[Congressional Record: October 12, 2001 (House)]
[Page H6706-H6712]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:cr12oc01-109]
WAIVING REQUIREMENT OF CLAUSE 6(a) OF RULE XIII WITH RESPECT TO
CONSIDERATION OF CERTAIN RESOLUTIONS
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I
call up House Resolution 263 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 263
Resolved, That the requirement of clause 6(a) of rule XIII
for a two-thirds vote to consider a report from the Committee
on Rules on the same day it is presented to the House is
waived with respect to any resolution reported on the
legislative day of Friday, October 12, 2001, providing for
consideration or disposition of the bill (H.R. 2975) to
combat terrorism, and for other purposes.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) is
recognized for 1 hour.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the
customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter),
pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During
consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose
of debate only.
Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 263 waives clause 6(a) of rule XIII, which
requires a two-thirds vote to consider a rule on the same day it is
reported from the Committee on Rules.
This waiver will be applied to a special rule reported on the
legislative day of Friday October 12, 2001, providing for the
consideration or disposition of the bill, H.R. 2975, to combat
terrorism and for other purposes.
I urge my colleagues to support the passage of this rule which will
enable the House of Representatives to debate and consider the
President's antiterrorism package later today.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, the Committee on Rules met at 8 o'clock this morning to
begin taking testimony on the antiterrorism legislation. While the
Committee on the Judiciary had reported a truly bipartisan bill by a
vote of 36-0, which is somewhat miraculous, 2 weeks ago, we were not
informed until 7 o'clock this morning that we would be taking testimony
on a new bill, the content of which the Committee on Rules had not seen
nor apparently had the members of the Committee on the Judiciary.
We now have under consideration a rule which waives the two-thirds
same day consideration requirement because, during the night, a
bipartisan bill was turned into a bill which most Democratic members of
the Committee on the Judiciary cannot support. We are considering this
waiver of the two-thirds consideration rule because so many Members
understand the grave and long-lasting ramifications of this
legislation. This legislation is so far reaching that they felt it
necessary to come to the Committee on Rules earlier this morning to
offer amendments to the new bill or to simply sit and try to get an
explanation of what is actually contained in it.
Democratic Members of the Committee on Rules will not oppose this
rule, but we will oppose the rule reported a few minutes ago to provide
for the consideration of the new bill. We will oppose that rule because
of the process and because we strongly believe it is important to
maintain bipartisan cooperation in matters such as this. While we
believe the President should have the tools he needs to fight this war
against terrorism, we cannot give up the role of Congress in doing so.
The majority has usurped a committee's jurisdiction and has therefore
set back the hard-won bipartisan efforts of a committee not known for
working in such a collegial and bipartisan manner. Both Chairman
Sensenbrenner and Ranking Member Conyers presented to the House a fair
and balanced package designed to give the administration what it needs
to ferret out the terrorists among us, and they are to be commended.
But to undo their work is unfair and unbalanced.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to
the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha).
Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I could ask the gentleman from
Georgia a few questions here. I have not seen a copy of the bill, and
nobody on this side has been able to explain to me what is in the bill.
I know in an hour that it would be very difficult to explain the
intricacies of a terrorism bill which would last for some period of
time.
Could you tell me the difference between the bill that the Committee
on the Judiciary reported out and this particular bill that we are
talking about here?
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. MURTHA. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, both the Senate and the House took up, at
the beginning, a base bill proposed by the administration. Both the
Senate and the House added provisions to the bill. In the compromise
last night with the Senate, both took the most egregious provisions
out. The ones that concerned me the most were the Senate bill at one
point had reversed the McDade law. That has been taken back out. The
Senate provisions had reversed our efforts of several years by the
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) to change the forfeiture laws. That
has been removed. So we have pretty much the beginnings of the House
bill here stripped down from the additions. I have not read them. I
have asked for explanations. That is the best I can do.
Mr. MURTHA. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. LINDER. Also, the Senate had no provision for sunsetting or
review. The House provisions had a 2-year plus 3-year, so about a 5-
year provision for sunsetting.
Mr. MURTHA. Could I ask the gentleman, and he may not be able to
answer this question, but could we not have gone to conference since
the other bill was reported out unanimously? I just wonder, is there
some reason that
[[Page H6707]]
we felt like we had to take up the Senate version of the bill? Were
there enough changes in your estimation that it warranted taking up the
Senate version amended?
Mr. LINDER. I think the decision was made to prevent a conference so
the President could get access to this bill as quickly as possible. The
Senate is out for the weekend. I would be happy to sit down and chat
with the gentleman in just a moment.
Mr. MURTHA. I thank the gentleman.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
I would like to read into the Record in just a moment a statement by
the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) who is the ranking minority
member in answer to the gentleman from Pennsylvania's question:
``What we have before us is a tale of two bills. One bill was crafted
by the standing committee of the House. The other was crafted by the
Attorney General and the President. One bill is limited in scope and
sunsets after this crisis will have passed. The other bill is a power
grab by prosecutors that can be used not just in terrorism cases but in
drug cases and gun cases. This administration bill would last for the
remainder of the President's term of office, long after the bombing
stops and the terrorists are brought to justice.
