Providing for consideration of the Senate amendments to the bill (H.R. 3961) to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to reform the Medicare SGR payment system for physicians and to reinstitute and update the Pay-As-You-Go requirement of budget neutrality on new tax and mandatory spending legislation, enforced by the threat of annual, automatic sequestration.

Mr. Chairman, sometimes we come to the floor, Mr. Speaker, but we don't understand, really, the impetus and the importance of the work that is being done here.

To my colleagues, what we are doing is securing the American people. We know that right now there is a major debate that is occurring with leadership dealing with health reform. We will also be addressing the question of jobs. But let it be very clear, nothing is going to stop us from addressing the question of national security.

Chairman Conyers has been working on the reform and the refitting, if you will, of the PATRIOT Act to make sure that it provides more security for the American people.

I just came from a hearing on Homeland Security of which I am a member, with the Secretary of Homeland Security, asking hard questions about the reinforcement of security, the provisions of support for personnel at the Department of Homeland Security, and the ability to give more resources so that the traveling public can be secure.

In this instance, we are acting expeditiously and responsibly, because what is now occurring is that we are providing for the extension of the PATRIOT Act so we can, in fact, engage the other body and work constructively, one, to, with no doubt, commit ourselves, as the President has done, in committing to use every instrument of national power to fight terrorism, including intelligence and military operations, as well as the criminal justice system. That's the Judiciary Committee.

There's never been a doubt about the commitment of the Obama administration or the Judiciary Committee, the chairman and our colleagues in the other body. But it is important for us to handle our business and to do our duty, and that is to look with a fine-toothed comb at the PATRIOT Act to ensure that it does not violate the rights of Americans. No matter what your political persuasion, you have a sense of understanding of the Constitution. You understand due process. You understand unreasonable search and seizure. And so it is our obligation to do so.

As I listened to the debate on the Intelligence bill, I was struck by the efforts that have been made to shore up any of the missing links to provide us a pathway away from the Fort Hood incident or the Christmas Day bombing. And one of the things I want to emphasize is the importance for horizontal integration: Homeland Security, Department of Justice, Intelligence, the agencies dealing with national security as we attempted to do after 9/11. We must ramp up the coordination of information. There must be a focus not only on enhanced coordination, which is the premise of the PATRIOT Act, to get information and to ensure the obligation to ensure your civil liberties; but we must also be somewhat unique and distinct on how we assess who might be a threat.

I have constantly asked that we consider this thing called human assessment and behavior. A lot of people will call for profiling and that that's the way to do it. And I can tell you, colleagues, that you can profile from this morning until the end of time, and you will miss someone who doesn't fit the caricature, if you will, of who you might think happens to be a terrorist. Timothy McVeigh didn't fit that profile.

And so it is important for them to be developed human intelligence and human behavior assessment. That would have been an appropriate approach to the captain at Fort Hood. That's not profiling; it's assessing the behavior of interacting on the Internet, of speaking to the imam in Yemen, very conspicuous behavior that was assessed in Washington before he was transferred to Fort Hood, behavior that was not transmitted, if you will, in the right way.

And then we can look at the Christmas Day bomber, which we hope will never happen again. We had the shoe bomber. And so behavior should send up a red flag.

When we look at the premise of the PATRIOT Act, it is gathering information. And I know my colleagues would not want us to rush to judgment. And so what we have in place now is the opportunity for America to be protected, to use this cross-signal of information.

Might I also mention the assessment of the actions of the Department of Justice. There's not been one moment of a decision that has jeopardized the American people. Yes, there's been a decision that initially was accepted by local officials, as we understand it, to try individuals in a particular area.

There were provisions, obviously, to be made for that. That decision alone and whatever happens on the decision after about where that trial will be held has nothing to do with undermining America's security.

We have Mirandized people before, and they have given us information and we've garnered that information to use for our security. We have tried people in the civilian courts under our legal system, and we have found them guilty on the basis of what they have done, and we've protected the American people.

So I am concerned that there is some labeling going on, that there is not the convergence of resources in the Obama administration, there's not the work on behalf of the Judiciary Committee chaired by Chairman Conyers that steadily puts together building blocks to secure the American people.

I hope that we will rise to vote for this extension of the PATRIOT Act to allow this Congress, bipartisan, to sit down and do its work. But in the meantime, would we not be irresponsible if we did not come to the floor today to protect the American people, just as we've done with an authorization of the Intelligence bill which has never been done for over a large number of years. We are now doing that because we believe in the security of the American people.

