Date: 2007-10-23
Speaker: DANIEL E. LUNGREN (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Mr. Speaker. there is no other issue more central to the core responsibility of government than the duty to protect the safety and security of the American people. The right not to be killed is foundational to all other rights. The actions we take with respect to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillknce Act. better known as FISA. will reflect the level of seriousness with which we have assumed this fundamental obligation. While I take a backseat to no one when it comes to the protection of civil liberties. it is essential to understand the proper context of the issue by us. Mr. Speaker. the focus of the debate here relates to overseas intelligence. the implications for the privacy rights of Americans. talked about so loudly on the floor last week by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. the implications for privacy rights of Americans where surveillance targets of nonU.S. persons overseas is minimal to nonexistent. This debate over FISA must not be morphed into an ideological crusade by those who have such a visceral dislike for President Bush that any perceived defeat for this administration is in some perverse way chalked up as a victory. The debate is not about President Bush. it is about protecting the lives of those who have sent us here to. represent them. And it is serious business. In my estimation. this is perhaps the most important issue that we will face here in the 110th Congress. It has been my privilege to serve on both the Homeland Security and Judiciary Committees. It is my belief that we have made progress in protecting the homeland since 9/11. Under the leadership of both parties on the Homeland Security Committee. there have been disagreements about the particulars. but there has always been a bipartisan commitment to moving the ball forward to make our Nation safer. To be brutally honest. we cannot rely on the prospect of getting it right every time someone might seek to come here to kill innocent Americans. The idea of having to construct a perfect defense in and of itself is not conceivable. However. this is where the role of intelligence comes into primary focus. Developing a homeland security strategy must not be considered in isolation. Intelligence collection overseas is the crucial element in any strategy to secure the homeland. Otherwise. we fall prey to what I refer to as the Maginot syndrome. You remember the Maginot line. That is where the French learned a terrible lesson concerning the folly of relying on the idea that they could protect themselves with a focus on massive defense perimeter. Much more is required and. again. intelligence collection targeting nonU.S. persons can extend our homeland defense perimeter overseas. Brian Jenkins of the RAND Corporation. a noted expert on terrorism. has stressed that our intelligence capability is a key element in our effort to protect our homeland. As he says. in the terror attacks since 9/11 weve seen combinations of local conspiracies inspired by. assisted by. and guided by al Qaedas central leadership. It is essential that while protecting the basic rights of American citizens we .find ways to facilitate the collection and exchange of intelligence across national and bureaucratic borders. So how do we make sense out of what is taking place in this House with respect to our consideration of FISA. the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act? Foreign intelligence surveillance. Id like to underscore. The manner in which we address this crucial national security question is a clear measure of our level of seriousness about the threat posed to our Nation from another terrorist attack. The bottom line question to be asked is whether or not we are safer as a result of the action taken by this House concerning the collection of overseas intelligence. As in the game of football. youre either advancing the ball or you are losing yardage. Does our action make America safer or does it impose obstacles in the path of the intelligence community which make their job more difficult? In making this determination. I would suggest that the line of scrimmage should be drawn with the Protect America Act. That is the act we passed in early August. on a bipartisan basis. responding to the request of Admiral McConnell. the Director of National Intelligence. We should understand that that act represented a compromise reflecting what Admiral McConnell. the Director of National Intelligence. identified as absolutely necessary. absolutely necessary to the task of protecting the American people. Based upon his service to our Nation. I would suggest we should take his considered opinion with the seriousness that it deserves. As a career naval officer. former head of the National Security Agency under President Clinton for 4 years. and the current Director of National Intelligence. Admiral McConnell has had a distinguished career in his service to our Nation. Admiral McConnell and General Hayden came to the Congress with a larger package of needed changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act last April. However. in order to close what Admiral McConnell described as gaps in our intelligence. that is. an inability for us to be able to actually find the dots that were out there. we had to act immediately. A compromise was. therefore. reached by this body this past August. He defined the concept of "gap" to mean this: foreign intelligence information that we should have been collecting. In fact. Admiral McConnell indicated that prior to the enactment of our Protect