earnest chastised Congress for not passing. Yet Members of his own 
political party--the President's own political party--blocked that 
cyber security legislation.
  So this bill should not be held hostage to political gamesmanship. 
The American people's security and safety should not be held hostage to 
political gamesmanship, and the Senate, which used to be known as the 
world's greatest deliberative body, should not be used just purely for 
partisan gain.
  So I hope that the seven Democrats who actually voted to proceed on 
this cyber security bill will get some more allies. I can tell that not 
all of our friends across the aisle are comfortable with the Democratic 
leader's direction to block this cyber security legislation, and 
perhaps over the weekend, some will have second thoughts. I hope as 
they have those second thoughts, they will focus on our collective duty 
to our troops and their families and to our duty as Members of the 
Senate to promote and protect the security of the American people.
  So let's get back to basics. Let's do what the American people 
elected us to do by voting on a bipartisan bill that will protect our 
country and provide for our troops.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 
20 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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