Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I first wish to announce that, subsequent to reporting the bill, the committee has modified the classified annex to the bill with respect to the authorized level of funding for certain programs with bipartisan agreement between myself and the ranking member.

The classified annex containing the modified schedule of authorizations is and was available for review by all Members of the House, subject to the rules of the House and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence under the procedures described in my announcement to the House on April 6, 2006.

Mr. Chairman, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has a reputation for conducting its business in a bipartisan manner. With the intelligence authorization legislation before us today, I can say that we have clearly hit that mark again. I look across the aisle to my colleague and friend, the committee's ranking Democrat member, Ms. Harman, and say thank you for once again helping to craft a very good bipartisan piece of legislation that will allow the talented, dedicated and patriotic men and women of our Nation's intelligence community, our first line of defense, to protect America, its people and our friends around the world.

Mr. Chairman, this bill is all about national security. It is about authorizing the intelligence resources, capabilities and operations necessary for us to know about foreign threats and to defend ourselves in an increasingly dangerous world. It is about rebuilding, reshaping and indeed fixing a community that was decimated by the budget cuts of the 1990s.

Because of these cuts, on September 11, 2001, we were without a robust human intelligence capability and without a robust analytic capability that may have helped prevent or minimize these attacks on the United States. This bill continues a many-year effort to transform, build up and recreate an intelligence community that can know and respond to threats.

There will be those here today who will not share our concerns about the many threats against which our intelligence community must operate. There will be those who do not agree with the necessary activities of our intelligence community. There will be even be those who actually accuse our dedicated intelligence professionals of violating, if not the law, then the spirit of American values. This as they go about a business to protect you and me.

To those who would and will take such positions, I say: you are wrong. The threats are real. The professional

dedication, the discipline, the expertise and the extraordinary respect for the civil liberties of all Americans that the honorable men and women of our intelligence community exhibit is real. To them we owe a great debt. To them we must make our best collaborative efforts to provide the resources and authorities that H.R. 5020 authorizes.

Finally, because of them, we have the responsibility to rise above any partisan politics in order to come together and pass this national security bill.

This is the first intelligence budget request that was fully determined by the new Director of National Intelligence, or the DNI. Although the Office of the DNI is still in its formative stages, I am pleased that the promise of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2040, the legislation that created the DNI, is beginning to bear fruit, and that incremental but real improvements have been made since the standup.

It was our intent to better unify the disparate pieces of the intelligence community; to create a more cohesive whole that is greater than the sum of the parts. That goal is a work in progress, and we will continue to support the DNI's efforts to create a more effective intelligence community.

We will support that effort, but we also provide the necessary oversight, and this bill provides some mechanisms to make sure that we get the intelligence community that the ranking member and I envisioned when we worked so hard at passing that legislation.

Mr. Chairman, as you also know, much of this legislation is classified and can't be discussed here on the floor. We must be very careful to ensure that today's debate does not involve classified information. That said, I do want to discuss, at an unclassified level, some specific items contained in the authorization bill before us.

The first is our continuing support for an effective Director of National Intelligence that can, as I mentioned earlier, bring together all of the agencies of the intelligence community. We need an effective and efficient DNI that fully coordinates and sets the direction for the high-fidelity capabilities of the intelligence community.

In this legislation we are sending a strong signal that the vision of the 2004 intelligence reform legislation was about building a qualitatively better intelligence establishment and not building a bureaucracy.

This bill continues to pursue improvements to our core intelligence for human intelligence, intelligence analysis, infrastructure and counterintelligence capabilities. Improvements in these areas are absolutely critical to gaining the upper hand in the war against worldwide terrorism. We have, for example, made recommendations for improved HUMINT training and associated support. We have recommended additional funding for analytical tools. And we have put a great deal of emphasis on increasing counterintelligence programs and personnel, because, in case you have not been looking, there are many nations and nonstate actors actively trying to steal America's secrets.

This bill also puts a renewed and continued emphasis on overhead imagery architecture. As many know, last year there were some decisions that were made that included terminating a part of the Future Imagery Architecture program. This was a tough decision. It had its positive aspects. It also had its negative downside. We are now in a late-to- need race to ensure we do not have future capabilities gaps. I am concerned that the current approach has not adequately addressed this problem. So this legislation vigorously pursues one of a very limited number of options.

Finally, I would like to also address a provision that was mentioned in one of the amendments that was proposed by the minority for today. I want to reinforce to my colleagues on the intelligence committee that we remain very, very committed to active oversight and reporting by the intelligence community on the progress that they are making in Iran. We have provisions in the bill for Iraq. We have got some of that language for Iran and other hot spots around the world. But as the ranking member and I have discussed, as the rule was being debated, the spirit of the amendment is one that we embrace. We may have some technical or drafting differences, but the intent of that amendment is one that we will stay focused on. We believe it is inherently important for us to focus on those kinds of issues and to do this in a bipartisan basis.

The issues and the threats that we are facing, al Qaeda, radical Islam, Iran, North Korea, as well as future threats that are on the horizon that we are only beginning to think about, require us to continue to work in a bipartisan basis.

I recognize that we had some disagreements on the bill. We have got disagreements between Republicans and Democrats. We have got disagreements within each side of the aisle. But the important thing is that we continue to focus on working in a bipartisan basis to keep America safe. That is the request that our colleagues on both sides of the aisle have placed to us, and I hope that we will continue in working in that direction.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry), who is the chairman of the oversight subcommittee assigned with the responsibility of making sure that the reshaping and the rebuilding of the intelligence community under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is a successful launch and does rebuild the community into what we need after what we inherited in the 1990s.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to my distinguished colleague from New York (Mr. McHugh) who in the past year has sat through seven briefings on Iran in the Intelligence Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to our distinguished colleague from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson) who has responsibility as chairwoman of the Tactical and Technical Subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Virginia (Mrs. Jo Ann Davis), our distinguished colleague who is the chair of our subcommittee responsible for rebuilding human intelligence capabilities.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to my colleague from the great State of Michigan (Mr. Rogers), who chairs our policy committee on the Intelligence Committee, responsible for identifying and understanding the threats that we face as a Nation.

I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to a great member of the committee, someone who understands that the Civil Liberties and Privacy Board is funded out of the budget of the Executive Office of the President and does

not come out of the Intelligence Committee authorization bill, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Everett).

(Mr. EVERETT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Renzi), a distinguished member of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent at this point to include for the Record an exchange of letters with other committees of jurisdiction and the executive branch with respect to this legislation. I appreciate the willingness of those committees to work with us on this legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

In closing, I appreciate again the work of the ranking member, my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and the staff on both sides of the aisle, to pull together a bill which I think addresses the priorities that we established at this committee really beginning a year and a half ago: that we were going to stay focused on rebuilding an intelligence capability to match the threats that America faces today.

