Date: 2011-02-10
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. I thank the chairman of the Rules Committee for granting me this time. I sit on this floor as the author of the sunset provision that requires us to consider these three portions of the Patriot Act. I offered that when we had the reauthorization of the overall bill because I thought these were three sections that were at that time controversial and that we ought to be required to review it. So I did support the authorization for a year that we had last year. but I fully expected that the Judiciary Committee would hold hearings so that before this date we would have acted on any changes that anyone deemed necessary. I would say. I am not aware of any changes that are necessary. and I have followed this ever since they put the sunset provisions in. But nonetheless I had thought that during the last year while my friends on the other side were in charge. we would have acted. As a matter of fact. I believe our committee passed out a full reauthorization of the Patriot Act. that is. the Judiciary Committee. under the leadership of Chairman CONYERS. but it was never brought to the floor for us to consider. under any rule. open or closed. So what we are asking for. in concert with the President of the United States. is to extend it to the end of this year so that we can carry out the constitutionally mandated obligation of oversight. Chairman SENSENBRENNER. chairman of the Crime Subcommittee. has a track record. I believe it was 13 hearings that we held on these subjects. We went through chapter and verse. We had the FBI before us. We had the Attorney General before us. We had the head of the criminal division before us. We had the ACLU before us. We had classified briefings as well as public hearings. We made some changes in 2005 pursuant to requests and information that was presented to us. Now. I know some of our members said after they voted against this on the suspension calendar. "Well. look this bills been in effect for 10 years. Times have changed." Yes. they have. And if we would examine the changes. we would see that these three provisions are more necessary today than they were when we first put them into the law. Why? Because as Secretary Napolitano. the Secretary in the Obama administration. stated just today. we are on as high alert today. as far as shes concerned in terms of the threat. as we have been at any time since 9/11. And as the two cochairs of the 9/11 Commission said in testimony last year. which is basically repeated by Secretary Napolitano and the head of the NCTC in testimony this week. we have a different threat today. We have the continuing threat of those of al Qaeda on the international scene. still attempting to probe and find where they might be able to provide a catastrophic event against the United States. But the new facts show that the greater threat to us today is. as they have said. less consequential attacks from smaller groups. some not even officially allied with al Qaeda. sometimes inspired by them. sometimes incited by them. And these three provisions go directly to the investigations that are necessary for us to deter that. This is not the regular criminal justice system where you examine the evidence after the crime has been committed to try to convict the individual. This is in the essence of deterrence. to make sure that were not collecting body parts after the attack has occurred. As a result. we have tried to make changes in the law that will allow us to do what the 9/11 Commission said we couldnt do beforehand. connect the dots. Why do we have the lone wolf provision in here? Because that is more and more the concern we have to have. Now. this would not apply to Major Hasan because he is an American citizen. We are talking about lone wolf provisions for those who are not U.S. citizens. But he was a lone wolf. if you want to understand what a lone wolf is. He wasnt officially connected with al Qaeda or anybody else. but he was in conversation. He was incited by or inspired by. And if anybody doesnt believe that he committed a terrorist attack. they dont know what terrorism is. You talk about a lone wolf. How about the guy who was on the airplane on Christmas a little over a year ago? That would be a lone wolf. We might have been able to collect information on him had we had an opportunity to get some of this information.