[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 1467-1472]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        TRUMP'S REFUGEE ACTIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Cheney). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I might say it is great seeing you in the 
chair. You are a natural fit. Maybe we can do something about that at 
some point.
  It is an honor to speak in this hallowed Hall. There has been much 
ado made about contrived misrepresentations about what has gone on with 
President Trump's executive order regarding seven countries that the 
Obama administration designated as being problems when it comes to 
refugees coming from those countries.
  It has been absolutely incredible. And I think some of us were 
talking that it really exemplifies why networks like CNN--that was the 
one, the only 24-hour cable news network--have lost so much to other 
networks. MSNBC, CNBC, and even Fox News got caught up in some of the 
misrepresentations, and I couldn't believe that they were spending the 
kind of time talking about a contrived issue.
  Now, there was a problem in some innocent people being delayed and 
improperly handled, people who didn't deserve that. I am familiar with 
how that feels because I deal, like most of us do in this body, with 
TSA on virtually a weekly or even sometimes more often basis.
  There is a great article here by John Hayward from January 29. Mr. 
Hayward says:
  ``The sober and logical reasons for President Donald Trump's 
executive order on refugees and visitors are rising above the noise 
after an evening of hysterical over-reactions and emotional meltdowns 
on the Nation's TV networks.
  ``Advocates of sane, secure immigration policy have long noted that 
it's almost impossible to have a reasonable discussion of the refugee 
and immigration issues, because it's been sentimentalized and 
politicized beyond the realm of rational thought.
  ``This weekend brings them another superb example of media-magnified 
shrieking about fascism, bleating about `white nationalists,' howling 
about `religious persecution,' false invocations of the Constitution, 
and theatrical sobbing on behalf of the Statue of Liberty.''
  We do have that water coming off the Statute of Liberty being 
analyzed, so that we can determine whether or not it is tears or 
something else.
  ``For readers who want to wallow in the emotion, examples can be 
found in this handy dossier of hysteria compiled by the Washington 
Post. But clear-eyed adults prefer to examine plain facts about Trump's 
executive order:
  ``1. It is NOT a `Muslim ban.'''
  I have the executive order here. Unlike those in the Senate and those 
in the media, who were just excoriating President Trump and anyone 
involved in this executive order, I actually read it, unlike those 
people. I read the executive order.

                              {time}  1745

  And because I read the executive order, I understood there was no ban 
against Muslims, no ban against Islam. It was very straightforward. And 
Hayward's article points that out.
  He said: ``You will search the executive order in vain for mentions 
of Islam, or any other religion. By Sunday morning, the media began 
suffering acute attacks of honesty and writing headlines such as 
`Trump's Latest Executive Order: Banning People From 7 Countries and 
More.''
  And that was from CNN. And, Madam Speaker, I am very pleased that CNN 
finally got around to having a more truthful headline.
  ``Granted, CNN still slips in the phrase `Muslim-majority countries' 
into every article about the order, including the post in which they 
reprinted its text in full, but CNN used the word `Muslim,' not Trump. 
The order applies to all citizens of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Somalia, 
Sudan and Yemen. It does not specify Muslims. The indefinite hold on 
Syrian refugees will affect Christians and Muslims alike,'' not to 
mention people of every other religion and people of no religion.
  ``As Tim Carney at the Washington Examiner points out, the largest 
Muslim-majority countries in the world are not named in the Executive 
Order.
  ``More countries may be added to the moratorium in the days to come, 
as the Secretary of Homeland Security has been instructed to complete a 
30-day review of nations that don't provide adequate information for 
vetting applicants.
  ``It is also noteworthy that the ban is not absolute. Exceptions for 
`foreign nationals traveling on diplomatic visas, North Atlantic Treaty 
Organization visas, C-2 visas for travel to the

[[Page 1468]]

