Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I would just like to underscore the seriousness of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act fix. We did it, as the gentleman knows, last August, for a 6-month period of time, the Protect America Act. It was enough bipartisan support that it passed, but it had a 6-month life on it. Since February 16 at 12:01 a.m. we have not had that or similar ability for our intelligence community to act.

While they made some decisions within that 6-month period which carry over to the present time, as the gentleman from Maryland knows, we

are up against it with respect to this summer.

I know that the distinguished majority leader announced his hope that we would have some sort of answer on this before Memorial Day. We missed that date. The gentleman knows our position, that a vast majority of Members on this side of the aisle, combined with the Members on your side of the aisle who have publicly said they would support the bipartisan Senate version, would give us that answer today. But I understand that the gentleman is attempting to mollify more Members on his side of the aisle.

So my question would be, can the distinguished majority leader give us some idea of when we might see something on the floor that we might vote on that might in his judgment get enough bipartisan support to pass in the event that you continue not to bring us the Senate bill?

Will the gentleman further yield?

The distinguished majority leader has indicated we did not have the urgency of passing this because until August of next year it appeared that we had certain protections. We can't articulate what those are here on the floor. So I guess my question would be, does the gentleman expect that we will have it to vote before we leave for our recess in August?

Madam Chairman, I apologize. I'm not a member of the committee involved. I was not really that alert to what this bill is, but listening to some of the debate, it just caused me some pause to reflect on maybe we found the answer to the question I keep being asked at my town hall meetings which is, How do you folks back there allow the budget to get so large? How do you get such deficit spending? What is going on back there?

Well, let's see. I just heard Members on the other side of the aisle say this is a Federal responsibility. In fact, I just heard this argued as a jobs program. This will stimulate the economy. Well, if that's the case, let's multiply it by 10. If this is going to create that many more jobs, let's ten 100 times. We will take care of all of the unemployment in America.

The idea that somehow we have the responsibility on the Federal level to now fund the programs for construction and air-conditioning and heating and so forth in schools, what is left for local taxpayers to do? Oh, I'm sorry. Local taxpayers are also the Federal taxpayers and the State taxpayers. I forgot that because we forget that here.

I just heard the gentleman previously on the other side say his school districts are strapped. They can't pay for it. But magically, we can pay for it here because I guess when my constituents get up in the morning they say, Well, this morning I'm a local taxpayer but at noon I will be a State taxpayer, tonight I will be a Federal taxpayer. I can't afford to pay for it in the morning; I'm not sure I can pay for it yet, but magically I can pay for it tonight because--well, I don't know. I guess this money comes from nowhere.

I mean, does anybody understand we're talking about a new program that's never existed before? But now, now the very future of the Republic depends on this program.

I heard another Member on the other side of the aisle say students can't learn when they're sweating, I guess. Well, I confess. I went to Catholic school. We didn't have air-conditioning in Southern California when it was 103, and it was hot. I remember sweating through my shirts, and it was uncomfortable. But give me a break. You're telling me that there's a Federal responsibility to put air-conditioning in every building that school kids are going to?

I would just ask the American people is this what they think the Federal Government is supposed to be doing? We should go around and find every single wrong thing or something that is not perfectly right and then the Federal Government is going to take care of it? Now, if that is the case, we will never come close to fiscal responsibility, and we're going to do this on top of the fact that we have mandatory spending programs that, if you look at the payout, by the year 2042-- and I know that's a long way away, but my grandkids will probably be concerned about it--as was stated not too long ago in testimony before one of our committees, if we continue spending the way it is, we will have no room for discretionary spending----

As the head of OMB said at that time, including defense. That's the first time I ever heard of defense called discretionary.

But the point is there are certain responsibilities that are the Federal Government's. And I remember when we started the--I am old enough to remember that. I happened to be in Congress shortly after that when President Carter was elected and we established the Department of Education because we said the Federal Government ought to play a small role, small but important role in education.

Well, now if we're going to be responsible for construction for air- conditioning, for heating, for environmentally friendly construction, where does it end? I guess it ends at the taxpayers' pocketbook. But we just pretend that we're not taking from the pocketbook here because it is the Federal Government that doesn't cost anybody anything, but we are here to rescue everybody on the Federal level because they can't afford to pay for it at the local or State level.

Maybe that makes sense here in Washington, but I don't think it makes sense anywhere else. Maybe this is ``Alice in Wonderland,'' but where I come from, people know that when you take a dollar out of their pocket, it's one less dollar they have.

You have to understand I'm not on the committee. So I'm not an expert on that. I'm just a regular Member of Congress who heard the debate as I was walking by.

Well, I would think so. I would think that it's certainly a greater priority to help that program, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, that we assume that as a responsibility, and I can argue back home that that is a shared Federal responsibility.

I don't think this bill rises to that level, and it seems to me if we use money for this and not for disabilities, aren't we shortchanging a program which really has a Federal responsibility for this? I know it sounds good because it's a new program.

I just noticed this. Maybe it's because I came back after 16 years. I find it's awfully easy to say billions and trillions.

I found when I was gone for 16 years, I couldn't find billion and trillion so easy to say. But once we're here, it's awfully easy to say, and then it kind of masks the costs to the local taxpayer because the average person can't figure out what $1 trillion is or $1 billion because that's not within their area of experience.

But what it means, I would hope that folks back home would understand, if we were ever to talk to them about this, that this is coming out of their pocket. And if they believe they can't afford it back home, how can they afford it here, first?

Secondly, we have a commitment to programs like those for children with disabilities. Shouldn't we try and fund that to a higher level first before we start on this path to a new program?

Again, I'm not a member of the committee, and I know the gentleman has served on the committee. But that's a simple question.

I'm not sure the chairman of the committee shares that sentiment, but I appreciate that, and I thank the gentleman for the time.

Madam Speaker, well, here we are after nine months, today, May 19, and this body is yet to provide Admiral McConnell with the tools he's asked for in order to protect the American people from another cataclysmic attack against our Nation.

When the Director of National Intelligence, Admiral McConnell, first came to Congress for help, he was only given a 180-day authority to conduct surveillance, which he described at the time as necessary to close critical intelligence gaps. Of course, after a short 2-week extension, that authority, which we called the Protect America Act, actually expired on February 16 at 12:01 a.m.

So we're in day 95. Three months and 5 days later, 13 weeks later, 22,080 hours later, 136,800 minutes after the FISA fix which we gave to the intelligence community of our Nation, that fix expired. Unfortunately, the so-called RESTORE Act, passed as a substitute by the majority party, repealed core provisions requested by Admiral McConnell.

While the Senate passed a bipartisan 6-year extension of a new FISA bill based on the Protect America Act, thus responding to the real world concerns of our Director of National Intelligence, unfortunately the Members of this chamber were denied a clean up-or-down vote on it. The end result is that here we are, nine months from the time this process of fits and starts began, without an effective response to the most serious national security threat of our time.

Madam Speaker, are we supposed to believe that al Qaeda has somehow lost its determination to kill innocent Americans? Well, as recently as Friday, Osama bin Laden was issuing threats against both the little Satan and the big Satan. I don't know about you, but I think we should want to remove all obstacles to listening in on his conversations.

For there is no evidence, none whatsoever, that these homicidal extremists have any less desire to kill us and others perceived by their twisted psychotic logic to be legitimate targets. Yes, innocent men, women and children.

No, the evidence is unequivocal and clear. Since 2001, attacks actual and premeditated have been a constant across the globe: attacks in Bali, Indonesia, in 2002 and 2005; a planned attack on Barcelona 2003; a deadly attack in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2003; a foiled plot in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2003; a deadly attack in Casablanca, Morocco, in 2003; a terrible attack in Madrid, Spain, in March 2004; attempted attacks in the Philippines 2004; a deadly London attack in July 2005; a plan to blow up airliners over the Atlantic in 2006; an attack in Algeria in 2006; an intended attack in Denmark in 2007; and a planned attack in Germany in 2007. Al Qaeda has also tried to overthrow the governments of Egypt in 2004, Jordan in 2005 and Saudi Arabia in 2007.

For we no longer live in a world where wishful thinking is permissible, if we wish to fulfill our obligation to those who sent us here to represent them and to protect them and future Americans, this is the first obligation of government, and we no longer have the option of pretending otherwise. Although, pretending otherwise seems to be in the air these days.