This legislation puts in the necessary fences that will ensure that this committee has the oversight over the standup of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. We all want this process to work. We would all like it to go faster because of the significant threats that we face as a Nation. But standing up the Office of the DNI will be the responsibility of monitoring, and that will be the responsibility of our oversight subcommittee.

Our policy committee is going to continue to monitor and evaluate the threats that we face as a Nation. Whether it is al Qaeda, radical Islam, the affiliated groups to al Qaeda, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, China, we want to make sure that we as a committee have a good grasp of making sure that the intelligence community is structured to go after these threats and provide us as policymakers with the information that we need to be successful.

The third thing that we are going to do is to make sure that we thoroughly take a look at what we can accomplish to stop leaks, the devastating leaks from within the community and outside of the community that damage our capabilities and give those who want to attack us insight as to what our plans, intentions and capabilities are.

And then for my colleagues who have talked about the TSA program and other activities, it is the responsibility of this committee, it is the responsibility of the members of this committee to make sure that we do effective oversight, to make sure that the executive branch operates within the parameters that we have established, the legal parameters that we have established for it to operate within.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) to close the general debate on our side.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, this is the manager's amendment to the bill. It contains two provisions. The first strikes the provision of the committee's amendment relating to the Freedom of Information Act at the request of the Committee on Government Reform. The second specifically clarifies that the new membership of the Drug Enforcement Administration in the intelligence community is limited to the DEA's Office of National Security Intelligence. This clarification was requested by the Department of Justice and the DEA. I do not believe that either of these changes are controversial. I urge Members to support the amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

If the gentlewoman has no additional speakers, I will yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentlewoman yield?

I would like to thank the gentlewoman for her comments. I don't have time on this amendment. I also would like to indicate our side's support of this amendment. And this is something that you and I have talked about before. And again, we have gone through this the way it should be gone through. Appreciate your help.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

I will not oppose the amendment, but I do want to just have a couple of clarifying comments. We should not presume and we are not presuming by accepting the amendment that any such authorization to overthrow democratically elected governments has ever happened or been authorized.

But we think it would be helpful to have this 10-year history to clarify that. The reporting requirements are very much appropriate. So with that clarification, we are inclined to accept the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to claim time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, again, I believe that with some of the dialogue we have had before, we will not oppose the amendment, but I just want to add some clarification.

I am very appreciative of the efforts of the gentleman from North Carolina to work closely with the committee to perfect his original amendment. The intent of this amendment, as I understand it, is to improve contractor management, civilian retention, and to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse across the intelligence community. These are the goals that the Intelligence Committee has embraced and we fully support.

The amendment as written requires numerous duplicative and onerous reports that will only increase costs in personnel overhead at the intelligence community agencies, and particularly within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, an issue that the ranking member and I and other members of the committee have been very, very concerned about.

As Mr. Cramer has also identified, the Oversight Subcommittee has been working in a way to try to reduce the number of reports. This amendment, we believe, as an example, within 90 days of enactment of the legislation, there would be a requirement for the delivery of a report on hiring, promotion, and retention of all intelligence community professionals. The text does not define intelligence professional; so the amendment basically would ask for this report on every career field within the intelligence community. This may simply not be necessary. It would potentially be overly burdensome. Since it also applies to parts of the Defense Department that are part of the military intelligence program, our friends at the House Armed Services Committee have expressed some concerns about this. But based on the discussions that we had before the amendment came up indicating Mr. Price's willingness to work with us on refining this amendment once we are in conference, we are inclined to accept the amendment and to move on.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, again I am looking forward to working in conference in a bipartisan way to work out any concerns or any additional issues that may arise with this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I will not oppose the amendment. I think this information is very consistent with the type of information that the Intelligence Committee receives on a regular basis, but we need to make sure that we continue receiving it in the future.

Again, we will be inclined to accept this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague from Arizona. My commitment is to work with the ranking member and with the gentleman from Arizona on making sure that this language, we move it to somewhere that we are all agreeable. I think we can find that common ground.

I just want to say I rise to support the gentleman from Arizona's amendment today. We need to set the record straight about our national security. Specifically, Congress must speak with a single voice, clear and unwavering, about the value of our intelligence information and about who makes decisions regarding its use. We need to speak now.

This amendment says the right things. We are at war. Every day our Armed Forces and intelligence services do battle with an enemy whose sole purpose is to kill Americans. This point sounds fairly basic. It is. But the point bears repeating as long as some individuals here in Washington behave as if they have forgotten that we are at war.

Our government has a vital interest in protecting sensitive national security information during a time of war. The United States Supreme Court has recognized this vital interest in preserving secrecy. This interest is not merely some speculative opinion. It is the law of the land. This amendment makes that point.

The Constitution places the responsibility and authority to protect national security with the President of the United States. The President does so as the head of the executive branch and Commander in Chief. The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized this fact as law. The gentleman's amendment again makes that point.

Under our system of laws, the President must decide what sensitive national security information can be shared with the public and what must remain closely guarded. The President does not make these decisions lightly. He is elected by the American people to exercise his judgment in this regard and to make such decisions with the best interests of the American people in mind. Ultimately he is accountable to the people at the voting booth.

We have worked with the President and disagreed with his opinions and directions, most recently the decision to declassify over 48,000 boxes of documents that were obtained in Iraq. The position of the intelligence community and the executive branch for an extended period of time was to hold that information. After working with the executive branch, that information is now in the process of being declassified and released to the American people. That is a good decision.

But we went through a process. Individuals who disclose sensitive national security information without authority undermine the rule of law. These people substitute their judgment for that of the President, and they exercise that authority when legally it does not even belong to them. These individuals may act for self-determined reasons, not in the best interests of the American people, but in their own interests. I think that is what makes it different. Unless they are prosecuted, they remain unaccountable to the American people for their actions.

Mr. Speaker, I am opposed to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for this motion to recommit so that we can talk about this issue.

The language that is being used to describe the President and the executive branch is absolutely outrageous. Today we have heard the charges ``unlawful, reckless, abusive, infallible, without consulting with Congress.'' For 4\1/2\ years, Republicans and Democrats have been brought into this program.

Immediately when this program was started, to protect Americans both here and abroad, the leadership, on a bipartisan basis, was informed on the program. They consistently on a quarterly or a 4-month basis met with the executive branch, met with the Vice President and the people operating this program, and they came back united and said this program is legal, it is limited, the safeguards are in place to protect American civil liberties, it is effective, it is making a difference, and it is necessary.

