H.Res. 896

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, people who want things to be done in a bipartisan manner should not engage in extreme partisanship at the outset. The resolution that is before us was drafted entirely by Republicans with no input from any Democrat, from the Intelligence Committee, from the Financial Services Committee, or anywhere else, and presented to us a little over 24 hours ago. We then asked for the right to offer amendments, or at least a substitute resolution. It was denied.

I find it extraordinary that repeatedly in the interest and in the name of democracy the majority degrades democracy. How can it be justified that no alternative can be offered? How can it be justified that no amendment can be offered?

Let me say again: We are telling the Shiia majority in Iraq that in their parliament they ought to make an effort to include the Sunni; that it is not simply the majority doing everything, but you work with the minority. You then give, Mr. Speaker, through your party, the opposite example by not allowing even a resolution to be offered for us to be voted on.

We have an alternative that is supported by a very large majority of our caucus. And now let me talk about that resolution, because let us be clear about what is not at issue today.

We have agreement that the method of tracking terrorists through their financial dealings is a good thing. The Democratic resolution, which the majority refuses to allow to be considered in their abusive use of their majority, says explicitly that we support efforts to identify and track terrorists and their financial supporters. So if it isn't unanimous, it is the fault of the majority by doing it so divisively.

We also in our resolution deplore the unauthorized disclosure of classified information. But we talk not simply about people who might print it, but the people in the administration who might release it. Earlier today someone said, well, what would happen if you gave out the name of spies? Well, ask the people in this administration who gave out the name of Valerie Plame. We hope that something will be done.

Here is the difference between the two resolutions: the Republican resolution, drafted entirely by them and withheld from us until its publication, agrees that we should track terrorist financing. So does the Democratic resolution. Theirs, however, includes a number of factual statements that I do not believe we yet have a basis for making.

Now, in some cases, some of those factual statements are about things that turn out, we think, not to have been true. For example, on page 3 of their resolution they have reference to a prior incident in which the Washington Times was accused of having disclosed classified information regarding efforts to monitor the communication of Osama bin Laden.

They don't mention the Washington Times because they like the Washington Times. They mention the New York Times. Times, they are a changing. If it is the New York Times, they don't like it, and they criticize it. If it is the Washington Times, they talk about a far more serious allegation about the Washington Times, that it gave away to Osama bin Laden how we knew where he was, but they don't mention them.

But now it turns out they may very well have been inaccurate about that, and I plan to submit an article from The Washington Post that defends the Washington Times.

But here is the problem we have: we want to say in our resolution, and we hoped it could have been unanimous, that we support this kind of tracking; that we don't want things to be disclosed. But what we are not prepared to say, and, frankly, nobody here is intellectually prepared to say it, people may say it on faith, but here is what they want to say: we find that the program has been conducted in accordance with all applicable laws, regulations, and executive orders; that appropriate safeguards and reviews have been instituted to protect individual civil liberties, and that Congress has been appropriately informed.

I think that the part about our being informed is very inaccurate, and I don't know the answer to the other. What you have done is to hijack the virtually unanimous support for tracking terrorist financing into an endorsement of the way the Bush administration has conducted itself. That is how it became partisan.

Why should this House vote now to say that the program has been conducted with all the safeguards, et cetera, et cetera? We don't know that. Members don't know that. Members on the other side are entitled to take it on faith. I know faith-based resolutions are very important to them, but I don't think as Members of the House of Representatives we ought to be asked to vote, the most solemn thing you do in a democracy as a representative, on factual statements when people cannot know whether they are true.

Again, I want to go back and say, how can you justify, in the name of democracy, denying us a chance to even present an alternative resolution supporting this program?

[From the Washington Post, Dec. 22, 2005]

File the Bin Laden Phone Leak Under `Urban Myths'

(By Glenn Kessler)

President Bush asserted this week that the news media

published a U.S. government leak in 1998 about Osama bin

Laden's use of a satellite phone, alerting the al Qaeda

leader to government monitoring and prompting him to abandon

the device.

The story of the vicious leak that destroyed a valuable

intelligence operation was first reported by a best-selling

book, validated by the Sept. 11 commission and then repeated

by the president.

But it appears fa be an urban myth.

The al Qaeda leader's communication to aides via satellite

phone had already been reported in 1996--and the source of

the information was another government, the Taliban, which

ruled Afghanistan at the time.

The second time a news organization reported on the

satellite phone, the source was bin Laden himself.

Causal effects are hard to prove, but other factors could

have persuaded bin Laden to turn off his satellite phone in

August 1998. A day earlier, the United States had fired

dozens of cruise missiles at his training camps, missing him

by hours.

Bush made his assertion at a news conference Monday, in

which he defended his authorization of warrantless monitoring

of communications between some U.S. citizens and suspected

terrorists overseas. He fumed that ``the fact that we were

following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type

of telephone made it into the press as the result of a

leak.'' He berated the media for ``revealing sources, methods

and what we use the information for'' and thus helping ``the

enemy'' change its operations.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Monday that the

president was referring to an article that appeared in the

Washington Times on Aug. 21, 1998, the day after the cruise

missile attack, which was launched in retaliation for the

bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa two weeks earlier.

The Sept. 11 commission also cited the article as ``a leak''

that prompted bin Laden to stop using his satellite phone,

though it noted that he had added more bodyguards and began

moving his sleeping place ``frequently and unpredictably''

after the missile attack.