The President of the United States addressed a session of the Knesset in Israel. There, celebrating the 60th anniversary or birthday of the State of Israel, in the context of remarks made by the leader of Iran to wipe off the face of the earth Israel, in light of other comments made by others affiliated with terrorists that we should see the day soon where Israel will no longer exist, in the context of speaking to a country whose birth grew out of the terrible experiences of the Holocaust in Germany, the President of the United States referred to the failure to act at that time by America and other countries around the world, the failure to even admit that there was a serious problem of cataclysmic consequence.

And when the President merely quoted a senator from that era who happened, by the way, to be a Republican, to suggest in the words of this senator of that time that if he'd just had a chance to talk with Hitler perhaps the future of the world would have been different, when the President merely says that in the context of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, at a time when there are those in this world crying for their destruction, and at a time when rockets are lobbed into Israel on almost a daily basis, the response by some in this country is to criticize the President for uttering those words, to suggest that he had no right to say that, and to suggest that somehow he was accusing others of appeasement, who he had not even named.

Was the President suggesting that terrible circumstances in the world,

adding up to a threat against us and those who ally with us, are dismissed by some as insubstantial or inconsequential? I think the President did suggest that. I think the President thought or stated that people who hold that view are dangerous to themselves and others because they are not confronting the evil that is in the world today.

And sometimes that appears to be the problem we have here. Where is the sense of urgency about the threat that is around us?

Sometimes, when we just talk about it, those that talk about it are accused of being fearmongers, trying to stir up the country, trying to take rights away when, in fact, they are merely reciting the facts in the world today.

Our policy as a Nation must begin with the recognition of reality. However inconvenient or discomforting it must be for some of us, we must recognize that meeting the challenge posed by those who seek to kill us is going to be not a short-term challenge, but a long-term challenge. It will, therefore, require a long-term commitment to and a long-term investment in our security. And this must begin with the recognition by the leadership of this body that listening to the conversations of terrorists overseas is essential to our ability to protect ourselves and those who live in neighborhoods and communities across this great Nation.

As a member of the Homeland Security Committee, I can say that over the 4 years the committee has been in existence we have sought to work together, Democrat and Republican, to try to protect and secure our homeland from another horrific attack. And it is my view that, although we are considerably safer today than we were on 9/11, we are, nonetheless, not safe enough.

We must never accept the mistaken notion that we can achieve security on the cheap, either in money, tactics or strategy. I fear, however, that we have lost that sense of urgency corresponding to the real risk to our Nation. A proper understanding of the risk requires a vigorous and rigorous assessment of our vulnerability, the consequence of our enemy successfully penetrating that vulnerability, and the threats to our vulnerabilities. In other words, risk equals threat plus vulnerability plus consequences.

And while all three components are important, and some would say all are equal, I would argue that one is more equal than the others, and that is threat. Why do I say that? I say that because we have it within our capacity of knowledge to know what our vulnerabilities are. We can assess a dam. We can assess this building. We can assess the White House. We can assess our distribution systems of electricity and see where the vulnerabilities are. We can run computer models. We can even run simulated attacks and discover what those vulnerabilities are. Similarly, we have it within our capacity to know the consequences. We can figure out what the consequence of destruction of this building would be, what the destruction of a particular dam would be, what the destruction of a distribution system for power would be in a particular area of this country. But what we don't have in our own arsenal of knowledge is an understanding of the threat, because the threat, in large measure, resides in the minds of those who would attack us and, therefore, we have to try and get into their minds. That is why I would suggest that the threat component of a risk assessment is perhaps more equal than the others.

It remains my belief that the threat of another attack is real, not imaginary. You do not have to take my word for it or anybody on this side of the aisle or the President of the United States, for the murderous extremists themselves have not been shy concerning their purposes and objectives. Al-Zawahiri has said, ``Like their glorious ancestors, the Afghan jihadists believed that they, too, had brought down one global superpower, and now these modern-day knights must recommit their efforts to wreaking havoc on the remaining one, the United States.''

In October 2001, just one month after September 11, bin Laden said, and I quote him directly, ``If inciting people to do that''--he's referring to 9/11--``is terrorism, and if killing those who are killing our sons is terrorism, then let history be witness that we are terrorists. We practice the good terrorism.'' The next year, Osama bin Laden issued a fatwa authorizing the killing of up to four million Americans and specifying that half of them should be children. Those are not my words, those are not my threats, those are the threats of Osama bin Laden.

I believe the threat to be real. And the consequences of al Qaeda obtaining weapons of mass destruction regrettably cannot be put in the category of unthinkable because of the evidence of their efforts to do so, thankfully unsuccessful to this point.

My point, however, is that we cannot rely solely on our domestic efforts to secure the homeland, as important as they are, and thereby hope that we will reach a level of perfection in that we are capable of foiling every single terrorist plot in order to prevent a cataclysmic attack on our Nation. No. The consequences are simply too horrendous to not use every tool available to us.

The ability to capture the communications of terrorists overseas before they are able to strike is a key component of being able to extend our defensive perimeter beyond the shores of our homeland. As Brian Jenkins of the Rand Corporation has pointed out, in the terror attacks since 9/11 we have seen combinations of local conspiracies inspired by, assisted by and guided by al Qaeda's central leadership. It is essential that while protecting the basic rights of American citizens, we find ways to facilitate the collection and exchange of intelligence across national and bureaucratic borders.

Again, as this Rand Corporation scholar points out, if we are to be successful in the protection of American citizens, the collection of intelligence must be a central component of our strategy. Our concern here is not to spy on Americans, but, rather, to listen to the conversations of those who want to kill Americans, and to be even more specific, to listen in on those conversations of those who are outside the United States and who happen to be plotting to kill Americans.

Now, some have said, what if such calls happen to be made by, say, Osama bin Laden or one of his lieutenants or some associate to someone inside the United States, doesn't this raise civil liberties and privacy concerns because of the fact that an American happens to be on the receiving end of the call? Again, the objective of our efforts remains to target a foreign terrorist. From a technical standpoint, one should understand that it is only possible to target one end of the conversation. Furthermore, our intelligence agencies have no control over who that overseas terrorist suspect may call. 99.9 percent of the time it may be, and we believe it to be, another foreign person, most likely someone that they are talking about their terrorist activities with.

Admiral McConnell made this very point in responding to questioning during our Judiciary Committee hearing; the admiral responded this way: ``When you're conducting surveillance in the context of electronic surveillance, you can only target one end of the conversation. So you have no control over who that number might call or who they might receive a call from.'' Furthermore, if Osama bin Laden happens to dial the wrong number and gets a pizza delivery boy or girl in San Diego, there are minimization procedures in the law, in the Protect America Act, in the current circumstances in which they operate these programs, minimization procedures to protect the privacy rights of the innocent American on the other end of the line. It is similar to the minimization processes that we use every single day when law enforcement in the United States, acting on a legal wiretap against a suspected criminal, overhears the conversation involving someone on that criminal's phone and somebody else. And if that person is an innocent actor in all of this, that part of the conversation is minimized. If, in fact, it turns out that the specific legal target we have is calling someone who also is involved in the illegal activity, then the process or procedure, as followed for years--I think as many as 50 years--is to go to court and get a warrant with respect to that other person. That is precisely the format that we use under the Protect America Act.

The purpose of the surveillance of foreign terrorists overseas is nothing

more or nothing less than to do this single thing: to listen to the foreign terrorist overseas. I hasten to add, however, that if Osama bin Laden or one of his lieutenants happens to call somebody in the United States, it probably doesn't take a rocket scientist to surmise that this is probably a conversation that our intelligence community might be interested in. Nevertheless, they would have to follow the procedures I've just outlined because the target of the surveillance would be Osama bin Laden outside of the United States. The conversation he has with someone in the United States, if that were to take place, would be subject to minimization.

I would hope that this surely would be an issue we could agree upon. However, here we are, 9 months after Admiral McConnell came to the Congress with the entreaty that we need to ``close critical intelligence gaps,'' 95 days after the short-term fix has gone out of existence--that's 3 months and 5 days ago--and here we are basically accepting a failure to close critical intelligence gaps as requested by Admiral McConnell.