And only when someone leaked it to the press all of a sudden did it become all of these other things that you have ascribed to the President. The President has reached out. The President has worked with Congress to make sure that we address these concerns.

America is at war. We were at war when this program started. We continue to be at war. Bin Laden was on tapes this weekend. Zarqawi is on a tape. We have bombings in Egypt, and troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. This continues to be the same thing that on a bipartisan basis people said needed to be done. It is legal, it is limited, it is necessary, and it is making a difference.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, in my 12 years in Congress, in my 8 on the Intelligence Committee, I have always supported intelligence authorization bills, but never in my 12 years and never in my nearly 4 decades involved in public policy have I been as concerned as I now am about our Nation's security.

Just this week bin Laden and Zarqawi issued new threats against the United States and our allies, yet we do not know what they are plotting. We do not even know where they are. Despite 4\1/2\ years of effort and the expenditure of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, we still do not have a handle on al Qaeda, a threat that is metastasizing and growing ever more dangerous.

We are losing soldiers in Iraq, in part because we never had intelligence dominance. We still do not have it. The so-called war on terror outside Iraq is essentially an intelligence war, but we did not know that home-grown terrorists were going to blow themselves up on London's subways. We did not know about Madrid, Bali, Casablanca, Istanbul or Dahab, Egypt. We do not know if America will be hit tomorrow or where.

Iran is making noisy threats, but we do not know if Ahmadinejad poses a real danger or if he is bluffing, because our intelligence on Iran is weak. And again we are hearing the drumbeat for war, without a clear idea of where the targets are, whether we can hit them effectively, or what would happen the day after.

We have taken our eye off over-the-horizon threats, the networks of Muslim extremists growing in Europe, Africa and Latin America, the threat of loose nukes from the former Soviet Union and the rising power of China.

Here at home our intelligence reorganization is a slow start-up, and the CIA is in free fall. The Director of National Intelligence, a position Congress created to integrate the activities of the entire Intelligence Community after 9/11, has not taken command yet of that community. Meanwhile at CIA, our premier intelligence organization, 300 years of experience have either been pushed out or left in frustration, and morale is dangerously low.

The DNI is giving away authority to the Pentagon, which is happy to receive it, as it expands its own role in intelligence-gathering abroad and here at home. The efforts to integrate homeland intelligence between the FBI and DHS is still uneven.

And our borders, airports, seaports remain vulnerable. As we speak, the House Homeland Security Committee on which I serve is trying to report a strong port security bill. I hope that effort succeeds. We surely need it.

Given all this, what does this bill do, and as important, what does it not do? It funds an NSA program that in my view violates a clear statute passed by Congress. It fails to require that the program be fully briefed to Members of the Intelligence Committee.

I surely support, and I have said this over and over again, the capability to monitor al Quaeda. I want to know what their plans are so we can disrupt them before they harm us. But I do not support violating the law or the Constitution. Enhanced security without respect for law gives away the very values we are fighting to defend, and I believe that the program I am talking

about can and must fully comply with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and with our Constitution.

The bill also fails to give clarity to the issue of leaks. Leaks of classified information are wrong, but it is also wrong to have a double standard. When career professionals blow the whistle on controversial activities, it is illegal, a firing offense, but when the President and Vice President authorize the selective leaking of classified information to discredit criticism, it is defended as a prerogative of the Presidency, part of the President's inherent authority.

This bill includes a provision that gives arrest powers to the protective officers at CIA and NSA in order to help them protect agency officials. This provision, in my view, has been somewhat misconstrued in the press as granting new warrantless surveillance powers to these agencies. It does not. It simply gives these protective details the same authority that the Capitol Police, the Secret Service and other Federal authorities have. But, like all new powers, they are susceptible to abuse without strong oversight, and so it would be my hope that we will include more safeguards before this provision becomes law.

I do want to say to the chairman of the committee that I appreciate the bipartisanship which the majority has shown in accepting some initiatives raised over many years by committee Democrats. For 2 years committee Democrats have registered strong opposition to the practice of funding counterterrorism through supplemental budgets. We fought this reckless practice in committee and on the floor.

This year, again, the President's budget provided 22 percent less than what is needed for counterterrorism operations. On a bipartisan basis we are now authorizing 100 percent of the Intelligence Committee's counterterrorism funding needs for 2007 in this base bill, and that is something the majority agreed to, and I applaud them for that.

Second, for years our Intelligence Community has been denied the service of many patriotic Americans from versus ethnic backgrounds, Iraqi Americans, Iranian Americans, who want to serve, but who cannot get security clearances. Committee Democrats offered an amendment to last year's bill to require a multitier system of clearances so that these Americans, despite the fact that they may have relatives in these countries, can get clearances up to a certain level to help us with language and cultural issues. That language is in this bill, and I commend the majority for including it.

On a personal level, Chairman Hoekstra and I have made a major effort to work together to put America first. I am grateful for that and for him. I appreciate your kind words, Peter, and I thank you. We will continue to try to do our best to get the best possible legislation enacted.

Mr. Chairman, this bill, in my view, misses an enormous opportunity to send a message to the White House, and that message is that surveillance of Americans must comply with our law and our Constitution; that intelligence on Iran is not good enough; that protection of privacy and civil liberties must be part of our effort to improve intelligence gathering, not an afterthought; and that we will not tolerate a double standard on leaks of classified information.

I hope this debate, Mr. Chairman, will assure me that this bill is adequate. The dedicated women and men of the Intelligence Community not only deserve our full support, but our best effort to enact funding legislation that truly upholds America's values and America's principles.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that sending messages to the White House is not all we should do here, but there are very few ways to send those messages.

I yield 2 minutes to a senior member of our committee, also a member of the Armed Services Committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Reyes).

Mr. Chairman, how much time remains on each side?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Cramer), who is ranking member on our new Oversight Subcommittee, on which Mr. Thornberry is doing, I think, a superb job attempting to oversee activities of our intelligence.

Mr. Chairman, I would just say to my friend Mr. Rogers that all of us on this committee put America first, though we may disagree about precisely what this bill should include.

It is now my pleasure to yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), the ranking member on our policy committee, 3\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I am the longest-serving member currently on this committee. I love this committee; I love the issues we consider. My district is the place where most of our intelligence satellites are made. It is the location of the Air Force Space and Missiles Command, which just opened a state-of-the-art complex and develops and fields our satellite and missile capabilities.

I was there in El Segundo 2 days ago, and I am immensely proud of the work of SMC and the people who do the work, both in uniform and civilians.