I look forward to moving forward on this legislation. I look forward to pressing the intelligence community on human behavior assessment now, not tomorrow, but now; and I look forward to us going forward on securing the American people with the tools that the Obama administration is working on.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the motion to concur in the Senate amendments to H.R. 3961--Extending Expiring Provisions of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and R. 2082. I support this motion to extend expiring amendments though I offered several amendments as we debated this issue in the Judiciary Committee that I believe would have made the existing provisions of the ACT more effective.

H.R. 3961 extends for one year--through Feb. 28, 2011--three antiterrorism provisions which would otherwise expire on February 28, including the ``roving wiretap'' authority that allows the government to conduct surveillance on suspects who communicate on multiple devices, or repeatedly change their cell phone numbers or carriers; a provision that permits federal law enforcement authorities to seek a court order for ``any tangible thing'' they deem related to a terrorism investigation such as business records; and the ``lone wolf'' provision that allows for surveillance of terrorists who are not connected to terrorist groups.

The measure also extends, for one year, a provision under current law that expanded authority to access records or ``any tangible item,'' including business and library records, through the use of Section 215 orders. The provision has been one of the focal points of criticism of the PATRIOT Act, uniting liberals and libertarians who express concern that it was too broadly written and could have allowed the government to access a virtually unlimited range of records.

Mr. Speaker, prior to the enactment of the USA PATRIOT Act, court orders requested under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for access to business records had to assert that there were ``specific and articulable facts giving reason to believe that the person to whom the records pertain [was] a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.'' The law limited these records to those of hotels, motels, car and truck rental agencies, and storage rental facilities.

The provision in the USA PATRIOT Act modified requirements for a FISA court order to include ``any tangible things''--such as library or bookstore records--regardless of the business or individual holding the item, as long as law enforcement officials assert that the records are sought in an effort to obtain foreign intelligence or in a terrorism investigation. An application for access to business records under this provision must provide a ``statement of facts'' proving that the information sought is ``relevant'' to the investigation.

A September 2009 letter from the Justice Department reports that the FISA court had issued about 220 orders to produce business records over the period of 2004 to 2007. The letter noted that 173 of those orders were issued prior to 2006 in combination with FISA pen register orders ``to address an anomaly in the statutory language that prevented the acquisition of subscriber identification information normally associated with pen register information.'' The 2006 reauthorization of the Patriot Act included language to clarify the law, and the Justice Department says the change made the use of the ``business records'' provision for such information unnecessary. The remaining business records orders were used to obtain transactional information that did not fall within the scope of other authorities.

The department called on Congress to reauthorize this provision because there would ``continue to be instances in which FBI investigators need to obtain information that does not fall within the scope of national security letter authorities and are operating in an environment that precludes the use of less secure criminal authorities.''

My amendment would have made an improvement to the public's oversight of the PATRIOT Act by extending the life of these intrusive government surveillance programs for two years rather than four years as proposed. Specifically, my amendment focused on Sections 102 and 202 of the underlying bill. The change to Section 102 would have extended the sunset dates of roving wiretaps and FISA business records to December 31, 2011 rather than 2013. The change to Section 202 provides a sunset date of December 31, 2011 rather than December 31, 2013 for national security letters, with the effect of expediting the return of the relevant national security letter statutes to their statuses as they read on October 25, 2001.

These proposed changes in those amendments that I offered in the Judiciary committee focused on the idea of increasing public oversight and transparency. These changes would have permitted Congress to review these sections in two years rather than four years. In two years, we may find that these tools are in fact unnecessary, or that new tools are required.

Mr. Speaker, the motion also extends, for one year, a provision that allows law enforcement officials to pursue terrorists who use multiple devices, or change cell phone numbers or carriers repeatedly to thwart surveillance efforts under FISA. The law permits authorities to obtain multipoint or ``roving'' wiretaps so that officials do not have to file multiple applications to continue their investigation.

Under current law, applications for a wiretap do not have to include specific information on the location of the wiretap or the names of third parties who would be involved in assisting authorities with setting up the wiretap. Instead, court orders apply to the person or persons and not a particular device or location. Under prior law, the government would have to return to the FISA court for an order that named the new communications carrier, landlord, etc., before tapping the new device or location.

