Date: 2002-07-26
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman. let me put a couple of things to rest. First of all. we are simply taking the base text of the bill as it is currently drafted as this House has approved. and we are extending the information that could be obtained by the Secretary of Homeland Security and are allowing in his discretion to share information that would not otherwise be attainable by the government. to share this information with other Federal agencies if it will help protect our critical infrastructure so that we can obtain the information that will keep our security systems. our cybersystems in the Department of Defense or in the FBI or the CIA. and the information that we receive through Homeland Security will protect those systems. We can share that information. This is a very narrowly tailored amendment. This amendment. in fact. is more narrowly tailored than an exemption that was passed by this House and signed by the President on the Y2K Readiness Act. So we have done our best to make sure the Freedom of Information Act is protected. This does not apply to lobbyists. I do not know why the language was taken out by the other committee. I certainly accepted antilobbying language at the committee level where we were before. but perhaps they took it out because such language is redundant. The language here is very clear that only information that would otherwise not be attainable by government would now be able to be shared to protect our critical infrastructure and that it has to pertain to critical infrastructure information. If it pertains to anything else. it does not fit the exemption and it would be as it currently is. available under the current statute. Now. this legislation has nothing to do with campaign contributions. and I think those kinds of statements belong in the political waste basket. I think. we are people of good will here who are doing our best to make sure that in developing a Department of Homeland Security we are getting the best information available to combat terrorism. We have to remember that in the caves of al Qaeda we found government documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act that lay in terrorists hands that they were using to destroy us. And just as the Romans built a system and a network that took them to all corners of the Earth. it was the same barbarians that used those roads to come in to destroy Rome. What we want to do is as we build this infrastructure. we want to protect it from those barbarians. in this case. the terrorists. Since the infrastructure is 90 percent owned by the private sector. we are soliciting comments. we are soliciting the experience from the private sector to share with the government in a way that will not be used to the private s~ctors detriment. so that the private sectors competitors. so that terrorists. so that lawyers cannot come in and get this information that would otherwise be attainable and use it against them. And without that protection. what we are finding out is companies. innovators. small innovators are reluctant to share that information with the government because it could bankrupt those companies. This is narrowly crafted. The Senate agrees. at least. on the Federal portion of this. I concur with the previous speaker. it does not apply to State and local on the Senate side. We do because critical infrastructure also applies to State and local. I urge adoption of the amendment.