We were told that we were failing to surveil somewhere between one- half and two-thirds of the overseas conversations that we should be listening to. What do we mean by that? We mean the same type of terrorist targets that we've been keying on for years because we didn't have this problem prior to a year ago March, when a FISA judge--that's the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court judge--said that because the technology had changed from the time the law was originally passed in 1978, from most overseas, long-distance conversations or overseas conversations going through the air, going through satellite transmission and thereby capable of being captured by our intelligence community and therefore not under the FISA law, to the point now where technology actually has most of that, the vast majority of those kinds of conversations being carried by wire with connections that happen to be somewhere in the United States.

So while the content of the conversation hasn't changed, the means by which the transmission of the conversation has changed, and that technicality was used by the judge to say you now have to get a warrant and go through all of those procedures necessary to protect the interests of someone in the United States under the Constitution. Now they have to be applied to these foreign conversations, not because the conversation has changed, not because the target has changed, rather, because the technology of transmission had changed. Oh, by the way, the judge suggested, we are told, that it didn't appear to be the intent of Congress when they wrote the law in 1978, and he suggested that the intelligence community go to the Congress for the change.

So here we are. We have failed to provide the Director of National Intelligence with the tools that he told us he needs if he is able to do his job and able to protect the American people, the job he is sworn to do. In my estimation, this is surely one of the great failures of this or any other Congress, to live up to what is generally recognized to be our primary responsibility, to protect those who have empowered us to act on their behalf.

And let me add at this point that such a failure appears to be entirely inexcusable in a post-September 11 environment. It is for that reason most troubling to learn that U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Admiral McConnell, Director of National Intelligence, have indicated that we have lost intelligence information as a direct result of ``the uncertainty created by Congress' fail to act.''

So let me repeat, both the top law enforcement official in the Federal Government and the most senior intelligence officer in our Federal Government have told us that there have been direct consequences resulting from the fact that this body has dropped the ball since February 15th of this year.

It should be interjected that neither of these men have a history of partisan political agendas. Attorney General Mukasey has a solid reputation as a sober-minded former Federal judge with great expertise in national security law. Judge Mukasey presided over the criminal production of Omar Abdel Rahman and El Sayyid Nosair relating to their plot to blow up the United Nations and other Manhattan landmarks uncovered in an investigation of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. As a testimony to his stature as a jurist, his name was one of four submitted by the senior Senator from New York for consideration as a possible United States Supreme Court nominee.

In a similar vein, Admiral McConnell has a solid reputation of service to his country in both Democratic and Republican administrations. Along with a distinguished military career, his service as Chief of the National Security Agency for I believe 6 years during the Clinton administration is a testimony to his nonpartisan service. One noteworthy incident alone provides us with persuasive evidence of Admiral McConnell's independent judgement. Now, regardless of how one interprets the most recent National Intelligence Estimate concerning Iran, the one that was so controversial, any attempt to attack Admiral McConnell as a ``tool'' of the Bush administration would appear to lack all credibility. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that Admiral McConnell is a man of honor who calls it as he sees it.

Both officials have told the Congress what the country needs, and yet the majority of this body has told them no. Both officials have told the Congress that the country needs help, and yet the majority in this body has told them no, told them no, that they know better. Now, although institutional pride makes it painful for me to say it, the truth requires an acknowledgement that the other body did rise to the challenge of avoiding partisanship.

They did it with a bipartisan bill, which, although distinct in some aspects from the administration proposal, nevertheless was responsive to the request by Admiral McConnell. And this is as it should be. For the responsibility to give the intelligence community what it says it needs for its surveillance of foreign terrorists outside the United States has absolutely nothing to do with partisan politics. Our intelligence needs out there in the real world are critical to what theorists refer to as a zero-sum game. Our failure to obtain the intelligence we need to discover a terrorist attack planned outside the United States is a loss for all Americans. Those killed on 9/11 weren't Republicans or Democrats; they were human beings. Most were Americans but many were not. We owe it to those who perished, to those who live today, and to further generations not to allow transient political considerations to cloud our judgment. The Senate has shown that it's possible, even in even-numbered years, to do what's right.

So how is it, then, that men and women in this body, who I know personally to be persons of goodwill, have resisted the call to bipartisanship by public servants like Attorney General Mukasey and Admiral McConnell? How is it that, unlike the Senate, we have been unable to, in my judgment, rise above partisanship?

Let me make it clear that I have the deepest respect for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who obviously love their country, as I do, and their patriotism is not an issue in this debate. So I searched to try to figure out what is it? And I have come to the conclusion that at its root, this terrible error can be found in the misgotten judgment of the Democratic leadership of this body to draw a line in the sand over an issue of providing lawsuit immunity protection for those telecommunications companies and individuals who may have come to the aid of their country in the aftermath of the horrific attacks on 9/11. The so-called Restore Act, which passed this body, did nothing, does nothing, to protect those who responded to the call for help from their government. Instead, the response of the leadership of this body was to throw those people into a litigation tank filled with plaintiff's lawyers. The grant of a waiver of the State secrets doctrine resembles anything but a lifeline. The companies remain in the tank left to fend for themselves. As one of the Members of the other side said in hearings that we had in the Judiciary Committee, well, these companies have millions of dollars' worth of lawyers, as if that's the proper answer. This sends the worst possible message to all Americans. After all this who would be dumb

enough to respond to the entreaties of their government in a time of crisis? Would corporate counsel or board of directors anywhere in the land conclude otherwise?

Attorney General Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence McConnell frame the issue clearly in a letter to the Senate supporting the language in that bipartisan Senate bill: Without retroactive immunity the private sector might be unwilling to cooperate with lawful government requests in the future without unnecessary court involvement and protracted litigation.

The House leadership response, unfortunately, turns the notion of the ``Good Samaritan'' upside down and hits the delete button erasing the ethic of a bygone era when school children, including myself, were taught to type these words: ``Now is the time for all good men''--today we would add ``women''--``to come to the aid of their country.'' Now you can't say that. In the absence of action here in the House, conforming to what the Senate has done already on a bipartisan basis, you have to turn that around and say, ``Now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of their country only when they have their lawyers and accountants with them.''

According to statements by the distinguished junior Senator from West Virginia during debate in the Senate, and he is, I believe, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, these companies acted in response to letters, all of which stated the relevant activities had been authorized by the President. All but one, and that was done by legal counsel to the President, stated the activities had been determined to be lawful by the Attorney General of the United States. Now, that is the set of facts presented in the Senate. I believe to suggest that these companies should not be able to rely on such representations from the highest levels of our government is beyond comprehension. Yet instead of receiving gratitude, these modern ``Good Samaritans'' appear to be captive to a larger dynamic, a political dynamic involving the leadership of this body and the ``MoveOn.org'' left, which can countenance nothing which involves Bush either directly or indirectly. As a result, these companies and individuals have been caught in a political cross-fire not of their own making. People say, well, we disagree with what the present administration did. We suspect they did things that were not within the authority of the President. Now, I would strongly disagree with that, but that's the position that some take. So rather than aim at the administration through whatever processes we have under the Constitution, they aim at these three-party ``Good Samaritans,'' as if they can by litigation bring them into the judicial doc and cause them enough pain that somehow they will stop doing what they're doing and in the process reveal something that the administration did. And yet there is no one who I believe has looked at the documents who's made a credible claim that the administration did anything without an express statement of authority.

However, even if you don't care about the question of fairness, there's another overriding consideration relating to the protection of the American public. Again, as the Attorney General and Director McConnell point out:

``Extending liability protection to such companies is imperative. Failure to do so could limit future cooperation by such companies and put critical intelligence operations at risk. The possible reduction in intelligence that might result from this delay is simply unacceptable for the safety of our Nation.''

In short, what they are saying is if the absence of retroactive liability protections leads to private partners not cooperating with foreign intelligence activities, we can expect more intelligence gaps.

Now, here I might even quibble about whether we're talking about presenting retroactive liability protection. Some believe that these companies already have that liability protection but that because of the strange way in which the laws of intelligence and the courts of intelligence work, they are not able to even present those, and so we ought to clear this up.

So let's stop for a moment to contemplate what we've been told by these public officials. If we fail to provide liability protection in a way that they can use it for these companies who relied on assurances from the highest levels of government, the result may very well be an absence of such cooperation in the future and more intelligence gaps.