The law requires the FISA court to base its finding on ``specific facts'' included in an application, and it requires court orders for roving wiretaps to describe in detail the specific target in cases in which the target's identity is unknown. In the cases when the location of surveillance was unknown at the time of a court order, investigators would be required to notify the court within 10 days of the start of surveillance at any new location. The court can extend this notification time to up to 60 days.

According to a September 2009 letter from a Justice Department official, the provision has ``proven an important intelligence- gathering tool in a small but significant subset of FISA electronic surveillance orders.'' The letter noted that this authority is only available when the government is able to provide specific information that the target of surveillance may engage in counter-surveilance activities. The letter noted that the government has sought to use it ``in a relatively small number of cases (on average, twenty-two applications per year).''

Additionally, the measure extends by one year the so-called ``lone wolf'' provision that allows federal law enforcement officials to seek warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to conduct surveillance on suspected individuals or ``targets'' who are engaging in international terrorism activities or preparation for such activities, but cannot be connected to terrorist groups or foreign nations. The provision applies only if the target is not a United States person, i.e., is not a citizen, legal immigrant or resident.

Before 2004, national security officials had to show a court that a target was an agent of a foreign power, or acting on behalf of a foreign power, in order to get permission to monitor him or her, which some argued prevented monitoring a lone wolf operating as an individual. According to the Justice Department, the authority was aimed at situations in which information linking a target to an international group is absent or insufficient, but where the target's engagement in ``international terrorism'' has been sufficiently established. The department noted that in practice, the government ``must know a great deal about the target,'' but must also be unable to connect that person to any group meeting the definition of ``foreign power'' under FISA.

A Justice Department official, in a September 2009 letter, stated that the department had never filed a FISA application using this provision since it became law in 2004, but

stated the department's support for reauthorizing the provision because of potential situations in which it could be the only avenue for surveillance.

Mr. Speaker, I believe it is very important that we extend the expiring provisions of the PATRIOT Act and urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the motion and work to restore civil liberties and secure America.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Colorado for yielding me the time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the bill that is with us today. The safety of this Nation, protecting America from terrorists, is of high and vital concern not only to this Member, but I think every single Member, as we have been reminded time after time that we cannot take our eye off the ball, that the security of this country is a job that must be done all day, every day, by a group of savvy professionals that I believe we presently have in this country. It is a combined effort of not only law enforcement and intelligence, but also it involves bright minds from this body also.

Today what we are here to do is to consider reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act. This act was done 9 years ago, 9 years ago when our Nation was struck. It was crafted in such a way that there were provisions, ideas, thoughts that we did at the time where we said we need to make sure they are reauthorized, that these ideas are looked at, where we go through the processes and see what happens not only with our own effectiveness with the law, but also how our intelligence agencies are nimble enough to adapt themselves to make these changes.

At the same time I say I am for this, it is unfortunate that my friends on the Rules Committee, my Democratic colleagues, continue to deny the minority due process by not allowing us to offer a motion to recommit. Time and time again Republicans are shut out of the amendment process, forcing us to simply accept what comes forward.

I encourage my friends on the other side of the aisle to stop restricting this process in the House.

Almost 9 years ago, as I stated, Congress passed this PATRIOT Act, bipartisan support, at a time that was very difficult not only for us to see that enemy that was at us, but also for us to understand more clearly how we should respond, and this Nation did respond. We responded with a PATRIOT Act that was specific in nature that allowed intelligence agencies to stand a chance to fight those against us.

This legislation was and still is vital to our intelligence capacity and our desire to show the enemy that we're willing to fight, that we're willing to stand up and protect this country, that we're willing to go to the lengths that are expected of anybody who wants to protect their own homeland.

Earlier this week, Ranking Member Lamar Smith of the Judiciary Committee, the gentleman from San Antonio, Texas, urged Democrat leaders, as we did not know whether this bill would come forward, to extend those expiring provisions, stating: ``Congress has a duty to protect the American people. Failing to reauthorize our national security laws in a time of heightened threat is reckless.''

These were the types of public comments that Republicans are making about the need to make sure that we press this body to get done its job with those processes.

Yesterday, up in the Rules Committee, the gentleman, Mac Thornberry, also from Clarendon, Texas, testified in the Rules Committee about the importance of extending the expiring PATRIOT Act provisions at the time we were debating the Intelligence bill. I thought that Mr. Thornberry was well on point, was thoughtful, was articulate about the significance of providing the necessary debate on important issues and amendments.