``We must all rally around the flag at a time like this, but we also
shouldn't take leave of our senses. Benjamin Franklin said it best:
`They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.' ''
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr.
Baldacci).
Mr. BALDACCI. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow along in terms of the comments
that the gentleman from Pennsylvania had put forward.
In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Congress
acted quickly to pass measures requested by the administration to
address the immediate and long-term security, recovery, and financial
needs of the country. On September 14, the House and Senate passed, by
near-unanimous votes, a $40 billion emergency supplemental
appropriations package for antiterrorism initiatives and disaster
recovery and a joint resolution authorizing the use of force against
those responsible for planning and carrying out the September 11
attacks. The House passed a $15 billion airline bailout package by a
vote of 356-54. The Senate then quickly passed the measure by voice
vote to clear it for the President.
This antiterrorism package has met with greater congressional
resistance and concern. The measures being enacted here have decidedly
much more of an impact on individual rights and civil liberties and
with no particular document in front of us with which to review and to
question. When I posed questions to members of the Committee on the
Judiciary just a few moments ago to ask them what was in the package
and what was not in the package that we would be taking up shortly,
they were unaware of it, had not been briefed on it, had not seen any
actual language.
The concern that I have is that they were able to fashion a 36-0
report in a committee that tended to be fairly divided over a good
number of votes a good number of years that I have been here and for
them to all come together like that and recognize that they must do
something, they must make sure that security measures are passed and
surveillances are increased and the degrees in terms of security and
preventing accidents, or terrorism attacks from occurring in the future
we must prevent. But at the same time to make sure that there was a
sunset provision, so that we knew that it was not going to last
forever.
Those are things that are of a great deal of concern to many people,
not just the people who I represent in the State of Maine but, I am
sure, throughout the country. I think we should carefully deliberate
before we start to allow ourselves to go down a track which will give
evidence to the terrorists that they have won because they have changed
the way that we do operate. I thought the message was that we had to
get back to work, we had to get back to school, we had to get back in
our communities and show them that we were much stronger than they had
expected, we were much more united than they thought they would be able
to fractionalize and to divide us up and that we are stronger as a
country.
I have met so many young people that have told me that Tom Brokaw is
going to have to write a new book about this generation because he felt
that his generation was going to be the greatest generation. There is a
lot of pride and support and patriotism in our country. I am very
impressed by the unity of this Congress and in the way the committees
have been able to operate on the House side and would like to see that
continued. I think that this is going to present a major impediment in
terms of our future being able to work together in the interest of
these issues.
I would encourage the majority, if they have a way of being able to
give us the deliberation on this matter, be able to have the
discussions on this matter, and then be able to expedite on this
matter, I think will bode well for the way that we deal with this and
the way history judges the way we dealt with this because of the
importance of our individual rights and civil liberties which is the
foundation of this country, the land of opportunity.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Deutsch).
Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I am speaking on the rule, which I support
and hopefully will be passed, but also really in terms of the
underlying base bill and supporting the underlying base bill that will
be introduced.
This bill is very much different than the bill that passed out of the
Committee on the Judiciary. The Committee on the Judiciary bill, I
think, was really a major problem. The Judiciary bill had some very,
very specific problems and was really a nonacknowledgment of the
situation that we find ourselves in in the United States of America
today.
I have the same perspective that the President of the United States
does and I believe the vast majority of Americans do, that we, in fact,
are at war. We are at war with an enemy that has attacked this country
with horrific results, 6,000 people dying in an instance at the World
Trade Center, the Pentagon being attacked as well. But as we also know,
these are an enemy that almost for sure has biological and chemical
weapons available. It is unclear whether or not they have nuclear
weapons, but it is only a matter of time before they do. And the only
thing that is preventing their delivery of those biological and
chemical weapons are a lack of a delivery system.
So what we are faced with at this point in time is literally the
potentiality of not thousands, as horrific as that is, but literally
millions if not tens of millions of Americans whose lives could end in
an instance.
{time} 1115
Now, in the specifics of the Committee on the Judiciary bill in the
area of terrorism, the committee, I think, made several major mistakes,
including not allowing the use of classified material for cases where
property could be seized.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).
Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding, and I
thank the majority for providing me a copy of the bill. This is still
warm. It just came off the Xerox machine.
This is not the bill that was adopted by a unanimous 36 vote of
Democrats and Republicans on the Committee on the Judiciary. These are
critical issues. This is what we are fighting for. These are our civil
liberties.
We need to give law enforcement the proper tools, yes, we do; and we
need to strengthen laws where they need to be strengthened and give
them more effective tools. But we also have to be careful that we do
not dredge up some of the worst ideas of the past, of the fifties, of
the McCarthy era, of the Hoover era.
There could be problems. I do not know. I just asked a Member of the
Committee on the Judiciary who voted for the bill in committee, a
unanimous vote, a bipartisan vote, agreed upon the tools we needed with
the limits we needed to protect our precious civil liberties, what is
in the bill. He said, who
[[Page H6708]]
could know what is in this? It was just handed to him.