Two former Clinton administration officials first fingered

the Times article in a 2002 book, ``The Age of Sacred

Terror.'' Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon wrote that after

the ``unabashed right-wing newspaper'' published the story,

bin Laden ``stopped using the satellite phone instantly'' and

``the United States lost its best chance to find him.''

The article, a profile of bin Laden, buried the information

about his satellite phone in the 21st paragraph. It never

said that the United States was listening in on bin Laden, as

the president alleged. The writer, Martin Sieff, said

yesterday that the information about the phone was ``already

in the public domain'' when he wrote the story.

A search of media databases shows that Time magazine had

first reported on Dec. 16, 1996, that bin Laden ``uses

satellite phones to contact fellow Islamic militants in

Europe, the Middle East and Africa.'' Taliban officials

provided the information, with one official--security chief

Mulla Abdul Mannan Niazi--telling Time, ``He's in high

spirits.''

The day before the Washington Times article was published--

and the day of the attacks--CNN producer Peter Bergen

appeared

on the network to talk about an interview he had with bin

Laden in 1997.

``He communicates by satellite phone, even though

Afghanistan in some levels is back in the Middle Ages and a

country that barely functions,'' Bergen said.

Bergen noted that as early as 1997, bin Laden's men were

very concerned about electronic surveillance. ``They scanned

us electronically,'' he said, because they were worried that

anyone meeting with bin Laden ``might have some tracking

device from some intelligence agency.'' In 1996, the Chechen

insurgent leader Dzhokhar Dudayev was killed by a Russian

missile that locked in to his satellite phone signal.

That same day, CBS reported that bin Laden used a satellite

phone to give a television interview. USA Today ran a profile

of bin Laden on the same day as the Washington Times's

article, quoting a former U.S. official about his ``fondness

for his cell phone.''

It was not until Sept. 7, 1998--after bin Laden apparently

stopped using his phone--that a newspaper reported that the

United States had intercepted his phone calls and obtained

his voiceprint. U.S. authorities ``used their communications

intercept capacity to pick up calls placed by bin Laden on

his Inmarsat satellite phone, despite his apparent use of

electronic `scramblers,' '' the Los Angeles Times reported.

Officials could not explain yesterday why they focused on

the Washington Times story when other news organizations at

the same time reported on the satellite phone--and that the

information was not particularly newsworthy.

``You got me,'' said Benjamin, who was director for

counterterrorism on the National Security Council staff at

the time. ``That was the understanding in the White House and

the intelligence community. The story ran and the lights went

out.''

Lee H. Hamilton, vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission,

gave a speech in October in which he said the leak ``was

terribly damaging.'' Yesterday, he said the commission relied

on the testimony of three ``very responsible, very senior

intelligence officers,'' who he said ``linked the Times story

to the cessation of the use of the phone.'' He said they

described it as a very serious leak.

But Hamilton said he did not recall any discussion about

other news outlets' reports. ``I cannot conceive we would

have singled out the Washington Times if we knew about all of

the reporting,'' he said.

A White House official said last night the administration

was confident that press reports changed bin Laden's

behavior. CIA spokesman Tom Crispell declined to comment,

saying the question involves intelligence sources and

methods.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi).

Reserving the right to object.

I reserve the right to object. We are being asked to move this very quickly, I guess, because of the baseball game.

If we could get the right to get a vote on our substitute, I wouldn't object. But as long as we aren't even being allowed to have a vote on our substitute, I don't know why we should be asked to hurry up the proceedings.

I would ask the gentleman if we could get unanimous consent now, in addition to this, to allow us to present our substitute. If we could get unanimous consent for that, then I would have no objection to this.

I will object now.

I ask unanimous consent that the House allow us to present our substitute for a vote.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to note that the substitute resolution we are being prevented from even allowing to be debated and voted on also condemns the unauthorized leak of information, and it just does it without the praise which we do not think has yet been substantiated for the Bush administration.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds.

I note that several on the other side have said, yes, it is true al Qaeda and the terrorists knew we were going to be tracking them financially. They just didn't know that would involve bank records. That seems to me wholly implausible.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the minority whip.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds.

If that was all the resolution had said, we wouldn't be here. It also says that the Bush administration has carried this out in a perfect fashion. And yet you can have hearings during a war. Harry Truman showed how to do that and made for himself a great reputation and helped the war effort.

Mr. Speaker, I yield for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the dean of the House, who is a man of great experience in how to handle these conflicting issues, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis), a member of the Committee on Financial Services, one of those kept in the dark on this.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds.

There is a very clear notice in the Republican resolution, and I call it that simply because that is how they decided it should be. They drafted it and didn't even show it to us until it was printed. They asked for no input. But it very clearly references the current criminal statute that is there, and I do not think that was for no reason.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to a senior member of the Financial Services Committee and one of the leaders on the whole question of how we should be dealing with our current problem, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

Will the gentleman yield?

The gentleman made it a point to mention me and will not let me respond.

I yield myself 10 seconds to point out that, yes, it's true, Ms. Pelosi was briefed. In 2002, at the beginning of the program. She is not a fortune teller.

Regular order. I ask the gentleman to be seated. I asked the gentleman when he mentioned me to yield. He declined to do so. For him now to interrupt me without even asking for a yield is wholly outside the rules of the House, and I ask he be instructed in them.

I will yield to the gentleman exactly as he yielded to me. No.

The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) was briefed at the outset. The other gentlewoman from California, the ranking member of the committee, was briefed, as I was offered a briefing, after it was about to be made public.

I now yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New York, a member of our committee.

May I ask, the gentleman has only one more speaker?