United Nations, and G-1, G-2, G-3 and G-4 visas' are expressly made in 
the order. The Departments of State and Homeland Security can also 
grant exceptions on a `case-by-case basis'''--that is all in the 
executive order--``and `when in the national interest, issue visas or 
other immigration benefits to nationals of countries for which visas 
and benefits are otherwise blocked.'
  ``There is a provision in the Executive Order that says applications 
based on religious persecution will be prioritized `provided that the 
religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual's 
country of nationality.'''
  And so it is important to note here, I think from the executive 
order, that it says applications based on religious persecution. That 
means that people that have applied for visas or immigration benefits 
to come into the United States who, themselves, raise their religion as 
a reason to let them into the United States, those need to be 
prioritized based on whether or not their religion is actually being 
persecuted, those holding those religious beliefs are actually being 
persecuted. And I think that is a rather intelligent way to approach 
things.
  But in those cases, it would be the applicant that would raise the 
issue of religion, not the Trump administration, not the State 
Department, not Homeland Security. It would be the foreign applicant 
trying to come into the United States who would be the one to raise 
that issue.
  Now, the article goes on: ``This has been denounced as a `stealth 
Muslim ban' by some of the very same people who were conspicuously 
silent when the Obama administration pushed Christians--who are the 
most savagely persecuted minority in the Middle East, with only the 
Yazidis offering real competition--to the back of the migration line.''
  So it is important to note that, for years, this administration has 
been part of the discrimination and persecution against Christians in 
the world against whom there has been a genocide in progress.
  So when the head of the U.N. was in charge of the refugee program and 
was asked why is there not a similar percentage of Christians coming in 
as refugees to other countries to the percentage that Christians make 
up in that nation they come from, basically, the man who is now head of 
United Nations said, well, it is important to leave them where they 
have this historical presence, basically.
  So in other words, yes, there is a genocide going on. They want to 
kill off every Christian in those areas, every Christian in the Middle 
East, and so the U.N. now Secretary General says let's leave them in 
the area where they are being wiped off the map, brutally killed. Let's 
leave them there until we can say this place where they were 
historically has now shown there are none there. They have all been 
brutally murdered as the U.N. watched and didn't help. It is outrageous 
how uncivilized this United Nations has become.
  I filed a bill, and I still think we should bring it to the floor, 
that would require a complete defunding by the United States of the 
United Nations until such time as they withdraw the resolution of the 
Security Council that condemned Israel.
  I mean, it is like a teacher of mine in the fifth grade after I got 
beat up by a bully who had been held back two grades, was about 18 
inches taller. She pointed to the class and said: This is what happens 
when little boys try to play with the big boys.
  Well, that is basically what the Obama administration had been doing. 
It is basically what the U.N. had been doing. They took the side of the 
mean bullies that had been devastating the Christians in the area.
  Having talked to so many Christians who were living in Syria and who 
the mainstream press say, oh, yeah, they are big Assad fans--no, they 
were not big Assad fans. They knew that he could be quite brutal, but 
their only point that the mainstream media in the United States and 
most of the world was missing is that Assad prevented Christians from 
being the victims of a genocide; and as Assad was weakened, the 
assaults and the murders and the rapes of Christians increased 
exponentially.
  I do think that the United States may still be held to account in the 
ledger of world history--what I would submit is God's ledger--for 
having the power and the moral right to stop a genocide of Christians 
in the Middle East and we participated in leaving them where they were, 
as did the U.N., so that they could be brutally murdered.
  I am going back to Mr. Hayward's article.
  ``2. The order''--talking about the executive order of Donald Trump. 
``The order is based on security reviews conducted by President Barack 
Obama's deputies.''
  And, Madam Speaker, for those in the mainstream media, I think it is 
important to repeat that line. President Trump's executive order that 
didn't ban Muslims but that ordered a temporary pause on people from 
certain countries from whom we had no information or inadequate 
information to vet the people that were coming in, it was based on 
security reviews conducted by President Barack Obama's deputies.
  ``As White House counselor Kellyanne Conway pointed out on `Fox News 
Sunday,' the seven nations named in Trump's executive order are drawn 
from the Terrorist Prevention Act of 2015. The 2015 `Visa Waiver 
Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015' named 
Iraq, Iran, Sudan, and Syria, while its 2016 update added Libya, 
Somalia, and Yemen.
  ```These are countries that have a history of training, harboring, 
exporting terrorists. We can't keep pretending and look the other way,' 
said Conway.
  ``3. The moratorium is largely temporary. Citizens of the seven 
countries''--and by the way, in this executive order that President 
Trump signed, there is no mention of the countries. It refers to what 
President Obama signed declaring, first, the four countries, and then 
the three countries.
  It just refers to that that President Obama signed. He doesn't single 
out or name the countries; and I can't help but think, as intelligent 
as some of the people are that are assisting President Trump, that they 
showed a massive amount of naivete because it appears that they 
thought, if in the executive order President Trump refers to documents 
that President Obama signed designating these countries as countries 
where we didn't have adequate information, then even the mainstream 
media would have to go back to President Trump's and look above his 
signature and see that these are places that President Obama said were 
threats.
  And then they would--having some semblance of a conscience--have to 
point out that actually Trump is just putting in an executive order of 
what basically Obama signed off on but didn't go ahead and carry out 
what needed to be done based on that law.
  But, as I say, these folks were rather naive. And as the saying goes 
in Washington, no matter how cynical you get, it is never enough to 
catch up in this town. And so the Trump administration, the Trump 
advisers have a lot of growing to do to understand just how unfair the 
media can be. It is a valid presumption that if you don't name the 
countries, you make the mainstream media go back and look at what 
President Obama signed that they will understand, oh, this is what 
President Obama proclaimed that he is basing this on, so we can't be so 
mean to President Trump.
  Well, it didn't turn out that way, and they are learning that just 
because it would make great sense, be common sense in most areas of the 
country--that is areas that are not the fringe that voted for Hillary 
Clinton, but most of the country would say it is common sense. It isn't 
common within the original 10-by-10 mile boundaries of the District of 
Columbia, which are no longer 10 by 10 after ceding the land west of 
the Potomac to Virginia back in the 1840s.
  But number four in this Hayward article: ``Obama banned immigration 
from Iraq, and Carter banned it from Iran.

[[Page 1469]]