We are going to be required to vote on it in the next few hours. Why?
Will these laws go into effect this weekend and make a difference in
protecting people and making them more safe? No. We could be taking up
an aviation security bill. We have not done a damn thing on aviation
security in the House of Representatives since this incident. The
Senate acted unanimously yesterday. We are being prevented from
bringing forward a bill by a minority of the majority who is so set
against more Federal employees that they do not want to do the right
thing on screening, and they do not care about all the other issues in
aviation security that are even bigger than screening.
We are being prevented from doing that, while this bill, still warm
in my hand, is being rushed forward. I do not know what is in it. I am
not a lawyer. I go to my friends on the Committee on the Judiciary who
are lawyers who helped craft a unanimous vote in the committee on this
bill and ask them what is in it, and they said we cannot tell you; we
do not know. Our copies are still warm in our hands too.
This is not the way to defend liberty and fight terrorism. I fear
that this bill, since I do not know what is in it, could be the Gulf of
Tonkin Resolution for civil liberties, rather than the tools our law
enforcement agencies really need.
I would urge the majority to withdraw this marshal law resolution,
withdraw this bill, give us a weekend to read it, and let us take it up
Monday morning. Hey, I will come in and vote at 7 o'clock on Monday
morning, if it is that urgent, or we can vote on Sunday. Give us at
least a day to read it and understand what we are voting on.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Deutsch), so he can complete his comments.
Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate that courtesy.
Let me mention to my good friend from Oregon, the bill has been
available in its present form since 8 o'clock this morning. I have had
a chance to review it, staff has had a chance to review it. But in
substance, this is the same bill that the Senate passed last night. It
is the same bill that has been available for several weeks now. These
issues are not new issues. Again, I support the efforts to take this
bill up under this rule at this time.
I was going through a list of provisions in this bill that the
Committee on the Judiciary passed out. Again, it was a unanimous vote,
but sometimes unanimity can be the lowest common denominator, not the
highest common denominator.
I specifically talked about one provision, again, dealing just with
terrorism. Again, if you do not accept my premise that we are at war,
or the President's premise, if you do not accept the fact that these
people have weapons of mass destruction available today, that we
literally are talking about national security issues and we are
weighing it, I ask my colleagues to look at specifics, look at the
specifics in the bill.
Another provision that the Committee on the Judiciary eliminated was
the ability for non-American citizens or resident aliens, for law
enforcement to get education records for those people. As we know, many
of those people came to the United States specifically theoretically
under their visa applications for that. But the Committee on the
Judiciary bill provides none of that.
Let me read you something specific again in the Committee on the
Judiciary bill. This only applies to terrorists. In order to prosecute
someone, the standard that the Committee on the Judiciary put in: ``has
committed or is about to commit a terrorist act.'' Has committed.
Now, the bill that is in front of us I think has a much more
reasonable provision, which I believe if my colleagues read this, a
vast majority of my colleagues on the floor will support and the vast
majority of the American people will support: ``reasonable grounds to
believe that the person being harbored will commit a terrorist act.''
These are dramatically different standards, standards which, again, I
believe the vast majority of Americans would support.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from
New York (Mr. Nadler).
(Mr. NADLER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me
time.
Mr. Speaker, this is a very dangerous time we are in today. It is
dangerous for two reasons: our country is at war, and we face danger
from enemy action. We also face danger from our own action. The history
of this country is that in most of our wars in this century, we have
taken actions against our liberties that we have regretted and
apologized for later. I refer to the Espionage Act of 1917, which no
one will today defend, the Japanese internment of World War II, the
COINTELPRO operations of Vietnam, and today we are asked to buy a pig
in a poke. Why a pig in a poke? A 187-page bill, hot off the press,
that we have not had a chance to read or analyze.
I am a member of the Committee on the Judiciary. I voted for a
terrorism bill with strong provisions that I thought was balanced and
reasonable and protective of civil liberties, as well as giving the
Government the tools it needs to deal with terrorism. But, no, that
bill does not come up.
Why did it not come up? We are told we have to vote on this bill
right away. We cannot wait until next Tuesday. We ought to wait until
Tuesday. We ought to have a chance to analyze this bill over the
weekend, to send it out to the law schools and the civil liberties
people and others and let them read it and let them give us their
comments so we vote in an informed manner, and so that we can offer
amendments on the floor and have a well-crafted bill that protects us
against terrorism, but also does not do violence to our civil
liberties.
But, no, we are told, we must rush right now, we must have this
marshal law resolution to enable us to vote before anybody can read the
bill. Why? Some people would say because if we read the bill, there are
those who are afraid we would not pass it. I am not that cynical. But
because the President is pushing us, we have got to pass it right away.
The times demand it.
Well, why did we not take up the committee bill on the House floor
earlier this week? We could have passed that bill and gone to
conference with the Senate and had a full bill, a conference report,
ready to adopt today or Monday, properly considered.