Me, too.

How much time do I have remaining, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3\1/2\ minutes.

I reiterate, the resolution that we have, very unfortunately, not been allowed to offer even as a recommit, because democracy abroad has a much greater appeal to my colleagues than democracy at home. Indeed, apparently, to the Republican Party in the House, democracy is a great spectator sport. They would like to see it in Afghanistan, they would like to see it in Iraq, but they don't want to practice it at home. It's too hard. Members might be able to make a fair choice.

Here is what our resolution says: we are for tracking the terrorists financially. We do not think there should be leaks. The biggest single difference is that we do not subscribe to their automatic praise that says that the White House, the administration, has done everything right. That is the biggest difference.

Now, no one really can say that. The chairman of the Intelligence Committee said the staff was briefed, some of the staff. Well, let's have a mock Congress, bring the staff in here, and let them vote on it. But those of you who weren't in the briefing and haven't talked to the staff, almost everybody, are not entitled to vote to say things that aren't true.

Let me talk about one of the things that I am unsure about. I don't want the terrorists tipped off and if they are being tipped off, we need to know about it. But we don't know that yet. The gentleman from Alabama earlier, Mr. Bachus; the chairman of the intelligence committee and others have said, well, yes, it's true that the terrorists learned from Bush administration statements that we were tracking their financial activities. But apparently they didn't know that that involved banks. Did they think we were going through their pockets? How can you acknowledge that people knew that they were being tracked financially but, oh, no, it didn't involve bank records.

Now, I don't know what the answer is. But neither do those who are ready to vote to say this caused that problem. I remind the Members, there is a factual statement here that says, it doesn't mention the Washington Times because you want to be nice to them, but it says that the Washington Times in 1998 made a disclosure that made it hard to find Osama bin Laden. That may well not be true. You are going to vote them this. There is this automaticity to your behavior. You are being asked to vote for things that I know most Members over there and over here can't say.

We are not asking you to vote the opposite. We are not saying the program had legal problems. We are not saying it was conducted badly. We are saying, look, and we could have this, we could have 430 votes to say, yes, it's a good thing to track the terrorists and it's a bad thing to leak. Those statements of policy could be made, but they wouldn't give any political advantage. To go beyond that and to turn this into a Bush commercial, to say without any basis that we know that they haven't violated their civil liberty, they haven't done privacy, let me say this. If that is in fact the case, if they have run this program as competently, as efficiently, and with as much respect for individual liberties as you say, then this resolution deserves more attention. Because that is a first. If they really have managed to break the record they have had before, wonderful. But you are taking it as they said on faith.

So let me close by saying once again what I have said in previous situations. We have told the Shiia in Iraq, please show some willingness to work with the minority.

We have asked in Afghanistan that people work together. We have said, do not be abusive of your majority power. Try to work together. And then the majority here engages in the most outrageous abuse of power you can think of.

I hope that all those watching will remember one important thing, do not try this at home.

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker. Is a motion to recommit in order at this time?

Further parliamentary inquiry. Since we are in the whole House, would it be in order, by unanimous consent, to modify the rule so that the motion to recommit could become a motion with instructions, including the resolution we have alluded to today? Would that be in order to ask for a unanimous consent request?

Mr. Speaker, I then ask unanimous consent that our motion to recommit be made a recommit with instructions so our resolution, supported by the overwhelming majority of the Democratic Caucus, could receive a vote on the floor of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I mourn democracy.

Mr. Speaker, let's be honest. We are here today because there has not been enough red meat thrown at the Republican base before the Fourth of July recess. That is why we are here. So just in the nick of time, we have H. Res. 895.

The rule for this resolution is of course completely closed. Not even a substitute is made in order. The Republican leadership of this House does not even make a pretense of being fair and open and democratic any more. Under their leadership, this House makes the old politburo look like a New England town meeting. It is disgraceful.

This resolution purports to be about protecting our national security, about protecting the most sensitive secrets in the Federal Government. Mr. Speaker, no one in this House supports the disclosure of classified information that could genuinely endanger the lives of Americans.

But we all know that is not what is going on here. In reality, it is an attempt to punish and intimidate the New York Times and other newspapers for publishing a story about the administration's surveillance of international financial transactions.

The Times reported on surveillance of transactions to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT.

But as the Boston Globe recently reported, the Bush administration itself has publicly and repeatedly talked about this issue since September 11.

Roger Cressey, a senior White House counterterrorism official until 2003, told the Globe: ``There have been public references to SWIFT before. The White House is overreaching when they say the New York Times committed a crime against the war on terror. It has been in the public domain before.''

Further, the Globe notes that a report to the U.N. Security Council in late 2001 said that SWIFT and other worldwide financial clearing houses ``are critical to processing international banking transactions and are rich with payment information. The United States has begun to apply new monitoring techniques to spot and verify suspicious transactions. The group recommends the adoption of similar mechanisms by other countries.''

How many times have we heard the Bush administration talking about the need to monitor and disrupt terrorist financial transactions? How many times have we heard them bragging about their success in doing so? Too many to count. So it does not even pass the laugh test when Members of Congress start using words like ``treason,'' when they start calling for criminal prosecution against newspapers, when they circulate ludicrous Dear Colleague letters threatening to revoke the Times credentials to cover Congress.

Even worse, Mr. Speaker, is the rank hypocrisy exposed by this resolution. The Bush administration and their Republican allies in Congress say they are outraged by leaks of sensitive information. Well, as the ranking member on the Rules Committee pointed out, where was their outrage when White House officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer in an attempt to smear her husband?

