without objection the requests are granted gentleman will suspend can we have order in the house please the gentleman deserves to be heard members please take their conversations from the floor please take their conversations from the floor the gentleman from texas deserves to be  the house will be in order please members take their conversations off the floor the gentleman from georgia thank you mr speaker i rise today to honor the young women's christian association was w c a of northwest georgia for the efforts to eliminate the epidemic of domestic violence that transitions all ethnic racial age gender and socio economic background griese the y w c a of northwest georgia under the leadership of exactly correct the hollycombe work has made it their mission to bring the issue of domestic violence to the to the fore to spend possibly in order members take their conversations off the floor gentleman from georgia the y w c a white of ca northwest georgia under the leadership of their executive director hollycombe moore has made it their mission to bring the issue of domestic violence to the forefront and educate georgians on ways to prevent abuse and violence within the home mr speaker the y w c a of northwest georgia is not only the sole domestic violence shelter located in the heart of my a levels district in cobb county but is also taking a leadership role in combating domestic violence throughout the great state of georgia it was in fact the y w c a of northwest georgia that open the very for shelter of the victims of domestic violence in the state of georgia through the ministry of the cobb shelter the y w c a is work together with victim families social service providers and criminal justice officials to stop the spread of domestic violence so mr speaker i asked my colleagues join me in recognizing y w c a of northwest georgia similar groups around the clim contribution toward making our nation's homes safer places about children families i yield back thank you ms speaker for what purpose this gentleman from texas rise was the mission to address the house one minute objection mr speaker lance corporal jeremy burris twenty two was buried last week in liberty texas after being killed in iraq this young marine was honored at his funeral by the entire town turning out for his heroism but a few days after his funeral outlaws desecrated jeremy's graveside some reports indicate the suspected criminals may have been anti war peaceniks that commit violence in the name of peace they disrespect and dishonor the dead by their vandalism but whoever committed such dastardly deeds should be captured quickly by the ha sheriff and after these grave desecrated criminals are convicted they should be sentenced to serve time at get bay after all that's were america houses war criminals so mr speaker those that commit crimes against the graves of our fallen war dead are nothing more than more criminals and should be treated as such because justice is the one thing we should always find and that's just the way it is i yield back gentleman yells back or their further one minutes if not for what purpose these the gentleman from oregon rise mr speaker i ask unanimous consent that today following legislative business and any special orders here to for extent entered into the following members may be permitted to address that revise and extend their remarks and include their in extraneous material mr flake today for five minutes mr ryan today for five minutes mr poe october thirtieth for five minutes mr davis october twenty fifth for five minutes mr jones october thirtieth for five minutes and mr bell rock a sock over twenty fourth for five minutes without objection for a purpose the gentleman from maryland rise mr speaker as unanimous consent to today filing legislative business and any special orders here to for entered into the following members may be permitted to address the house for five minutes speakers announced policy of january eighteenth two thousand and seven and under a previous order of the house the following members are recognized for five minutes each the gentleman from texas mr po the gentleman from maryland maryland mr cummings the gentleman from north carolina mr jones for what purpose does the gentleman from wisconsin i ask nancy consent to take my special order at this time without objection nice for five minutes i think you miss bigger it's bigger i rise acknowledge an extraordinary staff member who has moved on after twenty years with the house budget committee jim bates james t bates the committee's republican chief of staff recently accepted a position as the associate program director at the office of management and budget ordinarily that would be a significant though not surprising step in a career dedicated to washington fiscal policy but there is nothing ordinary about this case jim bates two decades of service represents the longest tenure of any budget committee staffer he served in various capacities during this time including those of minority counsel chief my job the chief majority counsel and deputy chief of staff before rising to the top slot in late two thousand and four inch each of these roles he demonstrated a singular dedication he came to be known as a true believer in the value of congressional budgeting a stickler for adhering to the budget disciplines written in law and in convention and a thoroughly convinced proponent of the institution of the budget committee he is as closely identified with the committee as is the congressional congressional budget act itself and it is nearly impossible to think of one without the older mr speaker you can't go back over the last twenty years and look at the enforcement of the budget committee the preservation of the budget act without thinking of jim bates jim started as a committee in january of one thousand nine hundred eight a time when the republican minority offices were across highway three ninety five on the second floor the ford office building then simply called annex two he worked initially as a budget analyst covering income and social security but before long he found his real niche as a committee counsel here he mastered the intricate details insults of the subtleties of the budget act a vigorous leap protected the committee's duras diction and when possible expanded it he also developed a unique understanding of budget archana something i can clearly testif such as the gramm rudman baseline or the pay as you go rule here are some of the highlights of his congressional career he participate in the famous andrew air force base negotiations that produced the budget agreement of one thousand nine hundred ninety three courtenay drafting the narrowly defeated case a penny amendment and one hundred seven he anchored the legislative language of the balanced budget act which a year later produced the first budget surplus in nearly four decades shortly thereafter he developed a six he was immensely helpful to me in writing the legislative line item veto act designed to allow the president to strike individual spending items without violating congress's constitutional prerogatives jim is an avid fisherman which shows a greatness of soul he is a fan of the renowned american author ray bradbury which reflects a creative mind he might misplace his car keys or his blackberry but he has never lost his conviction about budgeting or his integrity yet all of jim's qualities perhaps the most important is the trust that he has earned from members and colleagues alike it is because of that trust that when i was chosen to be the budget committee's ranking republican last december my easiest and first decision was keeping jim as the chief of staff he was and still is simply irreplaceable there's a speaker let me close simply by saying that there are a lot of people in this town who really understand how the budget committee works how this budget process works let alone there aren't people who really know the best ideas and ways of making it work better jim bates is one of the handful of people in this town who know this you can count the people on one hand who really know the budget act you know make it work better and who know how to make it work jim bates is one of those things this hall this institution this congress both on the democrat side and the and the republican side oh a large debt of gratitude for the service of this fine servant jim bass with that  is recognized for five minutes thank you mr speaker i rise today to commend my colleagues for passing house resolution four zero five which promotes united nations sponsored efforts to bring about a negotiated to the turkish invasion was the main town of the second largest district of cyprus both in terms of its population and surface area a few weeks after the initial invasion on august fourteenth one thousand nine hundred seventy four turkish military forces bombarded from a ghost a relentlessly greek cypriots were forced to flee their homes in fear and tear rendering from augusta a ghost city turkish forces then sealed off the area with barbed wire fences forty five thousand inhabitants of foam a ghost of became refugees in their own country they lost their land their property their homes and businesses and many of their own people the city and the mayor elected by its displaced residents who can't go home have now become a symbol of the injustice that persists in the occupied region the two waves of the invasion by the turkish troops forced nearly two hundred thousand greek cypriots over one quarter of the cypriot population at the time from their homes making them refugees in their own country the equivalent in the us would be around eighty million people for the last thirty three years thirty six point two percent of the island continues to be under occupation by forty three thousand turkish forces the july eighth two thousand and six agreements reached under the auspices of the united nations under secretary agreement support the greek and turkish cypriot efforts to find common ground for the peaceful reunification of their country within the framework of a federal by zonal and by communal nation state these agreements call for the implementation of specific confidence building measures starting with the practical steps of establishing by communal working groups and technical committees to examine and discuss issues affecting the day to day lives of the people of cyprus mr speaker there is no viable justification for the continued division of cyprus the people of cyprus have every reason to seek out reconciliation they aspire to a re unified homeland in the last four years there have been more than thirteen million peaceful crossings across the green line by greek and turkish cypriots a remarkable achievement for an island whose total population is less than eight hundred thousand people turkish cypriots crossed into the republic of cyprus to go to work every day approximately thirty five thousand turkish cypriots have applied for and received passports from the republic of cyprus on the ground there is clear momentum for peace and a desire on both