To suspend the duty on Aluminum (0.008" and thinner).

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 3773.

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

Members of the House, the RESTORE Act dealing with FISA addresses the needs of the intelligence community for flexibility in dealing with modern communications networks.

It received the most careful scrutiny and consideration by this Committee on the Judiciary, as well as by the Intelligence Committee, chaired by Chairman Reyes, to ensure that it meets every concern our intelligence agencies have raised, every single one of them, and does so consistent with the rules of law, our Constitution, and our values.

Let's begin this discussion this evening by clearing up a few things that the bill will not do. The RESTORE Act will never require our intelligence agencies to stop listening to the bad guys. Never. Special emergency provisions allow us to listen first and get the warrant after the fact, if it's needed. No one will ever have to stop listening to a terrorist plotting an attack. I hope I don't hear that raised on the floor this evening.

The RESTORE Act will not make our intelligence agencies have to get thousands of warrants for terrorists outside the country. It will not do that. Instead, a basket authorization will permit surveillance of an entire foreign terrorist organization. This is the most effective way to target Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and other threats to our country and our citizens.

The RESTORE Act does not give the government free rein to listen to Americans. As has always been the case under FISA, this bill requires that the government get a warrant to target an American; any American. We have also a manager's amendment, which continues to promote the goals of intelligence flexibility with appropriate oversight, while safeguarding our security and our liberty. It makes clear that the protections of the act will not inhibit gathering intelligence against present dangers, such as Osama bin Laden, or threats to our troops in the field.

It does provide guidelines to make it easier to determine when the significant purpose of the surveillance act is to acquire information on a United States person and a FISA warrant is needed. It provides important safeguards on dissemination of information about individual Americans when it's acquired under the RESTORE Act's more flexible structure. Specifically, an SES-level manager will review such dissemination on a particularized basis.

Importantly, the RESTORE Act has no retroactive immunity for telecommunications carriers who may have assisted the government in conducting unlawful surveillance on Americans. I am sorry to report to you that the other body has a measure that does give that retroactive immunity. The RESTORE Act now on the floor has no retroactive immunity for telecommunications carriers who may have assisted the government in unlawful surveillance on Americans.

Until we receive the information, the data, the letters that we have requested to know what they have done, information we have been waiting for more than 10 months for, we can't even begin to responsibly consider such a request. So as of now, it's out. No retroactive immunity.

The legislation that we have before us now is a much-needed start to restoring our system of checks and balances, preserving our liberty, and ensuring that our government has the tools they legitimately need to combat terrorism. We got pressed up against the wall in August. It's not going to happen again. There's a 6-month run on the present measure before us. Before we get pushed up against the holidays, we are saying, Let's do it now.

We have had a tremendous working relationship with the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Silvestre Reyes, and his staff and my staff. Majority and minority have been working

closely together to bring to you a commonsense and balanced piece of legislation that does what we set out to do, and that is to preserve our liberties and make sure we have effective security. We want our intelligence agencies strong, but we want to bring the FISA Court back into the picture, and we do in the measure before us.

Six years ago, the administration unilaterally chose to engage in warrantless surveillance of American citizens without court review. That decision has--to be charitable--created a legal and political quagmire. Officials resigned, the program was riddled with errors, it was shut down for several weeks, officials rushed to the hospital to ask a sick man to reauthorize it over his deputy's objections, and vital prosecutorial resources were diverted. Most importantly, our own citizens questioned wheher their own government was operating within the confines of the law.

Two months ago, when that scheme appeared to be breaking down, the administration forced Congress to accept an equally flawed statute. This new law gutted the power of the FISA court. It granted the administration broad new powers to engage in warrantless searches within the U.S., including physical searches of our homes, computers, offices and medical records. The law contained no meaningful oversight whatsoever.