Where was their outrage when White House officials leaked false and misleading intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in order to bolster their case for war? Those leaks, I should note, were made to the same New York Times that has their knickers in a twist today.

Where was their outrage when General Casey's plan for potential troop reductions in Iraq suddenly appeared in the Times and in other newspapers? Now, I assume that given their outrage today, we will never again see sensitive information attributed to a ``senior administration official'' or ``a senior House Republican.''

What is really going on here, Mr. Speaker, is that the administration and their allies have no problems with leaks to the press when those leaks advance their political agenda. But if a leak contradicts their agenda, suddenly they call it treason. They suffer from a case of selective outrage.

This administration is obsessed with secrecy, with controlling the flow of information in this country, with shutting out the other branches of government, with signing statements that make clear they have no intention of following the law, with bullying their critics into silence by questioning their patriotism.

Time after time this Congress has acquiesced. For the Republican leadership, oversight is a four-letter word. Not since Richard Nixon has it been more important to have an unfettered and free press, because that is the only check left on the imperial Presidency in America today.

Mr. Speaker, I am confident that the American people will see through this. And I urge my colleagues to do the same. Reject this closed rule and reject this resolution.

[From the Boston Globe, June 28, 2006]

Terrorist Funds-Tracking No Secret, Some S (Binde

(By Bryan Bender)

Washington.--News reports disclosing the Bush

administration's use of a special bank surveillance program

to track terrorist financing spurred outrage in the White

House and on Capitol Hill, but some specialists pointed out

yesterday that the government itself has publicly discussed

its stepped-up efforts to monitor terrorist finances since

the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

On Monday, President Bush said it was ``disgraceful'' that

The New York Times and other media outlets reported last week

that the US government was quietly monitoring international

financial transactions handled by an industry-owned

cooperative in Belgium called the Society for Worldwide

Interbank Financial Communication, or SWIFT, which is

controlled by nearly 8,000 institutions in 20 countries. The

Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street

Journal also reported about the program.

The controversy continued to simmer yesterday when Senator

Jim Bunning, a Republican of Kentucky, accused the Times of

``treason,'' telling reporters in a conference call that it

``scares the devil out of me'' that the media would reveal

such sensitive information. Senator Pat Roberts, a Kansas

Republican, requested US intelligence agencies to assess

whether the reports have damaged anti-terrorism operations.

And Representative Peter King, the chairman of the House

Homeland Security Committee, has urged Attorney General

Albetrto Gonzalez to pursue ``possible criminal prosecution''

of the Times, which has reported on other secret government

surveillance programs. The New York Times Co. owns The Boston

Globe.

But a search of public records--government documents posted

on the Internet, congressional testimony, guidelines for bank

examiners, and even an executive order President Bush signed

in September 2001--describe how US authorities have openly

sought new tools to track terrorist financing since 2001.

That includes getting access to information about terrorist-

linked wire transfers and other transactions, including those

that travel through SWIFT.

``There have peen public references to SWIFT before,'' said

Roger Cressey, a senior White House counterterrorism official

until 2003. ``The White House is overreaching when they say

[The New York Times committed] a crime against the war on

terror. It has been in the public domain before.''

Victor D. Comrass, a former US diplomat who oversaw efforts

at the United Nations to improve international measures to

combat terror financing, said it was common knowledge that

worldwide financial transactions were being closely monitored

for links to terrorists. ``A lot of people were aware that

this was going on,'' said Comras, one of a half-dozen

financial experts UN Secretary General Kofi Annan recruited

for the task.

``Unless they were pretty dumb, they had to assume'' their

transactions were being monitored, Comras said of terrorist

group. ``We have spent the last four years bragging how

effective we have been in tracking terrorist financing.''

Indeed, a report that Comras co-authored in 2002 for the UN

Security Council specifically mentioned SWIFT as a source of

financial information that the United States had tapped into.

The system, which handles trillions of dollars in worldwide

transactions each day, serves as a main hub for banks and

other financial institutions that move money around the

world. According to The New York Times, SWIFT executives

agreed to give the Treasury Department and the CIA broad

access to its database.

SWIFT and other worldwide financial clearinghouses ``are

critical to processing international banking transactions and

are rich with payment information,'' according to the 33-page

report by the terrorist monitoring group established by the

UN Security Council in late 2001. ``The United States has

begun to apply new monitoring techniques to spot and verify

suspicious transactions. The group recommends the adoption

of similar mechanisms by other countries.''

Some worry that the new disclosures will nonetheless hamper

US counter-terrorism efforts.

``I worked this stuff and I can guarantee that [revealing

the SWIFT] information made a difference,'' said Dennis

Lormel, a retired FBI special agent who helped establish the

bureau's Terrorist Financing Operations Section before

leaving government in 2003. ``The disclosure will have an

adverse impact on investigations. It was used in two specific

instances where it helped to track terrorists. We also used

it for lead value.''

But the White House has also been very public about its

efforts to track the overseas banking transactions of

Americans and other foreign nationals.

Less than two weeks after the 9/11 attacks, Bush signed an

executive order calling for greater cooperation with foreign

entities to monitor money that might be headed to terrorist

groups. The executive order was posted on the White House

website.

The document called for ``cooperation with, and sharing

information by, United States and foreign financial

institutions as an additional tool to enable the United

States to combat the financing of terrorism.''