To vote on a bill that may do violence to our liberties, and it has
to be very carefully balanced, to ask the Members of this House to vote
on a bill that may do violence to our liberties, that may go way beyond
what we need to legitimately combat terrorism, is an insult to every
Member of this House, it is an insult to the American people, it should
not be permitted; and I am asking to have a ``no'' vote on this marshal
law rule and the regular rule because we are being stampeded into doing
something we may very well live to regret and that history tells us we
will regret.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Weldon).
Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for
yielding me time. I rise in support of the rule, and I rise in support
of the underlying bill.
For those who claim that they need more time to read this, this is
basically the same product that the President sent over requesting
several weeks ago. It has been analyzed and reanalyzed. And to contend
that we need to reanalyze this further I think is disingenuous. We have
a very serious problem in this country. There are terrorists in our
country, right now. They have come over here in many instances
fraudulently, on student visas or other types of visas; and their
intent is to do us harm right here in the country.
There are people sympathetic to the terrorists who raise money in
this country to support terrorist activities. Essentially all of these
people are people from these countries in the Middle East who are
either terrorists themselves or sympathetic, and they take advantage of
the liberties that we have in this country in order to do us harm.
I believe that this bill is a very carefully crafted bill. For
example, there is a lot of concern about grand jury secrecy. In order
for a prosecutor to share with CIA or FBI the grand jury
[[Page H6709]]
secrecy content, it has to pertain to a terrorist action. They cannot
just blithely share information with CIA, unless it has some bearing on
the activities of these terrorists. Furthermore, there is a provision
in the bill that if there is any inappropriate information that is
shared, that the citizen could pursue recourse in the courts.
The long and short of it is I think this bill is badly needed. I
think it is something the American people will support. Most of the
people in my congressional district are prepared to see some of our
civil liberties modified in order to enable us to better or effectively
fight these terrorists.
I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and a ``yes'' vote on the bill.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the ranking member of the Committee on the
Judiciary.
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me
time.
We have three matters up this morning. One is the so-called marshal
law rule that would bring the bill to the floor right away; the second
is the rule itself; and then there is the bill.
Now, the previous speaker, the gentleman from Florida, tells us we
have got to move really fast because there is a national emergency that
requires us to get this bill into law before we have even seen it or
read it. But the fact of the matter is that there are going to be two
different bills that will come before the House, and we are going to
conference. So there is not any emergency whatsoever. We will not have
a conference until next week, and we do not know how long that is going
to go. I am not even sure which provisions are going to be conferenced,
because the Senate just passed their bill late last night; and the bill
that the House should have been considering, passed unanimously by the
Committee on the Judiciary, something that has not happened before in
my career on the committee, has been sidelined, and we are piecing
together another bill.
So I am making an appeal to my Republican friends in the House to
join me on at least a couple of occasions here today.
First of all, let us reject the martial law that will allow this bill
to throw procedure into the waste basket and bring the rule and the
bill up right away. It has been said by the leadership that we will be
out of here by 2 o'clock this afternoon. It is now 11:27 a.m. Will
somebody explain to me what is going to be the difference if we take
this bill up after the 435 Members have had a chance to read some
nearly 200 pages of it? I will yield to anybody on that if they would
like to explain that.
There is no reason. It feeds this emergency nonsense that keeps
coming from the White House and the Department of Justice, that we have
got to do this right away or the poor Attorney General's hands are
tied, he really cannot do anything. Well, we passed an anti-terrorist
law in 1996 that gives him some of that, which has more power in it
than the one we are going to consider here today or next week.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject the rule that would
expedite bringing this bill to the floor.
{time} 1130
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Delaware (Mr. Castle).
Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a subject that is a concern of
mine. I will support the various rules. I think we need to bring this
legislation before us and support the legislation. But I went before
the Committee on Rules and have otherwise talked about it, along with
the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) and the gentleman from Georgia
(Mr. Deal), of the Visa Integrity and Security Act. I also just asked
the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), the chairman of the
Committee on the Judiciary, a conference about it, because I assumed
from the beginning it probably would not be included in this
legislation today, and he indicated that when this is done, it is the
issue of next importance that his Committee on the Judiciary wants to
address.
But if we look at the record, even of the individuals who were the
terrorists who came into this country, if we looked at the testimony of
the head of INS yesterday, we will find that they do not even know
where some of these people came from. They have no record of them at
all. In other cases they were dealing with expired visas, students or
workers who were here on expired visas.
Our whole visa system of tracking these millions, and it is millions,
of people who are in the United States of America on visas is frankly
in a state of total disrepair and needs immediate addressing. Our
legislation that was not included today but, hopefully, will be
included in the legislation that will come forward before this House in
the next few weeks, addresses this issue. It has an entry-exit tracking
system which, by the way, is in the law but we are not enforcing now so
that we will know in real-time where people are; it provides to our
consulates overseas information to the various agencies, CIA, FBI,
whatever it may be, INS, various lists of people who may not be
desirable in the United States of America. It has a tracking system for
students. Right now, they do not even have to report to the school, so
we do not know they are in this country, which is exactly what happened
in a case here. But if they fail to arrive, it would be reported and
that information would go forward, their visa would be terminated
automatically.