The legislation before us today seeks to once again strike the appropriate balance between needed government authority and our precious rights and liberties. It tells the government they need no warrant when foreign agents communicate with other foreigners. It reiterates that warrants are needed when Americans are being targeted. The bill also allows the interception of communications of foreign targets who may communicate with U.S. persons. However, it insists that procedures be in place--approved by the FISA court--to insure that no American is being targeted, and that his or her privacy is protected.

The bill also provides for several critical safeguards. We include periodic audits by the Inspector General, we narrow the scope of the authority to protect against threats to our national security, and we protect the privacy of Americans traveling abroad. We also sunset the legislation in December 2009.

The RESTORE Act, which has received careful consideration by the Judiciary Committee and by the Intelligence Committee, addresses the needs of the intelligence community for flexibility and the ability to deal with modern communications networks.

It meets every concern that our intelligence agencies have raised and does so consistent with the rule of law, our Constitution, and our values.

Let me be clear on a few things this bill will NOT do:

The RESTORE Act will never require our intelligence agencies to stop listening to the bad guys. Never. There are emergency provisions and the ability to get a warrant after the fact. No one will ever have to stop listening to a terrorist plotting an attack.

It will not make our intelligence agencies get thousands of warrants for terrorists outside of the country. Instead, they can get a basket authorization to surveil the entire foreign terrorist organization. This is the most effective way to target Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and other threats.

The RESTORE Act does not give the government free rein to listen in to Americans. As has always been the case under FISA, this bill requires the government to get a warrant if it wants to target an American.

The Managers' Amendment also reflects the RESTORE Act's goals of intelligence flexibility and oversight, while ensuring both safety and civil liberties. It makes it clear that the protections of the Act will not inhibit gathering intelligence against present dangers, such as Osama bin Laden or threats to our troops in the field. It provides guidelines to flesh out what should be considered when determining whether a significant purpose of collection is to acquire information about a U.S. person, such that a FISA warrant would be required.

The Manager's Amendment also provides important safeguards on dissemination of information about individual Americans when it is acquired under the RESTORE Act's more flexible structure. Dissemination of U.S. person communications acquired under the RESTORE Act's basket authorities can only happen when an SES-Ievel supervisor determines that the identity of that person is needed to understand or assess the importance of the foreign intelligence, and to protect the national security of the United States. This is not a blanket authorization to unmask everyone intercepted, but must be done on a person-by-person basis.

Importantly, the bill has no retroactive immunity for telecommunications carriers. Until we receive the underlying documents relating to their conduct from the administration--and we have been waiting for more than ten months--we cannot even begin to consider this request. Sending a small set of the documents to a subcommittee of the other body does not begin to meet this test.

There is one of the grave concerns about the Protect America Act that bears mention as we consider the RESTORE Act. The Protect America Act was overbroad in the types of entities from which the government could compel information, reaching into business or medical records or libraries. We have narrowed the scope of the acquisitions in the RESTORE Act to ensure that the government can only seek information under the ``basket authorizations'' from telecommunications service providers and related companies.

I share the concern of our library community that believes their mission and the chance to bring knowledge and freedom of expression abroad will be diminished if the U.S. government can indiscriminately monitor American libraries when they serve foreign users. This is not a hypothetical concern in an age of distance learning. While a library certainly is not the same kind of ``communications service provider'' as AOL or AT&T, it may allow patrons to access the internet, to send emails, and to conduct research on-line, so it literally ``provides'' these communications services to patrons. The Judiciary Committee report indicates that these now-standard library services do not make them ``telecommunications service providers'' for a 105B or 105C acquisition, but let me be clear--nothing in the bill is intended to leave libraries outside of the protections of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The legislation before us today is a much needed start to restoring our system of checks and balances, to preserving our precious liberties, and to insuring that our government has all the tools they legitimately need to combat terrorism. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this common sense and balanced legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased now to recognize a very effective member of our committee, Mr. Schiff of California, as well as the gentleman Mr. Flake of Arizona, and I would yield them 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I am stunned by my friend from California's comments, but I yield now 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler), the chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee in Judiciary.