Richard Newcomb, the head of the Treasury Department's

Office of Foreign Asset Control at the time, later publicly

credited the president for enabling US law enforcement and

intelligence agencies to nab suspected terrorists, including

followers of ``Hambali,'' Al Qaeda's leader in Southeast

Asia. The New York Times report said Hambali's capture in

2003 came with the aid of information gleaned from SWIFT.

Administration officials have said this week that the

disclosure of such details were particularly damaging to US

security.

Nevertheless, in July 2003--a month before Hambali was

captured--Newcomb told the Senate Government Affairs

Committee in detail about a program initiated after 9/11

between his office and the Pentagon to track Hambali's

financial network in Southeast Asia. The scope of the project

included Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore,

focusing on the finances of Jemaa Islamiyah, the Al Qaeda

group run by Hambali that was responsible for deadly bombings

in Bali in 2002.

He said the operation ``identified the key leaders, fund-

raisers, businessmen, recruiters, companies, charities,

mosques, and schools that were part of [Jamaa Islamiyah]

support network. Thus far, we have imposed sanctions against

two of these key nodes, and are coordinating action against

several others,'' Newcomb told the committee.

Other public documents have also detailed post-9/11 efforts

to follow terrorist money.

The Patriot Act approved by Congress after the attacks

emphasized providing new authorities for the Bush

administration to track and choke off terrorist funds around

the world. One part of the act, dealing specifically with

terrorist money, was described by the Treasury Department as

the most ``significant [anti-money-laundering] law'' since a

1970 law requiring banks to report cash transactions over

$10,000.

That section of the Patriot Act required the Bush

administration to ``adopt regulations to encourage further

cooperation among financial institutions, their regulatory

authorities, and law enforcement authorities'' to track

terrorist-related money laundering.

In testimony before Congress in early 2002, Juan C. Zarate,

deputy assistant Treasury secretary in charge of terrorism

and violent crime, discussed how the global exchange of

information was a key element in choking off their source of

funds.

He cited a special international meeting hosted a month

after the attacks by the International Financial Crimes

Enforcement Network, ``to eliminate existing impediments to

exchanging information'' between financial institutions and

to find solutions to the challenges of tracking terrorist

funds.

Will the gentleman yield?

That is not what I said.

Mr. Speaker, for the record, I just want to state that I deeply resent the gentleman from Texas deliberately mischaracterizing what I said here on the House floor; and let me repeat for him what I said: That no one in this House supports the disclosure of classified information that could endanger the lives of Americans.

I would simply say to the gentleman from Texas that the American people are sick and tired of the smears that have gone on here. We can have a debate. You don't need to smear or mischaracterize what I said.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 896, I call up the resolution (H. Res. 895) supporting intelligence and law enforcement programs to track terrorists and terrorist finances conducted consistent with Federal law and with appropriate Congressional consultation and specifically condemning the disclosure and publication of classified information that impairs the international fight against terrorism and needlessly exposes Americans to the threat of further terror attacks by revealing a crucial method by which terrorists are traced through their finances, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 6 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, today I am proud to present to the House for our consideration H. Res. 895, a resolution that expresses the sense of the House supporting intelligence and law enforcement programs that track terrorists and terrorist financing. Additionally, the resolution finds that the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program was conducted lawfully and with all due protections of civil liberties. The resolution condemns the unauthorized disclosure of classified information and states that the House expects the cooperation of news media organizations in these matters.

Mr. Speaker, this is a resolution that every Member can and should support. We are at war. Thanks to the great job being done by our members of the U.S. military and law enforcement, Americans feel safe to go about their daily lives, but we are still in fact at war. We depend on classified programs and classified information in order to successfully prosecute that war.

While there is the physical war that is being fought, of course another critical front in this war is terrorist financing, and that is where we focus our debate today. It is critical, because where terrorists place and spend their money is one of the best indicators about where the terrorists are located, who they are, and where they may strike again.

The editors at the New York Times would do well to reread the editorial they published on September 24 about 2 weeks after September 11, 2001. In part, it reads: ``The Bush administration is preparing new laws to help track terrorists through their money laundering activity and is readying an executive order freezing the assets of known terrorists. Much more is needed, including stricter regulations, the recruitment of specialized investigators, and greater cooperation with foreign banking authorities.'' The editorial concludes, ``If America is going to wage a new kind of war against terrorism, it must act on all fronts, including the financial one.''

All of that activity that was recommended by the New York Times so soon after 9/11 was taking place and was being done with an extraordinary amount of international financial cooperation by the U.S. Treasury and its Terrorist Finance Tracking Program. The program was being conducted in accordance with current U.S. and international law, with executive orders, with outside audits, and with all proper care being given to individual liberty. I need to add that it was also being conducted with significant success.

And part of that success was because this Congress passed the PATRIOT Act and our committee stepped forward with antimoney-laundering provisions that became a part of that PATRIOT Act, so important on the war against terror.

However, the recent front-page story in the aforementioned New York Times cut the legs out from under this program. Now the terrorists are well informed of the details of our methods and will find other ways to move money outside of the formal financial system. Now the terrorists will be driven further underground, and we will have to invest further years of work to uncover these new methods.

Unfortunately, a one-day story in the New York Times can ruin years of careful work by those who work to map terrorist networks and the flow of terrorist money. Obviously, the editors of the New York Times are more concerned about their sagging circulation rates and about damaging the Bush administration than they are about disrupting terrorist financing.

For those who may think we are overreacting, all you have to do is go back just a few days to the arrest of the seven terrorist suspects in Miami. That cell was looking to gain funding from al Qaeda to attack American targets. While law enforcement successfully broke that cell in plenty of time, we need to know about financial transactions like those while the attacks are in the planning stage.