As a matter of fact, it goes beyond this. A number of attorneys general of the United States signed a letter expressing their concern about what this would do to the common law oftentimes framed in statute protections given to those people, average everyday citizens or companies, who respond to a request from local and State government to assist when local or State government officials think a crime is about to occur or is occurring or in a state of emergency. These State attorneys general feared that the action of the Congress not recognizing this immunity theory, which although embedded in statute goes back, I believe, at least 700 years into Anglo law, that a disrupting of this concept of cooperation by a citizen of the United States at the request of legitimate lawful authority, that that could stop in the efforts to stop crime and also investigate crimes at the State and local level. So as a matter of public policy, this is simply unacceptable. We have been warned that the failure to step up to the plate on the issue of immunity will mean less intelligence on al Qaeda and greater difficulty in ``connecting the dots.'' Maybe such a warning could have been ignored in a pre-9/11 environment with our naive feelings of invulnerability. However, we no longer live in an age of innocence. We know better. We know that we no longer have the ability to delude ourselves into thinking that everything will be okay. Today we live in a world where we must operate from the premise of a very different assumption. There are radical extremists overseas who want to come here with the express purpose of killing us. They have a mens rea of murder on their minds. That is the purpose for which they live, and in their twisted minds, it is only through the achievement of such an objective that they will realize their own expiation.

This is their mindset. This is what drives them. This isn't what I am saying; this is what they say. As Hasann Butt, a former jihadist, has explained, ``I was a fanatic . . . I know their thinking . . . When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network . . . I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombing, and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.'' Yet ``by blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed this `Blair's bombs'--he's speaking of it in the context of British terrorism--``those who pushed this `Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they helped draw away any critical examination of the real engine of our violence,'' which Butt goes on to describe concerning the attempted hijacking of Islamic theology.

Madam Speaker, with this in mind, we must not allow the broader debate concerning the United States foreign policy or the war in Iraq to obscure the need for a concerted and unified commitment to defend and protect the American people. This is where our focus ought to be. Not on a food fight over whether something six degrees removed from President George Bush might somehow imply support for him. When it comes to protecting the American people, there's no room for partisan or ideological wrangling. With respect to our Nation's need to collect foreign intelligence on foreign terrorists, the maxim that ``partisanship must stop at the water's edge'' should be our guide.

The time has come to say ``enough already.'' Democrats and Republicans have come together in the other body to act in a responsible manner in meeting the needs expressed by the intelligence community relating to foreign surveillance. There's a clear majority within this body that would support the bill enacted in the Senate if they were given the opportunity to have an up-or-down vote on it. We know that from statements that have been made. We know that from the strong vote on this side of the aisle and the more than 20 Members on the other side of the aisle who signed a letter to the Speaker stating that they would support the

Senate bill. It has been my hope that at some time, the leadership of this body would perceive that they had extracted a sufficient level of political currency with the ``Move On'' faction of their base to, in fact, move on and finally allow a vote on the bipartisan Senate bill. Even though it might not reflect everything I would have crafted in another possible world where my party was in the majority, it nonetheless reflects a sufficient response to the entreaties of Admiral McConnell concerning what is necessary to protect the American people.

However, it does not appear at this point that my hope that the House leadership would find its way has in fact turned out to be the case. Therefore, it is apparent that the remedy afforded by this, the people's House, to overcome obstructionism by those who would thwart the will of the majority of its Members, must be used. The mechanism of the discharge petition to release the bipartisan Senate-passed bill from procedural captivity, unfortunately, must be utilized at this time. This is clearly where a matter of paramount concern to our Nation requires such action and calls us to rise above partisanship.

There is no issue of greater importance to the functioning of government than the need to protect the American people from threats which originate outside of our borders. That is what is involved here: Intelligence collection relating to foreign terrorists outside of the United States. The willingness of this leadership in this body to allow our Nation to lose intelligence is inexcusable. In essence, we have hit the mute button. This failure has been acknowledged by both the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. It is time for us to remove the obstructions which have been placed in the way of foreign intelligence collection in this great institution of the House of Representatives, in which we are all privileged to serve, is honored when the people themselves are served. We must meet our responsibilities as elected Members of this body to ensure that the safety of the American people is secure.

Madam Speaker, there is no excuse for a day to go by that we do not act on this important matter. Unfortunately, 95 days have gone by. Let us act sooner rather than later, and let us act in a spirit of bipartisanship, taking a lead from the other body, even though we don't always like to do that, but taking a lead from the other body, that set aside partisan differences, did not give the administration everything they wanted, but came up with a bill that Admiral McConnell has assured us will work, Attorney General Mukasey has said will work, and that on the Senate side they were satisfied protects the civil liberties of the American people as we seek to listen in on those communications or capture those communications of those who would wish not to join us as Americans but to kill us as Americans.

Madam Speaker, I cannot think of anything that is more important. The sense of urgency must be here. We should act now. We should wait no longer.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 6 o'clock and 32 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, May 20, 2008, at 9 a.m., for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, the Democratic wizard behind the curtain was revealed today.

Pulling open the curtain, they brought forward their proposal as to dealing with our troops. After being kept out of consideration of that which was being brought to the floor, Republicans decided to leave the Democrats to their own devices.

Left to their own devices, what do we have? No money for our troops, a cut-and-run policy, and extraneous funding being put on the bill. That's the Democratic approach to our war and fighting those who would kill us in places overseas. No funds for the troops, a cut-and-run policy, and extraneous funding placed on it.

The wizard has been seen.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to speak about the role of government in our collective political lives and of the relationship between such government and civil society.

It has been 219 years since this new constitutional republic formally entered the international stage. In 2008 I am privileged to stand in this historic Chamber of the United States House of Representatives in the second session of the 110th Congress. We should, representative and citizen alike, take great pride in our collective perseverance. Our longevity and survival as the numerically and geographically largest and most prosperous republican form of government in recorded human history is a testimony to the strength of this polity.

An important part of that proud history has been our commitment to seriously debating the contours of any entity which we constitute to exercise power over the source and content of self-government: that is, ``We the People.'' In other words, we must continue to ask ourselves, what is the proper scope and role of governmental powers in and around our lives?

My colleagues, ``subsidiarity'' is a word not often used on this floor. Yet, is a word and concept which is foundational to much of what we do as representatives, the system of government under which we operate and the presuppositions upon which much policy is debated in this Chamber as well as in that other body.

Subsidiarity. It has been defined as the belief that ``a community of a higher order should not interfere with the life of a community of a lower order, thereby taking over its function.'' Subsidiarity ``holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization. In other words, any activity which can be performed by a more decentralized entity should be. This principle is a bulwark of limited government and personal freedom.''

Other intellectual and philosophic traditions have spoken of sphere sovereignty, principle pluralism and federalism. But behind all of these complex-sounding terms is a simple fact, understandable by each of us, that there should be a proportional relation between the proximity of an individual and the amount of power of any governmental entity, be it local, county, State or Federal, may possess in relation to them.

In other words, that government which is closest to us is usually the best government for which we should give function. Let me give the analogy of a human body. If we would say the body politic is like a human body, we would say that a healthier body politic is one which, like the human body, is infused with activity, or energy. In other words, if you had a human body, and you had oxygenated blood that only went to 90 percent of it, that 10 percent might very well die and be considered unhealthy.

If you would have 100 percent of the oxygenated blood go to the brain, the rest of the body could not function, and the body would therefore die. Similarly, with the body politic, if all the power and if all the energy is visited here in Washington, D.C., the rest of the body politic tends to wither. It loses its energy. It loses its enthusiasm. And ultimately, it withers and dies.

Thus, as citizens, we do not, or should not, think it wise nor reasonable to immediately ask the Federal Government, the unit of government that is most distant from our lives, to solve each and every problem which our family, our neighborhood, our town, our city, our county, our State, or our region can address. Or, as academics may describe it, subsidiarity provides appropriate discernment for responses to respective needs in particular ways.

Foundational to the proper functioning of subsidiarity is a commitment to constitutionalism and the rule of law. In 1852, that great ex-slave, writer, abolitionist and statesman, Frederick Douglass, called the Constitution ``a glorious liberty document.'' Because of the principles contained within it, and the antecedent rights which it protects, we cannot quarrel with Douglass' description. His description is apt because the Constitution enshrined a system of government, based upon a moral foundation, which thereby allows the people to rule through majorities, and nonetheless simultaneously protects fundamental minority rights.

Now, while we ourselves have not always lived up to it, subsidiarity requires, and the Constitution affirms, that no citizens, based upon arbitrary and amorphous demarcations like skin color, are permitted to be excluded from ``the governed'' from which consent is required.