America Act in August. we were not collecting somewhere between onehalf and twothirds of the foreign intelligence information which would have been collected were it not for the recent legal interpretations of FISA which required the government to obtain prior FISA warrants for overseas surveillance. In many cases. we couldnt obtain them. You have to have evidence to reach a standard that. frankly. at that stage you cannot reach. Secondly. the volume of number of targets and the paperwork and. more than the paperwork. the intellectual work. the cost in time by taking analysts off the job of analyzing. to working up these requests for warrants. basically made it impossible for us to be able to go after these targets. which wed always been able to go after in the context of FISA as it was passed in Whats the problem? The problem is that a definition of electronic surveillance constructed almost 28 years ago certainly has not kept pace with changes in technology. Ironically. when FISA was enacted. almost all international communications were wireless. Most local calls at that- time were on a wire and fell within the definition of electronic surveillance requiring a warrant. Today. its just the reverse. Almost all international communications are transmitted by wire. Thus. international communications not intended to be covered by the warrant requirement in the 1978 act are now inadvertently covered because of the change in technology. This was never ever the intention in Congress. Again. the act we passed in August closed the resulting national security gaps. However. less than 3 months later. here we are in the House of Representatives. the leadership of this House is now trying to reinvent the wheel. It will be one thing were we considering the other elements of a larger package which General Hayden and Admiral McConnell presented to us back in April. but thats not the case. Rather. the leadership of this body is retreating from the provisions of the Protect America Act. which Admiral McConnell told us he needs in order to do his job. The socalled RESTORE Act undoes core provisions of this compromise that we were told was necessary to close the gaps in our intelligence. Thats why I call the RESTORE Act the Repeal Effective Surveillance Techniques Opposing Real Enemies Act. because thats what it does. It takes away the techniques that we allowed under the law that we passed last August in response to requests from Admiral McConnell based on his considered judgment that he was not able to do the job to protect the American people from the threat abroad. Adniiral McConnell affirmed that prior to the Protect America Act the intelligence community attempted to work under the law as interpreted by the court. Unfortunately. he found that as a result of working under those restrictions his agency was prohibited from successfully targeting foreign conversations. foreign conversations. that otherwise would have been targeted for possible terrorist activity. Admiral McConnell has made it clear that although there remains elements of the larger package which would further enhance our ability to conduct surveillance against al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. the Protect America Act. that act that we passed in August which is now the law. has provided us with the tools. as he said. to close gaps in our foreign intelligence collection. Then why are we seeking to make these critical changes in the Protect America Act before the ink is barely dry? Well. one thing is certain: the immediate reviews by the leftist blogosphere were hardly positive. Although Admiral McConnell has worked for both President Clinton and for President Bush. much of the criticism of the act in the wake of its passage seemed to stem from these objections. now. listen to this. that the White House was trying to influence the outcome of the negotiations which took place prior to its enactment. Imagine that. When Admiral McConnell appeared before our Judiciary Committee. he faced questions along the lines of what did the White House know and when did they know it. Now. think of this: the idea that the White House would seek to have input on issues relating to the national security of the United States is about as startling as the discovery that gambling. yes. gambling. was taking place in Joes bar during the movie "Casablanca." This should not be the issue. Again. its not about George Bush. whether you dislike him. love him or are indifferent to him. The only valid question is how best we can protect the American public from al Qaeda and others who seek to kill us. Surveillance of foreign persons outside the United States is a central part of that effort. and the bill they presented on the floor last week. the socalled RESTORE Act. changed what we had done in August to make it difficult. in some cases impossible. to gain that information. Even if it is Osama bin Laden on the line calling into the United States. under the terms of the bill that was presented on the floor. we couldnt use information gathered from that conversation against Osama bin Laden unless we went to a court for a court order. unless the Attorney General could specifically show that information was leading to the death of a particular individual. Now. Ive said this on the floor before and I will say it again: thats just plain nuts. Theres no other way to explain it. There is absolutely no other way to explain it. and perhaps with an ability to explain this kind of thinking on the floor. I would yield to the gentlelady from Tennessee to enlighten us as to her observations as to what is taking place on the floor on this important issue.