SelectUSA Authorization Act of 2013

Mr. President, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, was enacted 35 years ago to limit the government's ability to engage in domestic surveillance operations. In the years since September 11, 2001, Congress has repeatedly expanded the scope of this law to provide the government with broad new powers to gather information about law-abiding Americans. No one underestimates the threat this country continues to face, and we can all agree that the intelligence community should be given necessary and appropriate tools to help keep us safe. But we should also agree that there must be reasonable limits on the surveillance powers we give to the government. That is why I have consistently fought to curtail the sweeping powers contained in the USA PATRIOT Act and FISA Amendments Act, while also bolstering privacy protections and strengthening oversight. And that is why I continue my efforts today by joining with Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, as well as members of Congress from both political parties, to introduce the bipartisan USA FREEDOM Act of 2013.

Over the past several months, Americans have learned that government surveillance programs conducted under FISA are far broader than previously understood. Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act has for years been secretly interpreted to authorize the dragnet collection of Americans' phone records on an unprecedented scale, regardless of whether those Americans have any connection to terrorist activities or groups. The American public also learned more about the government's broad collection of Internet data through the use of Section 702 of FISA. And the world has learned that this surveillance has extended to millions of individuals in the global community including some of our allies and their leaders. These revelations have undermined Americans' trust in our intelligence community and harmed our relationships with some of our most important international partners.

While I do not condone the manner in which these and other highly classified programs were disclosed, I agree with the Director of National Intelligence that this debate about surveillance needed to happen. It is a debate that some of us in Congress have been engaged in for years. Since this summer, the Judiciary Committee convened two public hearings and a classified briefing with officials from the administration, including the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the National Security Agency, and the Deputy Attorney General.

As a result of these hearings and the recent declassification of documents by the administration, the public now knows about the repeated and substantial legal and policy violations by the

NSA in its implementation of both Section 215 and Section 702. The public now knows that, in addition to collecting phone call metadata on millions of law-abiding Americans, the NSA collected, without a warrant, the contents of tens of thousands of wholly domestic emails of innocent Americans. The NSA also violated a FISA Court order by regularly searching the Section 215 bulk phone records database without meeting the standard imposed by the Court.

These repeated violations, which have occurred nearly every year that these programs have been authorized by the FISA Court, led to several reprimands from the FISA Court for what it called ``systemic noncompliance'' by the government. In addition, the Court admonished the government for making a series of substantial misrepresentations to the Court about its activities. The NSA has assured Congress that these problems have been corrected. Yet with each new revelation in the press about new techniques developed by the NSA that intrude into the privacy and everyday lives of Americans, I grow increasingly concerned about the lack of sufficient oversight and accountability.

Last week, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, Lisa Monaco, stated that the government should only collect data ``because we need it and not just because we can.'' I completely agree--and that is why the government's dragnet collection of phone records should end. The government has not made a compelling case that this program is an effective counterterrorism tool, especially when balanced against the intrusion on Americans' privacy. In fact, both the Director and the Deputy Director of the NSA have testified before the Judiciary Committee that there is no evidence that the Section 215 phone records collection program helped to thwart dozens or even several terrorist plots.

It is clear that as the administration has become more open and forthright about these programs, the facts have not matched the rhetoric. It is time for serious and meaningful reforms to FISA in order to restore the confidence of the American people in our intelligence community. Modest transparency and oversight provisions are a good first step, but by themselves they are insufficient to protect the privacy rights and civil liberties of Americans. We must do more.

The USA FREEDOM ACT is a legislative solution that comprehensively addresses a range of surveillance authorities contained in FISA. I want to thank Congressman Sensenbrenner for his dedicated work on this bipartisan, bicameral piece of legislation that we are introducing today. We are joined in this effort by members of Congress from both chambers and across the political spectrum, and I want to thank the following Senators for cosponsoring this legislation: Senator Lee, Senator Durbin, Senator Heller, Senator Blumenthal, Senator Murkowski, Senator Hirono, Senator Udall of New Mexico, Senator Begich, Senator Baldwin, Senator Heinrich, Senator Markey, Senator Udall of Colorado, Senator Warren, Senator Merkley, Senator Tester, and Senator Schatz.

Our bill will end the dragnet collection of phone records under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act by requiring that only documents or records relevant and material to an investigation may be obtained, and that they have some particular nexus to a specific foreign agent or power. It will also ensure that the FISA pen register statute and National Security Letters cannot be used to authorize similar dragnet collection by applying the same standard. The bill also adds more meaningful judicial review of Section 215 orders and raises the standard for the government to obtain a gag order for every Section 215 order.

