S6202 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE May 5, 1995

Executive Office of the President, transmitting, pursuant to law, the cumulative report

on rescissions and deferrals for fiscal year

1995; referred jointly, pursuant to the order

of January 30, 1975, as modified by the order

of April 11, 1986, to the Committee on Appropriations, to the Committee on the Budget,

to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition,

and Forestry, to the Committee on Banking,

Housing, and Urban Affairs, to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, to the Committee on Environment

and Public Works, to the Committee on

Labor and Human Resources, and to the

Committee on Small Business.

EXECUTIVE REPORTS OF

COMMITTEES

fThe following executive reports of

committees were submitted:

By Mr. HELMS, from the Committee on

Foreign Relations:

Treaty Doc. 102–15 Treaty With Panama on

Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters

(Exec. Rept. 104–3)

TEXT OF THE COMMITTEE-RECOMMENDED

RESOLUTION OF ADVICE AND CONSENT

Resolved, (two-thirds of the Senators

present concurring therein), That the Senate

advise and consent to the ratification of the

Treaty between the United States of America and the Republic of Panama On Mutual

Assistance in Criminal Matters. With Annexes and Appendices, signed at Panama on

April 11, 1991. The Senate’s advice and consent is subject to the following two provisos,

which shall not be included in the instrument of ratification to be signed by the

President:

Nothing in this Treaty requires or authorizes legislation, or other action,by the United States of America prohibited by the Constitution of the United States as interpreted

by the United States.

Pursuant to the rights of the United States

under this Treaty to deny requests which

prejudice its essential public policy or interest, the United States shall deny a request

for assistance when the Central Authority,

after consultation with all appropriate intelligence, anti-narcotic, and foreign policy

agencies, has specific information that a senior government official who will have access

to information to be provided under this

Treaty is engaged in or facilitates the production or distribution of illegal drugs.

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS AND

JOINT RESOLUTIONS

fThe following bills and joint resolutions were introduced, read the first

and second time by unanimous consent, and referred as indicated:

By Mr. DASCHLE (for himself, Mr.

BIDEN, Mr. KOHL, Mrs. FEINSTEIN, and

Mr. DODD):

S. 761. A bill to improve the ability of the

United States to respond to the international terrorist threat; read the first time.

By Mr. HARKIN:

S. 762. A bill to implement General Accounting Office recommendations regarding

the use of commercial software to detect

billing code abuse in Medicare claims processing, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Finance.

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED

BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

By Mr. DASCHLE (for himself,

Mr. BIDEN, Mr. KOHL, Mrs.

FEINSTEIN, and Mr. DODD):

S. 761. A bill to improve the ability of

the United States to respond to the

international terrorist threat; read the

first time.

THE OMNIBUS COUNTERTERRORISM ACT OF 1995

Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, since

the terrible bombing in Oklahoma City

more than 2 weeks ago, we have been

forced to consider what the society

should do in self-defense against potentially deadly maniacs who think that

killing defenseless people is a way to

send a political message or effect political change.

This is an enduring challenge for a

democracy. We have faced it before.

There is no easy answer.

We cannot afford to give the terrorists what they want to achieve—the

subversion of our free institutions—in

the effort to prevent their terrorist

acts. But we cannot remain complacent

in the face of determined threats either.

The President has sent to Congress

his proposal to give Federal law enforcement additional resources and

tools to use in combating domestic and

international terrorism on American

soil. It includes commonsense expansion of FBI investigative authorities in

counterterrorism cases, such as access

to credit reports and travel and hotel

records, which are routinely available

to State and local law enforcement authorities in criminal investigations.

It will speed the process of adding

chemical taggants to explosives, as

well as moving more aggressively into

taggant and related explosives research.

It will expand the FBI’s ability to use

trace-and-track devices and pen registers to capture the phone numbers

dialed from or coming in to a particular telephone. It does not abandon the

requirement of American law that no

phone may be tapped without an explicit warrant, issued only when there

is probable cause to suspect criminal

activity.

The package of proposals includes

added penalties and some broader Federal felony offenses, whose purpose is

to conform the law with respect to explosives to the existing law that covers

firearms.

Coupled with the President’s earlier

antiterrorism bill directed at international terrorism, this is a sound step

to respond to a national threat without

throwing overboard the civil rights of

law-abiding citizens.

The consensus of those who work in

this field is that, although the cold war

is over, the war against terrorism is

just beginning. Experts make some

chilling—and compelling—arguments.

In the century preceding the Oklahoma City bombing, although terrorist

groups were numerous, and although

horrible murders, kidnapings, and

other crimes by them were frequent,

there were fewer than a dozen terrorist

attacks that cost more than 100 lives.

There is reason to fear, according to

experts, that this trend is shifting.

Where once terrorists would take hostages and threaten the lives of 1 or 2 or

20 people if their demands were not

met, they no longer issue specific demands. They take fewer and fewer hostages.

Instead, they attack more soft targets, where civilian casualties are

bound to be higher. They are aiming

less at a particular demand and more

at terrorizing the entire society.

They build more car bombs and undertake more suicide attacks; they attack civilians in crowds—airplanes,

subways, and office buildings. They

make fewer explicit demands, but their

broader demands are more apocalyptic.

If this trend continues, instead of a

cold war atmosphere of threat and

counterthreat, of massive nuclear

stockpiles poised to strike each other’s

targets, we face the prospect of random

violence—impossible to predict, impossible to counter, impossible to explain.

A civilized society can live with

many fears. We lived with the fear of

nuclear holocaust for almost 50 years,

yet our society became freer throughout that time. The great advances in

civil rights and protections against

Government were postwar.

But no civilized society will survive

the threat of random terror. It cannot.

We must be able to feel secure as we

travel to our workplaces each day, as

we sit at our desks or man our service

counters—that we will end the day predictably, by going home, making dinner, performing the normal pattern of

tasks and duties we face.

If we ever reach the point where randomized terror can paralyze us, can

make Americans distrust each other—

distrust the safety of the next few

hours—the terrorists will have won, because we will be what they want us to

be: an atomized nation, without community, without security, without anything except fear for immediate individual survival.

That is where these people want to

take us. We have to combat this, without becoming savages, without losing

our perspective, without succumbing to

paralyzing fear.

It is not going to be easy. If the experts are right, and apocalyptic terrorism is what the future holds, we will

face challenges our system has never

before been forced to face. We will have

to ask ourselves questions that we

have never before raised.

A growing number of terrorist groups

believe they are fighting a holy war.

That change has changed the nature of

what they are prepared to do, the risks

they themselves are prepared to run,

and the damage they are prepared to

inflict.

This change presents us, as a society,

with a challenge as well. Americans are

of diverse faiths, but we are among the