Date: 2008-06-18
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. First of all. I want to thank the chairman of the committee for granting me the time. and also for the work that he has done in working on a bipartisan basis with those of us on this side to bring a number of these bills to the floor. Every month. Mr. Speaker. that the Federal Government and local law enforcement officials screen some 270 million individuals against a new and. constantly evolving consolidated terrorist watch list. we actually are safer as a result of those actions. Since the Terrorist Screening Centers establishment in December of 2003. front line screeners using this watch list have encountered known or reasonably suspected terrorists over 55.000 times. Now. I grant you that a namebased watch list certainly is not perfect. The problems are compounded by the fact that. in several cases. a single individual has over 50 identities on the watch list and. of course. this would eventually lead to miqidentifications between lawabiding Americans and watchlisted identities. These misidentifications are not simply persons with Arab names. as the press would have you believe. Actors. writers. yes. even as the gentleman from Mississippi mentioned. Congressmen and sometimes even former Presidential candidates have been inconvenienced by the terrorist watch list. However. the bottom line is that the watch list stops wouldbe terrorists from entering the United States. According to Customs and Border Protection. on March 27. 2005. a CBP officer identified an individual who was a possible match to terroristrelated records. The ID resulted in a local joint terrorism task force arresting the passenger. who was later charged with conspiring to provide material support to terrorism and conspiracy to kill. kidnap. or maim persons. Similarly. CBP denied entry of a Palestine Liberation Organization weapons smuggler. The suspect was later charged with conspiracy to traffic in explosive devices and firearms. The legislation before us today. introduced by the gentlelady from New York. is a good bill. Its the result of solid bipartisan negotiations. and I wish to thank her and her staff. as well as the chairman of the committee and the chairwoman of the subcommittee and their staffs. for working with us to develop a reasonable process to ensure that individuals who are frequently misidentified have an effective recourse to minimize future travel disruption. Perhaps one of the most important provisions of the bill is the requirement that the Department of Homeland Security better advertise its redress process. known as TRIP. at airports. When I hear from constituents that theyre being misidentified as a watchlisted individual. Im concerned they have not heard of the Departments process to seek redress. This bill requires the Department to advertise its redress process at each airport. and to have staff on hand at the largest airports to explain the process and answer questions from the traveling public. Again. I thank the gentlelady for working with us and moving this legislation forward in a bipartisan manner. and look forward to its quick adoption. Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time.