  ```Fact-checking' website PolitiFact twists itself into knots to 
avoid giving a `true' rating to the absolutely true fact that Jimmy 
Carter banned Iranian immigration in 1980, unless applicants could 
prove they were enemies of the Khomenei theocracy.
  ``One of PolitiFact's phony talking points states that Carter `acted 
against Iranian nationals, not an entire religion.' As noted above, 
Trump's Executive Order is precisely the same--it does not act against 
an `entire religion,' it names seven countries.''
  But, you know, I had some personal experience with PolitiFact. I used 
the word earlier today, ``hack,'' ``political hack,'' in an interview, 
and that is what I think of PolitiFact. They shouldn't be called 
PolitiFact. They ought to be called ``PolitiHack.''

                              {time}  1800

  I know I was speaking here on the House floor--I think it was last 
year--and I made a statement based on data received by the Senate on 
the percentage of American citizens and the percentage of noncitizens--
non-American citizens--who were in Federal prison for possession of a 
controlled substance. The reason I singled out possession was because 
President Obama has tried to make it appear that people in Federal 
prison have gotten such a bad rap because they really--just simple 
possession--they didn't deserve to be in prison so long. There is this 
whole intimation that, gee, there are people in Federal prison for 
possession of controlled substances who should have been let out a long 
time ago, and that is why we needed to have our laws changed.
  Well, since the President had mentioned people in Federal prison for 
possession, I singularly pointed out that the huge majority of people 
in Federal prison for simple possession were not American citizens. I'm 
going from my memory, but, apparently, PolitiFact wanted to do as they 
normally do and cover for the Democrats and try to do a hatchet job on 
a Republican since they are not political fact, they are political 
hack. So my communications person gets an email from ``PolitiHack'' 
that uses the name PolitiFact and wanted to know the source of my 
information because they were going to rate my statement. She provided 
the facts as provided by this administration to the Senate.
  Clearly what I had said was exactly true. I had quoted specifically 
from the data from the Obama administration, and it was 100 percent 
accurate. So then they come back--they thought they would catch me in 
not having proper information, and they come back to my communications 
person and said: Well, we have got information from the Bureau of 
Prisons that showed that if you look at all offenses that involved 
controlled substances, the percentage of noncitizens is not nearly that 
high. So why would he use just possession?
  The point was because President Obama had used simple possession to 
try to make it look as if people in Federal prison were not there for 
very serious crimes, and there is certainly a smaller number of people 
in Federal prison for possession than for dealing drugs and other 
charges.
  So in the end, after all the back and forth, they basically 
perpetuated a fraud upon the American people, PolitiFact--a bunch of 
political hacks--by not being willing to say that my statement was 100 
percent true because they, in some contorted manner, did not want to 
point out that my statement was exactly true. They refer basically to, 
oh, that the number wasn't near that high of people involved in 
controlled substance. I didn't mention everybody with controlled 
substance.
  So that is just a parenthetical in Hayward's article for me because I 
know personally PolitiFact is a political joke if what they were doing 
was not so serious in harming the American people by misrepresenting 
the true facts of what is going on. I hope that at some point being 
still remaining an entrepreneurial country for a little longer--at 
least we have got nearly 4 years to go that we can be assured of as an 
entrepreneurial country--at least in that time perhaps we will have an 