sides to work together today cyprus has evolved into a dynamic country endowed with a robust economy and credible democratic institutions its qualitative capacities are showcased by its recent entry to the european union and its imminent membership in the euro zone located off the western shores of the middle east cyprus has the capacity to be a vigorous participant in the wider nato security architecture for us in the united states therefore there is great purpose in facilitating peace and unification beyond any moral and altruism dick imperative as expressed by the house last week the july eighth agreement lays the groundwork for accomplishing this goal i commend the house for its passage of h con resolution four zero five and implore our government to continue its support for the full and immediate burton of indiana purposes jumpers on a rise speaks the house for five minutes without objection i think the speaker thank you mr speaker in a couple of weeks it is likely that will be addressing the the labor h h s bill we passed the bill in the house there they've yet to pass the bill in the senate or i believe they have passed a bill in the set of the conferees have not been named will be asked to approve a large bill that is i believe over the president's budget but more significantly this is the first test of actually doing a conference under the new earmark rules we had new earmark rules passed at the beginning of the year that provide a little more transparency that we than we've had before and that's a good thing but but it hasn't done much to cut down the number or dollar value of earmarks because we haven't got through the process now some people have said in the house we have fewer earmarks dollar value is down that's a good thing certainly it is a good thing but we're only halfway through the process typically when you get to the conference process that's where a lot of the mischief happens when you are added in the middle of the night and you aren't given a chance to vote on them you simply vote on the bill either up or down just to give you a flavor of what is in this labor h h s bill the house bill included about thirteen hundred and forty two earmarks these earmarks were added in the conference report of the bill that came to the house or rather just days before the bill came to the house we had very little opportunity to actually look at the earmarks to find out which member had offered them and two to offer amendments to strike those earmarks a few amendments were offered here on the floor but that's hardly a process that can pass for due diligence to to actually see what's in these these earmarks no i hasten to add that this is not a partisan issue there are both republican and democrat earmarks in this bill when republicans were in charge of this body typically republicans got about sixty percent of the year marks the democrats got about forty percent now that is switched but to really i wish it were a partisan issue i wish that is one from my side of the aisle that republicans were right on and democrats were wrong on but we haven't seen that we've seen both parties continue to your mark in this fashion thirteen hundred forty two remarks in the house bill let me just read through a few to give people a flavor of what's there i wish we didn't have to do this i wish there was another way but as i mentioned when these bills come to the floor the conference report or the committee report will come accompanying the bill it will only come few days before the bill passes and we are given a real opportunity to vet the example let me just read a few of these three hundred thousand in this bill goes to the american air power museum in farmingdale new york for exhibits and educational programs this may be a great museum but why the federal taxpayer should be on the hook to fund it i just don't know two hundred thousand dollars in this bill goes to the american jasmine museum in kansas city missouri for exhibits and education programs maybe a great museum i'm sure it is but why is the federal taxpayer paying for it two hundred thousand for the american west heritage center and wells will utah for a lifelong learning initiative one hundred twenty five thousand for the children's museum in indianapolis indian apolis indiana for exhibits and equipment two hundred thousand for a children's museum in los angeles in van nuys for exhibits and educational programs one hundred fifty thousand college park aviation museum in college park maryland if you're recognizing the theme here the federal government is funding a lot of museums around why is this the case why when we're running massive deficits when we have a big debt when we have other obligations that are crying out to pay down the debt to lower the deficit why are we funding programs like this why are we on the hook for yet again after remember whenever you're funding a museum out there because we have a deficit we're borrowing money to do that  hundred fifty thousand sorry two hundred fifty thousand for the discovery center in idaho this is in boise for a science center three hundred fifty thousand dollars for an aerospace base museum in california and mcclellan for exhibits fifty thousand for the georgian eleanor mcgovern library in dakota dakota wesley university and mitchell south dakota seventy five thousand monterey bay aquarium in monterey california here's another thing we do a lot of this jackson lee is texas misspeak or what purpose does the gentleman from new york who writes unitas consent to claim a jackson lease time or at least substitute my slot for hers on the left without objection gemma's recognize for five minutes misspeak or and my colleagues  later on this week or perhaps early next week this house will embark on the latest chapter in our nation's history of extending the civil rights that all americans should be entitled to to one other group we will be considering the employment nondiscrimination act it is an effort to make sure that people are not discriminated against in their workplace because of their sexual orientation because of their gender identity it is something that is intuitive to so many americans and frankly the overwhelming number of americans and it's an example of how sometimes we in this house lead on civil rights issues and sometimes we follow in this case it's a little bit of each under enda we are going to be following to a large degree hundreds of companies including virtually all of the fortune fifty and fortune five hundred companies already recognize fundamentally that it's good business to judge people by the quality of the work to judge people by their intellect to drudge people by their drive to judge people by what they bring to the business not what their sexual orientation or gender identity is overwhelming numbers of companies and not just companies that you would describe as being progressive but companies from all across the political spectrum financial services groups like american express and j p morgan  companies like clear channel communication coca cola nationwide insurance nike microsoft these are all companies that when they write the contracts for their own workers when they agree to certain conditions in the workplace is fundamental to them that there will be no discrimination based on someone's sexual orientation or gender identity for these companies and for the ninety percent or so of american people that responded to a gallup poll in two thousand and seven employment nondiscrimination based on gender identity and and based on sexual orientation is an obvious innovation it's not even an innovation but we are going to be leading in some important ways there are still about thirty percent of people who respond to polls who are members of the lesbian gay bisexual transgender community that say that they experienced discrimination the workplace regularly some of them twenty five percent say they experience on a regular basis why should that be is that an american value is an american value to say we should scrimmage someone based on the sense of who they love or how they express it of course not so for those men and women throughout all fifty states we will be leading later on this week when we passed the employment nondiscrimination act but it is very important we also realize that we're leading on another element to this discussion there is an active discussion going on an issue chamber and elsewhere about whether or not to include gender identity in the same category that we include sexual orientation i say unequivocally the answer is yes there are people that still every day experience discrimination because of their gender identity susan stanton spent fourteen years as the largo florida city manager fourteen years obviously doing a good job rehired reappointed susan was once steve stanton when  the when he started normal therapy and plan to become a woman was fired diane trow twenty five years of distinguished service in the army as david four hundred fifty parachute jumps received the defense of period service medal handpicked to lead a classified homeland security operation retired was offered a job with a with a private homeland security consulting firm the offer was rescinded when schroeder explained he is transgender and wanted to just begin the job as a woman but the question is come up if we can include gender identity in this bill should we still do anything at all should we take half a loaf my colleagues i think the answer is no i think that we cannot toss this element of an important civil rights coalition to the side we have to make sure it's particularly in the context of us doing what is largely symbolic there's no sense that the senate is going to act on this and certainly no sense that the president of the united states in this administration is going to maybe what we should is we're in this together if we're going to make a symbolic stand the symbolic stand should be let's pace pass it one house bill with only part of the protections we need let's let the symbolic message be that we're sticking together that when we say g l b t we mean it and we should do something else we should also make it very clear to those watching this discussion that we're not going to negotiate against ourselves we're not to say well if we toss this element to that element off to the side maybe we'll be able to get what we need there are some things that are immutable some civil rights that are immutable and this is one of them we're going to stick together pass an inclusive enda or  going to come back again into it right have stood before the house many evenings to discuss the problems associated with witness intimidation and its detrimental impact on our judicial system and our communities and tragically there's been another ruthless occurrence to witness intimidation in my hometown of baltimore city that i must report tonight a family who spent ten years living the american dream found it destroyed in just ten minutes they came home last week to find their home smoldering and twenty one a part of the phrase quote rats must be clean killed unquote