Mr. Chairman, I have traveled the corners of the earth with our committee members. They are my friends. I am very fond of them on a bipartisan basis and I have been very moved by some of the comments made about this bill. A lot of what they say I truly and sincerely agree with. I think this bill is a lot better than it would have been because there has been bipartisan cooperation. I appreciate that. And I appreciate the personal effort that Chairman Hoekstra made to work with me and work with the minority.

What has upset me today, and I do not think anyone has missed it, is what I view as callous, partisan behavior by the Committee on Rules at a level that I have not felt and experienced, at least with respect to the Intelligence Committee. Members on our side offered responsible amendments. All of them were shown to the majority; and in one case, the Boswell amendment, the majority collaborated with us on adjusting the language so it was mutually acceptable. Then at the last minute, for no good reason other than pure partisanship, the Boswell amendment was made out of order.

That experience has prompted me to revisit some of the things that still bother me. The NSA program bothers me. It is not that I do not support the capability; surely I do. I have made that clear. But I do not support any part of that program being outside of FISA, because I believe, based on information that I have, that it can fully comply with FISA. There is no reason to exempt that program.

Mr. Renzi was just talking about the actions of President Clinton that he claimed were outside of FISA. My understanding is that at the time, physical searches were not covered by FISA, and later FISA was amended to cover it. That is the right way to go, and that is what I would hope our committee would end up doing.

Mr. Chairman, it is a tough call whether to support the bill at this stage. I hope and expect that I will support the conference report. I think the conference report will be better than the bill we pass in this House, because I think that the other body and the conference will consider and make decisions about some of these issues we have not addressed adequately here.

In closing, it is always on my mind that dedicated men and women are serving overseas taking tough risks for our freedom. I love them and I have been there to tell them that. This bill has to honor them, which means this has to be the best bill we can field. I do not think it is the best bill we can pass. I will make a decision about my vote later in this debate. I know that some members on our committee will support it and some will oppose it and I respect their views, as I do the views of the majority.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I will support this amendment, but I rise to note that the chairman has agreed to modify a provision, and I appreciate the modification that he has made, and that relates to the CIA Director's responsibility under the Freedom of Information Act. The minority felt that the provisions were restricting FOIA requests, and the majority agreed to accommodate us and struck the language, and I would like our colleagues to know that that accommodation has been made. It makes the manager's amendment a better amendment, and I support the manager's amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, and rise in support of the Fossella amendment. I think it is an excellent amendment, and I think the explanation by Mr. Fossella was excellent.

We had meltdowns, as he well describes, both in New York and Baltimore recently. I think local officials acted responsibly. The information they had showed direct threats to their municipalities, so they had no choice.

We can improve this. We not only need to share information better horizontally, a point we have been making in this committee and one of the reasons we set up the Director of National Intelligence, but we need to share it better vertically. Some of the best ideas are in our hometowns, and some of the best people trying to keep us safe are in our hometowns. I think the Fossella amendment will help us, through the establishment of centers of excellence, develop best practices to share information horizontally and vertically and get best information to those in our hometowns who are trying to protect us.

This is a great idea. I am kind of embarrassed we didn't have it in the base bill. It shows that when this House works together, we bring good information to the floor, and we improve legislation. I only wish that we had been able to bring some other good amendments to the floor to improve this legislation. I say to Mr. Fossella, I strongly support you.

Yes, I would be happy to yield to the gentleman.

Well, I agree. And just reclaiming my time, this is how this House should be working. This is bipartisan collaboration at work. It is going to make our cities safer, and it is going to send a message to the American people of one team, one fight, which is the message they want to hear.

I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me. I commend her for her courageous voice in Congress, she knows I do, on many important issues.

I also want to commend our chairman for saying that he will accept this amendment. He should know, and the gentlewoman surely does know, that we have worked together over the years to describe this issue in a manner acceptable to many in the committee. She and I have had conversations on the floor in past years about this issue. This year she is offering her concerns in the form of legislation, and I think this legislation is really very good. I think the goals of democratization and transparency are both good goals. Our President says he supports democratization. It surely is one of our major foreign policy goals.

I am for, and I mince no words about this, the robust use of intelligence to find out the plans and intentions of people who are plotting to do us harm. I do not think this amendment in any way compromises that, and I think the fact that the report is to be prepared and will be delivered to our committee in a classified form makes absolutely certain that we are not advertising to our enemies how we deploy our resources.

So, again, I want to commend the gentlewoman for offering this amendment and offer my strong support for it.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

And I agree that there is more to explore about this subject in conference. But outsourcing is a big deal, and it is probably a bigger deal than any of us on the committee knows.

Oversight of the intelligence community in today's world means oversight of contractors. We have outsourced more and more of the community, and I think that more serious thought needs to go into the impact of this.

The good thing about the Price amendment is that it does not mandate any particular solution. It just requires the DNI to examine the problem in a meaningful way. It essentially calls for an inventory of contracts and of rules regarding what duties may be outsourced. And I think giving us full information will allow better policy.

I applaud the gentleman for introducing this amendment and urge our colleagues to support it.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment, though I may not oppose it. I really rise for the purpose of entering into a colloquy with the amendment's sponsor.

Mr. Chairman, there is much that is good in this amendment. All of us, certainly this Member, oppose the leaks, unauthorized leaks, of classified information. That is the wrong thing to do. All of us who serve on the Intelligence Committee not only took the general oath as Members of Congress, but I believe we signed a second oath as members of the committee, and I have no reason to believe that any one of us ever, not for a nanosecond, has compromised classified information, nor would we. I am sure the amendment's author agrees.

I think it is important to say that the Congress wants those who leak in an unauthorized fashion to be prosecuted. I think that is a fair thing to say. I am also in full agreement that the President should use the fullest extent of his power to properly classify information and to protect classified information.

But two things are on my mind, and one of them relates to the language here. One thing on my mind, as I stated earlier, is we should not have a double standard. If we are against leaks of classified information, we should be against leaks of classified information everywhere, and I don't believe, and I am not asking the sponsor, unless he would like to comment, that it is proper for the President or the Vice President to use inherent power to authorize their own aides to discuss what was classified information with selected reporters.

But the question I want to ask the sponsor is this: there is one section of this amendment that I think is overly broad, and it is clause (7) of the findings, where it says, ``Media corporations and journalists have improperly profited financially from publishing purported unauthorized disclosures of classified information.'' That may be conjecture. I don't personally think that is true.

I would like to ask the amendment's sponsor whether he will work with us as this bill goes to conference to modify this language so that it can be absolutely accurate and convey on a bipartisan basis the view that unauthorized leaks are wrong, but that our findings are completely factual on the point.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I appreciate the gentleman's sincerity. You know, I enjoy working with you, but I doubt, and that is why I said we need more facts here, I don't think we should allege this unless it is factually based. I doubt the motivation in many of these cases was financial. I doubt it.