entrepreneurial group that will rise up and start scoring PolitiFact to 
show just how unfair they are, and, on occasion, when they are actually 
fair, show that as well so the American public can actually score the 
illegitimate scorers.
  But going back to this article, it says: ``As for Barack Obama, he 
did indeed ban immigration from Iraq, for much longer than Trump's 
order bans it from the seven listed nations, and none of the people 
melting down today uttered a peep of protest. Richard Grenell summed it 
up perfectly in a Tweet: `Obama took 6 months to review screening for 1 
country. Trump will take 3 months for 7 countries. . . . '''
  This article goes on: ``5. Trump's refugee caps are comparable to 
Obama's pre-2016 practices: David French, who was touted as a spoiler 
candidate to keep Donald Trump out of the White House during the 
presidential campaign--in other words, not a big Trump fan--wrote a 
lengthy and clear-headed analysis of the Executive Order for National 
Review. He noted that after the moratorium ends in 120 days''--and that 
is one section. It ends in 120 days, the other section is 90 days, 
another part says they will have 30 days to produce a report.
  But it goes on to say: ``Trump caps refugee admissions at 50,000 per 
year . . . which is roughly the same as President Obama's admissions in 
2011 and 2012, and not far below the 70,000 per year cap in place from 
2013 to 2015.
  ``Obama had fairly low caps on refugees during the worst years of the 
Syrian civil war. He didn't throw open the doors to mass refugee 
admissions until his final year in office. Depending on how Trump's 
review of Syrian refugee policy turns out, he's doing little more than 
returning admissions to normal levels after a four-month pause for 
security reviews.
  ``6. The Executive Order is legal: Those invoking the Constitution to 
attack Trump's order are simply embarrassing themselves. The President 
has clear statutory authority to take these actions. As noted, his 
predecessors did so, without much controversy.
  ``Most of the legal arguments against Trump's order summarized by USA 
Today are entirely specious, such as attacking him for `banning an 
entire religion,' which the order manifestly does not do. Critics of 
the order have a political opinion that it will in effect `ban 
Muslims,' but that's not what it says. Designating specific nations as 
trouble spots and ordering a pause is entirely within the President's 
authority, and there is ample precedent to prove it.
  ``It should be possible to argue with the reasoning behind the order, 
or argue that it will have negative unintended consequences, without 
advancing hollow legal arguments. Of course, this is America 2017, so a 
wave of lawsuits will soon be sloshing through the courts.
  ``7. This Executive Order is a security measure, not an arbitrary 
expression of supposed xenophobia. Conway stressed the need to enhance 
immigration security from trouble spots in her `Fox News Sunday' 
interview. French also addressed the subject in his post:
  ``When we know our enemy is seeking to strike America and its allies 
through the refugee population, when we know they've succeeded in 
Europe, and when the administration has doubts about our ability to 
adequately vet the refugees we admit into this nation, a pause is again 
not just prudent but arguably necessary. It is important that we 
provide sufficient aid and protection to keep refugees safe and healthy 
in place, but it is not necessary to bring Syrians to the United States 
to fulfill our vital moral obligations.''
  The article goes on. It is well written, points are well made, and I 
would humbly submit, Madam Speaker, that we had the statistics last 
year that showed that for the cost of bringing one Syrian refugee to 
the United States for 1 year, we could help take care of 12 Syrian 
refugees in place in a safe zone over near their home.
  Now, I am very encouraged that even though President Obama simply 
would not ever agree or strive to have a safe