and the word snitch crossed out with  spray painted on their walls the couple's oldis daughter has been in custody since july for a role in a robbery of a taxicab driver earlier this year apparently  coconspirators believe that she is cooperating with law enforcement on some level gang activity also appears to be involved the word quote blood and quote appeared on various parts of the house needless to say the family will not be returning to their home this is an innocent hardworking family trying simply to live in peace david serve much better unfortunately when people are willing to cooperate with the police and baltimore city and other jurisdictions throughout our country sadly it has become customary for their homes to be firebombed over them to be threatened attacked or even killed no one can forget the tragedies surrounding the death of angela and cornell dawson in there and their five children the entire family was incinerated in october two thousand and two in the middle of the night when their home was firebomb in retaliation for ms dawson's repeated complaints to the police about recurring drug trafficking in her east baltimore neighborhood just two years ago the home of community activists  survive a fire bomb attack that was launched just because of her attempts to rid her neighborhood of drug dealers just a few weeks ago i had an opportunity to meet with another couple whose father home had been firebomb because they were simply trying to cooperate with police finally call akhil was murdered outside of his home with a chilling calculation just days before he was scheduled to testify as a witness in a murder case his murder is learned him out of his home under the premise of looking at is used car that he was trying to sell violent crime in the united states is on the rise nationwide as is drug related gang activity however is too afraid to come forward criminals cannot be prosecuted and our justice system has no credibility and cannot stand this is why introduce h r nine thirty three the witness security and protection act of two thousand and seven which authorizes two hundred seventy million dollars over the next three years to enable state and local prosecutors who demonstrate a need for the funds of attack witnesses in cases involving gangs  establish short term witness protection programs improving protection for state and local witnesses will move us one step closer to alleviating the fears and threats to respect the witnesses and help safeguard  communities from violence the time has come for us to show our commitment to our constituents and the justice system because without witnesses there can simply be no justice and with that mr mr speaker i y of the speakers announced policy of january eighteenth two thousand and seven the gentleman from california mr london is recognized for sixty minutes as the designee of the minority leader mr speaker there is no other issue more central to the core responsibility of government than the duty to protect the safety and security of the american people the right not to be killed is foundational to all other rights the actions we take with respect to the foreign intelligence surveillance act better known as pfizer will reflect the level of serious with which we have assumed this fundamental obligation and while i take a backseat to no one when it comes to the protection of civil liberties it is essential to understand the proper context of the issue by us madam speaker mr speaker the focus of the debate here relates to overseas intelligence the implications for the privacy rights of americans talked about so loudly on the floor last week by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle the implications for privacy rights of americans were surveillance targets of non u s person overseas is minimal to nonexistent this debate over pfizer must not be morphed into in any logical crusade by those who have such a visceral dislike for president bush that any perceived defeat for this administration is in some perverse way chalked up as a victory the bait is the bait is not about president bush it is about protecting the lives of those who have sent us here to represent them and it is serious business in my estimation this is perhaps the most important issue that we will face here in the one hundred tenth congress it has been my privilege to serve on both the homeland security and judiciary committe belief that we've made progress in protecting the homeland since nine eleven under the leadership of both parties on the homeland security committee there have been disagreements about the particulars but there is always been a bipartisan commitment to moving the ball forward to make our nation safer to be brutally honest we cannot rely on the prospect of getting it right every time someone might seek to come here to kill innocent americans the idea of having to construct a perfect defense in and of itself is not conceivable however this is where the role of intelligence comes into primary focus this developing a homeland security strategy must not be considered in isolation intelligence collection overseas is the crucial element in any strategy to secure the homeland otherwise we fall prey to what i refer to as the measure no lion syndrome you remember the m no line that is where the french learned a terrible lesson concerning the folly of relying on the idea that they could protect themselves with a focus on a massive defense perimeter much more is required and again intelligence collection targeting non u s persons can extend our homeland defense perimeter overseas brian jenkins of the rand corporation a noted expert on terrorism has stressed that our intelligence capability is a key element in our effort to protect our homeland as he says in the terror attacks since nine eleven we've seen combinations of local conspiracies inspired by assisted by and guided by al qaeda is central leadership it is essential that while protecting the basic rights of american citizens we find ways to facilitate the collection and exchange of intelligence across national and bureaucratic borders so how do we make sense out of what is taking place in this house with respect to our consideration of pfizer the foreign intelligence surveillance act foreign service foreign intelligence surveillance i like to underscore the manner in which we address this crucial national security question is a clear measure of our level of seriousness about the threat posed to our nation from another terrorist attack the bottom line question to be asked is whether or not we are safer as a result of the action taken by this surname the collection of overseas intelligence as in the game of football you are either advancing the ball or you are losing of does our action make america safer or doesn't impose obstacles in the path of the intelligence community which make their job more difficult in making this determination i would suggest that the line of scrimmage should be drawn with the protect america act that is the act we passed in early august a bipartisan basis responding to the request of admiral mcconnell the director of national intelligence we should understand that that act represented a compromise reflecting what had mcconnell the director of national intelligence identified as absolutely necessary absolutely necessary to the task of protecting the american people based upon his service to our nation i would suggest we should take his considered opinion with the seriousness that it deserves as a career naval officer former head of the national security agency under president clinton for four years and the current director of national intelligence admiral mcconnell has had a distinguished career in his service to our nation admiral mcconnell and general hayden came to the congress with a larger package of needed changes to the foreign intelligence surveillance act last april however in order to close what admiral mcconnell described as gaps in our intelligence that is an inability for us to be able to actually find the dots that were out there we had to act immediately a compromise was therefore reached by this body this past august defined the concept of gap to mean this foreign intelligence information that we should have been collecting in fact admiral mcconnell indicated that prior to the unit of our protect america act in august we were not collecting somewhere between one hand and two thirds of the foreign intelligence information which would have been collected were it not for the recent legal interpretations of pfizer which required the government to obtain prior we are buys that warrants for overseas surveillance many cases we couldn't obtain them you have to have evidence to create a standard to reach a standard that frankly at that stage you cannot reach secondly the volume of number of targets and the paperwork and more than the paperwork the intellectual work the cost in time by taking analysts off the job of analyzing to working up these requests for warrants basically made it impossible for us to be able to go after these targets which we've always been able to go after in the context of pfizer as it was passed in one thousand nine hundred seventy eight what's the problem the problem is that the definition of electronic surveillance constructed almost twenty eight years ago certainly is not kept pace with tech with changes in technology ironically when pfizer was inactive almost all international communications were wireless most local calls at that time were on a wire and fell within the definition of electronic surveillance requiring a warrant today it's just the reverse almost all international communications are transmitted by wire thus international communications not intended to be covered warrant requirement in the one nine hundred seventy eight act are now inadvertently covered because of the change in technology this was never ever the intention in congress again the equi passed in august closed the resulting national security gaps however less than three months later here we are in the house of representatives the leadership of this house is now trying to reinvent the wheel it would be one thing where we considering the other elements of the larger package which general hayden and a presented to us back in april but that's not the case rather the leadership of this body is retreating from the provisions of the protect america act which admiral mcconnell told us he needs to in order to do its job so called restore undoes core provisions of this compromise that we were told was necessary to close the gaps in our intelligence that's why i call the restore act the repeal affective surveillance techniques opposing real enemies act because that's what it does it takes away the techniques that we allowed under the law that we passed last august in response to requests from  his considered judgment that he was not able to do the job to protect the american people from the threat abroad admiral mcconnell affirmed that prior to the protect america act the intelligence community attempted to work under the law as interpreted by