In a recent column, Morton Kondracke asked the question: ``Would newspapers in the midst of World War II have printed the fact that the U.S. had broken German and Japanese codes, enabling the enemy to secure its communications? Or would they have revealed how and where Nazi spies were being interrogated? Nowadays, newspapers win Pulitzer Prizes for such disclosures.''

In the same column, Kondracke says: ``But the fundamental problem infecting much of Congress, the media, and the political class, especially those left of center, is that they are consumed with loathing for President Bush and all his works and are prepared to do anything to undermine him, even if it makes the country less safe.''

Continuing to quote Kondracke: ``Everyone in Congress and the CIA should see the movie `United 93' as a reminder of what we are up against. Muslim fanatics will not only try to destroy the Capitol, but also explode a nuclear bomb, if they can.''

Kondracke goes on: ``And people should heed the warning delivered by Princeton University Professor Bernard Lewis. Lewis cast the struggle with Islamic extremism in World War II terms. `It is 1937,' he said, `and we seem to be more in the mode of Chamberlain at Munich rather than Churchill.'''

Kondracke, again quoting Lewis: ``Osama bin Laden and other would-be Hitlers,'' he said, ``consider the United States an effete, degenerate, pampered enemy incapable of real resistance. It's part of the pattern that we fight among ourselves as much as against our enemies. This is more than serious. It's dire.''

These are the words of a well-respected journalist. A profound statement from Kondracke, but right on point.

Another respected voice on the issue is Michael Barone. On USNews.com, Michael Barone recently said: ``Why do they hate us? Why does the New York Times print stories that put America more at risk of attack? They say that these surveillance programs are subject to abuse, but give no reason to believe that this concern is anything but

theoretical. We have a press that is at war with an administration while our country is at war against merciless enemies. The Times is acting like an adolescent kicking the shins of its parents, hoping to make them hurt, while confident of remaining safe under their roof.''

Nobody could have said it better than Michael Barone and Morton Kondracke.

Mr. Speaker, this is a very serious issue. That is why the Congress is debating this resolution. I ask this resolution be supported strongly on a bipartisan basis.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to recognize the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus) for 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Chair be authorized to reduce to 5 minutes the minimum time for electronic voting, if ordered, on passage of H.R. 4761.

I object, and I withdraw my unanimous consent request.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman, Mr. King of New York, chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth).

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I will take a second to correct the gentleman from Alabama. There is not one word in this resolution that calls for prosecution of anything other than leakers. Not the media.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased now to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Renzi), the only member of the Financial Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I believe I have the right to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Me.

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

Mr. Speaker, this has been a lively debate. I just want to state some facts. We are at war. All of the decisions, virtually all of the decisions that have been made since 9/11 have been made in this Congress, the administration, with the express purpose of protecting the American people.

The PATRIOT Act, actions that were urged by the New York Times and other media, were undertaken expressly to protect the American people. And the fact that we have not had a major attack in this country is I think fairly good news and indicates to everybody that the system and what we have done is working.

We all served with Lee Hamilton. He was a great Member, well respected on both sides of the aisle. Lee Hamilton was the co-chairman, along with Governor Kean, of the 9/11 Commission. They testified before numerous committees. They wrote an excellent report.

And that report was critical looking backward on things that we had not done to better protect ourselves. We did not connect the dots. We had a wall between the CIA and the FBI. There were things that could have been done better.

And this was all constructive criticism. And then those gentlemen went out, not only did they testify, but they spoke in public. And they are still very active in that operation.

Why do you think, why do you think that Lee Hamilton asked the New York Times to resist publishing that information? Do you not think that he thought that our Nation was at risk and that that kind of information out in the public would notify al Qaeda and our enemies that we were in grave danger?

Why would somebody with the reputation of a Lee Hamilton or a Governor Kean make that extraordinary effort to try to keep a news organization from publishing that information? That is what this argument is all about. That is what this resolution is all about. This is serious business. This is not politics. This is about the safety of our children and our country.

And we talk about politics all of the time. I am frankly disappointed. Vote for this resolution and let us get on with the business at hand.

Mr. Speaker, I object.

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 896 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time is yielded for the purpose of debate only.

This rule provides for 1 hour of debate in the House equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Financial Services. It waives all points of order against consideration of the resolution and, as always, provides the minority with one motion to recommit, which may not contain instructions.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of this rule and its underlying simple House resolution that allows the House of Representatives to take a very clear position on our collective commitment to identifying and tracking terrorist finances and our condemnation of the disclosure of any information that puts the lives of American citizens at risk.

Today, throughout the course of the debate, we will hear a great number of accusations hurled from those Members opposed to this resolution. It is their right to dissent. That is the basis of our democracy. However, it needs to be made clear at the outset what this resolution does and what it does not do. What this resolution does is simple:

It states that the U.S. House of Representatives supports efforts to identify, track and pursue suspected foreign terrorists and their financial supporters by tracking terrorist money flows and uncovering terrorist networks and that the House finds that the Terrorist Financing Tracking Program has been conducted in accordance with all applicable laws, regulations and executive orders, and that the appropriate safeguards and reviews have been instituted to protect civil liberties and that Congress was duly informed of this fact.

It also says that the House condemns the unauthorized disclosure of classified information and expresses concern that disclosure of this information may endanger the lives of American citizens and our efforts, and that the House expects the cooperation of all news media in protecting the lives of Americans and the capacity of the government to identify, disrupt and capture terrorists by not disclosing classified intelligence programs such as the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program.