Thus, intrinsic to a proper understanding of and commitment to subsidiarity, the rule of law embedded within the Constitution requires a reasonable moral foundation upon which to anchor our commitment to law and the system of governments which we implicitly or explicitly support. As Robert P. George has written, ``Where reason has no sway in practical affairs, the sole question is who has the power.''

Severance from a moral foundation would leave our belief in and carrying out of the rule of law without a means by which to be secure. Law itself becomes power. Arbitrary will becomes the corrupted lodestar of societal comprise and the entire depth of justice, which now becomes a completely vacuous term. To use an analogy from Roy Clouser in his book, ``The Myth of Religious Neutrality,'' ``even the most violently anarchistic organization would quickly fall apart if it became devoid of all observance of norms of fairness or trust among its own members.'' And while although often unnoticed and unspoken in the day- to-day happenings of politics and life, the rule of law, constitutionalism and subsidiarity are vital guide-rails of our collective republican lives.

As Professor Robert George has said, ``The obligations and purposes of law and government are to protect public health, safety and morals, and to advance the general welfare, including preeminently, protecting people's fundamental rights and basic liberties.

``At first blush, this classic formulation, or combination of classic formulations, seems to grant vast and sweeping powers to public authority. Yet, in truth, the general welfare, the common good, requires that government be limited. Government's responsibility is

primary when the questions involving defending the Nation from attack and subversion, protecting people from physical assaults and various other forms of depredation, and maintaining public order. In other words, however, its role is subsidiarity: To support the work of the families, religious communities, and other institutions of civil society that shoulder the primary burden of forming upright and decent citizens, caring for those in need, encouraging people to meet their responsibilities to one another while also discouraging them from harming themselves or others.''

Subsidiarity, then, is formed upon a commitment to the rule of law so that in our various spheres of societal life, anarchy and normlessness do not start to behave as is they have defined the rules of engagement in the fields of activity once and for all.

The commitment to the rule of law makes plain why an appropriate understanding of the limited judicial function is so important in democratic self-government. As Judge Andrew Kleinfeld of the 9th Circuit has written, ``that a question is important does not imply that it is constitutional. The Founding Fathers did not establish the United States as a democratic republic so that elected officials would decide trivia, while all great questions would be decided by the judiciary. That an issue is important does not mean that the people, through their democratically elected representatives, do not have the power to decide it. One might suppose that the general rule in a democratic republic would be the opposite, with a few exceptions.''

Thus, when I hear that my friends on the other side of the aisle asked the Supreme Court Justice nominees whether they, in the course of their tenure, are going to ``expand freedom'' or constrict freedom, and when I hear current declamations that nominees need to understand it is their duty, their job, their purpose, as judges, to ``stand up for economic and social justice,'' I am incredulous as to what these words and terms mean. Freedom for whom? Freedom to do what? To whom? Whose interpretation of economic justice should be ``stood up?'' Whose interpretation of social justice? How do these ends relate to the role of a judge, which is to rule on specific cases, not engage in abstract, roving, philosophic speculations?

The rule of law, our constitutional framework, and an appreciation for the complexity of society, which genuine subsidiarity inherently takes for granted, demand better.

While what I've outlined provides the legal framework and structural timber for the division of power and cultivation of society, we the citizens are nevertheless the most important factors in such a commitment to subsidiarity. Subsidiarity requires a commitment by the citizens of the republic to comport themselves with self-restraint, with virtue and with respect for one's fellow citizens.

As the father of our Constitution, James Madison, exclaimed, ``to suppose that any form of government will secure liberty and happiness without virtue in the people is a chimerical idea. We do not depend on or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.''

M. Stanton Evans points out that ``the reasoning of the Founders in this area was identical to that provided for Edmund Burke contemporaneously in England. Self-government required observance of the moral law, respect for rights of others, restraint upon the passions. Virtue was thus a necessary precondition to a regime of freedom, and a Nation that lost its religious moorings was considered ripe for tyranny. Conversely, since religious belief and ethical conduct were matters of volition, the Founders also believed that liberty was integral to ideas of virtue.''

Thus, in order for subsidiarity to remain viable, we, as citizens, must work to cultivate the proper virtues within ourselves as well as strive to be meaningful in the lives of those around us, usually starting with our families, our friends, our community, neighbors and our fellow employees.

On the other hand, society would not endure were each citizen to take upon himself or herself the maximum amount of criminal activity possible. Rampant and widespread destruction would lead to nihilistic physical and cultural chaos. Greater resources would then be needed to attempt to contain and mitigate such behavior. The people's health, safety and likelihood of perpetuating society by bringing future generations into life would become severely constricted and diminished.

George Will in his masterful work ``Statecraft As Soulcraft'' explained, it is obvious that ``the restraining strength of individual habits and social conventions must be inversely proportional to the strength of restraints enforced by law.''

In addition to these individual consequences, the collective consequence of our view of government as one people would be tarnished. As Will again tells us, ``regardless of democratic forms, when people are taught by philosophy and the social climate that they need not govern their actions by calculations of public good, they will come to blame all social shortcomings on the agency of collective considerations, the government, and will absolve themselves.''

Now in stark contrast, subsidiarity not only respects the various institutions and complexities laden throughout collective society, it also allows time for proper and respective maturation to take place. As George Will writes in regard on the bloodshed of mid-18th century America, ``what the Nation learned in Lincoln's lifetime was that the social cohesion which proceeds from shared adherence to a public philosophy and shared emulation of exemplary behavior and values is not the result of spontaneous combustion. It takes work. But by whom? And with what? Such work is done with laws and other institutions. It is a citizenry working on itself, on its self, collectively; on its selves, individually. It is applied political philosophy.''

It is important to re-emphasize here that subsidiarity offers no congratulatory pat-on-the-back for its citizens. As genuine humility and an honest appraisal of humanity attest, we are all here works in progress. Aristotle observed that man ``is the best of all animals when perfected, so he is the worst of all when sundered from law and justice because man is born possessing weapons for the use of wisdom and virtue, which it is possible to employ entirely for the opposite sends ends.''

The dry wit of that great English parliamentarian and political philosopher Edmund Burke is instructive when he notes that ``the effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please; we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

As Madison and Lincoln, two of our most prescient American statesmen might explain, because men are not angels, government is necessary, yet we must constantly appeal to the better angels of our nature, for failure to do so would result in the crushing of our intrinsic nature and the invaluable and incomparable dignity of our fellow man.

My friends, subsidiarity is an important, and some would say indispensable, philosophy not only for the reasons I already cited, but also because of the flexibility it allows the leaders, the statesmen, of such a multifaceted republic. Such statesmen do understand the nature of law. We know that law is much more than a mere necessary evil or a clever contrivance or potent payback mechanism for partisan gains. No. Law is nurturing. Law is conforming. Law is inculcating.

As J. Budziszewski has written, ``we know at least that the law cannot be neutral. Everything a government does it founded on some understanding of what is good. Moreover, no law that has effect at all can fail to have effect on character.''

Furthermore, true statesmen and women and leaders are discerning, wise and prudent. Again, George Will has observed that statesmen who are unaware of the ideas that shape the institutions currently in their custody, and uninterested in the ideas that shape the expectations and tolerances of the citizenry, are statesmen governed by forces they cannot comprehend.

Such statesmen are apt to think they have more range for effective action than they actually have, and they are apt to have less than they would were they more aware of the connections between the life of the mind and the life of society.

Twenty-seven years ago, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote that he had served in the cabinet or subcabinet of four presidents. He said, ``I do not believe I have ever heard at a cabinet meeting a serious discussion of political ideas, one concern with how men, rather than markets, behave. These are the necessary first questions of government. The Constitution of the United States is an immensely intricate judgment as to how man will behave given the circumstances of the time in which it was written. It is not at all clear that it is working well, given the circumstances of the present age, but this is never discussed.''

A commitment to subsidiarity requires much greater responsibility from our leaders, our policymakers and our representatives. My goal today is not to spell out precise policy prescriptions for every foreign and domestic issue before us. After all, that is most of what we do here. These are, without a doubt, important, but they do not comprise the whole of human endeavors nor the scope of activity within our policy. We must never lose sight of the importance of culture in our deliberations.