the court unfortunately he found that as a result of working under those restrictions his agency was prohibited from successfully targeting foreign conversations foreign conversations that otherwise would have been targeted with for possible terrorist activity admiral mcconnell has made it clear that although there remains elements of the larger package which would further enhance our ability to conduct surveillance against al qaeda and other terrorist groups the protect america act that act that we passed in august which is now the law has provided us with the tools as he said quote to close gaps in our foreign intelligence collection then why are we seeking to make these critical changes in the protect america act before the ink is barely dry well one thing is certain the immediate reviews by the leftist blogosphere were hardly positive although admirable carlos work for both president clinton for president bush much of the criticism of the ecb in the wake of its passage seem to he faced questions along the lines of what did the white house know and when did they know it now think of this the idea that the white house would seek to have input on issues relating to the national security of the united states is about as startling as the discovery that gambling yes gambling was taking place in joe's bar during the movie casablanca this should not be the issue again it's not about george bush whether you dislike him love him or indifferent to him the only valid question is how we can best protect the american public from al qaeda and others who seek to kill us surveillance of foreign persons outside the united states is a central part of that effort and the bill they presented on the floor last week  called restore act changed what we had done in august to make it difficult in some cases impossible to gain that information even if it is osama bin laden on the line calling into the united states under the terms of the bill that was presented on the floor we couldn't use information gathered from that conversation against a somma bin laden unless we went to a court for a court order unless the attorney general could specifically show that information was leading to the death of a particular individual now i've said this on the floor before and i'll say it again that's just plain nuts there's no other way to explain it there is absolutely no other way to explain it and perhaps with an ability to explain this kind of thinking on the floor i would yield to the gentle lady tennesee to enlighten us as to her  observations as to what is taking place on the floor on this important issue well i thank the gentleman for yielding and i thank him for his leadership on the security issues that affect our great nation and mr speaker as the gentleman from california knows national security is one of the major issues that we hear about every single day our constituents want to be certain that america that our  our communities our state and certainly as we are looking at feis this is an issue that is is coming before us one of the things that we hear regularly from constituents is what are you doing about it what are you doing about tracking down these terrorists what are you doing about finding those that want to kill us what are you doing well we did some good things last years the gentleman from california mentioned the provisions that we passed admiral mcconnell's recommendations the pathway forward for us how we were to proceed to be certain that we could use the information that we had and now the resource act and i do like the acronym that he is using repeal effective surveillance techniques opposing real enemies that is a an appropriate acronym am for the bill that they brought forward and i think mr speaker that our colleagues across the aisle forget that it is feisal maybe they think it is the u s intelligence surveillance act or use isa they forget that it is feisal foreign intelligence surveillance act we do seek to find those who would seek to do us harm and and our way of life that is something we should be about every single day now we've heard from lots of people on the issue and the gentleman from california brings such a wide range of knowledge on this and i know he is going to be joined by others other of our colleagues who are going to touch on this issue many of them are from the republicans the committee and they're going to bring their expertise to bear on this i want to touch on one quick point the gentleman from california highlighted some of admiral mcconnell's recommendations and procedures that we took to be certain that we close to terrorists loophole and the measure is that the liberal leadership brought forward the reef store act would reopen the terrorist loop old the democrat creates a process by which a court order is required for u s persons who are outside the united states as the gentleman from california mentioned if a foreign target operating overseas such as osama bin laden has either had contact with a u s person or called a u s number our intelligence officials would be required if this bill passed to obtain a faisel court order to listen to those communications well in tennessee we would say that just doesn't make good sense and it doesn't mr speaker and it is frightening to think that there are those among us who may want to deal with terrorist more delicately than they would handle the welfare and being wellbeing of our communities i would also highlight the new york post and a comment that they had as we were working through the feis an overhaul and looking at these situations dealing with these cumbersome legal requirements and the new york post quotes in a and october fifteenth of seven article a search to rescue the man was quickly launched but it soon ground to a halt as lawyers obeying strict u s laws about surveillance cobbled together the legal grounds for wiretapping the suspected kidnappers for an excruciating nine hours and thirty eight minutes searchers in iraq waited waited as u s lawyers discussed legal issues and hammered out the probable cause necessary for the attorney general to grant such a margin see permission we know the emergency we know the probable cause men were under attack and they needed to be fanned we are in a time of war the terrorists are there to end our way of life we have to stay a couple of steps in front of them mr speaker and as the gentleman from california has so eloquently said the way we do this is with a common sense approach and very thoughtful approach to our intelligence surveillance and that we have on our our foreign enemies i thank the gentleman for yielding and i yield back the balance i thank god thank you general a d for comments and she mentioned the particular instance in which we brought lawyers into a situation that if you look at it from the outside doesn't make much sense you stop battlefield operations in order for lawyers to determine whether or not we can listen in on a conversation between anon u s persons outside the united states  and when you look at the other side of the aisles response to this problem you see what they've done is they've elevated the judiciary to the primary role in these in these decisions and that is in my judgment a complete misunderstanding of the proper role of the court look since marbury vs madison the eminent case basically saying that the supreme court gets last say on constitutional issues there has been a missile standing by some that that means that the supreme court the judicial branch is somehow superior to the other two branches of government that is not the case in the area of war making capacity or carrying out a war because if you look at the constitution you'll see very very clearly that the constitution specifies specific powers in article  one to congress and in the executive branch in article two and the united states supreme court has already told us that there are some matters believe it or not they've said better suited for disposition by the elected branches of government the war powers excuse me the war powers the right to declare war given to the congress powers of the purse given to the congress the president possesses authority relating to his constitutional status as commander in chief as well as all executive authority and so these are very very distinct and what we've seen on the other side of the aisle is an elevation on the altar of to the alter of judicial determination in these want from missouri you know one of the problems of being as competent technically as you are is there some of this people like me from missouri that like to it is an engineer like to try and put things in plain simple terms in the first thing i'd like to ask because you're the expert but i have a little bit of a sense of what's going on here in the first ball the problem is that we're trying to collect intelligence on terrorists that are trying to kill our citizens is that what we're dealing with as a very basic thing that we're  want to keep it simple ok so we're dealing with collecting intelligence on these terrorists right now we have a format that was put into law years ago as i understand it that when a signal is transmitted into the air that we can tap into that and listen in for terrorist talk is that correct yes absolutely but now in the last number of years the the way that transmissions are made is different we're going now through these fiber optic cables and through other kinds of tremendous switching networks is that correct correct now does the current law allow us to do the same thing on those as we can do on a transmitted signal the law prior to our change in august did not permit to at least as determined by the pfizer court last year ok now that now we're getting to the problem the problem is is that the government's getting in the way and the democrats are getting in the way of us collecting intelligence to protect  constituents now the lady from a from tennessee you talked about some common sense and the common sense of the matter is some of us remember september eleventh and these people are night and not nice people right if the gentleman will mind and as the gentleman from missouri mentioned we have had tremendous technological changes with how our signals are transmitted when you are dealing with the telephones with cell phones with satellite phones with voice video and data with those communications things have changed and we are not focused on the end news we are more focused on the technology and the changes that we saw it in august would allow and that we gained in august allowed our intelligence community to be able to exercise a little bit more leeway in obtaining these communications from those who americans not in the united states that's what we're talking about and the american people need to understand that so jill it gentleman will yield just one moment i want to bring the attention back to the poster that is on the floor there if the gentleman will lift that i think it's important to just as he was saying this is the foreign intelligence surveillance act as i said earlier it is not use isa it is not the united