This resolution does not single out or censure any specific media outlet for its disclosure of classified information that has put American lives at risk and made our allies less likely to share classified data in the future. Nor does it chill first amendment rights or prevent the news media from performing their constitutionally protected activities. We will hear these kinds of accusations today time and time again from the other side, Mr. Speaker, and it is important to make clear from the outset that they are simply not true.

The basis for the House taking this position is just as clear. We know that after our country was attacked on September 11, President Bush launched a full-on campaign against terrorist financing and authorized the Treasury Department to track the financial supporters of terrorist groups like al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah to prevent any further attacks on American citizens either here or abroad.

We know that by following these monetary transfers, the United States has been able to locate and identify terrorists and their financers, chart shadowy terrorist networks, and keep funds out of the hands of these criminals. We also know that data provided by this program helped to identify a Brooklyn man who was convicted of laundering $200,000 through a Pakistani bank on behalf of al Qaeda. This program also facilitated the capture of the mastermind of the Bali resort bombing of 2002.

This terror finance-tracking program, better known as the SWIFT program, has been invaluable in protecting American lives and choking off the sources of terror funding. It is exactly the kind of limited, legal and effective program that we need to hunt down and starve terrorists of the funding that they use to attack American interests and citizens.

As with any national security program, the administration must be protective of the sources and methods it uses to execute its mission. Disclosure of this program has degraded our national security and injured our efforts to prevent terrorist activity by allowing our enemies to understand what steps we were taking to stop them. And in a situation where it is vital to always remain one step ahead of your enemy, the consequences of showing them our techniques has potentially devastating and life-threatening consequences.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to speak with one voice today in recognizing the importance of identifying, tracking and ending the financing of terror and condemning any actions that would allow the unauthorized disclosure of information that helps our government to achieve this end. I urge the adoption of this rule and the underlying resolution.

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

Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States did speak about this opportunity that we had as a result of what the Congress passed the law asking and giving the legal authority to the President to track financial transactions. The Congress had already spoken about it as we were debating whether we were going to pass that law. In fact, the President did as a result of these disclosures of finding terrorists say that we found financial ends and means by which terrorists were being supported.

But I will strongly disagree with the young woman from New York in her characterization that the President spilled the beans on all of this. Not true. It was someone going and talking to over 20 people, revealing intimate details of what the plan was. Not that it existed, but how it worked, where it was formed, where we gathered information, how things were done.

And that is a desperate attempt by someone to go and provide the enemy with information that would allow them to work around those things that we had established. What we are talking about is classified information, not the knowledge that something is happening. And classified information in detail about not just the summary of this, but in details, is what we are concerned about today.

So I disagree with the gentlewoman from New York. I believe that her characterization is not only wrong, but it is also aimed at the wrong people. We had hoped and would still hope that the minority today would see that what we are talking about is sharing of classified information and that we believe it is the wrong thing to do.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley), the chairman of the Financial Services Committee.

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

Well, we just heard it. It's okay to leak classified information. New York Times, it's okay. Democrat Party, no problem. That is what the power of the press should be all about. We need them now more than ever, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I disagree with that.

Leaking classified information is wrong.

And the----

Mr. Speaker, we are asking for all Members of Congress to universally say today we believe the leaking of classified information is wrong. And that is what we are here for today. I am disappointed that we have Members of this body that say that is what a free press is all about, to leak classified information.

It is a real sad day in this House, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Miller).

Mr. Speaker, last night at the Rules Committee we had an opportunity to digest a lot of information about this, not only about the program but also about, theoretically, who knew what, where, and when. It is my understanding that every single member of the Intelligence House Committee received an invitation to attend a briefing. That is not an indication that every single member attended that open invitation.

I would allow the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, the gentleman

from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, you know, we do talk about disclosure, unauthorized disclosure of information. But I fail to see where this resolution talks about any newspaper where we mention them. We intentionally chose not to do that because that is not what the resolution is about today, Mr. Speaker.

Time after time we have heard our Democrat colleagues mention newspapers by name. That is not what this was about. We are simply trying to say that we believe that information that is considered private, sensitive, and that should not be disclosed should not be done.

It would be very simple for us to understand that the President may say, you know, we have spies that work for the United States, but if he disclosed who they were, what they did, how they went about doing their business, where they were located, who they came into contact with and their MO about how they did things, that clearly would be something that would be out of order.

So I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, we intentionally have not tried to chastise anyone. We are simply saying we believe the unauthorized disclosure should not be revealed.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. McCotter).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Feeney).

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the great State of Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

Mr. Speaker, we are through with all of our speakers that we might have. We will then wait for the gentlewoman from New York to close, and then we will do so.

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield all time remaining to the Chairman of the Rules Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier).

Mr. Speaker, I move the previous question on the resolution.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, for all those who will in future years look back on the vote we take today as a window into the soul of this Congress, for all those who will see the approval or defeat of this bill as a testament to how committed this body was to the ideals from which our Nation draws its strength, for them, let me be very clear. On this day, the Republican majority shamelessly played politics with our most cherished principles.

From the very beginning, this resolution and this so-called debate has been about one thing and one thing only: election politics. Six months before our midterm elections, Republicans are falling back on the one play that has worked for them time and time again. They are sowing fear in the hearts of the American people and labeling any individual or organization that doesn't take its marching orders from the White House as a threat to our Nation.

