I have an amendment at the desk, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, you may recall, yesterday, I gave an impassioned plea in favor of a different version of this amendment, which was ruled out of order. I am hoping for a better result tonight; but…
I have an amendment at the desk, Madam Chair.
Madam Chair, you may recall, yesterday, I gave an impassioned plea in favor of a different version of this amendment, which was ruled out of order. I am hoping for a better result tonight; but in any event, there is only so much passion in the world, so I will keep my remarks short.
I rise today to address a growing problem throughout our country, which is the militarization of local law enforcement agencies. The New York Times recently reported that police departments have received thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment and hundreds of silencers, armored cars, and aircraft directly from the Department of Defense. These are military weapons.
I think this is appalling. That is why my amendment would prohibit the Department of Defense from gifting excess equipment, such as aircraft--including drones--armored vehicles, grenade launchers, silencers, and bombs to local police departments. Those weapons have no place in our streets, regardless of who may be deploying them.
As The New York Times article ``War Gear Flows to Police Departments'' explains:
Police SWAT teams are now deployed tens of thousands of
times each year, increasingly for routine jobs. Masked,
heavily armed police officers in Louisiana raided a nightclub
in 2006 as part of a liquor inspection. In Florida in 2010,
officers in SWAT gear and with guns drawn carried out raids
on barbershops that mostly led only to charges of ``barbering
without a license.''
One South Carolina sheriff's department now takes a new tank that it received from the Department of Defense with a mounted .50-caliber gun to schools and community events. The department's spokesman calls that tank a ``conversation starter.''
I don't think this is the way I want my America to be. I think we should help our police act like public servants, not like warriors at war.
I think we should facilitate a view of America where the streets are safe and they don't resemble a war zone, no matter who is deploying that equipment. We don't want America to look like an occupied territory.
I hope for the support of my colleagues, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, what I am saying is not so much a question of whether the equipment is being occasionally misused. The question really has become whether it is ever properly used.
Can any of the gentlemen here tonight or anyone else identify a single act of terrorism that was thwarted by handing police officers helicopters that are militarized, bombs, and all sorts of gear that you would only expect to see on the battlefield?
In fact, I would venture to say that the only examples we can come up with for the actual use of these objects is the misuse of these objects, the examples that I gave that were pointed out in national media.
These weapons are not being used to defeat terrorism on our streets. Where is the terrorism on our streets? Instead, these weapons are being used to arrest barbers and to terrorize the general population. In fact, one may venture to say that the weapons are often used by a majority to terrorize a minority.
Certainly, we know of many cases--both recent and in the deep, dark past--where police have used their weapons improperly for the sake of brutality. Now, it used to be that they could only use billy clubs or guns.
Now, they can use helicopters and bombs. Before long, I suppose, given the logic propounded by my colleagues, they will be able to deploy nuclear weapons. That is not an America that I want to live in.
I respectfully submit that this amendment deserves support. We are not cutting off the use of any equipment that is already in the field. On the contrary, that is gone. That is out the door.
Bear in mind that, under the current program, these weapons are given without any strings attached. These are weapons of mass destruction, and they are deployed within our borders by our military to our law enforcement. That is not something I can abide.
I reserve the balance of my time.
I think my colleagues must be attacking some other amendment, not this amendment. This is not an amendment that restricts the distribution of guns or ammunition; rather, this is an amendment that restricts the distribution of armored vehicles, grenade launchers, silencers, toxicological agents, chemical agents, biological agents, launch vehicles, guided missiles, ballistic missiles, rockets, torpedoes, bombs, mines, and nuclear weapons.
Unfortunately, Madam Chair, those are all legally permitted to be distributed to our local law enforcement under current law. That is what I am trying to prevent here.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
Mr. Chairman, this is an amendment that is substantially similar to an amendment that passed by unanimous voice vote among Democrats and Republicans on the House Science and Technology Committee a couple of weeks ago.
My amendment, the Grayson-Holt-Lofgren amendment, seeks to address a serious problem. Recently, it was revealed that the National Security Agency has been recklessly subverting American cryptographic standards--and deliberately so.
Cryptographic standards for the national security community and the commercial software industry are developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST. That is an agency within the House Science and Technology jurisdiction.
These standards are intended to protect Americans from foreign intelligence agencies, from cyber criminals, from industrial espionage, and from privacy violations by those who wish us harm. They are embedded in software products which are used and sold widely--in fact, almost universally in this country and elsewhere.
Unfortunately, recent media reports indicate that the National Security Agency successfully and deliberately weakened encryption standards promulgated by NIST to further NSA surveillance goals at the cost of the privacy of ordinary U.S. citizens--in fact, universally throughout the United States.
This is extremely dangerous. It leaves users of these standards vulnerable to anybody who is familiar with these weaknesses.