[[Page 1470]]

zone in areas near the refugees' homes so we can take care of 12 times 
more than we can possibly bring to our country for the same cost, and 
he is working on that, and he has got some agreements, and it looks 
like that may be a possibility. We give air cover, help create safe 
zones in areas there in the Middle East so the refugees can live 
without being killed and horribly brutally murdered and abused. That 
makes more sense. It appears that the President has worked with or 
talked with the Saudi authorities and perhaps will be able to get 
something like that worked out.
  There were people just quite emotional over the fact that Saudi 
Arabia was not mentioned and Egypt was not mentioned. Actually, the 
order did not mention any nations by name. The Trump executive order 
simply referred to what President Obama signed off on which included 
seven countries. These are seven countries where it shouldn't even be 
arguable among people of common sense that we do not have, have not 
received, and cannot get adequate information from which to determine 
whether people wanting to come into the United States are actually 
refugees or if they are part of al Qaeda, al Nusra, and ISIS, and they 
want to come kill Americans and end our freedoms and our way of life. 
That is why such an executive order was entirely appropriate.
  Although I supported a different candidate for President for over a 
year, I applaud President Trump in caring so deeply about the American 
public that he would take the honorable and appropriate steps to 
protect Americans that the last administration would not take.
  A great article in Townhall from Matt Vespa is entitled: ``Friendly 
Reminder: Obama Selected The List Of Seven Countries in Trump's 
Executive Order.'' That certainly should be noted yet again.
  Another great article here by Seth Frantzman says: ``Obama's 
Administration Made the `Muslim Ban' Possible and the Media Won't Tell 
You.'' It is a good article there.
  I think this article from John Hayward from January 27 on Breitbart 
may give us insight as to why there is so much howling by CAIR and CAIR 
associates because there were implications of people involved with CAIR 
in the Holy Land Foundation trial.