states intelligence surveillance act this is the foreign intelligence surveillance act that is so important that we keep this in mind as the gentleman said these are people who are not us citizens who are seeking to do us harm and i yelled back let me also explain one thing if you look at the bill that the democratic majority brought to the floor they say well we take care of this problem because we say if it's foreign to foreign you don't need a warrant here's the problem that admiral mcconnell explained to us when you put a tap or you somehow capture the communications you only know the front end of the communications that is osama bin laden's calling somewhere communicating in some way you don't know where in the world he is going to end up on the other side of the communication if in fact you have to say ahead of time we can guarantee that none of those conversations will ever reach into the united states or to an american anywhere you couldn't get a prior warrant because you can't guarantee that so what you need to do is to do it the way admiral mcconnell suggested in the way we put it in the law before if it's a target that is a foreigner in a foreign country for foreign intelligence purposes as defined under the law if that's the case you don't need a warrant if as you collect the communications in some way you find that inadvertently a communication when in the united states or as with an american citizen you do what we call in the la which means if it has nothing to do with that individual on the other end that implicates that individual in any way you don't use it but you do use it against osama bin laden and what they put in the bill was very specifically if we inadvertently capture a communication that involves an american on the other side guess what we have to do we cannot use it we cannot disclose it we cannot use it for any purpose and we cannot keep it for more than seven hours unless we go to a court and get another court  another court order but warrant if the gentleman would yield what i understand the democrats solution is saying that you can't do that that it is possible to almost ban loughton lights up his computer we don't know where he's calling to and therefore we've got to get some judge to give us permission to tap into the bottom line and i mean let me just interrupt the gentleman for another second let's understand we're talking about i presume osama bin laden is sharp enough to realize that maybe ought to have more than one phone line maybe might you know what we have with with the bad guys in the united states they use cell phone after cell phone after cell phone they use it for maybe a day they throw it away they use another one don't you think the bad guys trying to kill us are as smart as that so we have to be able to be sharp enough to be able to find this stuff and turn on this information in a timely fashion to save us we have to have the agility to do that and what has happened with the law we passed in august according to the n s a and i was out there yesterday and according to admiral mcconnell we're now able to do those things we're now able to we now have the agility to do those things and if we were to adopt  bill that was on the floor last week we couldn't do it and the american people have to understand no matter what they say about it if the expert on it tells it we would not be able to do it so my understanding who is general in the yield not understanding here's the bottom line with the bill that's been proposed we would lose about sixty percent or more of our intelligence leads that we're collecting through electronic surveillance means is that that is the absolute testimony of the experts who actually do it number one number one sixty percent of our intelligence gathering capability is going to be hobbled against us of against terrorist targets internationally actually and in the process we will grant more protection under the law to asama bin laden then we do it an american citizen accused of a crime in the united states but that is the the other insult in the whole probably the gentleman in the state of missouri we don't call it common yield i don't think anybody could call that common sense only on the floor of the house of representatives one dare to try and call that common sense and i'm not one of those people who dares nor my two colleagues here be happy to yield to the distinguished general eighty from the state of new mexico i want to make sure i understand something here because i think you said something that's important if the united states government inadvertently collects a phone call that involves an america osama bin laden himself calls into the united states on a new fall in line and we had no idea we didn't expect him to call into america and get a new phone number he's got one of those disposable phone he calls in and we get lucky and we pick it up and that phone call says to one of his cells in the united states tomorrow's the day blow up this year's tower in chicago is it my understanding that under this bill they put forward intelligence agents couldn't even tell long portion about that they'd be prohibited from that unless that cell had already been identified by us we knew who they were we'd already gotten a permit legal permission to do that we wouldn't be able to do that so it so we get the intelligence tip of a lifetime to be able to prevent the next terrorist attack and this bill the restore act would prevent us from protecting american citizens absolutely no let me let me tell you what happens in a criminal case let's say we have a legitimate wiretap on a member of the mafia and that person makes phone calls we don't know who is going to call he calls his mother he calls his barber he calls the guy who delivers pizza because he talks to that other person who is not the target the legal target does not mean that we cannot use that information against the legal target we can't use it against that person if that person then is someone that we then find is someone of interest and we become a target then we have to go get a warrant against that person that's all what that's all that we're saying that we ought to do with the law and in fact that is what you would do under the law that we passed and so as a result we have really put handcuffs in our ability to deal with terrorism far march more than people would argue that we do in terms of law enforcement with the gentleman  generally i thank the gentleman for clarifying that because i think it's an important provision and it was added in to what is being called the restore act very late in the game before it was pulled from the house floor law last week it is a provision that is deadly dangerous to the security of this country the foreign intelligence surveillance act was set up to protect the civil liberties of americans and it has done that effectively but because of changes in technology over the last decade in particular there are more and more conversations that are foreign conversations international conversations that happen to transit the united states and under the old law but  fix this in our early august you needed a warrant to touch a wire inside the united states even if the person you're targeting is overseas earlier this year because of some court decisions this became completely unmanageable and the foreign intelligence surveillance court became almost completely nonfunctional with backlogs of requests for warrants people who couldn't develop probable cause because you think about this you've got some guy on the horn of africa that you suspect of being affiliated with  it's not as though the f b i can go talk to their neighbors and develop probable cause for a warrant in order to touch a wired united states and yet our intelligence capability is much enhanced if we can touch that wire in the united states so you have this odd situation where we're having intelligence agents take tremendous risks to try to collect intelligence overseas while weyrich tying our own hands here in the united states the law that we passed in early august addresses this problem the act that was pulled from the floor so called restore rack last last week would only have restored the ability of terrorists to plop to kill americans would be suicide for the united states to intentionally intentionally cut off our ability to try to listen to the communications of the terrorists who are trying to kill americans with anybody i repeat with a gentleman have to deal to my colleague let me let me just reclaim my time for a moment and remembering last week when we had this bill on the floor and we went before the rules committee to ask for an opportunity for amendment and debate on i appreciate the gentleman yielding to me and i wasn't planning to debate this i just had to be walking through the chamber and i heard what you were saying you know people are entitled to their opinions but they're not entitled to misquote what the bill does which is what i've been hearing which is what i've been hearing first of all it is quite correct is that generally the from new mexico said that if i was a lot needed to be updated well if i could take back my time if the gentleman would specifically say where we misstated i would respond to that the gentleman get his own time i will i will by two things number one the restore act the bill that was put in the floor number one takes care of that technological problem just as the bill that was passed in august does by updating and making clear that foreign to foreign the communications that come through a serving united states do not need a warrant so that's not at issue let me just make two points and second of all i think i heard you say both of you somebody here that if you her if you were tapping some terrorist the brought and he called into the united states about and you heard him talk about terrorism with somebody in the united states that you could not tap that you could not use that information that's simply not true well the gentleman i will reclaim my time the fact the matter that is true i hope to get the language here  in a moment in the manager's amendment in the second major paragraph of the amendment it's specific he refers to in advertently capture of a conversation involving an american on one hand and in those cases it specifically said if that is the case you may not use it for any purpose you may not you may not disclose it and you may not keep it for more than seven days unless you get a specific warrant with respect to that or the attorney general makes a specific finding that the information itself relates to the death of an american now the fact the matter is that was picked up from language that's currently in pfizer that has nothing to do with this it has to do with inadvertent communications again in another context so i don't know whether it was inadvertent it was bad draftsmanship or  intentional but the fact the matter is on its face that is exactly what it does and that's why i can stand here and say without fear of contradiction that it gives greater protection to asama bin laden in that instance