I understand that books have been written and prizes have been garnered based on publishing classified information, but we have a strong tradition of freedom of the press and a strong constitutional amendment, the first amendment, that protects freedom of speech. So I think we should be very careful in making claims like this.

What I am seeking is just a commitment that we will review this language and make sure that we all feel it is factually based.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time.

Mr. Chairman, we have no further speakers and I do appreciate the comments of the amendment's sponsor on his amendment. I do intend to support the amendment and then to work with him and our chairman on some modifications of that amendment in the conference.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman for yielding and commend him and Messrs. Flake and Inglis for their bipartisan leadership on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, every Member of this body supports tracking the communications of al Qaeda. That is not the issue. The issue is whether the electronic surveillance of Americans must comply with law and the fourth amendment. I believe it must. And as one of the few in this body who has been briefed on the highly classified program we are talking about, I believe it can. This program can and must comply with FISA. That is what the amendment says. The President believes his inherent authority trumps Article I of the Constitution, and I respectfully disagree.

Recommitting this bill and adding this provision will make a good bill stronger and will honor the sacrifice and dedication of those who serve us so courageously in the field.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 774 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

(Mr. PUTNAM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, House Resolution 774 is a structured rule that provides for consideration of H.R. 5020, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to bring this resolution to the floor for its consideration. This is the fifth intelligence authorization bill that this House has considered since the tragic events of September 11, which changed this institution's outlook on intelligence. It has certainly changed our intelligence community's approach to collection and analysis.

H.R. 5020 is the first intelligence authorization that is based on a budget request fully determined by our new Director of National Intelligence, again reflecting the changes, reflecting the evolution, the progress of our approach to keeping America secure, protecting our citizens, protecting our forces abroad through an ever-changing architecture.

The DNI, created in H.R. 10, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, created this new Office of the Director of National Intelligence, a responsible authority that would oversee and orchestrate a coordinated effort by the entire intelligence community composed of 15 different intelligence agencies. This legislation today continues the sustained effort and long-term strategy to achieve optimum performance in human intelligence, signals intelligence, imagery intelligence, open-source intelligence, analysis, counterintelligence, counternarcotics, and counterterrorism.

This bill authorizes appropriations for fiscal year 2007 for intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the United States Government, the Community Management Account, and the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability System. In addition to funding these agency activities, the legislation contains other noncontroversial intelligence community housekeeping matters that will help create a more efficient and effective intelligence community. The legislation reflects recent administrative action and formally includes the Drug Enforcement Administration in the intelligence community and authorizes its activities conducted within the National Intelligence Program. It also requires the DNI, the Director of National Intelligence, to conduct a regular strategic review of intelligence capabilities against threats, similar to the Quadrennial Defense Review, and limits the DNI's authority to hire civilian personnel in excess of the specifically authorized numbers to no more than 2 percent of the authorized amount of employees.

To more formally increase oversight, the bill specifically provides that reporting requirements contained in the classified annex will be considered as required by the underlying law. Additionally, it requires a comprehensive inventory of special access programs conducted within the National Intelligence Program to be provided to the committee in classified format. This provision was included in the House-passed bill for fiscal year 2006 as well.

The underlying bill also contains language offered by the ranking member, Ms. Harman, that expresses the sense of the Congress that the DNI should promptly examine the need for establishing and overseeing the implementation of a multilevel security clearance system across the intelligence community to leverage the cultural and linguistic skills of subject matter experts and individuals proficient in foreign languages that are deemed critical to our Nation's security.

I am pleased with the efforts of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Chairman Hoekstra and his ranking member, Ms. Harman, have done yeoman's work, with the assistance of their committee, on a bipartisan basis to produce this bill. It is a perfect example of how Congress can achieve a bipartisan product that meets the needs of our Nation. I commend them for their hard work.

I urge the Members to support the rule and the underlying bill.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I am glad that the gentleman acknowledged in the beginning of his remarks that this is a bipartisan bill that enjoyed unanimous support coming out of committee. As we move forward on the other issues of contention, we certainly look forward to that debate.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to one of this institution's experts on national security, a member of the Intelligence Committee, the distinguished gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson), a graduate of one of America's fine service academies.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I would like to address three of the points that the distinguished ranking member made, and I would point out that we appreciate her bipartisan efforts in crafting this bill, the underlying bill that the rule addresses, that came out of the committee on a voice vote.

First, the program that she categorized, that has been categorized, I apologize, Madam Speaker, the program that has been categorized as an ``illegal eavesdropping program'' had in a previous press release been characterized in this way: ``As the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, I have been briefed since 2003 on a highly classified NSA foreign collection program that targeted al Qaeda. I believe the program is essential to U.S. national security and that its disclosure has damaged critical intelligence capabilities.''

That was the statement of the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee as it relates to what has now been characterized by saying it is illegal eavesdropping.

Secondly, this question of Iran reports, the Iran crisis scares the dickens out of me. It is a very serious issue for this entire Chamber, for this entire Nation. It is a country that is not only engaged in what could be a speculative threat against its neighbors and the United States and the world as a whole, but are bringing in cameras to show that they are breaking IAEA seals, along with their red-hot rhetoric coming out of their President calling for the destruction of our ally, bragging about the uranium enrichment capabilities, talking about the difference between P-1 and P-2 centrifuges.

It is a very serious issue, one that all Members of Congress should make themselves aware of. As chairman of the policy committee, I was joined by my Energy Subcommittee in going to New York on Monday to receive such a briefing, the kind of briefing that every Member of Congress is entitled to. As members of the House Intelligence Committee, they are entitled to even higher-level briefings on the Iranian situation at their request.

So, the requirement, the responsibility, for us to engage the administration, to engage the Intelligence Community, to engage the appropriate persons who are tracking this crisis is on us. And it is not a mere every-90-day

exercise. It should be an ongoing exercise as developments come in through the media and through other open sources that call on us to further update our awareness of what is a very dangerous situation.

Thirdly, this idea of zero funding for the Civil Liberties Protection Board, that is an issue within the White House budget. It is not germane to the intelligence authorization bill, it is not an issue that we can fund, and it was ruled out of order for that reason. It is a matter for the appropriators who are dealing with the White House budget line, not for the Intelligence Community's overall budget.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments on the concern about Iran. As I said earlier, it is a huge issue and a major international crisis for all of us to be tracking on a very routine basis, especially those members of the Intelligence Committee who have access to a higher level of information than the rest of us.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume.