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure now to recognize the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), a member of the Judiciary Committee, for 1\1/4\ minutes.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3356) to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to establish a procedure for authorizing certain electronic surveillance.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Madam Speaker, I yield 10 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas, Silvestre Reyes, chairman of the Committee on Intelligence, and ask unanimous consent that he be allowed to control that time.

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

There probably is no Member in this body who has a greater concern about civil rights and civil liberties than this Member. It is a cause I have worked on for all of my years in this body, and it is one that goes to the very heart of the protections provided under the Constitution and our Bill of Rights.

I am equally sensitive to the need to protect our Nation from terrorism and terrorists. I have chaired recently three classified briefings on this matter in the last week and have spent the last period of time seeking to forge common ground on this issue.

That is why we are here today, to ensure that our government has the tools it needs to respond to the threat of terrorism, while at the same time respecting our citizens' right to privacy.

That is why the bill before us permits the Attorney General to apply to the FISA court to obtain a basket of warrants for the surveillance aimed outside of the United States. That is why we provide an emergency exception. That is why we specify that foreign-to-foreign communications do not require a court order. These are all changes to current law that will help our Nation respond to the threat of terrorism.

At the same time, however, the legislation is respectful of our civil liberties. That is why we sunset the bill in 4 months, to see if this stop gap approach is working, how it is working, and allow us to gather further information. That is why we require that the court approve international surveillance procedures. That is why we insist on periodic audits. None of these safeguards exist under the current law, and all will serve to protect our precious rights and liberties.

The bill before us today responds to each and every concern raised by the distinguished Director of National Intelligence in our negotiations. In particular, yesterday he asked us to make three changes: expanding the bill to cover foreign intelligence; allowing the administration to approve guidelines for recurring communications; and allowing additional foreign targets to be added to the warrant by the court. I was concerned that some of these changes may have gone too far, but in the spirit of accommodation we made all three changes. Sometimes people simply don't want to accept ``yes'' for an answer.

I urge every Member in this body to support this important and balanced measure.

Madam Speaker, I include for the Record today's New York Times editorial entitled ``Stampeding Congress, Again.''

[From the New York Times]

Stampeding Congress, Again

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration

has repeatedly demonstrated that it does not feel bound by

the law or the Constitution when it comes to the war on

terror. It cannot even be trusted to properly use the

enhanced powers it was legally granted after the attacks.

Yet, once again, President Bush has been trying to stampede

Congress into a completely unnecessary expansion of his power

to spy on Americans. And, hard as it is to believe,

Congressional Republicans seem bent on collaborating, while

Democrats (who can still be cowed by the White House's with-

us-or-against-us baiting) aren't doing enough to stop it.

The fight is over the 1978 Foreign Intelligence

Surveillance Act, which requires the government to obtain a

warrant before eavesdropping on electronic communications

that involve someone in the United States. The test is

whether there is probably cause

to believe that the person being communicated with is an

agent of a foreign power or a terrorist.

Mr. Bush decided after 9/11 that he was no longer going to

obey that law. He authorized the National Security Agency to

intercept international telephone calls and e-mail messages

of Americans and other residents of this country without a

court order. He told the public nothing and Congress next to

nothing about what he was doing, until The Times disclosed

the spying in December 2005.

Ever since, the White House has tried to pressure Congress

into legalizing Mr. Bush's rogue operation. Most recently, it

seized on a secret court ruling that spotlighted a technical

way in which the 1978 law has not kept pace with the Internet

era.

The government may freely monitor communications when both

parties are outside the United States, but must get a warrant

aimed at a specific person for communications that originate

or end in his country. The Los Angeles Times reported

yesterday that the court that issues such warrants recently

ruled that the law also requires that the government seek

such an individualized warrant for purely foreign

communications that, nevertheless, move through American data

networks.