                              {time}  1815

  One just merely need to go look at the pleadings. Here in Congress, 
since Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch went through their entire terms as 
Attorneys General and continued to refuse to provide the discovery 
documents in the Holy Land Foundation trial that were provided in 
pretrial to the convicted terrorist supporters, it is pretty 
incomprehensible for some of us.
  On one occasion, when Attorney General Holder pointed out that, well, 
there may be some classified issues involved, I pointed out to him--
apparently, it went right over his head and he couldn't discern--the 
fact that the Justice Department gave the documents I am requesting to 
people that were then convicted of supporting terrorism.
  If Justice could give them to the terrorists without concern about 
being classified, surely they could give them to Members of Congress. 
Although some of us may argue in such ways that it terrifies some 
people, we are not terrorists and we are authorized to receive 
classified information. We should have been authorized in Congress to 
receive the same documents that the Justice Department provided to the 
terrorist supporters who were convicted.
  This article from John Hayward, January 27, points out that:
  ``According to Reuters, a `factional' debate is under way within the 
Trump administration over adding the Muslim Brotherhood to the State 
Department and Treasury lists of foreign terrorist organizations.
  ``This is a measure often called for by critics of the Brotherhood as 
Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney, who once again 
recommended an official terrorist designation on Wednesday's edition of 
Breitbart News Daily.
  ``A source in the Trump transition team told Reuters the effort to so 
designate the Muslim Brotherhood is led by National Security Adviser 
Michael Flynn. The source was personally in agreement with Flynn.
  ``In Congress, a bill to add the Muslim Brotherhood to the official 
terrorist list was introduced this month by Senator Ted Cruz and 
Representative Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida. Secretary of State nominee 
Rex Tillerson denounced the Muslim Brotherhood as an `agent of radical 
Islam' during his confirmation hearings, but he has not made public 
statements regarding adding them to the foreign terrorist organization 
list.
  However, other Trump advisers, and members of the intelligence and 
law-enforcement communities, argue the Brotherhood has `evolved 
peacefully in some countries,' Reuters claims.
  ``They also expressed the pragmatic concern that going hard on the 
Muslim Brotherhood could complicate diplomatic relations with nations 
such as Turkey. It would unquestionably, however, please such U.S. 
allies as Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, although 
there have been signs the Saudis might be softening on the Brotherhood 
as they search for allies against ISIS in Iran.
  ``One official familiar with the State Department's deliberations 
conceded that the Muslim Brotherhood's ideology has influenced such 
terrorist groups as Hamas, but since it is a large, loose organization 
spread over several nations, it could be legally difficult to apply the 
terrorist designation. Allied nations such as Britain have also 
expressed suspicions about the Brotherhood's influence, while stopping 
short of a formal terrorist designation.''
  So this is important to note. It is a good article. But I can't help 
but wonder if the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, may 
be getting quite concerned about the potential for designating their 
friends in the Muslim Brotherhood.
  There may be a mutual relationship there. There may be people that 
are part of both groups. No doubt, CAIR is getting quite concerned 
about heightened talk about naming the Muslim Brotherhood as the 
terrorist organization they are. It is just that they don't use 
terrorist tactics, as some of them have indicated before, when they are 
making great progress without terrorism, but knowing that eventually, 
after they get as far as they can with peaceful methods, they will 
ultimately be resorting to terrorism to bring the United States and 
other Western civilizations, countries into the international 
caliphate, wherein we are ruled by a caliph.
  So it is interesting times. Here, tonight, in perhaps an hour and a 
half or so, our new President will name the nominee to fill the 
Honorable Antonin Scalia's spot on the Supreme Court. He is still 
greatly missed. He was a great man. He was a great jurist. He was a 
great patriot and he was great for America and our freedoms. So we will 
look forward to hearing that.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. 
Sanford).


                           Privacy Protection

  Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for the 
way that, on a nightly basis, he comes down to the well and helps 
inform people. Jefferson, in the writings of our Founding Fathers, 
talked about how important it was to have an informed electorate.
  I just really appreciate the way the gentleman gives people clarity 
and information that they can then digest and make their decisions 
with. That process of informing is, I think, a vital part of the 
politic. He does it on the daily basis, and I appreciate it. His doing 
so matters to me and to the people that I represent.
  I appreciate so much the gentleman's yielding because I want to talk 
just a couple of minutes about a bill that I introduced today entitled 
the REAL ID Privacy Protection Act.
  It is a bipartisan bill. It is supported from the Republican side by 
people like Mark Meadows. It is supported on the Democratic side by 
Democrats like Chellie Pingree from Maine. I think