Madam Speaker, I want to address this issue of leaks briefly. Before presenting this rule to the House, I took it upon myself to read the bill. And because of the nature of the bill, it is only available in Intelligence Committee space. And all Members have the opportunity to review the material that we are going to be voting on later today.

In the context of this discussion about leaks, I was reminded that at the beginning of every Congress, upon our election, we, all Members of this House, have to sign something saying that we recognize that House rules prevent us from disclosing classified information.

In addition, when you go to read the bill that we are here today to consider, you sign another form reaffirming that you have taken this oath, this obligation to not disclose classified information. That is what Members of Congress have to do.

When you join the CIA, you sign a standard secrecy agreement that says that you are going to keep the things that you are working on secret to protect the interests of our Nation. You

are not going to go writing books about it, you are not going to make a movie about it, you are not going to cash in on this Nation's security.

When you have access to sensitive compartmented information, you sign yet another nondisclosure agreement, again to drive home the point to the employees who are guarding the very secrets that keep us safe and free that you cannot capitalize on America's secrets.

This was very clear to the leaker. This was made very clear to Members of Congress. There is no double standard. What the individual did was against the law, was a complete breach of the secrecy agreement that that individual signed upon becoming an employee and then having progressively higher levels of access to more and more sensitive information. It is abundantly clear that what she did was wrong.

I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I respect the gentleman's perspective.

That is why this bill is so important, number one; and number two, it is why it is so vitally important that our representatives on that committee, that our House Members on both sides of the aisle on the House Permanent Select Subcommittee on Intelligence, ask the correct questions, are given the proper orientation, dig into these issues, make this committee a priority, because they are the rest of this House's eyes and ears on those very sensitive issues.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, the cultural differences in this House are intriguing. Hailing from the South, we would label ``cockamamie'' a theory where the President would conspire to break the law and invite Members of the other party in on the deal. We would call that a pretty cockamamie theory.

And so when the President, in an effort to keep America safe and to monitor members of al Qaeda who are communicating with people inside our borders, probably not checking the weather, probably not seeing how the Yankees or the Mets are doing, but plotting very dangerous, tragic, consequential events to destroy our way of life, to cause mayhem, to cause loss of life, we want to know what they are up to.

And the President, under this cockamamie theory, conspired to protect us, in the gentleman's words illegally protect us; but he did so in a way that brought in a team of lawyers, reviewed the program every 45 days, and invited members of leadership from both parties, from both Houses of the legislative branch, to be in on that discussion.

That is a cockamamie theory that he was conspiring to break the law in that regard. He was fulfilling his oath to protect this Nation.

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Reclaiming my time, I recognize that the gentleman's use of ``cockamamie'' was directed at another aspect of this debate. But I stand by my comment that the President of the United States did not conspire to engage in any illegal, inappropriate activity by, first, calling a team of lawyers and, second, calling the leadership of the opposite party.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry), another member of the House Intelligence Committee, another leader on national security issues for us.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The gentleman from New Jersey is a very capable member of the Intelligence Committee, and surely he is not suggesting that covert actions of the United States Government should be made available to every single Member of Congress. Surely the gentleman is not suggesting that every classified program that this United States is engaged in should be available to every single Member.

I would invite the gentleman to respond. Would the Manhattan Project have been available to every single Member who asked about its cost, the number of employees, where the activity was going on, how many people were involved? Would the gentleman have suggested that every Member of Congress would have been clued in on that, even when the Vice President wasn't?

I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Reclaiming my time, I think the gentleman, by his answer, has answered the question that clearly we have an Intelligence Committee specifically for the purpose of being our eyes and ears, because we do not empower every single Senator and every single House Member with every single detail of every activity going on in the intelligence community, and there are very strong reasons for that. So, clearly, that would not be the proper course of action.

Under longstanding committee tradition, the chair and the ranking member of both Houses were brought into a different level of awareness on certain activities that were going on. Under Democratic and Republican control, that was the case.

As a result of the terrorist surveillance program, the Senate created an entire new subcommittee to deal with the issue, and the House expanded access to that information to 11 Members, an unprecedented number of Members going beyond the historical, under the Democratic model, four Members who had been given access to those types of programs and activities.

Mr. Speaker, relaiming my time, the gentleman had suggested that the other 420 Members of the House had not had access to the information, and that is precisely how it is set up, that they would not have access to that information. That is why we have talented Members like yourself on the committee, and that is why we have expanded access to information about that program to more members of the committee than ever before.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, setting aside the fact that the amendment the gentlewoman refers to is not germane to this bill, I point out to the gentlewoman that the amendment that she refers to creates a commission that, A, already exists; and, B, the chair and vice chair have already been confirmed by the Senate, and the members have been appointed.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to another member of the House Intelligence Committee, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Renzi).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the remaining time.

I have no further speakers, Mr. Speaker, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, my friend from Massachusetts had me with Iran and lost me with Iraq. Everything that he said regarding the seriousness of the threat from Iran, a nuclear-capable Iran, is unacceptable to our interests. Everything he said is absolutely correct.

And I can save him the vote on the previous question by asking him to turn to page 22 of the public version of the intelligence authorization bill, where it says, under the subheading Reporting Regarding Iran and North Korea, ``The committee has conducted regular and ongoing oversight of these efforts and expects the DNI to ensure that the Intelligence Community continues to provide timely, detailed, and frequent reporting on the current intentions and capabilities on Iran and North Korea's nuclear, chemical, biological, radiological, and missile programs, as well as the Intelligence Community's capabilities to understand and evaluate these programs. In particular, the committee is interested in receiving, on an ongoing basis current assessments of Iran and North Korea's nuclear, chemical, biological weapons, and missile programs; information on new intelligence developed, including intelligence collected from both open and clandestine sources; and full discussion of any gaps in knowledge, dissents, caveats, and other information that would tend to reduce confidence in the overall assessment. The committee believes these reports will provide timely information to help better inform Congress as it is asked to make decisions regarding U.S. policy towards Iran and North Korea.''

The reporting requirement is in the bill. Mr. Speaker, this is a very important issue. I urge the gentleman, I urge the Congress to support the rule, support the underlying bill, and support the hardworking men and women.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself 7 minutes.

(Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, H.R. 5020, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, deals with one of the most important aspects of our national security: our ability to gather and analyze intelligence effectively so that our policies are based on fact, not fantasy or obsessive desire, so that our Federal law enforcement agencies can defend us from the threat of attack, and so that our allies can rely on our resources for timely, coordinated operations in defense of freedom abroad.

I want to commend Chairman Hoekstra and Ranking Member Harman and members of the Intelligence Committee for authorizing 100 percent of the funding required for our counterterrorism operations. Regrettably, President Bush only included 78 percent of this funding in his budget request; so I thank the committee for correcting this dangerous shortfall.