Think of what we have heard from leading Republicans over the past few days. They have called the disclosure of the SWIFT anti-terrorist program a ``disgrace.'' They have accused the newspaper that first wrote about it, the New York Times, of forcing its, quote, arrogant, elitist, left-wing agenda on the rest of the country.

Mr. Speaker, if all this is true, then I have no choice but to conclude that our President, President Bush himself, is a disgraceful, arrogant, left-wing elitist, because it was Mr. Bush who leaked this story. Mr. Bush, as well as numerous top-ranking members of his administration, have proudly discussed their efforts to eliminate the finances of terrorists for 5 years. Not two weeks after September 11, 2001, President Bush told the world the United States had ``launched a strike on the financial foundation of the global terror network.'' Such claims have been made time and time again, not just by the President but by every top Republican official in power.

What is more, no fewer than 20 current and former administration officials spoke to New York Times reporters about the SWIFT program. Where do you think the Times heard it? The article that started this all could not have been written without their active help. What the New York Times did, as well as the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and newspapers throughout the country through news services, was to

publish a story which had, in effect, already been published a thousand times over by the White House itself and had even been on the Internet.

The end result is a Republican administration intentionally leaking a story, as they did to Judith Miller of the New York Times who was then their heroine, both publicly and privately, and then punishing the newspaper for reporting on its leaks. In such a context, the notion that one of our newspapers violated our national security last week is ludicrous on its face.

Think of this degree of Republican hypocrisy and then consider this: the bill before us claims to stand against leaks. But it comes 6 years into an administration that has always been willing to leak even the most sensitive information if it thought it would benefit from it politically. It is the height of irony to think that when the Bush administration sought to silence critics of its pre-Iraq war intelligence claims, it chose to leak the classified identity of a CIA agent, as well as previously classified components of a national security estimate to, of all places, the New York Times. But it did so, and it did so willingly.

Where were the resolutions of protest from the majority during that scandal? Did we have any expression of outrage over the leaking of a covert agent who, I am told, not only jeopardized her contacts with the CIA but the entire intelligence network itself because people would not trust us anymore? Where were the resolutions of protest about that? Nowhere.

Where was the outrage when a national security asset, as well as all of her contacts in the intelligence community, were put into danger? There was none, because Republicans deemed that was a permissible leak, and it was profitable.

The Republican outrage we see today stinks to high heaven because the leak of Valerie Plame's identity last year came from high-up, the highest ranks of its own White House. And when all the contradictions inherent in this bill are laid bare, we can see what it is actually all about.

Republicans need to change the subject of the real debate everyday people are having in the country. That debate is about the wisdom of this 3-year, $400 billion war in Iraq that is still claiming American lives even today. It is about the numerous scandals of its own creation that the majority is scrambling to explain away. It is about the fact that Republicans have been entirely unwilling to exercise any form of meaningful oversight over the programs implemented by Congress and the White House with disastrous results to our Nation. It is about the very direction that America will take in the years ahead.

Democrats are eager to debate all of these issues. But Republicans, as we see today, are interested only in inventing enemies to point fingers at and turn the public against. And to do so, Mr. Speaker, they are willing to jeopardize even our most basic and fundamental principles. They are willing with this bill and with what they have and will say on the floor today to make it the province of Congress to dictate to our cherished independent media what it can and cannot report about and what it can and cannot say.

But blaming the messenger is nothing new in this country, Mr. Speaker. The first time a newspaper was punished by an elected official was in 1735 when a New York publisher wrote unflattering things about the Governor of the New York territory and was put in jail. Only a few decades later, the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed by Congress to silence those who opposed American involvement in a war with France.

But to today threaten retribution and legal action against virtually every news organization in this country simply to gain a few points in the polls? It is a debasement of this Congress and a desecration of our Nation's ideals.

Mr. Speaker, my friends on the other side of the aisle and in the White House have a right to be worried about what lies ahead for them, but what they do not have the right to do is to politicize our national security. They do not have the right to hypocritically and arbitrarily decide when the Nation has been endangered by a leak and when a leak is entirely acceptable. And they most certainly do not have the right to reshape this Congress into a body concerned with, in truth, little more than political retribution against an equally arbitrary ``enemies list.''

The American people expect this majority and this administration to guard information, not punish newspapers from writing about it after it has been officially revealed at the highest source of the government. Think about that for a moment. The President of the United States time after time after time has bragged on this program and yet pillories the New York Times and other papers for writing about it.

The citizens of this country understand that at the end of the day, the job of protecting our national security falls on the shoulders of our elected officials, not just on journalists whose primary duty is to objectively report on the world around us. Our citizens expect this body to do much more than it is doing here today. They expect it to follow a higher calling. And they are right.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 seconds to say I am sorry this House did not care about the leaking of Valerie Plame to that extent.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

Mr. Speaker, for the purposes of clarification, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

Mr. Speaker, I yield for a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

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

I yield for a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

(Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire if my colleague has more requests for time?

Mr. Speaker, I will be asking Members to vote ``no'' on the previous question so that I can amend the rule to allow the House to consider a resolution introduced by Financial Services Ranking Member Barney Frank instead of the press-bashing resolution made in order under this rule.

I ask unanimous consent to print the text of the amendment and a description immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, the Frank substitute resolution expresses Congress' support for intelligence and law enforcement programs that track terrorists and terrorist finances and are conducted consistent with Federal law and with appropriate Congressional consultation.

Vote ``no'' on the previous question so we can consider this resolution instead of H. Res. 896. Again, vote ``no'' on the previous question.

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

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