than we give to an american charged with a crime in the united states again i don't know what the purpose was in drafting it that way that's one of the problems when you bring a bill to the floor and you have a closed rule that dhoni that doesn't even allow us to question the language to attempt to deal with it and the gentleman can say it doesn't say that i would suggest that gentleman go back and look at the specific language because i was astounded when i first read it i first looked at it said this can't possibly be the way i one pointed to where that was wrong that happens to be in the bill now if you want to change it we ought to change but the fact the matter is that's where it is you know general honore you know and you know he from the issue of foreign of foreign communications is in the bill but here's the problem we can put in law that you don't need a warrant to listen to foreign to foreign communications but you're never targeting a communication between two points you're always looking at one target and if i am targeting you in afghanistan i don't know who you're going to pick up the phone and call next if it is a felony to listen to a conversation between a foreigner and a u s person without a warrant as soon as that in the context of electronic surveillance you can only target one end of the conversation so you have no control over who that number might call or who they might receive a call from he then said specifically  talking about foreign to foreign and whether that takes care of the problem these are his words if you have to predetermine is foreign to foreign before you do it it is impossible that's the point you can only target one if you're going to target you have to program some equipment to say i'm going to look at number one two three so targeting in this sense if you're targeting a phone number that is foreign so that's the target the point is that you have no control over who that target might call or who might call that target and let me just with  i found out that i did have the specific language that to which i referred a moment ago this is the proposed language in the bill if electronic surveillance concerning foreign foreign communications inadvertently collects a communication in which at least one party to the communication is located inside the united states or is a united states person the contents of such communication shall be handled in accordance with minimization procedures adopted by the attorney general if that's all it said that the fine but then it says that require that no contents of any communication to which a united states person is a party shall be disclosed disseminated or used for any purpose or retained for longer than seven days unless a court order is obtain unless the attorney general determines that the information indicates a threat of death or serious bodily injury reading that as it is written if osama bin laden in a conversation communication or whatever to someone who happens to be a u s person or is in the united states that is not then a target under the regime that we hand doesn't implicate that individual whatsoever but in the course of the conversation reveals where he is where he's going to be we cannot act on that information under this specific language unless the attorney general determines the information indicates the threat of death or serious bodily injury telling where is doesn't indicate a threat of death to anybody or serious bodily injury to anybody that's the language that your side has presented on the floor as a fait accompli we could not amend it we couldn't even discuss that many get on the floor because we had a gag rule and the gentleman is a distinguished attorney he knows how to use words very very well you can't change the words that are on the printed page this is a little field let me go to my friend from missouri before you know the gentleman from new york yes well there was one procedure that the republicans were allowed to do and that's called to recommit is that correct we could make any amendments we could motion to recommit yes and so on the motion to recommit we did the best thing we could to try to fix this problem which was going to basically muzzle sixty percent of our intelligence gathering capability and that what i guess you could look at it is an amendment on the motion to recommit it was merely a sentence or two and that sentence said something to the effect that nothing in this bill will prevent us from try to capture bin laden or prevent us from gathering information and on al qaeda and they're attacking this country is something that i had a solid bin laden or other terrorist groups and prevent attacks on the united states or americans that was the language and i might say the gentleman was never offered we never got to that point but rather than have a gag rule or follow the leadership the leadership we got from the democratic side of a gag rule we actually showed it to the other side way ahead of time and now the reaction was what that whole of the bill they really built just stopped in mid debate on the bill and we will bring with it in such a hurry that we didn't have time for any amendments just let me you know the jump in new york press the gentleman new york to tell us when the bill is coming back to the floor i can't because i don't know that i don't know that it's presumably sometime in next two weeks but we do you know now for abi happy to y two points one was just said about that motion to recommit the contents of the motion to recommit that that nothing should be construed as barring tapping or wires that whatever the language was bin laden osama to report the bill back forthwith so we could continue the debate we would have accepted that and then that we would have said fine doesn't change anything fine but as you no the amendment said report back promptly which would have entailed at least a two week delay it goes back to committee now we have some rules here that require a few days we also have something called a waiver of rules that has happened virtually on every rule that we've had here presenting a bill to the floor and let me ask the gentleman if in fact your concern was it would be a delay of a week or two what are we doing now i would yield of the gentleman i will answer it to the best of my knowledge i don't know what we're doing now i'm not part of the leadership and i was as i said just happened to be working here i don't know why the bills in back here now but i know it will be in the next week or so as a german statement but you're willing to accept the motion to recommit and your side is on the language yes the language is unobjectionable well that's good language turns out they have got their act together so we have a little more time with the senate was going to pass a bill not that bill yes isn't this a different bill we wanted to pass a bill before they did so that's why we were in a hurry at the end that the getting back to  the point we said a few minutes ago i don't have the benefit of the language i know you have it there from the manager's amendment which i haven't seen or the context but i do know the following it due to the following the whole point because you know that he you suspect he's a terrorist or involved if you close somewhere else abroad no one thinks you need a warrant of anything else or anything else under the bill if he calls someone in the united states either that you hear it you can't help hearing either that conversation is innocent or it's involved in something that makes you suspicious of terrorism if it's innocent you've got to do more you've got to do you have to engage in minimisation procedures so you don't unduly and inadvertently violate the privacy of some american for an innocent conversation if it's not innocent then you with that information you can continue listening and if necessary you can get a warrant and that's the general  that's precisely the problem you have to get a warrant before you can take action and if in that conversation something that islam of bin laden said does not implicate the american whatsoever does not  if and buts were candy and nuts every day be christmas you may wish it you may hope but you may think that these are the words that you your side presented to us as a fait accompli that's what it says you can't get around it and  justice based on the fact that we ought to read these as i think the gentleman said once before in debate in a commonsense way there's no commonsense exception to this provision in the law but happy to yield to the gentle lady from the mac one of things my current colleague from new york said was well there are these minimisation procedures and that's true there are minimization procedures under current law which means if you if you gather information that involves innocent people you mask their identity you don't disseminate things that don't matter and he protect people's privacy if it only went that far that would be fine the problem is the rest of the paragraph that that my colleague from california mentioned which actually prohibits dissemination of information that could be critical to this country it is astounding to me that we might actually intercept a conversation involving involving osama bin laden himself that reveals where he's going to be tomorrow and we would prohibit our intelligence agencies from prohibition and i think we need to get back to some basics here which is number one the law would require and the current law requires that you need a warrant to wiretap a u s person for the purposes of collection of foreign intelligence that's what the whole foreign intelligence surveillance act was about but it also makes clear under the law that we passed in the first week of august that you do not need a warrant to listen to foreigners reasonably believed to be in a foreign country america spies we tried to discover the secrets of people who are not were not our friends some of whom are trying to kill large numbers of americans we do everything we can to find out what their plans capabilities and intentions are so we can prevent another terrorist attack that's what our intelligence community does and to somehow tie this up that red tape in a way that with a bunch of lawyers and judges makes no sense to me at all when we're trying to  find out the secrets they're desperately trying to lay the attack from us i have to say you know there's a question how many lawyers should it take to be allowed to listen to a psalm of bin laden the answer should be zero that's what the answer should be we should involve lawyers and judges and try and intercept his communications even if he's talking to an american to there's a gentleman yield i'd be yell after i make this one statement in in reference to what you just say in general richard are judge richard posner the seventh circuit the u s court of appeals put it this way he came of national security intelligence is to thwart attacks by enemy nations or terrorist groups rather than to punish the perpetrators after an attack has occurred the threat of punishment is not a reliable deterrent