In addition to stopping the dragnet collection of phone records, our legislation will address privacy concerns related to surveillance conducted under the FISA Amendments Act, which allows the government to gather vast amounts of Internet communications content by foreigners located overseas. Given the technological nature of Internet communications, we must vigilantly protect against the inadvertent collection of the contents of the wholly domestic communications of U.S. persons--something that the NSA acknowledged has happened before. Our bill will place stricter limits on this type of collection, and also require the government to obtain a court order prior to conducting `back door' searches looking for the communications of U.S. persons in databases collected without a warrant under Section 702 of FISA.

Finally, the USA FREEDOM Act will require enhanced accountability, transparency, and oversight in the FISA process. Our bill builds on a proposal by Senator Blumenthal to provide for the creation of a Special Advocate who will advocate specifically for the protection of privacy rights and civil liberties before the FISA Court, as well as a process for publicly releasing FISA Court opinions containing significant interpretations of law. Under the bill, public confidence in the government's activities will also be strengthened by more detailed public reporting about the numbers and types of FISA orders that are issued.

Importantly, this measure requires new Inspector General reviews and imposes new sunset dates. I have long believed that sunset provisions are an important tool because nothing focuses the attention of Congress or the Executive Branch like the looming chance that a law will end. It is important to note that Section 215, which the government is using to conduct dragnet phone records collection, will expire in June 2015 unless Congress decides otherwise. This bill also shortens the FISA Amendments Act sunset by 2 years, and adds a new sunset for National Security Letters. This aligns all of these FISA sunsets so that Congress can address them comprehensively in 2015, rather than in a piecemeal fashion.

These are all commonsense, bipartisan improvements that will ensure appropriate limits are placed on the government's vast surveillance powers. The American people deserve to know how laws governing surveillance authorities are being interpreted and will implicate their personal information and activities. The American people also deserve to know whether these programs have proven sufficiently valuable as counterterrorism tools to justify their extraordinary breadth. This legislation will help to repair that trust deficit by providing enhanced layers of transparency, oversight, and accountability to ensure that we are protecting national security while restoring protections for the privacy rights and civil liberties of law-abiding Americans.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce unique legislation to remedy a clear mistake by the Federal Government that affects only a single person, an Army veteran, formerly from Alaska, now living in Idaho, who for the past nearly 40 years has been trying to get the Federal Government to remedy an inequity that has affected him, but also has impacts on his family.

While Congress is struggling to find solutions for the economic and health care problems of all 311 million Americans and a means to fund the Federal Government, I hope we also can find the time to right a wrong for a single man and his family.

The issue briefly is that Michael Faber, a Tsimshian Indian whose family has long roots in Southeast Alaska, initially had been granted membership/stock in 1973 in the Sealaska Native Regional Corp., the corporation made up of Southeast Alaska Natives formed as a result of the aboriginal land claims settlement between the Federal Government and Alaska Natives accomplished through passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, ANCSA, of 1971. Because of a clerical error by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the early 1970s Mr. Faber was shifted without cause or his permission to the out-of-state 13th Regional Corporation in late 1976. For decades Mr. Faber has been trying to win reinstatement to the Sealaska Corp., a request the corporation has endorsed, but that the Federal Government, and now seemingly the Federal courts, have decided can't happen without Congress expressly authorizing his reenrollment.

The legislation I offer today, which to my knowledge is supported by everyone possibly connected to this case, will do nothing but right an error by our government that never should have happened. It is a bill that affects a sole individual, which I know is something that has become unpopular on Capitol Hill in recent years. But Congress early in history provided an avenue for passage of legislation to provide relief for individuals who are the victims of an injustice. In fact, it was once relatively common for Congress to pass such legislation. There were hundreds of such bills approved between 1817 and 1971. Admittedly just one was approved last year, when Nigerian student, Sopuruchi ``Victor'' Chukwueke, became the first person in two years to win a private relief bill so he could stay in the United States on an expired visa and gain a path to permanent residency so he could enter medical school in Ohio. Mr. Faber's case is even more worthy of approval because this bill simply remedies a mistake clearly caused by a Federal agency.

This issue stems from the fact that during the original enrollment process following passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, Michael Faber enrolled in the Sealaska Corporation, the tenth of the thirteen corporations created by the Act, along with his father, Clyde Benjamin Faber, his brother Gary Dennis Faber and his sister Debra Marlene Faber. Michael Faber's enrollment was approved by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and he received Sealaska share number 13-752-39665-01, and an initial 100 shares of stock in the Sealaska Corporation. The family lived in Metlakatla, Alaska prior to passage of the claims act, and by the time of implementation of the act had moved to Juneau, AK.