Instead of asking Congress to address this anachronism, as

it should, the White House sought to use it to destroy the

1978 spying law. It proposed giving the attorney general

carte blanche to order eavesdropping on any international

telephone calls or e-mail messages if he decided on his own

that there was a ``reasonable belief'' that the target of the

surveillance was outside the United States. The attorney

general's decision would not be subject to court approval or

any supervision.

The White House, of course, insisted that Congress must do

this right away, before the August recess that begins on

Monday--the same false urgency it used to manipulate Congress

into passing the Patriot Act without reading it and approving

the appalling Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Senator Jay Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate

Intelligence Committee, offered a sensible alternative law,

as did his fellow Democrat, Senator Russ Feingold. In either

case, the attorney general would be able to get a broad

warrant to intercept foreign communications routed through

American networks for a limited period. Then, he would have

to justify the spying in court. This fix would have an

expiration date so Congress could then dispassionately

consider what permanent changes might be needed to FISA.

Congress was debating this issue yesterday, and the final

outcome was unclear. But there are very clear lines that must

not be crossed.

First, all electronic surveillance of communication that

originates or ends in the United States must be subject to

approval and review by the FISA court under the 1978 law.

(That court, by the way, has rejected only one warrant in the

last two years.)

Second, any measure Congress approves now must have a firm

expiration date. Closed-door-meetings under the pressure of a

looming vacation are no place for such serious business.

The administration and its Republican supporters in

Congress argue that American intelligence is blinded by FISA

and have seized on neatly timed warnings of heightened

terrorist activity to scare everyone. It is vital for

Americans, especially law-makers, to resist that argument. It

is pure propaganda.

This is not, and has never been, a debate over whether the

United States should conduct effective surveillance of

terrorists and their supporters. It is over whether we are a

nation ruled by law, or the whims of men in power. Mr. Bush

faced that choice and made the wrong one. Congress must not

follow him off the cliff.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I am now pleased to recognize the chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee, the gentleman from New York, Jerry Nadler, for 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield to the Chair of the Immigration subcommittee in the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, Zoe Lofgren of California, 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to now yield 1 minute to the distinguished member of the Judiciary, Mr. Adam Schiff.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

I want to relieve the tensions of my friend from Michigan. Foreign to foreign does not require a warrant. I don't know how many times I am going to have to say that. Foreign to foreign does not require a warrant.

The second thing that will make you much happier than you are now: Basket warrants authorized by the court make it easier to get warrants, not harder, Mr. Rogers.

Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield 1 minute to Jane Harman from California, the former ranking member on the Intelligence Committee for many years.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased now to recognize the chairman of the Crime Subcommittee on Judiciary, the distinguished gentleman from Virginia, Bobby Scott, for 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased now to yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the honorable Speaker of the House.

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield the remaining time that I have to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

As has been stated on this floor, this is an extraordinary and important development and even more important issue.

I want to comment first on the involvement of Mr. Reyes, Mr. Conyers, myself, the Speaker, and others. I have met on at least three occasions with my friend, Mr. Blunt. Every time we made a draft, I took it to him and discussed it with him. This was not something that I thought ought to be done on a partisan basis.

I talked to the Director of National Intelligence on at least five different occasions individually and then in a conference call with Senator Rockefeller and Senator Levin, Mr. Reyes, Mr. Reid, the Speaker and myself. We talked over a number of hours. The conversation did not last hours. From time to time, we hung up and the DNI went to contact people.

Mr. Speaker, we have spent a substantial amount of time trying to reach what our Founding Fathers wanted us to reach, and that was a balance of power, a balance of making sure that our country was secure and making sure that our individuals were secure. That's what our Founding Fathers were all about. They didn't want King George knocking on the door and coming in just because he wanted to come in. They thought that King George needed to be restrained. So

they set up a separation of powers, they set up a judiciary and they set up a Constitution, and 10 amendments thereafter.