There is a visa waiver pilot program included in that, because in
some countries, some of our closer allies, Canada, et cetera, there are
certain waivers to participate in that, we would raise the standards
somewhat, and with the H1-B visas, which we are very fond of here,
which are basically for the higher tech community, when people come
into this country and they do not come to work at that particular
company, they would have an obligation to report that as well.
We need to get a much better handle on what is going on in the United
States of America with people visiting our borders. We are a free
country; we are an open country. I do not think what happened on
September 11 is going to change that, nor should it change it
necessarily. But we have the right and the responsibility to know
exactly who is in the United States of America. Are they here legally
in the United States of America? What they are doing here? And if,
indeed, their time is up, we have the responsibility to make sure that
they have left the United States of America and perhaps in that way, we
can prevent some of the terrorism, the problems which we have had.
So obviously, I would have liked to have had it in this legislation;
but I understand the reasons why, so I will continue to support it. But
I hope that this is something we could address soon.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the next speaker, I
yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) for the
purpose of a colloquy.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
Michigan (Mr. Conyers).
Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York (Ms.
Slaughter) and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) for yielding me
time.
I see the gentleman raises a question. I would like to assure the
gentleman that we have a Department of Justice that makes sure it knows
who is in this country and who is not. It is called the Immigration and
Naturalization Service, and it has thousands and thousands of people at
both borders working the airports. We do not need this bill to find
that out. So if that is why the gentleman thinks we have to rush this
through, I would like him to rest more comfortably over the weekend.
Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Delaware.
Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I agree completely. Obviously we have that
service, we all know about INS; but I will tell the gentleman it is
dysfunctional in terms of the way it is working. I think that is a
concern that all of us have. It is not that we do not have it or do not
even have somewhat of a system in place, it just does not function
particularly well. I am not talking about just the terrorists in this
circumstance, I am talking about the broad pattern of the problems that
we have with Immigration and Naturalization Service visas and all of
the transgressions that take place.
[[Page H6710]]
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Scott).
Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, the Committee on the Judiciary worked long and hard on
this particular bill. We spent several weeks of research and
deliberation, but apparently an intelligent, deliberative process is
not welcomed, and now here we are under martial law considering a
completely different bill than that that was reported from the
Committee on the Judiciary.
There was one amendment that was not accepted in the Committee on
Rules that I think we need to take some time to deliberate. That is an
amendment that I offered that would have required government officials
who get one of these roving wiretaps to listen only to the target of
the investigation, not to innocent people who also might be using the
same phone that the target might be using. Now, that is a complicated
issue, and that is why we need time to deliberate. Remember, this is
not just for terrorism; this is all wiretaps. So we need to be careful
and notice how this thing works.
First of all, under present law, there is no incentive to abuse this
process of a roving wiretap under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act, because if you got anything from that, you could not use it in a
criminal investigation. But now, we are changing things. We want to
share the information. So now there is an incentive to get that
information. Under FISA, there is a very low standard. You do not need
to show probable cause that a crime is being committed, all you have to
show is that you are investigating something involving foreign
intelligence. You do not even have to show that that is the primary
cause of getting the wiretap, just a significant cause. Which begs the
question: What is the primary cause? Is it a criminal investigation
without probable cause, or is it just political surveillance? What is
the primary cause of getting this wiretap? We do not know. And if we
are listening to different people's conversations, I would like to know
how this thing got started.
But who you listen to, if you have gotten a right to follow a person
along and find out that he is using a pay phone, you can put a bug on
that pay phone. My amendment would have required you to listen only to
the target on that pay phone, not everybody else, but that amendment
was not accepted. So you could have people listening in on people using
the pay phone. You have wide latitude, because once the search wiretap
warrant is issued, you can follow the person around. Nobody is
questioning whether you put it on the pay phone or the phone in the
country club or the neighbor's phone, so long as the prosecutor thinks
well, we might be able to get some information.
We need to deliberate on this. One of the factors that created the
unanimous vote in the Committee on the Judiciary was the 2-year statute
of limitations which required us to quickly, with dispatch, deliberate
on this issue and come to a final judgment.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Lofgren).
Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I think this is really a sad day for the
House of Representatives and the legislative branch of government.
Others will go through the details, but I would like to explain to the
Members of the House, who were not a part of the Committee on the
Judiciary process, what we went through. I personally participated in
lengthy meetings where Republican and Democratic staff of the committee
sat down with the Justice Department, the FBI, the intelligence
community; and we went through the proposal line by line.
We did not do anything that the Justice Department objected to. In
fact, there were huge sections of the bill that would have been thrown
out because they were unconstitutional; and we fixed them in the
process that we had. Ultimately, we had a unanimous vote on a very
tough measure, and I think some people are confused that we did
something at odds with the professional staff. We did not. This is a
tough measure.
Now, is it the perfect answer? Perhaps not. We could work further
with the administration. We have worked on a bipartisan basis to make
this a good, tough law.