I think we just had a debate here on the floor where we went through how these issues need to be talked about in this body and every single Member needs to understand them as a result of their constitutional duty to protect and defend, not just our Constitution, but this country. And I wholeheartedly agree with his assessment when he said we need to provide the intelligence community with the appropriate tools to protect this Nation.

Yesterday, the Senate passed this legislation by voice vote; confirming the importance of acting immediately. Look, I'm just for getting it done. I'm just for getting it done. If the Senate wants to do it by voice vote, that's fine.

Today we are here on the floor to talk about the three provisions that were set to expire. They were set to expire because the previous Congresses have said we needed to have an active debate on these issues, like to talk about them, allowing the government to seek court orders for roving wiretaps on terrorism suspects who shift their modes of communication.

Mr. Speaker, if there's one thing we learned, the enemy is smart and nimble and quick. They adapt themselves to the way we do business. We need to give our intelligence agencies the ability to be nimble, quick and to adapt themselves also. Glad this is being redone just in time.

To allow investigators to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court order to procure certain records in national security investigations, you've heard this said for a long time. The people who are trying to protect this country are few in number, and the cases against them are very large. The number of people who are seeking to turn our country into another war

zone where civilians are killed, where planes are blown up out of the sky, where we have inundation of our national security efforts, as well as cybersecurity, are numerous. We need to make sure our investigators have a clear understanding about the rules and are able to receive information in a legal process.

Lastly, to allow the government to apply special court surveillance orders involving suspected terrorists that are called ``lone wolf'' terrorists who do not necessarily have ties to larger organizations.

I think the gentleman, Mr. Rogers, made a point here from the Intelligence Committee that our ability to be able to see this for what it is, whether it's a part of a larger terrorist group or whether it's a lone wolf acting on his own, that we need to be able to make sure that we can fully vet these individuals before shutting them down and allowing them just to be treated as a person who's committed a crime. We need to be able to see that which is aimed at this country and to fully vet them.

When people who are overseas terrorists come into this country by lying to us about why they would be coming and their intents, we need to be smart enough and nimble enough to pick these up.

Each of these provisions are used by law enforcement officials and intelligence agents to prevent terrorist attacks. By reauthorizing these provisions today, which my party, the Republican Party, fully supports, we believe, for an additional year, will provide the appropriate defense and intelligence measures to protect Americans from another event like 9/11.

If I offered some comments, Republicans would have been in favor of making these permanent in law. Of course, we need to make sure that we're re-evaluating these, but these should be made permanent law so that our law enforcement agencies set themselves in a position to be nimble enough to see the attack against us.

I think 9 years' worth of effort has told us we need to give our law enforcement every single tool that we believe is reasonable. I think we've done it today. I wish we'd done it for more than a year, because here we are, we will be here a year from now, perhaps struggling with the same issue.

Let's make these permanent additions to the Homeland Security PATRIOT Act. This country is under a constant threat of violence and terrorism, and that's why it's necessary to make sure that all of our intelligence and law enforcement have the appropriate tools to defeat those who would wish to do us harm.

We don't need to look back very far to Christmas Day; but I would say to us that after that, we still had warnings that came from our intelligence community that said, and expect more, and expect more; which is the reason why we should be making these issues that we talked about today, not extending them for one more year, but to make them permanent to give our guys, our team, our men and women who are engaged in the professional aspect of protecting this country, the tools which they need to protect this country.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I will reserve the balance of my time.

I would appreciate that. And in a colloquy, if the gentleman would allow me the time since he has indicated he has no further speakers, I will go ahead and consume my time with the knowledge that he would then be ending very quickly. And I thank the gentleman very, very much.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to go ahead and proceed using up all my time at this time with the knowledge that he will be through.

Mr. Speaker, at this time we have the gentleman from Gold River, California, a gentleman, Mr. Lungren, who has served as not only a Member of this body, then went back to California, served as the Attorney General from the State of California. He's a very thoughtful Member. He sees very clearly the laws of this country and the Constitution of this country, but he also sees the need for us to be nimble enough to see the attack that's against us, to be able to respond and to give our men and women who are on the front line all the assets and resources only that are necessary, but the laws and the underpinning of being able to make sure that we can fully protect this country.

And I will yield to the gentleman 6 minutes at this time.

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

Mr. Speaker, we're talking about something that is real important today. We've been talking about something that is real important, and I think the point that's made today is that the Republican Party supports the extension of the PATRIOT Act that we're doing here today. These three provisions are very important.