One example of where we can strengthen the bonds of social capital in communities, while also working within reasonable budget considerations, is the partnering of private and charitable entities within the faith-based initiative. Now, some pouncing on the first word, as if it represented a perverse combination of a belief in unicorns with a draconianism of State-mandated medieval indulgences have ridiculed this endeavor as a corruptly--oh--divine, power grab given patronage and power to theocratic institutions in our society, but nothing is further from the truth.

The faith-based initiative is merely an endeavor to treat faith-based charitable entities that provide social services as equal partners, partners on equal footing with nonfaith-based charitable entities in our society. You know, if a person is starving, does the source from where the food that quenches his hunger matter? If a person is without clothes, does it matter where the clothes come from that cover their nakedness? I don't think so. In reality the faith-based initiative is about eliciting greater public and private support for the smaller and often faith-based organizations which play a vital role in meeting human needs everywhere in our country.

A true appreciation for subsidiarity may encourage parishioners so situated to kindly and gently admonish and encourage our various theological traditions and establishments to meet the humanitarian and simple life needs of their fellow men and women. Perhaps larger and more elaborate parking lots, gymnasiums, multimedia screens are not of immediate concern to the poor, the homeless, those without clothing, the hungry, the starving or the repentant prisoner about to enter society. The principle of subsidiarity helps such intermediate organizations and individuals make such determinations and meet such needs.

Economically, subsidiarity encourages us to reaffirm the time-tested virtue of the legitimate exchange of goods and service known as free- market capitalism, as well as the virtues of the industrious employee and diligent citizen. Subsidiarity requires us to not immediately seek a Federal solution to every local, county or State problem. It teaches us to be ever cognizant of the fact that the laws of economics. The laws of supply and demand cannot be suspended.

Subsidiary reminds us life is not easy, and affluence is not as abundant as the air we breathe, that each of us, as many of our forefathers and ancestors did, must sacrifice, strive, delay gratifying our immediate wants and desires, and develop our skills and attributes, which most enable us to provide an honorable service or good to the rest of society in return for appropriate compensation.

Over the years, many have written about the creative destruction and the cultural contradictions of capitalism. They have observed that capitalism, besides causing societal anxiety and consternation by its capacity for ever-changing technology and innovation may also spawn the radical individualism and consumerism which undercuts the moral, ethical and altruistic branches upon which it sits, but it need not be so.

We, the people, have the capacity to deny or control these destructive tendencies. Properly considered, subsidiarity teaches us to probe for ways to provide the time and capital needed for creative inventions and products to germinate. It teaches us to strive to provide for the needs of our own respective and concentric circles of responsibility while adjusting to ever-changing demand and supply chains.

These lessons are especially apt today as ideas and energy have replaced capital and labor is the central pillars of economic thought and comparative advantage. If our children and grandchildren are to compete successfully in this new world, we must aggressively seek innovative ways to attract investors and manufacturers.

Yet, rather than harnessing the great potential, it seems that some believe that businesses, markets and profits are, by nature, evils unto themselves. Recently we had a candidate for the President of the United States threaten to take profits from private industry. Now, I would suggest this is a dangerous bit of rhetoric.

To the contrary, it has become an almost universal judgment that on the level of individual nations' international relations, the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing sources and effectively responding to needs. We all recognize, says Father Richard John Neuhaus has written, that the State has an important ancillary role in providing a framework of law and order in which people can attend to the business that is properly theirs, but note the word ``ancillary,'' not ``primary.'' It is thus an affront to human dignity to repress the human capacity to create, to invent and to be enterprising.

As society and technology change, as they always have, it is up to each of us to help one another transition through the inevitable historical changes that bring excitement, as well as much fear and adversity or anxiety. The principle of subsidiarity helps us to appreciate the fact that communities, towns, cities, counties, States, they are often at the forefront of developing the changes needed to build sustainable and healthy communities in a constantly changing world.

The concept of subsidiarity ultimately rests upon thing strength of individuals and families, and, in that regard, helps to remind us to protect the units of society which are at its most basic building blocks and bonds. Mere biology attests to the fact that the human race is perpetuated by the holistic union of men and women. Therefore, societies have recognized the indispensable role that families have played in the health of society. Marriage must be strengthened for other levels of society, the schools, the neighborhoods, the communities to flourish.

Although this concept has been drowned in the hot caldron of partisan political soup, and it's timely today because of the decision of the Supreme Court in my home State, I believe that Robert George has properly addressed the issue in these words. ``If we are to restore and secure the institution of marriage, we must recover a sound understanding of what marriage is and why it is in the public interest for law and policy to take cognizance of it and support it. Marriage is a prepolitical form of association, what might be called a natural institution. It is not created by law. The law recognizes and regulates it in every culture. Nowhere is it treated as a purely private matter. Some toy with the idea that marriage could be privatized, and others wonder whether it might be the best solution to the controversy over same-sex marriage.''

There is a reason that all cultures treat marriage as a matter of public concern, and even recognize it in law and regulate it. The family is the fundamental unit of society. Governments rely on families to produce something that governments need, but on their own they could not possibly produce, upright decent people who make honest law-abiding public spirited citizens. Marriage is the indispensable foundation of the family.

Although all marriages and all cultures have their imperfections, children flourish in an environment where they benefit from the love and care of both mother and father and from the

committed and exclusive love of their parents for each other. Anyone who believes in limited government should strongly back government support for the family.

Does this sound paradoxical?

In the absence of a strong marriage culture, families fail to form, and when they do form, they are often unstable. Absentee fathers become a serious problem, out-of-wedlock births are common and a train of social pathologies follow. With families failing to perform their health, education and welfare functions, the demand for government grows, whether in the form of greater policing, or as a provider of other social services. Bureaucracies must be created and they inexorably expand. Indeed, they become powerful lobbyists for their own preservation and expansion.

Everyone suffers with the poorest and most vulnerable suffering the most. That's why I have advocated a constitutional amendment on the Federal level to enshrine the historic complimentarian definition of marriage.

All citizens must be afforded their civil rights and equal treatment under the law. There should be and are avenues whereby privileges, including visitation, inheritance and other rights can be extended to any individuals seeking to live together either through familiar necessity or bonds of friendship. However, these extensions should never be based on or related to sexual behavior, for to do so would thereby change our definition of what marriage is, simultaneously turning the children of parents in this society as a means to other ends, as well as leaving a marriage without terms of definition in terms of numerics or norms.

Let us debate this important issue and present this important issue to the citizens of the republic as subsidiarity would require, rather than having unelected judges, as they also did in 1973 and as those judges in the California Supreme Court did today, transform the norms and laws of this country through judicial fiat.

An issue like subsidiarity cannot and should not be shoved into partisan columns. It is one of the philosophic foundations for a collective commitment, a commitment much more important in partisan identity or loyalty to the commonly known term, federalism.

To abide by this commitment we must first acknowledge there are no easy solutions to our individual and collective ills, false shortcomings and hardship. We must understand the concept of equal, natural antecedent rights and their intrinsic corresponding duties, as well as the indispensable belief and equal treatment before the law. We must understand that a republic in which citizens no longer look to build relationships between men and women meet the needs of friend and stranger and protect the child and orphan is a republic whose future is worth pondering.

We must understand that limited government does not mean inactive government, does not mean simply passive reactive government, does not even, given certain circumstances, have to mean small government. Lest we forget World War II, spending on our justly used military was exponentially higher than other times of nonwartime spending.

We must understand that limited government means a commitment to constitutionalism and the rule of law, not the rule of men. We must understand that a communitarianism that ascertains its supposed community and communal aspects from what is dictated and forced through Federal bonds and the greater dependence we have on the Federal Treasury, is no authentic communitarianism at all.

We must understand that each of us lose the sense of confiscation which occurs daily in our Tax Code when costs are disbursed, when a few cents here and a few dollars there are ignored, and, thus, all eyes turn to our Nation's Capital as if it were some giant piggy bank or money tree continuously sprouting new currency bills, dropping seeds of instantly created capital and supplying jobs, as if such things were not the exchanges of goods and services we make of citizens but, no, easily dispensed commodities which exist in some filled-to-the-brim barrel labeled ``jobs'' in the center of Capitol or the White House.

We must understand that it cannot be more efficient to send all of our tax dollars to Washington D.C., only to turn around and have them sent right back through a maze of confusion and delay to meet the need that could have been met earlier and within closer and, thus, more efficient proximity.

We must understand the republic in which we policymakers demonstrate our purported passion for constituents by promising to meet all the needs of each of them, while the constituents demonstrate their compassion by bemoaning how much of their earned income they do not give to such policymakers, is a republic with a troubling future.