Mr. Speaker, our highest duty, as Members of this body, is to defend our Nation, protect our people and uphold the Constitution of the United States, as we've talked about. And one has to be thoughtful in doing that because, at times, it would appear that those three duties may be in conflict with one another. It is our job to harmonize those to accomplish all three objectives. That is, we have a duty to keep this Nation safe from those who seek to harm us.

And let there be no doubt, there are terrorists who seek to harm us. They have harmed us. They are people that we need to stop. They are people that we need to identify. They are people whom we need to act against. And, yes, a duty to ensure that our government abides by the principles upon which it was founded.

In 1978, as has been said, this Congress enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in an effort to balance these critical interests. It is with these principles in mind that we bring this bill to the floor to immediately fill the intelligence gap described to Congress by the Director of National Intelligence.

Among other things, this legislation clarifies that no court order is required, as has been said over and over and over again, to intercept and conduct surveillance on foreign-to-foreign communications that pass through the United States. That's a new technological reality, because that switch is here and so we needed to accommodate that.

The Director of National Intelligence discussed that with us. We made a change in the legislation that was proposed to accommodate that, and he was positive with respect to that change. I do not say he supported that change; I say he was positive.

It reiterates that individual warrants based on probable cause are required when surveillance is directed at people within the United States, not incidental contacts but directed at people in the United States.

It provides for an initial 15-day emergency authority so that international surveillance may begin immediately, so that we can empower the DNI to act now, and it allows for up to two 15-day extensions while the court considers the approval of surveillance procedures.

No one should be surprised that this majority is concerned about the actions of the administration after the last 4 years. The courts have been concerned. And the courts have acted because they did not believe that the administration was acting consistently with the duty to uphold and protect the laws and Constitution of this country.

That ought to be a serious concern. Frankly, it ought to be a very serious concern for those who label themselves conservatives, who have historically been the most outspoken in their fear of Government exercise of power and their concern for the constraint on the use of that power.

Our legislation also compels the cooperation of communications carriers during emergency periods, while it extends liability protection to those who assist in this intelligence-gathering effort. This was a very important provision. We understood that. It is controversial. But we thought it was important.

The legislation also requires the Inspector General of the Department of Justice to conduct an audit every 60 days of communications involving Americans that are intercepted under ``basket warrants,'' because we know those basket warrants are going to be just that, broad- reaching, because we wanted to give the DNI the authority to reach broadly and not be slowed down bureaucratically by individual requests. But we also thought that we needed to protect those individuals with an aftercheck, if you will, by the Inspector General. We think that is fair. We think conservatives ought to be for that. We think liberals ought to be for that. We think the American people are for that.

Finally, the legislation provides that these provisions sunset in 120 days, because it is imperative that we consider issues of this magnitude in a thoughtful manner.

We have been working hard. I said how often I have talked to the DNI, how often I have been in meetings, and how recently I was in meetings with the DNI. It is imperative that we consider these issues consistent with the magnitude that they present, not only for the safety of our people, but for the integrity of our Constitution and laws.

Now, some will say this bill doesn't go far enough. That may be so. And we ought to thoughtfully consider that in the months ahead as the committee, the ranking member, Republicans and Democrats, consider the permanent laws that may be put in place.

Many of them support the administration's proposal, which would permanently authorize warrantless surveillance and searches of American's telephone calls, e-mails, homes, offices and personal records for at least 3 months and for however long an appeal to the Court of Review in the Supreme Court takes, as long as the search is, and I quote, ``concerning a person abroad.''

In fact, the administration's proposal practically eliminates the role of the FISA court. That, of course, is the administration's intent. We understand that. The administration, in fact, undertook the TSP program, the Terrorist Surveillance Program, outside the ambit of the check and balance that we contemplated when we adopted the legislation.

Madam Speaker, we have spent hours with the Director of National Intelligence and worked hard to give him the tools that were requested. The DNI asked that we expand the language in the bill from ``relating to terrorism'' to the much broader ``relating to all foreign intelligence.'' I support that change. I want to make sure that the DNI has a broad reach and view. So that is in this bill.