In the mid-1960s Mr. Faber joined the U.S. Army and was stationed in Germany. At some point in 1976, while Mr. Faber was on duty with the Army, and consequently had an out-of-Alaska mailing address, someone in BIW apparently moved to shift his enrollment from the Sealaska Corp. to the then newly created 13th Corporation. That corporation was intended to serve the needs of Alaska Natives living outside of Alaska.

Under the law, Mr. Faber was sent a ballot that he was required to sign to accept the shift in enrollment. However, he never received the ballot; it was returned to BIA--unopened and unsigned. Mr. Faber had been badly injured during his military service and, in early 1976, was in and out of rehabilitation hospitals and clinics at different locations. By late 1976, Mr. Faber spent 19 months in a military hospital in Texas recovering from severe burns. Unfortunately, someone at BIA went ahead, and without Mr. Faber's legal approval, administratively completed the enrollment shift. Mr. Faber eventually was placed on the military's Temporary Disability Retirement List, TDRL, and then was involved in years of post-service counseling. It wasn't until after his recovery that he fully realized he had been shifted from Sealaska to the 13th Corporation, and it was then that he began his effort to be reenrolled in the Sealaska Corp.

The record indicates that during the 1990s BIA acknowledged it made an error in shifting Mr. Faber's enrollment without his written approval. Unfortunately, by then BIA believed it did not have the legal authority to reenroll Mr. Faber in the Sealaska Corporation shareholder rolls. Over the years, Mr. Faber won a resolution of support by the Sealaska Corporation's Board of Directors. The resolution welcomed his

reinstatement to that corporation. He filed in U.S. District Court in Idaho a request for a writ ordering BIA to change his enrollment back to membership in Sealaska. In late 2012, however, a Federal judge in Idaho encouraged all parties to dismiss the suit without prejudice. Accordingly, there is no avenue for this injustice to be rectified without congressional authorization of Mr. Faber's reenrollment in the Sealaska Corp.

This case has been complicated by the fact that Mr. Faber moved back to the community of Metlakatla, Alaska in the mid-1990s to work as the Executive Director of the Metlakatla Housing Authority. The complication is that residents of Metlakatla, the main community on the Annette Island Indian Reservation, were allowed by ANCSA to maintain their reservation status--the only reservation in the state to be reauthorized by the claims settlement act. But in return, members of the Metlakatla Indian Community were required to denounce other ANCSA benefits. This legislation, to prevent any precedents and to clarify the factual record, not only requires Mr. Faber to surrender or abrogate any possible membership in the Metlakatla Indian Community before his enrollment in the Sealaska Corp. can take effect, but also in no way alters the Section 19(a) provisions of ANCSA involving Metlakatla reservation status.

Mr. Faber has been waiting for nearly 40 years for someone to champion his quest to be restored to the Sealaska Corp., a legacy he wants largely for the benefit of his children. This legislation will allow Mr. Faber retroactive benefits only to 2011. In that year, Sealaska's board voted to welcome Mr. Faber back to its membership. It also voted to support the legislation. The bill sets no precedents for other Natives to seek changes in their ANCSA enrollments because of the unique and singular nature of the clerical error that was responsible for this change in enrollment status in the first place. This bill will simply treat Mr. Faber and his descendants humanely and formally recognize their legal and cultural status as Alaska Natives.

I hope that Congress will see fit to pass this bill promptly--truly the right and just result.

Mr. President, our national security depends upon minerals that enable nearly all of the defense and weapons systems used by the U.S. Armed Forces. These minerals are also critical to the clean energy, electronics, and medical industries. Yet, for how critical these minerals are, the vast majority of our domestic supply is imported from China in order to reduce cost. In fact, China supplies 90 to 95 percent of our rare earth oxides, a special class of critical minerals. We have seen how dangerous this dependence can be--in 2009, China choked off the supply of these materials to the rest of the world, restricting exports by 72 percent and causing the prices of rare earth elements to skyrocket here in the U.S.

I am pleased to join Senators Murkowski, Udall, and Heller as the leading sponsors of bipartisan legislation to prevent future supply shocks of these critical minerals that are the key to our defense, energy, electronics, and medical industries by expanding U.S. production and supply of these important substances. This legislation-- the Critical Minerals Policy Act of 2013--builds on two bills that were introduced in the 112th Congress and which were referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. S. 383, the Critical Minerals and Materials Promotion Act of 2011, which I cosponsored, was introduced by Senator Mark Udall. S. 1113, the Critical Minerals Policy Act, was introduced by Senator Murkowski. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on these bills in June 2011, and this new bill is a product of those efforts. We are being joined by 13 of our Senate colleagues as original bipartisan cosponsors: Senators Risch, Hagan, Thune, Begich, Enzi, Coons, Hoeven, Landrieu, Coats, Klobuchar, Blunt, Franken, and Crapo.