to such an attack especially when the attackers are fanatics who place a low value on their own lives and when the potential destructiveness of attacks is so great that even a single failure of deterrence can have catastrophic consequences that is why the judge says when the government is fighting terrorism rather than ordinary crime the emphasis shifts from punishment to prevention the judge has put it fairly well in almost  understandable terms of the gentleman from missouri would say and i yield to the gentleman of missouri who would not like to be described as an attorney well i i i appreciate the good work that attorneys do and i particularly like different attorney jokes and this one particular joke is the only one i've heard that isn't funny and that is how many attorneys does it take to collect intelligence on our enemies and the answer exactly is the lady said should be zero there should be no doubt about this now you've talked about some somewhat subtler finer points of law but the bottom line is there is an agency that is charged with following the law and protecting our citizens now the opinion of that agency on this point is what's critical isn't it because if they believe they can't do the collection then they're going to be sixty percent or more of intelligence gathering that's going to be hobbled they're not going to have that capability and their belief is that what you're saying is true because you quoted them is that right gentlemen that is true and i would say it is similar to going to the doctor and the doctors telling you that you need an operation to repair a faulty valve in your heart and before you make the decision you have to go to a judge to get permission to follow the doctor's order i don't think that's what i'd want to do but the gentleman yield i'll be happy to you now i know we're coming to the end of this hour but i think it's something that's a something important for americans to understand and we all remember where we were the morning of nine eleven we remember what we were wearing what we had for breakfast who we were with and that's seared into our memories very few americans remember where they were when the british government arrested sixteen people who were within forty eight hours of walking on to airliners at heathrow and blowing them up simultaneously over the atlantic we don't remember it because it didn't happen and it didn't happen because american british and pakistani intelligence were working together to disrupt the plot and prevent the terrorist attack that's what matters here we want to stop those memories from being created before the event happens to get a little or a yield i would just like to say because we keep hearing that we're not concerned about civil liberties and so forth and the courts ought to look at this rather than making decisions by president united states many people finally remember justice whizzer white on the united states supreme court than a point he of president john f kennedy in the in the seminal case in the supreme court dealing with the question of privacy and wiretapping called katz versus us he said this we should not require a warrant procedure in a magistrate's judgment if the president of the united states or his chief legal officer the attorney general has considered the requirements of national security and authorized electronic surveillance as reasonable because the fourth amendment talks about protection against unreasonable searches and seizures and we never hear on this floor that qualification it is reasonable and so how do we protect american citizens in this the process of minimization that we talked about that is followed by everybody in the n s a and i would just show this to the gentleman this chart shows the procedures already put into place at the n s a national security agency to implement the protect america act and ensure that american civil liberties are protected by minimisation look at this internal oversight they have a training built on the foundation of compliance training they annual requirement to read the legal compliance and minimisation procedure documents they have advanced training and a competence competency test everybody out there has to take the test and pass or they can't be involved in the program they have new training in the authority yes and the competency test they have they understand the legislative changes the documentation and determination they have spot check and audits to assess compliance they have somebody else come out within their organization and check up on individuals and then they have an assessment of management controls in other words they have multiple reviews on a regular basis of what's going on there and  addition what they have done is they are subjected to oversight by the department excuse me the office of the director of national intelligence and the department of justice every fourteen days every thirty days and every sixty days and then on top of that they have the congress that can look at things that the american people should understand is the seriousness with which the agency is undertaking their responsibility to protect americans from terrorist overseas and to make sure there is no inadvertent violation of the civil liberties of americans gentleman that is gentleman yield the yes i'll be happy i believe that what you've described is pretty much what we worked out last summer just going back to last summer yes problem reared its ugly head we were approaching september eleventh the democrats had been unwilling to deal with it we've been going back and forth and back and forth and as i recall we basically told the other party we're not leaving for summer break until you get this thing fixed because our nation is exposed we're not collecting the information that we need and we have to deal with that and so we at the last minute we passed a six month if you will patch that takes us to february is that correct that is correct and so until february we are able to do this this collection at this point but we have to deal with this problem now the lady from arizona made reference to september eleventh and i think each of us have our own memories but mine was being at the site in new york city and seeing that wall along the side of a city block a four by eight sheets of plywood covering over the wall was a piece of that kind of slick greasy plastic that's waterproof and it had little dots of mist because it was a misty day and underneath that were pictures some black and white some in color picture of a guy with his dog a husband and wife as i looked at those pictures it reminded me of the many times in the morning where eyes had met gently saying goodbye for the day a gentle brush of the here that would be no more that ended in violent fiery tragedy and death and for us to hobble our intelligence committee and knock out sixty percent of their intelligence gathering is un american it's something that we will not tolerate in this chamber and until we get it right i will never be quiet on this subject and i know gentlemen you feel as strongly as i do i appreciate the gentleman sentiments and i would just say i don't think there's anybody in this chamber that depreciates the experiences of nine eleven nor the threat that currently faces this country that does not excuse anybody in this chamber or us collectively for making either ill informed decisions or just wrong headed decisions and when we have the expert experience and judgment of people like admiral mcconnell who told us of the threat that we are currently facing and his inability to do the job that he is sworn an oath to do and when we responded in a way which he said works i totally beyond belief that we want change that now and the other thing is is there anybody in this chamber that believes the threat is only to february or is only for two years as was in the bill that was presented to us this is a long term threat which necessitates a long term commitment on the part of the american people on the part of the congress on the part of the entire federal government and we have an obligation to make sure that that takes place otherwise the american people have every right to say to us you have not done the job and so i would hope that when we have this bill on the floor we have an opportunity to make it permanent so that we can tell our adversaries we will throw everything at you not to convict you after a perpetration of an attack on us to put but to prevent it in the first place the american people don't want prosecution they want prevention you know gentlemen if i could just interrupt for a minute i don't think any of us want to impugn anybody's motives our objective here and the reason we were sent here by our constituents is decisive problems what you've outlined is a reasonable balance between the privacy rights of americans and the necessity of the government to do what is number one task to do which is to protect our citizens but when we get that balance wrong and the director of the people that have to collect that intelligence say that we've got to have judges you're going to knock out more than half of our intelligence gathering capability that it says we need to get back to the drawing board and get this thing done the right way i certainly appreciate your attention to the details to looking at the language and i certainly hope that our democratic colleagues will allow enough to debate and discussion to solve a problem i thank the gentleman for his where and let me just let me just finish on these words justice robert jackson the u s supreme court once said the constitution is not a suicide pac of the speakers and house policy of january eighteenth two thousand and seven gentleman from north carolina mr etheridge is recognized for sixty minutes as a designee of the majority leader thank you miss baker the speaker  rise tonight to begin this hour to put a great spot on what is occurring in the southeastern region of the united states you know when you look at this test ix and you look at the effects there's only one word that can describe the drought that is grip the southeastern united states and that is tragic if you look at this map to my right you see that the southeast is a large red area and you also have some of the same effects in some parts of the west coast and we've seen the effects of what's happening there with the terrible fires that are now taking place out in california as speaker this is a disaster not like i tornado or hurricane or or even to any major catastrophic event when you have a big storm you have an earthquake it's over you come in you put things back together you're able to start sorting people's lives out but the drought on the magnitude of the one it's now gripping the southeast is sort of on a continual process it started well over a year ago we had a drought where no we had a drop fall last year drought went to this past year and now this year and i'll talk about it more as the evening goes on we have places in my home state and in other places of the southeast where we are twenty inches of rain below normal and