The DNI asked that we eliminate the requirement that the FISA court adjudicate how recurring communications into the United States from foreign targets would be handled, and we agreed to that change.

Madam Speaker, in closing, let me tell the Members that yesterday in that conference call I asked the Director of National Intelligence, Admiral McConnell, this question: Does this legislation improve or not the situation you find yourself in? I quote you his answer to me just about 24 hours ago. This legislation, which has been so harshly analyzed, I quote the Director of National Intelligence: ``It significantly enhances America's security.''

That is a quote. It is a direct quote. I do not imply that he said he supported it. And we have a very harsh statement from him that we just got a few hours ago. I will tell you, it doesn't sound like the Admiral McConnell with whom I have talked over the past few weeks.

Madam Speaker, the administration truly seeks a temporary fix to the FISA statute. This legislation provides one.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote for this important legislation. There are some on my side who believe it goes too far. There are some on your side that believe it goes not far enough. But it is, I suggest to you, a compromise that we can make that, as in the words of the Director of National Intelligence, significantly enhances our national security.

Madam Speaker, I urge the support of this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank him for championing civil liberties in our country for such a long, long time. I want to express my admiration and respect for you, Mr. Conyers, as the distinguished Chair of the Judiciary Committee. And to the distinguished Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Mr. Reyes, congratulations to you for this excellent work. It is difficult, because we have to balance security and liberty. Two great patriots have brought this bill to the floor. Mr. Reyes, you have served our country in many capacities to secure our country, and you are doing so in your capacity as Chair of the Intelligence Committee.

Madam Speaker, in my service in Congress I have had the privilege of

serving on the Intelligence Committee longer than anyone, 10 years as a member directly and now my fifth year ex officio as leader and now Speaker of the House.

I considered it a service to our country that was important to our national security. I salute the men and women who serve our country in the intelligence community for their bravery and for their patriotism.

Congress has always for many years had a special interest in intelligence. We all recognize that we want our President and our policymakers to have the best possible intelligence. We want to do so in a way, though, that again balances liberty and security. We want to use every tool at our disposal to collect the intelligence that we need, again, to protect the American people, but we must do so under the law. That is what we are talking about here tonight.

In 1978, it was recognized that Congress had a role, the checks and balances, in determining how our intelligence was collected, analyzed and disseminated. Those are the three aspects of intelligence. Tonight, we are talking largely about collection.

In 1978, when the FISA law was passed, we were in a different era. It is clear that as it established Congress' rights in this arena and the checks and balances necessary to protect the American people, we also have to recognize today that technology is vastly different than it was at that time. So Congress has always stood willing, in a bipartisan way, to make amendments to the FISA act that would reflect the change in technology.

If anything in what we do should be nonpartisan, it is intelligence. It should be analyzed in a way that has no political approach to it, and the laws governing it should be written in a nonpartisan way.

That is why so many of us worked so closely, the distinguished Chairs of the committees of jurisdiction, Judiciary and Intelligence, including the majority leader, who just spoke, we worked closely with the Senate leadership, with the administration, trying to work in a bipartisan way to meet the needs of the American people.

As Mr. Hoyer indicated, and I won't go into it in detail, this involved a series of communications, both in person, on the telephone and otherwise, with the Director of National Intelligence. He presented to us, as I believe Congresswoman Harman has indicated and the chairmen have indicated, he presented us his three must-have provisions in the FISA law, and we wrote a bill that reflected, in fact echoed, the request of the Director of National Security.

When we sent that to him, he came back and said, I have additional changes that I am requesting, and we accommodated them as far as we could under the balance of liberty and security.

As Mr. Hoyer said, when we asked in the presence of the majority leader in the Senate, the Speaker of the House, the Chairs of the intelligence committees, House and Senate, and Armed Services from the Senate, the Director of DNI, that group of people gathered said that our bill would make us significantly safer. It was a positive contribution, as the leader said. Not that he endorsed the bill, because by then the administration had a different approach.