We can recall that, just a few weeks ago, millions of Americans were told that they had to change their user IDs and their passwords. That, Mr. Chairman, was because of this.
The NSA apparently is doing this as part of its domestic spying program, but as World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee put it:
It's naive to imagine that, if you deliberately introduce
into a system a weakness, you will be the only one to use it.
My amendment would seek to address this issue by prohibiting the intelligence community from subverting or interfering with the integrity of any cryptographic standard that is proposed, developed, or adopted by NIST.
It is only common sense that we should not want taxpayers' dollars that are appropriated to one agency being used to deliberately and actively subvert the work of another agency and, at the same time, destroy the privacy and the liberty and the personal property of our own citizens.
I urge support for this amendment on both sides of the aisle, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I want to, in some respects, associate myself with the remarks of the gentleman from New Jersey.
Obviously, we have a difference of agreement about the facts, but I think we agree that the NSA should actually be helping to establish the best possible standards for privacy in this country, regardless of whether the published reports that have been widely reported in the media are true or not.
I appreciate the gentleman's allegiance to the underlying principle that Americans deserve privacy.
How much time do I have remaining, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey.
Mr. Chairman, I join in the gentleman's desire to move on, and I appreciate the gentleman's fair consideration of this amendment on the merits.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk, Grayson Amendment 5.
Mr. Chairman, the amendment at the desk is simple. It reads as you just read it.
As you know, Guantanamo was opened for business, so to speak, in January of 2002. It is now June of 2014.
My amendment seems to give some kind of clue as to how long we, a free people who respect freedom, are willing to incarcerate and imprison people who have been accused of no crime, have faced no judge, no jury, and have never been subject to the American system of justice.
My amendment has no immediate effect during this fiscal year. As it says, it is limited to persons who have served for 15 years or more at Guantanamo Bay. The facility itself is only 12 years old.
What this amendment does do is ensure that no funds will be made available by this bill that are carried over to future fiscal years and are then used to imprison anyone for 15 years or longer if they haven't been accused, much less convicted of any crime.
I would hope that we, as a free people, would understand that principle and agree that this is reasonable.
Nobody, nobody, foreign or American, should be subject to imprisonment for more than 15 years without ever even facing his accusers, much less being convicted of a crime. That is particularly true under the auspices of the U.S. Government because we are a people of laws, not a people of people.
This amendment is silent as to whether detainees could be convicted under an article III court, a military tribunal, a commission, or some other form of court with the authority to render any judgment.
It simply says that a person must be convicted of a crime or must be released from Guantanamo if they have served 15 years, 15 years, Mr. Chairman, of detention.
We have speedy trial rules in this country that guarantee the right to face your accusers within 6 months. These prisoners, both the innocent ones and the guilty ones, have been incarcerated without hearing any charges against them now for more than a decade.
I would urge my colleagues to support this commonsense amendment and recognize the dignity of all human beings, whether or not they have the privilege to be American citizens.
In the year 1209, in a French city called Beziers, a monk oversaw the Albigensian crusade. The crusaders were brought into that city to deal with the heretics, the Albigensians, who lived in that French town. Arnaud Amelric, a monk, was asked: What should we do with these people, these Christians who are like us who don't believe exactly what we believe?
He said: Kill them all and let God sort it out.
That has stood for many years as a signal that we must expect more from civilized people than that. We are holding these people in that prison, all of them, the innocent and the guilty apparently, under current rules, forever and ever and ever.
What is worse, killing them all and letting God sort it out, or holding them forever and not letting them ever meet their God but remain in prison for their entire lives?
I submit to you that we Americans are better than this. There has to be some kind of limitation.
This amendment will not force the release of anyone imminently, but will be a signal to all mankind that we, the American people, we retain our dignity and our humanity.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
I would respectfully submit that, on the gentleman's logic, there is no longer any distinction between the innocent and the guilty.
Those who are at Guantanamo Bay undoubtedly contain both innocent and guilty, but those categories, under the gentleman's logic, do not even apply to them any longer. They are simply captives forever and ever, going untried until they themselves decide to end their life, and we permit it. That is a fundamentally undignified view of the human conditions.
Whatever these people may be, American or not American, they are not just innocent until proven guilty, but on the gentleman's logic, they are not just guilty until proven innocent. They are guilty, guilty, guilty--no matter what.
That is something that is fundamentally unfair to them and to us and has cast an aspersion and a blotch on the American reputation throughout the world. That is why I call on this to end.
I am not saying that these people need to be released. I am saying that they need to be tried. Let's get to the bottom of it and determine if they are guilty or innocent. For God's sake, let's stop punishing the innocent.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Well, of course, nothing that we do here today is likely to bring any of those victims back; but as President Lincoln once said, It is for we, the living--we, the living, that carry forth the principles of justice.
I yield back the balance of my time.