We're questioning why we have to move these on a piecemeal basis. We should move them. They should become permanent law. We believe that the enemy that is at our doorstep, that is all around this world, that is attacking our allies, our friends, people who love freedom, that that is not going to go away. We need to give our intelligence officials the ability to know that they are going to hard-code this in their books and their training and what they do instead of exceptions to, well, we might not want to do this in the future. Mr. Speaker, we need to give our team that's protecting us all of the tools that are available.

We're going to vote for this today because we think it's the right thing, but we think it ought to be made permanent. We think it ought to be a provision that all of our law enforcement, all of our intelligence officials understand why we're doing this, and we want to send them a strong signal: Protecting this country is not something that should be taken lightly from a perspective of what might expire. We want to give them all of the tools that are necessary. We want to make it permanent. Let's put it in their permanent training manual, not in an exception rule that they have to follow up and retrain people about what the law is.

Protecting this country should not be something that is related to whether we have an expiring provision or not. Let's make it permanent. Let's get that done. It would be my hope that the Intelligence Committee of this House would move to get that done as soon as we've passed this today.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, it is probably the highest honor of my life is to serve in this House, and as a part of that to serve on the Judiciary Committee. I have great respect for the members of that committee and the work that we do. But in some ways, I would echo the comments of the gentleman from New York, although I would not agree with his conclusions, of the disappointment that this primary obligation of the Judiciary Committee, that is to deal with legislation that goes to the common defense of this Nation, would be viewed in the legislative agenda as an afterthought.

I am the author of the sunset provisions from the 2005 extension of the PATRIOT Act. I put those sunset provisions in, or I offered them and got the support of Members on both sides of the aisle precisely because I understood there was some controversy about those three, and that there was a need for us to take a serious look at it.

Unfortunately, while we have established other priorities in this Congress, in this House, it does not appear that the PATRIOT Act has been one of them. Because if it were otherwise, we would be spending hours, if not days, on this floor talking about the implications of the PATRIOT Act. And in the context of that debate, I am absolutely assured that the vast majority of this House would support the continuation of these provisions, as is the conclusion of this administration.

These three provisions provide tools for our intelligence community to not only connect the dots, but gather the dots. There seems to be a misunderstanding at times that if we were to take some of these provisions and establish a higher degree of proof, or a higher degree of suspicion that somehow that would make these tools more available. That I believe is a misunderstanding of some of these tools. These tools allow to us start the search. You don't know if someone is involved with a terrorist group under some circumstances.

Someone like Abdulmutallab, having his father come to the embassy and just report his suspicions about his son would not be sufficient for us to believe that he was necessarily allied with some terrorist group. In fact, you would believe that by the terms of the lone wolf provision, he would be right squarely in the middle of that provision. And yet what did our committee do? Our committee decided that because it had not been used before, we should reject it. Well, you know, we were never hit by airplanes with unbelievable amounts of fuel and human beings into towers in New York until it happened. Now, the argument that, well, it never happened before so we shouldn't have been prepared for it doesn't ring true.

And so while I believe that we did take a look at these three provisions in our committee, I was extremely disappointed by the resolution of that review. And we could, it seems to me, if we had this as a priority, bring this bill to the floor, look at it and say if it is important enough for us to have these tools against al Qaeda and similarly situated terrorist groups and individuals, then maybe we ought to extend it for more than a year. Does anybody on this floor, does anybody within the reach of my voice believe that al Qaeda is going to stop 1 year from the 28th of this month?

Maybe we have a new 72-hour rule. We have been talking about a 72- hour rule meaning we should have bills on the floor for 72 hours. Here we have the fact that we wait until we are within 72 hours of the expiration of key parts of the law which allow us to protect ourselves against terrorists before we act. The American people must be scratching their heads and saying, This is the leadership we look for? These are the people who take an oath to the Constitution and to give us the ability to defend ourselves against enemies?

Mr. Speaker, I guess I would say as proud as I am of my service on the Judiciary Committee, I am profoundly disappointed that this bill is being brought forward with just a single year, within a 72-hour space, and we still have not had an examination on this floor of the seriousness of the profound protections of civil liberties contained in these provisions of the law. This is in fact a good law. These are good provisions of that law being utilized by our intelligence community.

I thank the gentleman for the additional time.