The Intelligence Authorization Act traditionally receives strong bipartisan support and will likely receive that same support this year. But despite its many attributes, this bill could have and should have been better. This bill could have and should have required a dedicated funding line for the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. When Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act in December 2004 in response to the findings and recommendations of the 9/ 11 Commission report, it created this board to serve as a civil liberties watchdog on the potential erosion of the basic constitutional rights of the American people in a post-9/11 world.

Now, 15 months later, we find our concerns about basic civil rights to have been well founded, but the oversight board is barely up and running. The President did not nominate the members of the board for 9 months. The Senate took 5 months to confirm the chair and vice chair. And, once again, the President's budget failed to include a single penny for the board's operation in fiscal year 2007.

This could have and should have been fixed in committee. Congressmen Hastings, Reyes, and Holt offered an amendment to provide $3 million in dedicated funding for the oversight board, an amendment that should have had bipartisan support. But the majority chose to reject this funding and abandon their promise to the American people to safeguard their most basic freedoms and rights. And last night in the Rules Committee, the Republican leadership compounded this mistake by denying Congressman Reyes the right to offer this same amendment for debate on the House floor.

And then we have the issue of the National Security Agency's spying on U.S. citizens. In committee, Representative Eshoo offered a carefully crafted amendment to withhold 20 percent of the NSA's budget until the executive branch provided the Intelligence Committee with the total cost of its surveillance program. That is all: just inform the committee of this one number. The Eshoo amendment was not looking for more operational details. It was not passing judgment on whether the NSA's domestic spying program is legal or not, even though that is a controversial matter in this House. All it was looking for is how many of our tax dollars are being spent on this surveillance program.

This is a question that should concern every single Member of this body on both sides of the aisle. But with just one exception, the Republican majority found it too much to ask and rejected the Eshoo amendment.

Yesterday in the Rules Committee, the Republican leadership went even further. The Republican Rules Committee denied Representatives Schiff, Flake, Harman, and Inglis the right to offer their bipartisan amendment for debate. This amendment would have required a classified disclosure to the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, the two committees with jurisdiction and oversight responsibilities over the NSA and the FISA process, on which U.S. citizens have been the subject of NSA electronic surveillance, and what criteria was used to target them. Such a classified report would allow Congress to understand the program and whether any current laws need to be amended to grant the President the authority he needs to carry out this program more effectively or make any changes to safeguard against abuse. In short, these two committees need this information in order to do their jobs, in order to carry out their oversight responsibilities.

This bipartisan amendment should have received bipartisan support from the Rules Committee, but it did not; not from the Republican majority on this Rules Committee and certainly not from the Republican leadership of this House.

It is outrageous, Madam Speaker. Many of us believe that when the President authorized the NSA surveillance of Americans, he broke the law, plain and simple. And when the Attorney General says that Congress somehow granted the authority for this program after September 11, he is just wrong.

We are talking about the most basic fundamental civil liberties that protect the American people, and the Republican leadership will not even let us debate it. What are they afraid of?

I would ask my Republican friends to re-read their Constitution. Congress was not designed to be a rubber stamp for the President. Congress was not designed to protect Members from difficult votes on controversial issues. Congress was not designed to protect the President's political rear end. But under this leadership that is exactly what Congress has become.

If my friends on the other side of the aisle believe that this President should have the ability to spy on Americans without a warrant and without going to the FISA court, then they should write that bill and bring it to the floor. They should at least show that level of respect for this House and for this Constitution.

I am willing to bet that the majority of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle believe that what the President is doing is wrong. But either way, the very least we could do is have a debate and a vote.

Madam Speaker, 25 amendments were brought to the Rules Committee last night. They dealt with issues ranging from how the NSA carries out surveillance of American citizens to how the Intelligence Committee and other relevant committees are briefed about weapons of mass destruction or the situations in Iran, North Korea, Iraq, and other hot spots. They dealt with how information is classified or reclassified, how national security whistle-blowers are protected or punished, and whether and how the amount of funds requested and appropriated for various intelligence-related activities are reported to Congress.

These are not trivial matters, Madam Speaker. Yet only five amendments, five amendments, Madam Speaker, plus the manager's amendment, were made in order under this highly restrictive rule.

Why is the Republican leadership so afraid to debate these issues? Why is it so afraid to debate, period? After nearly 4 months of a lackluster Congress, are we suddenly on some tight time clock so there is no time to debate matters affecting national security? Do we need to get out of town by Thursday afternoon? I am happy to stay in town on Friday if it means we can get a full debate on the Intelligence Authorization Act.

I am tired of restrictive rules. I am tired of stifling debate. I am tired of ignoring or running away from the big issues. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this restrictive rule and to support an open debate on important issues facing our national security and intelligence agencies.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, I want to respond to the gentlewoman from New Mexico, whom I have a lot of respect for.

First of all, the cost of the program that we were debating was only given to members of the committee that the President chose, not all members of the committee.

Secondly, I find it scandalous, quite frankly, that this Congress is abdicating its responsibility to put in place checks and balances on the President's domestic spying program. When you talk about enforcing and abiding by the Constitution of the United States, that is one of our responsibilities. I think what the President is doing is illegal. We should have a debate on this. The White House should be more forthcoming. Quite frankly, it is an outrage.

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman).

(Ms. HARMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Boswell) who is a member of the committee.

(Mr. BOSWELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) who was also shut out of being able to offer an amendment in the Rules Committee last night.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney), who also was shut off being able to offer an amendment.

Mr. Speaker, let me, before I introduce our next speaker, let me just respond by saying what has the American people concerned is that we have a set of procedures in place, the so-called FISA procedures, which allow the President to put anybody under surveillance here in the United States providing that he gets a warrant. And he can even get a warrant after he puts somebody under surveillance. The question is why can't he follow the procedures in place? In my opinion, he is breaking the law.

And I would also say that the other question is, why in the world, given the controversy on this issue, can't this Congress have an up-or- down vote on this issue? If the majority thinks that the President should be able to put anybody under surveillance he wants

without a warrant, fine. Then write the bill and bring it to the floor, let us debate it and pass it up or down.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers).

Mr. Speaker, I will be asking Members to vote ``no'' on the previous question. If the previous question is defeated, I will amend the rule to allow the House to consider the Boswell amendment on Iran nuclear programs. This amendment was offered in the Rules Committee last night, but was defeated on a straight party-line vote. It is yet another example of what I believe is the abuse of power by the Republican-dominated Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, this amendment requires the Director of National Intelligence to submit reports to Congress on Iran's weapons of mass destruction every 90 days. It requires these reports to include an assessment of Iran's nuclear programs, an evaluation of intelligence sources, a summary of new intelligence for any information that would increase confidence in overall assessment.

