Date: 2007-11-15
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Mr. Speaker. I rise in opposition to this rule. . People should understand that this is one of the singlemost important issues we Will deal with this year or this Congress. and yet it has been trivialized by the way it has been handled by the Rules Committee. We were shown what purported to be the bill that we would be working on today 45 minutes before the Rules. Committee convened. at which time we were supposed to present our amendments to this bill. draft our amendments to this bill. Maybe it made no difference because they had no intention whatsoever of allowing us any input by way of amendment. This was startling to me because. having done two 1hour Special Orders on this subject. I had a distinguished Member from their side of the aisle come to me and say: You know thatprovision you pointed out. that was placed into this bill as a result of a selfexecution rule that actually grants greater protection to Osama bin Laden or anybody else than it would to an American citizen charged with a crime in America. You were right on that. We made a mistake. and we are going to change it. So I look at this bill and it is still there. What provision am I talking about? It is the provision that talks about treatment of inadvertent interceptions. If we have an electronic communication which we believed in the first instance was foreign to foreign but we find that it actually is foreign to someone in the United States. what happens? If we inadvertently collect 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. And that is fine. But then it goes on to say: that require that no contents of any communication to which the United States person is a party shall be disclosed. disseminated. or used for any purpose. or retained for longer than 7 days unless a court order under section 105 is obtained. or unless the Attorney General determines that the information indicates the threat of death or serious bodily harm to any person. Now. if Osama bin Laden in a conversation or communication with someone in the United States. which we inadvertently pick up because we thought we were listening to foreign to foreign and we hear this. and in that Osama bin Laden indicates where he is. we are prohibited by this provision in this section of the bill from being able to disseminate it to anybody. FBI or anybody else. or using it for any purpose unless we go to a court. That is absolutely absurd. So absurd that a Member of that side of the aisle. the chairman of the Constitutional Law Subcommittee of Judiciary said: You are right. we will take it out. It is not taken out. That is just one of the problems when you have a rule that doesnt allow people to look at the bill you are going to present to them nor does it allow any amendments to be brought forward. This not only points out the seriousness of this issue. but it shows that. when you play political games with bringing it to the floor. you might have unintended consequences. Do I believe that side wants to give greater protection to Osama bin Laden than an American citizen charged with a crime in America? I hope not. But it is in this bill. I was told it was going to be taken out. It has not been taken out. We ought to defeat this rule for that reason whatsoever and defeat the bill if it remains in.