So these are individual parts of a law that has served us well. Ironic it is that on the very day that our committee considered the lone wolf provision and decided because it had not been used before we should withdraw it, we had the terrible I won't call it a tragedy, I will call it a terrible terrorist attack at Fort Hood. Within hours of us rejecting the notion that we needed a lone wolf provision, we had a domestic lone wolf. Now, of course the PATRIOT Act does not apply to someone who is an American citizen. But my point is had we had such an attack before that attack took place, doesn't it seem a little nonsensical to say because it hadn't happened before we ought not to have some tools at our disposal which would help us fight it?

Let me just underscore again, these provisions in the law allow our intelligence community to collect the dots. The 9/11 Commission criticized our government for a failure to connect the dots. You need to first have the dots. You need to first have the information. And that is what these tools allow us to provide to our intelligence community so that they can analyze those things.

So Mr. Speaker, I reluctantly support this legislation because it is a mere 1-year extension. It deprives us of the debate that should be front and center of this representative body. If we truly believe our first obligation is to protect the people we represent, we must provide for the common defense. The PATRIOT Act does this. These provisions do this. We should act on this with full knowledge, full debate, and full confidence in our intelligence communities that we can move forward and protect the American people.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this motion to concur in the Senate amendment, which would extend for a period of 1 year the sunset of three provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act. I very much regret that we have to be here today in this situation and that I have to oppose this legislation. I understand we are facing a deadline of this weekend, but I also believe that we have an obligation to do more than punt. That is effectively what we are doing today. We are punting this question to the next Congress.

Both the House and the Senate have worked hard to examine not just these three provisions, but the entire PATRIOT Act, and to craft legislation that would improve its effectiveness, and that would better protect the civil liberties of all Americans. That process should be allowed to continue. Today, with this vote, that process effectively ends.

The PATRIOT Act was passed at a time of panic, and in an extremely rushed manner. Many of its provisions were not well thought out, which is why Congress decided that certain parts of the PATRIOT Act should be enacted on a temporary basis so that we could revisit them after we had time to see how they worked.

The original passage of the bill in 2001 was hijacked at the last minute in a way that should have stood as an embarrassment to the House. The Judiciary Committee back then reported the

bill unanimously, with support from the most conservative to the most liberal members. We did business the way the American people have always said they wanted us to do business, through negotiation and compromise in open committee meetings. That was the high point. The low point came in the dead of night. Then-Attorney General Ashcroft objected to the bill, and so with the cooperation of the then- Republican leadership that bill was junked, and the bill that came to the floor was an entirely new bill written behind closed doors and not seen until shortly before we voted on it on the floor.

The bill that recently passed the Judiciary Committee would have extended the expiring provisions, but would have improved them in response to the problems that experience has brought to light. With respect to roving wiretaps, for example, the committee extended the provision until 2013, and added language to clarify congressional intent that the government must describe its roving target with a sufficient degree of particularity to allow a judge to be able to distinguish the target from other potential users of places or facilities to be surveilled.

Our bill would have allowed the ``lone wolf'' provision of FISA to sunset. This provision allows the issuance of a FISA warrant against individuals with no connection to a foreign power or other foreign entity or to a terrorist group. That is not the purpose of FISA, and in fact Todd Hinnen, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's National Security Division, testified in the hearing before my subcommittee that this provision has never been used in the 8 years in which it has been enforced. There is no reason why a so-called ``lone wolf,'' concededly unconnected, not connected to a foreign power, not connected, concededly, to a terrorist group--otherwise he wouldn't be a lone wolf--there is no reason why such a person could not be subject to a normal Title III wiretap warrant. That is why the committee voted to let this provision sunset.

We also added some procedural protections to section 215 orders which allow the government to seize all sorts of information concerning what an individual has been reading without a warrant. The bill would have required the President to report to Congress on whether the procedures for sensitive collections could be further modified so as to enhance civil liberties protections without undermining national security objectives. This provision was also extended to the end of 2013 in the legislation reported by the Judiciary Committee.

My bill controlling the use of the much-abused National Security Letters was included in this bill as well. These letters, issued with no court oversight, have been used to obtain all sorts of material, and have been joined with gag orders on the recipients, gag orders that were recently struck down as unconstitutional by the courts. The Justice Department's Office of Inspector General has issued some damning reports on the misuse of these letters, and the section is in dire need of reform. These reforms, which were a part of the bill reported by the Judiciary Committee, should be part of any legislative action extending these provisions of the PATRIOT Act.