[[Page 1471]]

they do so because it is a commonsense bill that gets at some of the 
deficiencies that one can find in REAL ID.
  Quite specifically, what it does is eliminate the requirement that 
your personal documentation and documents be held and archived, in 
essence, in warehouses for 10 years. It will not require your stuff to 
be out in government databases for 10 years. Secondly, it eliminates 
the requirement that the DMV databases be co-linked. Thirdly, it 
creates uniformity with regard to the way in which extensions are 
granted.
  So the bottom line is your driver's license could still be used to 
get you in the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort or it could be used to 
go into Joint Base Charleston or a whole host of other facilities 
around this country. More significantly, for the average flying public, 
you could still use your driver's license next year to be able to get 
on a plane in the United States of America.
  Why is all this important?
  It is important because individual privacy matters. It is important 
because equal treatment under the law matters. It is important because 
the 10th Amendment really matters. States have a role in which the 
Founding Fathers intended the Federal Government to fit with the State 
government, to fit with local government, and to fit with individual 
prerogative.
  Now let's examine each one of those couple of things. One, if you 
look at South Carolina driver's licenses, just as an example, they are 
secure. We have holograms. We have barcodes. We have a whole host of 
different things that create security.
  Yet, in the wake of 9/11, what the Federal Government, Homeland 
Security, and others decided at that time was that, in essence, what 
they wanted was a de facto national ID card and for the Federal 
Government to, in essence, federalize what had previously been a State 
function, with State's issuing driver's licenses.
  There is not a Federal driver's license. Texas has driver's licenses, 
South Carolina has driver's licenses, Florida has driver's licenses. 
Each State may have a little bit different way of doing so, but it was 
a state prerogative.
  In the wake of that Federal requirement--I was wearing a different 
hat at the time; I was wearing a Governor's hat--I joined with, for 
instance, Governor Schweitzer from Montana in saying: Wait, this 
doesn't make sense. The States still have a vital role here. This role 
does not need to be federalized. We pushed back and, long story short, 
we were successful with many others in that effort. Yet, what is 
happening is many of those deadline requirements are now reemerging and 
approaching.
  The question we have to ask ourselves in Congress is: What are we 
going to do about it? Are we going to push back again? Or are we going 
to try and slow this again? Or are we just going to let the Federal 
Government come in and steamroll what has been a State function?
  I think it is important that we act, and that is why we introduced 
this bill. It, again, gets at three important things. One, privacy 
matters. Quite simply, if government doesn't need your stuff, they 
don't get your stuff. I think that is a simple premise. Again, let me 
say it again. If government really doesn't need your stuff, it 
shouldn't get your stuff.
  What do I mean by that?
  What I mean is, if the requirement, as is now the case, is that the 
Federal Government take your personal information and they archive it 
for the next 10 years, do you really feel that you are more secure?
  I would argue that is not at all the case. I would argue that it is 
much better to have a system that, when you take your birth 
certificate, you take your marriage license, you take your divorce 
papers, you take your citizenship papers, whatever it is that you have, 
take it all, let folks at the government level decide whether you are 
who you are or whether you are not who you are, and then give your 
stuff back to you. They don't need to house it for the next 10 years.
  That is all this bill does. If you house it for the next 10 years, in 
fact, there is a considerable cost. The unfunded mandate to States is 
$17 billion.
  So what we are saying is make the determination. Take, again, all 
your stuff, look at it, but then give it back, rather than requiring 
States to archive this stuff for the next 10 years.
  It also matters because, again, of individual human privacy. Whether 
it is a divorce decree, whether it is a marriage license, whether it is 
citizenship papers, whatever it is, we have been in hearings over the 
last couple of weeks where it was proven that the Russians were quite 
involved in hacking of American databases.
  Why do we want to open that up to Chinese hackers, Russian hackers, 
to whoever it is, if it isn't required and necessary from the 
standpoint of security?
  Two, this bill simply gets at the notion that States matter. The 10th 
Amendment matters. Patton was once attributed with saying that, if you 
tell a soldier to take a hill, tell them to take the hill. Don't tell 
them how to attack the hill.
  The same is true of the Federal Government as it relates to States. 
Give us a secured requirement, but then allow Texas to go about their 
way of taking the hill and South Carolina to come with its way of 
attacking the hill, as long as we take the hill, which is the necessary 
security requirement.
  I think it is also important from the standpoint of security that one 
thing we have learned over time is that centralization of data does not 
make data more secure. We have a host of different breaches that have 
occurred at the Federal level that prove this point.
  I think that one of the things that is interesting about Pearl Harbor 
is that the boats were in one spot and it was one-stop shopping for the 
Japanese. So, in fact, what we have seen in terms of military strategy 
going forward is people spread assets out. They don't want them 
congregated all in one spot so that an attacker would be able to take 
down a multitude of different assets with one particular raid. I think 
the same is true in the information age, as it relates to databases.
  Finally, this bill is about equal treatment under the law. I think 
that what many States--South Carolina would be among them--are 
concerned about is: Is this too subjective? If you happen to be a blue 
State versus a red State, does that have some degree of determination 
in the way in which you get an extension or you don't get an extension?