The problem is, we are going to have a conference anyhow. The Senate
is going to insist that we have a conference, and rather than going
through the regular order and taking up the bill that was unanimously
passed that would probably get 400 votes here in this Chamber, and then
having our conference in the regular order, making additional changes
in collaboration with the White House, we are taking a bill that most
of the Members will not even know what is in the bill when they vote
for it. This is not respectful of the United States Government. This is
not respectful of the United States House of Representatives. I think
it is a mistake.
I voted for the Committee on the Judiciary bill. I am a cosponsor of
the bill. It creates wide-ranging authority that I think is
appropriate, given the threat that faces this Nation. It allows FISA
wiretaps without a warrant. U.S. citizens will be subject to wiretap
without judicial review. That is a big deal. That is a very big deal,
and I am prepared to do that with some constraints that the Justice
Department and the FISA experts agreed with.
I believe that on both sides of the aisle, if Members rush to
judgment on this, and it is not necessary; we can have this done next
week and it would follow the regular order; if Members rush to vote and
to do it in this flawed process, we will end up regretting this on both
sides of the aisle. The constituency for freedom in America is not
limited to Democrats or Republicans. We know that patriotic Americans
are aware we are at risk in two ways. One, from the terrorists, and
also from destroying the foundations of liberty in this United States.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from
Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise
and extend her remarks.)
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from
New York for yielding me time, and I thank the gentleman from Georgia
(Mr. Linder). I appreciate the fact that the Committee on Rules had to
meet this morning at 8 a.m. and many of us were there promptly to
engage in what we would hope would have been an affirmation of H.R.
2975.
Let me add my voice to the complete dissatisfaction with the process
that we are now engaged in, with the recognition that we are in a
crisis, Mr. Speaker. It is important that we say to the American people
the truth, that we are in a crisis. But we can be in a crisis and be of
sane mind of cautiousness and of balance. That is what H.R. 2975
represented.
This was a piece of legislation that members of the committee, and I
serve as a member of the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims of the
Committee on the Judiciary, this is a process where each of us were
engaged in our respective areas of responsibility in a bipartisan way.
It means that those who are on the Subcommittee on Immigration and
Claims, Democrats and Republicans, were speaking to each other about
the specifics of addressing the question of how we balance immigration
and the laws of this land; the fact that immigration does not equate to
terrorism. We provided that balance. And in that balance, we were able
to assure that there would not be endless detention, if you will, for
those individuals who were not, in fact, guilty of any acts.
Just a few days ago, the FBI called in a practicing physician from
San Antonio of Muslim faith to come all the way across country and
determine that he was not engaged in any activities. If we have this
bill where there would be no opportunity for judicial review in that
process, innocent persons would be involved. In the instance of H.R.
2975 there were opportunities for the appeals of those individuals who
were held without an opportunity to present their case to appeal their
situation all the way up to the Supreme Court.
This bill was called the PATRIOT Bill, and I want to remind my
colleagues of what a patriot was in the early stages of this Nation. It
was an individual who was willing to lay down his or her life so that
the civil liberties
[[Page H6711]]
and the Bill of Rights and the Constitution could be protected. It was
people who ran away from a despotic government in order to seek freedom
in the United States. Yes, there is terrorism; and might I say that
there is sufficient terrorism that the Department of Justice saw fit to
put a random Web site indicating that this Nation would face terrorist
acts. I wonder whether that was put on to simply threaten the United
States Congress into not doing its job, but rather to be frightened
into passing an antiterrorist bill that really does not balance the
rights of the American citizens along with the rest of the needs that
we have.
Let me simply conclude by saying, Mr. Speaker, that we should vote
down this particular marshal rule, vote down the rule, we should be on
the floor supporting the federalizing of security in airports and
airlines, and give us time to work to put a bill together that all of
America can be proud of and that the FBI can go out and find the
terrorists and bring them to justice. This is not this bill.
{time} 1145
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from New York (Mr. Sweeney).
(Mr. SWEENEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. SWEENEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for
yielding time to me.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this important legislation,
with some apprehension, solely because there are a number of provisions
I would have liked to have seen added into this process. But I
recognize that time is of the essence. It is important that this body
move forward to show the American people the seriousness of the nature
of our need to improve our intelligence and security systems.
Specifically, I was hoping to have offered, along with the gentleman
from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), an amendment relating to student visas and
the need for us to take action in this House immediately to tighten up
the system of student visas; in fact, to create a system regarding the
tracking of student visas by the intelligence community.
Mr. Speaker, currently there are 600,000 international students
studying in colleges and universities all over this Nation, many of
whom are contributing greatly to those universities and colleges, and
therefore our society.
Nevertheless, the INS, in the failure to develop a system of tracking
those students, has led to incredible breaches of security that should
concern us all. Indeed, in fact, one of the hijackers on September 11
was in this country on a student visa, never having reported even to
the college or university that that person was supposed to.
I am going to rise in support of today's move forward, but I would
call upon my colleagues in this body to move forward expeditiously, as
well, with all of the other important pieces, because America demands
it.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).