Mr. Speaker, we are deeply concerned over the ominous situation in Iran with regard to the potential for nuclear weapons in that country, and I think most Members of this body would agree that it is absolutely critical that we continue to monitor the situation very closely and receive frequent updates on Iran. We need to have constant and accurate updates on this very serious situation. There is too much at stake here for us to do less.

Have we learned nothing from what we experienced with regard to the misleading intelligence and the false intelligence on Iraq? Have we learned nothing from the fact that this Congress did not do its job; did not take its oversight responsibility seriously; did not ask the questions; did not hold the administration accountable?

Mr. Speaker, this should not be a controversial issue. Chairman Hoekstra and Ranking Member Harman have worked in a bipartisan way. This should have been worked out in a bipartisan way. I cannot imagine why anybody would be opposed to this amendment.

Members should be aware that a ``no'' vote will not prevent consideration of the intelligence bill and will not affect any of the amendments that are in order under this rule, but a ``no'' vote will allow us to add this important amendment that seeks to fully understand the depth of the nuclear situation in Iran.

I would again urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote for this. This should be a bipartisan vote. There is no reason, there is no reason to vote this down unless somehow you do not want to hear the information; unless somehow you do not want to demand this administration be accountable and inform the Members of this Congress.

On the issue of nuclear weapons in Iran, it should be every Member of this Congress, quite frankly, who should have access to relevant material. We need to learn our lesson. We are in a mess right now in Iraq. We are involved in a quagmire that has cost over 2,500 lives, hundreds of billions of dollars, and we know the intelligence was wrong. Let us do it right this time. Let us not rush into a war unnecessarily. Let us demand from this administration some accountability and some truth.

Vote ``no'' on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment and extraneous materials immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

My parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker, is: Isn't it accurate that the language that the gentleman just referred to in the bill is discretionary, whereas what we are talking about is statutory language that would require reporting every 90 days so that we don't make the same mistake we did in Iraq?

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your work and the ranking member's work on this bill.

I want to also go back to some things that were said earlier concerning civil liberties and the Republican Party, in its effort to try to balance civil liberties post-September 11. It is unfair and unwise to enter into the Congressional Record the misleading information that this is the first time in history that terrorist surveillance was conducted outside of FISA. Every one of you over there knows that President Clinton conducted terrorist surveillance outside of FISA, and he was justified in doing so by Jamie Gorelich at

the Justice Department based on an argument of Article II of the Constitution. It is not the first time in history outside of FISA it has been conducted.

This legislation also, as the gentlewoman from New Mexico talked about, goes to restore and rebuild our capabilities that were very much slashed during the 1990s. It was a time when our intelligence officers declined by 30 percent. It was a time when a number of CIA sources worldwide were cut by 40 percent. The number of intelligence reports that our intelligence community was able to produce was cut in half.

If you remember back during the Reagan administration when President Reagan had to rebuild our military, this is very much like how our history stands right now in trying to restore and rebuild our intelligence capability. There was a time when our intelligence officers were hamstrung by the Deutsch guidelines, when poor management and a lack of urgency at the top did not allow our intelligence agents to function properly in the field. That has changed.

This intelligence authorization bill allows us to gather more information globally at more locations than we had in the recent past. When famine strikes in Africa, when the saber-rattling in Venezuela is conducted, when the narcoterrorists along the Mexican border begin control, this intelligence bill acts.

I want to once again thank the chairman. As a Member from Arizona, we need the kind of increases that our agents are asking for, particularly on our Mexican border.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, within our Nation's media organizations there exists a great number of professionals who provide America with information of substance and great importance. The media's role is vital to this Nation. They provide checks and balances of power and oversight of our political activity, and I want my words today to be respectful, particularly of those true professional journalists who have a hard time choosing in the battle to get their story and the need to protect our Nation.

Yet amongst the journalistic profession there are a few, a small few, who disclose our most sensitive intelligence sources and methods to our enemies. They even boldly have justified their actions recently by claiming themselves to be whistleblowers.

Yet it is not the role of a reporter working with a disgraced or disgruntled politically motivated former government employee or those who are on the verge of retirement to determine when to reveal our national secrets.

Some reporters explain that the information that they are disclosing is illegal. If you suspect it to be illegal, then notify the FBI or the intelligence committees. If you feel that there will be inactivity or political coverup, then inform both Republicans and Democrats. But do not publish classified information for personal gain.

My amendment expresses the sense of Congress that the President ought to use his full authority, where warranted, not to overclassify information, but to protect national security information and take effective action against those persons who have betrayed this Nation during wartime by publishing current, ongoing operational disclosures of classified information.

We all want to protect our frontline agents. It is vital to the war on terror. It is also vital that those nations who we conduct joint operations with are able to trust us, not to ask our agents in the field whether or not we can even keep a secret.

I understand our publishers and their need to get the story, but I also understand that it is their right that by free speech they also safeguard this Nation and help contribute to our victory in this war on terror.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, if the gentlewoman will yield, I appreciate the dialogue with the ranking member and have great respect, as she knows, for her command of this subject matter.

In recent weeks we have almost seen a glorification, a self- glorification, almost a self-indulgence with this issue. In my opinion, with the rewards that have gone with the Pulitzer Prize, the money that goes with it, the trophies, the whole idea of leaking information and making it part of the marketplace was the motive for why I had that language put in.

If you are asking if I am willing to work with you, absolutely. From day one I want to work with you on it, and I would ask the chairman to look at it as it relates to the conference. But I think we need to send a message to the publishers in America that they have got to help us in this war on terror, and the motivation cannot be an ambition that is out of the realm of asking our media outlets to be reasonable. I would just offer that to the ranking member.

Mr. Chairman, if the gentlewoman will yield further, I appreciate the gentlewoman from California and her comments. I only would point out that books on these are in the millions and millions of dollars. I don't mean to limit it to just awards. But taking and listening to your initiative, I would also ask that the chairman look at his leadership role on this and his ideas and be able to formulate the final opinion along with you. I appreciate that.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to our chairman, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra).

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry).

Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of our time.

Mr. Chairman, I very much appreciate the ranking member and her kindness on the issue. I just want to wrap up by saying that the leaks are absolutely vital to our victory against the Islamofascists who very much want to establish a worldwide caliphate. It is that real.

The leaks have got to stop to protect our frontline agents. They have got to stop in order to rebuild the trust between our nations and our allies. I would urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.