We must understand that a republic in which its citizens are merely content to receive regular disbursements of entitlements from their government and no longer strive to meet those same needs of their fellow citizens, is a republic in need of renewal.

We must understand that a republic which insists on standing in the way of those who request the right to merely delay their own gratification by saving, for decades, through slow and meticulous discipline, their own earned income and assets in order to end the cycle of State-assisted dependency is a republic with an uncertain future. For policymakers to extol the virtues of the American people while denying them this chance to voluntarily delay their own gratification is the epitome of hypocrisy and double-standard.

We must understand that a republic in which those with greater wealth cease to seek ways to alleviate the basic needs of their fellow citizens less fortunate is a republic whose future is worth pondering.

We must understand that a republic in which local and State officials, as well as citizens and community groups, make their dutiful marches to the halls of Washington to request all-important funds from the miraculously self-generating Federal treasury as if it were the only such place such funds could be ascertained, is a republic whose future is truly worth pondering.

We must understand that there are some things the Federal Government can and should do. Providing for the public safety and protecting the homeland are vital for nation-states whose existence would be pointless were there boundaries and territorial integrity to be compromised and ignored.

We must understand that a republic in which the Federal entity confiscates more and more income from its citizens so that they can no longer freely give to their houses of worship, to their favored charitable organizations, to their family and friends in need, to the strangers and persons in close proximity to them who they can most rapidly assist, is a republic in need of renewal.

We must understand that when any meager attempt to limit or scale back a Federal budget now totaling $3 trillion and an administrative state which has proven virtually impossible to shrink is met with accusations of cruelty, disdain, and charges of callousness, we are on an unsustainable course.

We must understand that we are not atomistic individuals utterly without need of social capital. We are not ``unencumbered selves.'' As men and women, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, friends and acquaintances, we know that families and communities should receive priority over larger more removed entities. We know that the economic, political, and cultural aspects of society cannot be separated into distinct and separate spheres. They are intertwined. Proper economic activity presupposes certain cultural assumptions. Political activity can enshrine the necessary and proper economic fundamentals of a capitalistic system.

We must understand that local, State and Federal Governments are not omniscient repositories of unassailable wisdom all of the time. That's why the voluntary and intermediate associations of society are so important: the places of worship which also do so many acts of compassion, the charitable organizations, the community organizations, the ``little platoons of society'' daily helping, feeding, clothing, assisting, nurturing, training, developing, and shaping the individuals of this land.

Unfortunately, some view all ``government'' as oppression. Possibly necessary oppression, but oppression nonetheless. This too is mistaken. A commitment to subsidiarity provides a useful antidote to such fundamentally flawed, pessimistic and cynical thinking.

We as Representatives and we as citizens should live in a polity which is constantly probing, analyzing, imagining, how to conserve what is good about the past and present while making the future a better, more fulfilling place for those that come before us.

Mr. Speaker, the Preamble to our Constitution states: ``We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.''

Establish justice. Insure domestic tranquility. Provide for the common defense. Promote the general welfare. Secure the blessings of liberty. Today, the United States has 304 million people living in 50 States, over 3,000 counties, and thousands of other cities, towns, villages, and local entities. My own State of California alone is almost 156,000 square miles, possesses over 36 million people, and contains over 800,000 private nonfarm business establishments. Yet, we know that ``our country is not a thing of mere physical locality.'' It is so much more. How are we then to govern ourselves spread across this vast, spacious, and diverse republic? It would do no harm to renew our commitment and endeavor to further understand the dimensions of subsidiarity.

As Michael Sandel has reminded us in great detail, this self- governing Republic has constantly been asking itself what the good life, the good society, and the good citizen is, should be, and can be, since its founding--a time before automobiles, telephones, televisions or the Internet. Let us never lose this perspective. After all, commonsense and reason adamantly demonstrate that unlimited vice and unfindable virtue will lead to greater resources being needed, greater unsustainable commitments being made, and greater constrictions being placed on our individual liberty. The strengthening of, and a reappreciation for, subsidiarity will help us all avoid such a fate.

Mr. Speaker, you and others may have seen a great and inspiring movie which had the simple title ``Amazing Grace.'' William Wilberforce, who lived from 1759 to 1833 and was the great English abolitionist protagonist in that fine and very moving film, not only helped end the African slave trade in the British Empire, but he was also part of 69 various societal groups as part of his effort at a societal-wide ``reformation of manners and morals'' in England. It later became known as the Victorian Period, but he saw 13 and 14-year-old prostitutes on the streets of London, and most of society walking by and saying that is the way it has been, and that's the way it is going to be. He said it doesn't have to be that way, we can change it. When he did that, he engaged these nongovernmental entities in his effort to make those changes because he understood the principle of subsidiarity as it expressed itself through so many different organizations, and understood that if he was going to change the government, he had to change the culture. He had to change the people's hearts and minds, and that you just couldn't do it with government, you had to do it in fact with all of these organizations, from the families all of the way up to government.

So let us today, in a different century and in a different country, nonetheless think anew how to encourage all citizens to view ourselves as not just cogs in a Federal wheel but as vibrant members, as ``little platoons'' ourselves, of our respective spheres of life, wherever today may find us.

As Americans, Mr. Speaker, we have much of which to be proud. It was recently written that ``the United States is creating the first universal nation, made up of all colors, races, and creeds, living and working together in considerable harmony.'' Let us hope that is true. Let us always be committed to ``living and working together in considerable harmony.'' If we are concerned about liberty, justice, social or otherwise, and the common good, which all philosophies of human interaction and political life, no matter how libertarian or communitarian, presuppose, then we must commit ourselves to thinking with renewed vigor and energy, the presence and possibilities of subsidiarity.

It is not an easy task for we are Representatives at the Federal level, but I think if we exercised humility and a proper understanding of the organization of our society and the tremendous capacity of individuals to do good when properly directed, and properly self- directed, then we can rise to that challenge.

So, Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the time.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 5 o'clock and 24 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, May 16, 2008, at 10 a.m.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Mississippi, and before we begin our debate on the Coast Guard Authorization Act for 2008, I yield myself such time as I may consume for the purposes of a colloquy with Mr. Thompson.

Mr. Thompson, would you please join me in remembering the sacrifice of Damage Controlman Third Class Nathan B. Bruckenthal of the U.S. Coast Guard, who was killed off the coast of Iraq on this date in 2004? He was the first U.S. Coast Guardsman to have been killed in battle since the end of the Vietnam War.

I yield to the gentleman from Mississippi.

Reclaiming my time, Petty Officer Bruckenthal is survived by his wife Patricia and their daughter Harper. We all join in thanking them for their sacrifice. Petty Officer Bruckenthal represented the very best of the U.S. Coast Guard and what it has to offer.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

First of all, let me thank Chairman Thompson for his and his staff's hard work in reporting a bill from our Committee on Homeland Security in September that I believe was the result of solid bipartisan compromise, and for Chairman Thompson's continued cooperation over the past several months as the committee worked to bring this bill to the floor.

Obviously, we have heard from those of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee many of the good things in this bill. I must say, however, I am disappointed that the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee largely ignored the committee on Homeland Security's improvements, particularly to those provisions relating to LNG security.

While our committee's approach was reasonable and risk-based, as we have attempted to approach all of our problems with respect to homeland security, that is with a risk-based approach, the language adopted by the other committee, I fear, abandons the risk-based approach and assumes a cookie cutter, one-size-fits all approach.

My friend from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) has an amendment that would clarify that State and local resources can be considered when identifying resources available to provide the newly mandated security patrols, and I would hope that his amendment would be adopted.

I am also very concerned about two entire titles that were added to the bill after they were considered by four committees of jurisdiction. A new title X shifts 80 percent of the Coast Guard's Administrative Law Judge resources and several of the Coast Guard's ALJ authorities to the National Transportation Safety Board. This is being proposed as over 1 million TWIC cards are being issued to our rail, truck, and port workers. These are those biometric cards that we have spent so much time developing and hoping that it would finally get in place.

The effect of this provision, I fear, could leave only two ALJs, that is Administrative Law Judges, to hear any appeals to TWIC denials. That has been one of the great concerns we have had. If we have this TWIC system set up, how can people appeal if they have been denied their TWIC cards. This would dramatically slow the appeals process, to the detriment of port security and our Nation's port workers, who are relying on a timely adjudication of a TWIC for their livelihood.