Mr. FRANK. Mr. Speaker, I have never seen the legislative process
more degraded than it is by this process. The Committee on the
Judiciary worked very hard and very thoughtfully and very seriously to
make significant changes in the bill so we gave the House a bill that
enhances law enforcement authority, as is appropriate, but to the
maximum extent possible, gave protections against the abuse of that.
It was not perfect, but it was a very thoughtful effort. But it
turned out we were engaged in a game of bait and switch, because once
the committee bill came forward, it was dumped; and we have today an
outrageous procedure: a bill drafted by a handful of people in secret,
subjected to no committee process, comes before us immune from
amendment.
I have a question: What is it about democracy that the Republican
leadership thinks weakens us? Why, after an open process of a
bipartisan sort, coming out with a reasonable product, are we not even
allowed to offer it on the floor and debate it? What is it about the
process of open discussion that people see somehow as a distraction?
In fact, it is bait and switch for this reason. There are a number of
important issues that now may never get debated because, having worked
on that compromise bill, many of us assume that we had achieved some
agreement on the balance to be struck, and at the last minute that is
thrown aside so the important issues that were debated will never be
debated here.
I know, this allows the motion to recommit, the great catch-22 of
parliamentary procedure. On the one hand, they say, you can offer it in
the motion to recommit. On the other hand, Members on that side will be
told, this is a party issue. This is a partisan issue. The motion to
recommit has a whole 5 minutes of debate on each side. So all of that
thoughtful process, all of the compromise, all of the anguishing
decisions we had to make about how do we balance self-defense with
protections against abuse, that is all to be compressed into a 5-minute
partisan motion.
Shame on the people who have brought this forward.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Woolsey).
(Ms. WOOLSEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her
remarks.)
Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule,
to the martial law, and to the underlying bill. We are just learning
how far this recently-crafted legislation called the PATRIOT Act goes
beyond the powers necessary to fight terrorism.
The people I represent in Marin and Sonoma Counties in California
recognize that law enforcement may need some extra tools to combat
terrorism and to ensure our safety, but my constituents and the
majority of Americans in general know the difference between
inconvenience and loss of civil liberties. They have made it
overwhelmingly clear that they do not embrace proposals that encroach
on our civil liberties, proposals that ultimately make us less free.
For example, Mr. Speaker, this bill, as I understand it, lifts limits
on CARNIVORE, the tool to read private e-mail correspondence, allowing
the FBI to read and use information at their own discretion. My
constituents are right to worry about how gathered information under
this legislation could and would be used.
Mr. Speaker, we must not allow the Bill of Rights to become the next
victim of the September 11 attack. I urge my colleagues, withdraw this
rule, withdraw this bill. Instead, why are we not voting on airport
safety, something that everyone in this country is waiting for and is
worried about, and something that passed out of the other body last
night 100 to zip?
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, we are debating a rule that is going to
determine whether or not we vote on one of the most important items
perhaps in some of our careers. We are talking about whether or not we
are going to take a product that was produced by the Senate in the wee
hours of the morning on one of the most important issues we will ever
debate in this Congress, and rush it to the floor and vote on it, where
significant changes have been made. There is a significant difference
in what the Senate produced and what the House produced.
What normally happens in this process is we have the House bill that
is heard; we have the Senate bill that is heard. When there are
differences, they go to conference and we try and work it out. We
worked very hard in the Committee on the Judiciary in order to have a
product that everybody could embrace. The right wing came together, the
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner); and the left, the
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), myself; and the gentleman
from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) and others.
We gave a lot. We worked on this to make sure that we could get a
bill that would respect the civil liberties of the people of this
country, and now it has all been undone because of one person on that
side who will not allow them to bring it up.
I would ask the Members of this Congress to reject that kind of
action.
Mr. BLUMBENAUER. Mr. Speakerr, it is with great sadness that I vote
against the rule and the Surveillance Act that it authorizes.
We united as a country after the tragic events of Sepetmber 11. We
were firm in our resolve that it would not be business as usual
[[Page H6712]]
and that we would do what is necessary to root out the hateful
individuals who unflicted such loss on our citizens.
Part of our responsibility was to reach out on a bi-partisan basis
and give the American people our best. The work product that was
produced by our Judiciary Committee was an example of giving our best.
Thirty-six widely disparate men and women under the leadership to
Chairman Sensenbrenner and Ranking Member Conyers have perhaps the
widest array of opinions found on any committee in the House. Yet they
were able to come together unanimously with a balanced, well thought-
out measure that could serve as a focal point for the House of
Representatives. This work product of our committee system was swept
aside by the House Republican leadership. At the last minute we
received a 175-page substitute, without the opportunity for any
amendments.
This is not a question that needs to be decided by a partisan power
play. The American public cares about rooting out the terrorist
elements in our country and everywhere else. They have every reason to
expect that the rights of the American public will be respected. A few
days or even a few hours of work could have achieved that objective. I
will vote against the bill because I reject the notion that in these
times of crisis, the legislative process can not work, that
partisanship must prevail over the openness and strength of America's
democratic system.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). Without objection, the previous
question is ordered on the resolution.