                              {time}  1830

  Eighteen States and territories have been granted extensions. Seven 
States have been granted very limited extensions. All this bill does is 
say, Let's make that process transparent so that States can look one to 
the other and say, How was it that you got an extension but I didn't? I 
think that that level of uniformity would make sure that nobody 
suspects this system of being arbitrary or capricious by nature.
  That is in simple form what the bill does. Again, it is about your 
privacy. We have had a long debate over the course of our country on 
security versus freedom, and what we don't want to do is give up 
certain, in essence, soul conditions, if you will, for freedom, 
including this notion of federalism, in our efforts to be secure. It is 
about recognizing that States are not wards of the Federal government, 
that a $7 billion unfunded liability really does matter to the 
taxpayers of different States. Finally, it is about equal treatment 
under the law.
  Again, the bill is called the REAL ID Privacy Protection Act. I would 
ask Members to join us on that bill. I would ask folks out there 
listening to talk to their House Member about that bill because I think 
it is one that makes a whole lot of sense.
  I would say, again, how much I appreciate the gentleman from Texas 
yielding. Most of all, I thank him for the way he comes down to the 
well on such a regular basis to inform the American public.
  Mr. GOHMERT. I thank the gentleman from South Carolina not merely for 
the bill, but this gentleman's bills, just like the reasoned argument 
made here in this Chamber, well reasoned, well thought out. Having sat

[[Page 1472]]

and listened to so many lawyers during my years on the bench, both 
trial bench and appellate bench, I would have welcomed the opportunity 
to hear from my friend from South Carolina in any courtroom where I was 
sitting. Well reasoned, a lot of good research in trying to solve 
problems. I look forward to a lot of us reading that bill and finding 
out because there is no doubt it involved just as good reasons as were 
used in your argument here today.
  Also, we heard from another colleague of ours, the Honorable Don 
Young from Alaska. I am actually optimistic about so many things with 
this President in the Oval Office now, and one of them is that our 
friend, Don Young from Alaska, may finally get some help.
  President Carter had identified an area that really didn't have any 
wildlife to speak of. Yes, it was part of the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge, but it was an area that really didn't have wildlife to speak 
of. As I understand it, there are some caribou that may walk across 
there from time to time, but they can't stay because there is not 
enough to sustain them. But President Carter, as anticarbon energy as 
he was, realized that is an area that we can agree ought to be drilled 
for the production of oil and gas, and it has been fought over and 
over.
  Who stands to gain?
  Well, actually, the American public. But since so much oil has now 
been found out in my friend Mike Conaway's district in west Texas, up 
in the Dakotas, we are not as needful of that as we were. But the 
people who will really benefit are the people of Alaska, and then 
additional beneficiaries will be the people of the United States and 
the people who want to get out from under the iron fist of Russia 
rising. We will be able to help them with that by not only becoming 
energy independent; but after energy independent, exporting oil and gas 
to other nations so they don't feel the pinch that nations like China 
and Russia are putting on them.
  I thank my friend, Mr. Young from Alaska, and my friend, the former 
Governor of South Carolina, Mr. Sanford.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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