I regret that we are not going to continue this process of improving the PATRIOT Act. I regret we do not have before us a very short-term extension designed to give us more time to finish this work in the balance of this Congress. But we are punting to the next Congress, which for all practical purposes means that we are extending the PATRIOT Act unchanged for the indefinite future. I believe that our Nation and our liberties will suffer as a result of this. I hope that this vote today, contrary to what I expect, will not stop my colleagues from continuing to improve our intelligence-gathering laws, and specifically continuing to examine and improve the PATRIOT Act in a timely manner.

I thank the gentleman for the generous provision of time.

Mr. Speaker, when we were reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act in 2005, or extending it, I authored in committee the sunset provisions that subjected these three provisions of the PATRIOT Act to further consideration by the House. That sunset was up last year. And so, rather than seriously consider it and thoughtfully proceed as to whether it ought to be permanent or not, we kicked the can down the road by extending it a year. And then we came just before Christmas up against it, once again, and we extended it for 2 months. And now, here we are, 3 days before the expiration of these provisions, and we are going to have a temporary extension, a year, not 2 months, but just a year.

I would hope that we would consider an issue such as this as an important primary issue. It's almost as an afterthought. Just before we leave for Christmas, we extend it for 2 months. Now, we're within 3 days of it expiring, we extend it for a year. Forgive me, but it almost sounds like we're treating it like a burp after a big meal, something we're kind of embarrassed about, something that happened, sort of involuntarily, as if we don't have control of this.

I've said on this floor before that we're certainly making sure that no post office in America goes unnamed or un-renamed. But at the same time, we deal with this issue, which is crucially important.

Our Judiciary Committee considered the reauthorization of these provisions; and we reauthorized, by our bill, the business records section. We reauthorized the roving wiretap provision, although we made some changes in that from current law, which I did not support, but nonetheless, that was it. But we failed to extend the lone wolf provision. And let me tell you the thinking on that.

The argument was, we didn't need the lone wolf provision because it had never been used. What's the lone wolf provision? It allows us to apply the intelligence-gathering authorities that we have in the overall law to individuals that we cannot, at that point in time, determine are actually involved with a foreign country, that is, associated with a foreign country, or with a known terrorist organization. And so they said it had never come up before. So we failed to vote it out of Judiciary Committee. That was in the morning, about 12:30, just after noon.

What happened later that day? The massacre at Fort Hood. A lone wolf. Now, admittedly not someone who would be under the PATRIOT Act because he's an American citizen, but my point is, we have to be concerned about lone wolves.

And what about Mr. Abdulmutallab?

If we had had information and been able to connect some of the dots early on, we would have not been able to prove initially that he was necessarily associated with any other group, maybe inspired by another group. He would actually come under the definition of a lone wolf.

And yet the Judiciary Committee said, well, we're going to deprive our intelligence community of the powers under the law for those who are lone wolves.

That's why I say this needs full and vigorous debate. We need to consider the essence of these provisions, and we need to determine whether we believe it needs more than an extension of a single year. Does anybody on this floor truly believe that al Qaeda will give up in a year? Does anybody believe that those who are out there with the idea that they want to do harm to the United States, utilizing terror inspired by al Qaeda or others, are going to quit after this year? I would hope they would. I would hope we would defeat

each and every one of them before the year's out. But that's unrealistic. Let's understand.

So, why we're bringing this to the floor with only a single-year provision is beyond me. If we take seriously our obligation to provide for the common defense, in this environment of a nonconventional war, asymmetric, as they like to say, undefined, compared to previous conflicts, where the enemy does not seek territorial advancement, but seeks the destruction of who we are and what we are, our institutions, and how we, in fact, act.

This is a different world. I've said on this floor before and I'll say it again, al Qaeda doesn't hate us and attack us because of Guantanamo. Al Qaeda hates us and attacks us because of the Statue of Liberty and everything it represents.

And so I would hope that at some point in time we would come to this floor and have a serious, full-throated debate on these three provisions of the PATRIOT Act as to whether they ought to be extended as a matter of permanent law or at least as a reasonable period of time--5 years, 10 years, not single year--and not treated as an accident of legislative action.

So I rise in support of the bill and the rule that allows the bill but in great disappointment that we are not doing all we could do to advance the cause of freedom and protection of the American people. This is better than nothing, but it's not good enough.