There was no objection.
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. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not
present.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 216,
nays 205, not voting 10, as follows:
[Roll No. 382]
YEAS--216
Abercrombie
Akin
Armey
Bachus
Baker
Ballenger
Barr
Bartlett
Bass
Bereuter
Biggert
Bilirakis
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bono
Brady (TX)
Brown (SC)
Bryant
Burr
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Calvert
Camp
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Castle
Chabot
Chambliss
Coble
Collins
Combest
Cooksey
Cox
Crane
Crenshaw
Cubin
Culberson
Davis, Jo Ann
Davis, Tom
Deal
DeLay
DeMint
Deutsch
Diaz-Balart
Doolittle
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Ehlers
Ehrlich
Emerson
English
Everett
Ferguson
Flake
Fletcher
Foley
Forbes
Fossella
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Ganske
Gekas
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gilman
Goode
Goodlatte
Goss
Graham
Granger
Graves
Green (WI)
Greenwood
Grucci
Gutknecht
Hall (TX)
Hansen
Hart
Hastert
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Herger
Hilleary
Hobson
Hoekstra
Horn
Hostettler
Houghton
Hulshof
Hunter
Hyde
Isakson
Issa
Istook
Jenkins
Johnson (CT)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Keller
Kelly
Kennedy (MN)
Kerns
King (NY)
Kingston
Kirk
Knollenberg
Kolbe
LaHood
Largent
Latham
LaTourette
Leach
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Linder
LoBiondo
Lucas (OK)
Maloney (CT)
Manzullo
McCrery
McInnis
McKeon
Mica
Miller, Gary
Moran (KS)
Morella
Myrick
Nethercutt
Ney
Northup
Norwood
Nussle
Osborne
Ose
Otter
Oxley
Pence
Peterson (PA)
Pickering
Pitts
Platts
Pombo
Portman
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Quinn
Radanovich
Ramstad
Regula
Rehberg
Reynolds
Riley
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roukema
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Saxton
Schaffer
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shaw
Shays
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shows
Shuster
Simmons
Simpson
Skeen
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Souder
Stearns
Stump
Sununu
Sweeney
Tancredo
Tauzin
Taylor (NC)
Terry
Thomas
Thornberry
Thune
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Toomey
Traficant
Upton
Vitter
Walden
Walsh
Wamp
Watkins (OK)
Watts (OK)
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NAYS--205
Ackerman
Allen
Andrews
Baca
Baird
Baldacci
Baldwin
Barcia
Barrett
Becerra
Bentsen
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Bishop
Blagojevich
Blumenauer
Bonior
Borski
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd
Brady (PA)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Capps
Capuano
Cardin
Carson (IN)
Carson (OK)
Clay
Clayton
Clement
Clyburn
Condit
Conyers
Costello
Coyne
Cramer
Crowley
Cummings
Cunningham
Davis (CA)
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Dingell
Doggett
Dooley
Doyle
Edwards
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Ford
Frank
Frost
Gephardt
Gonzalez
Gordon
Green (TX)
Gutierrez
Hall (OH)
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Hill
Hilliard
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hoeffel
Holden
Holt
Honda
Hooley
Hoyer
Inslee
Israel
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
John
Johnson, E. B.
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy (RI)
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind (WI)
Kleczka
Kucinich
LaFalce
Lampson
Langevin
Lantos
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Lee
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Lofgren
Lowey
Lucas (KY)
Luther
Maloney (NY)
Markey
Mascara
Matheson
Matsui
McCarthy (MO)
McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McDermott
McGovern
McIntyre
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Menendez
Millender-McDonald
Miller, George
Mink
Mollohan
Moore
Moran (VA)
Murtha
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Owens
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Paul
Payne
Pelosi
Peterson (MN)
Petri
Phelps
Pomeroy
Price (NC)
Rahall
Rangel
Reyes
Rivers
Rodriguez
Roemer
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Rush
Sabo
Sanchez
Sanders
Sandlin
Sawyer
Schakowsky
Schiff
Scott
Serrano
Sherman
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Solis
Spratt
Stark
Stenholm
Strickland
Stupak
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor (MS)
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Thurman
Tierney
Turner
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Velazquez
Visclosky
Waters
Watson (CA)
Watt (NC)
Waxman
Weiner
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
NOT VOTING--10
Aderholt
Barton
Blunt
Dicks
Gillmor
McHugh
Miller (FL)
Schrock
Towns
Wexler
{time} 1216
Mr. HOLDEN, Mrs. JONES of Ohio, and Mr. MEEKS of New York, changed
their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
Mr. TAUZIN changed his vote from ``nay'' 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.
Stated for:
Mr. SCHROCK. Mr. Speaker, today I was in my district attending the
memorial service for the victims of the USS Cole, which was attacked by
terrorists on October 12, 2000. As a result, I missed rollcall vote
382. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on this rollcall
vote.
____________________
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