It made it seem for some time, why we were going back and forth with this, trying to accommodate the DNI. I know that he was negotiating in good faith. I hope that he will accept what we are proposing in that same good faith.

Some of the things that have been rejected since those conversations, but I hope will reappear in the Senate bill, are to diminish the role of the Attorney General in the decision-making on this. We have always said that there would be a third branch of government, the courts, to issue the warrants. The discretion in this situation is now given to the Attorney General.

Without any reference to the current Attorney General, and there will be some who might question his judgment, I don't want Alberto Gonzales to have this much power, but in a Democratic administration, I would not want that Attorney General to have this much power. It should be a different branch of government.

So we have seen them come up with these pieces of legislation that substitute the Attorney General for the FISA courts. It is just totally unacceptable.

While we are trying to address the emergency concerns of the Director of National Intelligence, we know we will have a bigger bill down the road to go into some other issues of concern, but without the same urgency. That is why this legislation must be sunsetted, because no matter how you look at it, it gives extraordinary power to the administration beyond the intent of the FISA law, and certainly outside the values of our Founding Fathers, to balance liberty and security.

Having made the changes to our proposal that respond to each of the Director's concerns and having him describe our proposal as a significant improvement in his current capabilities, I would have expected that he would be leading the charge for this bill's passage.

That is not happening, but that does not mean that this bill is inadequate. The judgment of the Director of National Intelligence stands. He knew to whom he was speaking that evening, and he was clear in his assessment.

All of us in Congress want to do everything within our power to protect the American people from terrorism. As I say, as a 15-year member of the Intelligence Committee, both as a member and ex officio, I know full well and sadly the threats to our country. I know full well the capabilities that we have and some that we need. Every person, as Congresswoman Harman said, every person in this body is fully committed, is fully committed to collecting the intelligence that we need to protect the American people. But we must do it under the law, and sometimes that's where we differ.

You will hear our colleagues stand on this floor and say, terrorist to terrorist in foreign lands, the Democrats don't want you to collect on them; and they want to make you have a warrant to do it.

When I hear my colleagues say that, I think either they don't know or they don't care about the truth. Because that is patently untrue. And it has always been a mystery to me about this House of Representatives that somebody can misrepresent the facts, some would call, I don't like the word ``lie,'' but if you said they were lying, your words would be taken down. And yet misrepresentations about the intentions of Members of this body are being made here tonight that simply are not true.

So let's put that aside and talk about how we can work together to honor the needs of our people, to recognize the changes in technology and to honor the oath of office that we take here to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States as we protect and defend the American people.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on this important legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee and I do applaud him for his consistent and impeccable commitment to civil liberties and civil rights.

Mr. Speaker, this administration has the law to protect the American people. Let no one come to this floor and suggest that what we are doing tonight is going to save lives because last night we passed legislation that indicated that foreign-to-foreign communication had no barriers, no barriers for those who are seeking intelligence.

Yet when an American was involved, the Bill of Rights, the fourth amendment, civil liberties with the underpinnings, and therefore a court intervened.

Homeland security is not a Republican issue. It is an issue for all Americans--all of us. Not one of us who sang ``God Bless America'' on the steps of this House will allow anyone to undermine the security of America.

The legislation last night offered by the Majority gave the Administration everything that they needed, but what we're doing here tonight, we are shredding the Constitution. We are tearing up the Bill of Rights because we are telling Americans that no matter what your business is, you are subject to the unscrupulous, undisciplined, irresponsible scrutiny of the Attorney General and others without court intervention.

This is not the day to play politics. It is to important to balance civil liberties along with the homeland security and the protection needs of America. I feel confident that the House FISA Bill does do that.

Shame on the other body for failing to recognize that we can secure America by securing the American people with fair security laws and by giving them their civil liberties.