Critical minerals are pervasive in our everyday life. Let me give you a few examples. They are the key to stronger permanent magnets, which allow for smaller electric motors and other electronic devices, as well as for more efficient clean wind energy and MRI machines. They are essential for rechargeable batteries in hybrid and electric vehicles and the high-efficiency motors that power them. They are vital to phosphors, which give us more efficient lighting and flat panel displays. They serve as catalysts for fuel cells and for refining automobile fuel. Our Armed Forces also rely on critical minerals every time they use night-vision goggles, heads-up displays, satellite images, radar systems, high-energy laser weapons, precision-guided missiles, and fighter jets. By one estimate, the Defense Department alone constitutes 5 percent of total U.S. demand for rare earth elements. In short, critical minerals are so indispensable that we can't imagine life without them. They are called critical minerals because they are indeed critical to the development of so many high- tech weapons systems and commercial products.

Although China currently enjoys near-monopoly in the global production of critical minerals, the truth is that it doesn't have to be this way. China only holds 50 percent of the world's natural reserves, while the U.S. holds about 13 percent of the world's reserves, according a recent study by the U.S. Geological Survey. In fact, a large part of the critical minerals supply shock in 2009 was due to uncertainty about the global distribution of critical minerals. When China began to restrict supply, the rest of the world was in the dark about what alternative sources of supply were even available. Clearly, there is significant work to be done in this field.

The bill being introduced today outlines a series of measures to expand U.S. supplies of critical minerals starting with the identification of which minerals and elements are truly in need of special attention. The bill then requires the Interior Department to conduct assessments of where these minerals are located within the U.S. and expands research to find more efficient ways of extracting and processing those minerals. The bill also includes research programs to extract critical minerals from unconventional sources, such as coal or geothermal energy wells, as well as recycling these important substances from obsolete devices. The bill also requires the two lead agencies which manage our public lands and forests--the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture--to reexamine the permitting processes for hard rock minerals under current law to see if there are ways of reducing delays for mining projects that would extract critical minerals. This legislation also includes programs to enable our next generation of scientists studying critical minerals and to prepare them for jobs in these fields as well as efforts to work with our international trading partners on expanding worldwide supplies of these materials.

I commend Senator Murkowski for her leadership on this issue. This legislation is important for our national security. It is important for our high-tech manufacturing industries. It is important for U.S. competitiveness. I ask all Senators to support this bipartisan legislation.

Mr. President, I rise today to honor the late Judge Paul Brown, and to urge the Senate to adopt a bill I am introducing, along with the Senior Senator from Texas. This bill will rename the Federal courthouse in Sherman, TX, as the Paul Brown United States Courthouse.

Judge Brown was a Federal judge for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. He joined the court in 1985, after being nominated by President Reagan. He served on that court admirably until his death on November 26, 2012.

Judge Paul Brown was born on October 4, 1926. He was the youngest of 6 children. He was raised on a farm near Pottsboro, TX. He graduated from Denison High School in 1943.

He left home to attend the University of Texas at Austin. But with World War II escalating, he left UT to enlist in the Navy at the age of 17. He returned to UT, where he got his law degree in 1950. He is said to have loved UT so much that a fellow judge once recalled that although Judge Brown never wore a burnt orange tie on the bench, you could see him ``glow orange'' by simply mentioning UT.

Just after Judge Brown got his law degree, the Korean War began. And he served our country admirably once again in the Navy from 1950 to 1951. In 1951, he returned to Sherman, TX, and began private practice. In 1953, he was appointed as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas. President Eisenhower named him U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas in 1959.

After meeting and marrying Francis Morehead in Texarkana, Judge Brown then moved back to Sherman and reentered private practice in 1961. After almost a quarter century of practicing law in Sherman, Senator Phil Gramm recommended Judge Brown to President Reagan for a new vacancy in the Eastern District of Texas.

Judge Brown was confirmed for this vacancy in 1985. He served with distinction for the next 27 years. Judge Brown took senior status in 2001. At Judge Brown's retirement celebration, Chief Judge Heartfield called Judge Brown ``a textbook member'' of ``the Greatest Generation.''

His legacy lives on today, as the Judge Paul Brown Endowed Scholarship was established at the University of Texas School of Law in 2005. He was honored as a Distinguished Alumnus of Denison High School in 2006.

Judge Brown will be missed by his family, his community, and his nation. He, and his family, deserve this great honor, as the people of Sherman, TX, will forever remember the great jurist, Judge Paul Brown.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.