i'll talk about that in and have more to say about as the evening wore on but this impact adds up over time it impacts every person in the southeast it impacts animals is the impacts vegetation and certainly has an impact on the land this drought thankfully is the worst one that people who are now living can remember and in some places in my state people are approaching one hundred years of age say they've never seen anything this bad we know this entire region has had in some places tinnitus less rain others plus twenty and i was on the phone just today with one of our small towns working with the governor's office they will be out of water in sixty days w struggling to get water lines to and just to help in that but then on a more talk about a broader issue of how it's impacting the people who live on the land provide food and fiber in this country this erie has as been the hardest hit and it's a broad area as you can see here it's in the state of arkansas mississippi alabama georgia north carolina south carolina tennessee but janja and even parts of maryland and north carolina governor easley is issued a state wide ban on burning and he's asked citizens to halt all nonessential warty use just this week so great that it's now affecting rural communities across north carolina and i'm sure as my colleagues come this evening they will share with you what's happening in their state across the southeast i don't know if my colleagues can see here but certainly north carolina is predominantly red because now i'll talk about it if you manage almost every county almost all one hundred counties are in what's called the extreme drought and i'll talk about that  gresham's district fall virtually one hundred percent in the extreme drought area and it does have an effect on rural community but also it's thanks suburban and urban areas plants are having their production levels cut to save water several communities have only a few months of water supply remaining and i just talked about one has no more than sixty days is now cut production and one of the plants to employ roughly two thousand people it is cut their production back to three and four days they're hauling water in water tankers just to keep operating i know that this is a case of in several of these other states as well and i look forward to hearing from my colleagues what we really need is a good way but you know members of congress think they do a lot of things with they can do a whole lot about right we can talk about it we can pray for it we wish you got it  to get it but the truth is we can't do anything about it and when we can't do that what we can do is help in ways we can help and not just the second district of north carolina as i've said the entire district is virtually an reception or drought area that is the most serious category of drought you can help farmers or haven't is to have had to struggle all year in this very difficult situation the crisis that this drought is is underlined by the two critical variables that seem to be working against us first is a self sustaining cycle that a drought of this magnitude can trigger for this region to recover hearing on thursday they have sharon the spot lot on this growing disaster and it really is a disaster of large proportion i wrote a letter to the president asking for assistance this letter was signed by fifty four of my colleagues both democrat and republican money being floated in the supplemental that the president requests and i understand he sent a supplemental damn but there was no request and i hope you'll reconsider because he's farm families may not be able to make it another year they pay taxes when they have money their god fearing people they help in their communities and they deserve when they have tough times for their government help them because they've helped others when they had tough times farmers are some of the most resourceful and janey's productive people around but there's not much you can do to grow crops o raised livestock or produce poultry a pork without some of the essential things you need in rain is one of those things and you need to be mr speaker this is why we're here tonight and this is why we all work together and we're going to work create an awareness to this problem and we're going to put a far i don't rack colleagues if necessary and we're going to do the same at the white house if it takes that because i formers in rural communities desperately need assistance and it is my hope that we can pass a relief package and the president will sign it into law these are good americans they don't leave some place around the world they leave you in the united states of america has asserted that taxpayer and says when you have money now let me yield to my good friend from south carolina congressman if you and me i'll go back to north carolina to my friend mike mcintyre who also understands this problem in his district is caught in the red area also so i would yield to him for  whatever time he may consider well thank you mr etheridge and i want to thank my colleague bob etheridge for requesting this time tonight indeed we all stand together knowing that the severe drought which is gripping the southeastern united states has already destroyed millions of acres of valuable crops mr speaker not only in our home state of north carolina but throughout the southeastern u s and unfortunately the situation is only going to get worse today north carolina experience yet another day of dry weather months upon months of hot temperatures scorching sun back since early this summer and little to no rain since then have brought about dead and dying crops soybeans corn and nursery crops in particular during my travels around southeast north carolina both this summer in this fall i met with many farmers about this issue back in august during our recess i met with farmers in who feared the worse and now here we are months later and unfortunately their nightmares are coming true if we had not experienced significant rainfall by the labor day weekend we were going to have even worse problems and indeed we have where lush green fields of corn once stood ragged brown stalks beat down by the sun now dot our rural landscape constant reminders of how devastating this drawing is proving to be this trout during august met with and talked with farmers from several counties as i asked north carolina governor mike easley on behalf of our area's farmers to request a disaster declaration as the severe drought conditions existed in most areas and i know my colleagues have done the same also wrote in secretary of agriculture mike jones and the president to request their assistance and subsequently upon their return to washington after the august recess then i also asked the leadership of both parties here in the house to help us to help those in need because indeed this is not an issue about political parties this is an issue of economic survival and ultimately it's going to affect everybody you know mr speaker and to my friend congressman etheridge and those others who are joining us here tonight that you'll hear from shortly this is something that affects everybody's pocketbook we all depend on food and fiber for our very survival and this is an issue that is now going to fact all of us here in our neighborhoods back home in our communities indeed across our state north carolina and throughout the southeast and ultimately across this nation according to u s d a last estimates eighty five of our state's one hundred counties have reported excessive agricultural losses due to drought for at least one significant crop and major losses have been reported already on corn cotton tobacco soybeans pastures hey and peanuts and those numbers continue to rise mr speaker as pharmacy harvests what's left of their crops now so join my con brienne congressman etheridge in signing the letter to the president as well when we return from our recess now for many families in our district farming is their sole source of income in any significant is financially devastating as we all have been hearing from our farmers they may not even be able to make it until next year and will be many may be forced to sell the land they have just to pay their bills and even if north carolina were to see some significant rainfall most crops are already too far gone for to make a big difference at this point what these folks need now is disaster assistance to help them pay their bills to make sure that they can remain on their farms and get ready to plant again in the spring it's also important for all of us as communities and as citizens to realize that this is going to affect all of us beyond the farms into our very homes and now people are realizing that with preventive measures are having to do to avoid wasting water it's imperative that we support our farmers during this dire time so that we may ensure a safe and abundant food supply for which we as america are known and which is important to all american citizens we need help and we need it now and let me just say that this trail reaches indeed beyond the farm to citizens throughout regions now across the country restrictions on watering lawns and washing cars have now turned into calls to even reduce shower times and for public school rules in some places now have started to switch to paper plates to conserve water our gov now it's called an even greater restrictions in north carolina and there are great concerns that we not only need rain to help the farmers but this drought has affected every citizen in our supply of water for all needs in industry and home and schools and throughout all sectors of society we must all begin to think about long term strategies to conserve water and protect the vital water supplies of countless communities throughout not only north carolina but indeed the rest of the southeastern us with meteorologist now calling for continued warm dry weather the urgency of addressing addressing this worsening drought continues to rise in the need for financial assistance is greater than ever the time is now to act i think not colleague for helping us bring attention to this tonight in this time we have and i know several colleagues from not only throughout north carolina but across the south are going to be speaking tonight on the floor we must act we must stand in one voice we must stand across party lines and we must get the assistance that is needed now thank you and i yield back the remainder of my time i thank the gentleman and i've just changed the map here for my good friend the mr spratt from south carolina get a little bit better view of the south carolina area of isn't this that his district falls and and it reaches of will come from you know these are the things it's it's it's sort of starts the way only in the drought yes worse and worse you know not being able to water your lawn wash your car take a long shower is an inconvenience but if you're a farmer and you don't have the water for you crops this catastrophic because you not only have enough to do you lose your livelihood you could lose your means of future