I would ask my colleagues to defeat this so that we can go back to the bill that protects the civil liberties of Americans and provides homeland security. I ask my colleagues to support the Bill of Rights and National Security.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to S. 1927. Had the Bush Administration and the Republican-dominated 109th Congress acted more responsibly in the two preceding years, we would not be in the position of debating legislation that has such a profound impact on the national security and on American values and civil liberties in the crush of exigent circumstances. More often that not, it is true as the saying goes that haste makes waste.

Mr. Speaker, the legislation before us is intended to fill a gap in the Nation's intelligence gathering capabilities identified by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, by amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA. But in reality it eviscerates the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution and represents an unwarranted transfer of power from the courts to the Executive Branch and a Justice Department led by an Attorney General whose reputation for candor and integrity is, to put it charitably, subject to considerable doubt.

Mr. Speaker, FISA has served the Nation well for nearly 30 years, placing electronic surveillance inside the United States for foreign intelligence and counter-intelligence purposes on a sound legal footing and I am far from persuaded that it needs to be jettisoned or substantially amended. But given the claimed exigent circumstances by the Administration, let me briefly discuss some of the changes to FISA I am prepared to support on a temporary basis, not to exceed 120 days.

First, I am prepared to accept temporarily obviating the need to obtain a court order for foreign-to-foreign communications that pass through the United States. But I do insist upon individual warrants, based on probable cause, when surveillance is directed at people in the United States. The Attorney General must still be required to submit procedures for international surveillance to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for approval, but the FISA Court should not be allowed to issue a ``basket warrant'' without making individual determinations about foreign surveillance. There should be an initial 15-day emergency authority so that international surveillance can begin while the warrants are being considered by the Court. And there must also be congressional oversight, requiring the Department of Justice Inspector General to conduct an audit every 60 days of U.S. person communications intercepted under these warrants, to be submitted to the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees. Finally, as I have stated, this authority must be of short duration and must expire by its terms in 120 days.

In all candor, Mr. Speaker, I must restate my firm conviction that when it comes to the track record of this President's warrantless surveillance programs, there is still nothing on the public record about the nature and effectiveness of those programs, or the trustworthiness of this Administration, to indicate that they require any legislative response, other than to reaffirm the exclusivity of FISA and insist that it be followed. This could have been accomplished in the 109th Congress by passing H.R. 5371, the ``Lawful Intelligence and Surveillance of Terrorists in an Emergency by NSA Act,'' LISTEN Act,'' which I have co-sponsored with the then Ranking Members of the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, Mr. Conyers and Ms. Harman.

The Bush Administration has not complied with its legal obligation under the National Security Act of 1947 to keep the Intelligence Committees ``fully and currently informed'' of U.S. intelligence activities. Congress cannot continue to rely on incomplete information from the Bush Administration or revelations in the media. It must conduct a full and complete inquiry into electronic surveillance in the United States and related domestic activities of the NSA, both those that occur within FISA and those that occur outside FISA.

The inquiry must not be limited to the legal questions. It must include the operational details of each program of intelligence surveillance within the United States, including: (1) who the NSA is targeting; (2) how it identifies its targets; (3) the information the program collects and disseminates; and most important; (4) whether the program advances national security interests without unduly compromising the privacy rights of the American people.

Given the unprecedented amount of information Americans now transmit electronically and the post-9/11 loosening of regulations governing information sharing, the risk of intercepting and disseminating the communications of ordinary Americans is vastly increased, requiring more precise--not looser--standards, closer oversight, new mechanisms for minimization, and limits on retention of inadvertently intercepted communications.

Mr. Speaker, the legislation before us is not necessary. The bill which a majority of the

House voted to pass last night is more than sufficient to address the intelligence gathering deficiency identified by Director McConnell. That bill, H.R. 3356, provided ample amount of congressional authorization needed to ensure that our intelligence professionals have the tools that they need to protect our Nation, while also safeguarding the rights of law-abiding Americans. That is why I supported H.R. 3356, but cannot support S. 1927. I encourage my colleagues to join me in voting against the unwise and ill-considered S. 1927.