As a recent letter from TSA opposing this proposal states, ``ALJs at the Coast Guard have built up expertise in transportation security matters, and I fear this provision will negatively impact not only TWIC, but other programs as well, including hazardous materials endorsement, and may result in even higher fees for these workers.''

I would be happy to yield, yes.

I hope that is true, reclaiming my time.

Well, the effect of the provision is to take 80 percent of the resources that are currently allocated to the ALJ, Administrative Law Judge program, and that in effect would make it very, very difficult for them to continue, since they have a total of seven ALJs, and if you take 80 percent of the funding, I believe that would leave us with about 20 percent.

I would like to include a copy of this letter from TSA in the Record.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Transportation

Security Administration,

Arlington, VA.

Hon. Peter T. King,

Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland Security,

House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Congressman King: I am writing to express the

Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) strong

opposition to Title X--Appeals to National Transportation

Safety Board (NTSB) of the manager's amendment to H.R. 2830,

the ``Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2007.'' Title X would

transfer

Coast Guard Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) authority for

review of merchant mariner documentation and 80 percent of

the Coast Guard ALJ budget to the NTSB. This could have an

adverse impact upon the adjudication of TSA's civil

enforcement cases and anticipated cases dealing with the

Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC)

program.

TSA questions whether sufficient legal, administrative, and

budget resources will continue to be provided to the Coast

Guard to support its remaining ALJ functions, including

adjudication of TSA security cases.

For more than 5 years, TSA has been extremely well served

by the Coast Guard ALJs as fair, impartial, and responsive

adjudicators in security cases involving individuals in the

transportation sector. Under an interagency agreement, Coast

Guard ALJs play a major role in TSA's enforcement and

security credentialing programs. They adjudicate aviation

security civil penalty cases, Hazardous Materials Endorsement

(HME) and TWIC denials of requests for waivers and appeals

from individuals who have received a Final Determination of

Threat Assessment; appeals by air cargo workers who have

received a Final Determination of Threat Assessment; and

appeals by individuals holding or applying for Federal

Aviation Administration certificates, ratings, or

authorizations who have received a Final Determination of

Threat Assessment.

In the absence of sufficient ALJ legal and administrative

resources at the Coast Guard, TSA does not regard NTSB ALJs

as a good alternative. Coast Guard ALJs have substantial

expertise in fair adjudication of security programs. NTSB

ALJs do not have expertise in transportation security

matters. As TSA continually expands the implementation of the

TWIC program and the Coast Guard enforces it at our Nation's

seaports, TSA and TWIC applicants will benefit from the

substantial experience Coast Guard ALJs have in the maritime

security environment.

In addition, Coast Guard ALJs have been sensitive to the

challenges faced by individuals representing themselves in a

formal administrative process and have worked with TSA to

develop simplified procedures.

TSA and Coast Guard have worked together for years to

establish caseload management procedures, agreements, and

funding processes to efficiently handle TSA cases. For

example, the Coast Guard serves as TSA's Docketing Center for

its formal hearing process. Shifting the workload to ALJs of

another agency would create a huge setback for TSA

enforcement and administration. ALJ coverage, budgeting,

processing time, and even geographic availability would have

to be reassessed and reestablished, a process that may take

several years.

In addition, TSA's HME and TWIC are fee-based programs. TSA

developed its fee models based on Coast Guard cost estimates

and processing models. If conditions necessitate TSA's

seeking ALJ services outside Coast Guard, this could affect

program costs, and consequently, fees for applicants.

I would appreciate your consideration of TSA's concerns

about the potential adverse impact of Title X on the

efficient adjudication of important TSA security cases.

Identical letters have been sent to the Chairman of the

House Homeland Security Committee as well as the Chairman and

Ranking Member of the House Committee on Transportation and

Infrastructure. Please do not hesitate to contact Ms. Claire

Heffernan, Acting Assistant Administrator for Legislative

Affairs, at (571) 227-2717 if you have any questions about

this matter.

Sincerely yours,

Kip Hawley,

Assistant Secretary.

The second new title, title XI, creates an assistant commandant for marine safety and a vast new super structure, including Marine Safety Specialist, that receive special benefits such as geographic stability and special promotion system. It provides for the possibility of additional pay for Coast Guard personnel in the marine safety field. Unfortunately, with no regard for those Coast Guard men and women engaged in other critical, dangerous missions like search and rescue, national defense, and port security. I wonder if we really want to do that.

It appears to elevate the Coast Guard's marine safety mission above all others. Most notably, the Commandant of the Coast Guard has real and serious concerns about this reorganization language that has never been considered by any committee, to my knowledge. I would think we would want to seriously deliberate these provisions in an open forum and give the Commandant an opportunity to voice his concerns to the Congress.

Mr. Broun of Georgia has introduced an amendment stripping these two problematic titles so they can be considered on their merits by the appropriate congressional committee, and I am pleased that his amendment has been made in order.

Other improving amendments offered by the Committee on Homeland Security members include Mr. Bilirakis of Florida, an amendment to make the Coast Guard's incredibly successful biometric identification pilot program more permanent. I hope this amendment is adopted. It will help us positively identify individuals with weapons, drug trafficking, and murder convictions, and help us keep them out of the United States.

Both Mr. Poe and I are offering an amendment with language to make operations of the stealth mini submarines illegal. These subs, which can carry up to 10 tons of cocaine into the United States, and have done so, would be equally capable of transporting weapons of mass destruction or would-be terrorists. They are immediately scuttled, once detected, making prosecution nearly impossible. So I hope that this amendment, when considered, would be approved on this floor.

If these concerns are not adequately addressed here on the House floor, I would look forward to working with the Senate in a conference to ensure that the men and women of the Coast Guard have the resources it needs to continue to protect the citizens of the United States. The Coast Guard is one of the jewels of our overall executive branch, particularly in DHS, and this bill, this reauthorization bill recognizes that. Although it has some defects, as I mentioned, I hope we can work those out.

With that, I would reserve the balance of my time.

At this time, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I submit for the Record two more letters, one from the Commandant of the Coast Guard and one from four retired admirals of the Coast Guard.

Mr. Chairman, let me just repeat some language contained in the Director of TSA's letter to Congressman King, the ranking member of Homeland Security, about the concern I have again about this ALJ question.

``In the absence of sufficient ALJ legal and administrative resources at the Coast Guard, TSA does not regard the NTSB ALJs as a good alternative. Coast Guard ALJs have substantial expertise in fair adjudication of security programs. NTSB ALJs do not have the expertise in transportation security matters.''

What I have been trying to point out is my concern about the TWIC program, that all of us on a bipartisan basis here in the House and the Senate have tried to get up and running. I am afraid that while I appreciate the gentleman from Minnesota's clarification

of his intent to do something in the future, I am concerned about the expertise being removed at a time when we need it.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security, United States Coast

Guard,

Washington, DC, April 23, 2008.

Hon. James L. Oberstar,

Chairman, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,

House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Oberstar: On April 18, the Committee filed

with the Rules Committee an amendment in the nature of a

substitute to H.R. 2830, that would be retitled the ``Coast

Guard Authorization Act of 2008.'' During numerous meetings

and staff-level discussions over several months, we have

described how a number of provisions that appear in this

amendment would compromise organizational efficiency and

operational effectiveness, diminish my command and control,

and ultimately reduce the Coast Guard's effectiveness in

carrying out its safety, security, and stewardship missions.

We have expressed these and other concerns in Department of

Homeland Security views letters concerning earlier bill

language. The amendment also contains provisions neither

previously shared nor discussed with the Coast Guard.

One provision requiring that the Coast Guard provide

security around liquefied natural gas terminals and tankers

is contrary to the existing assistance framework, at odds

with accepted risk management practices, and would divert

finite Coast Guard assets from other high-priority missions.

I recommend a broader' discussion of security measures for

all extremely hazardous cargoes. In the Statement of

Administration Policy on H.R. 2830, the Administration has

stated that, if the bill is presented to the President with

this provision, his senior advisors would recommend that he

veto the bill.

Among the others is one that, while similar to the

Administration's proposal, fails to authorize the President

to appoint officers to positions of importance and

responsibility to accommodate organizational change in the

future (Admirals and Vice Admirals). Others, primarily

involving our important marine safety mission, would

statutorily fix the designation and duties of other senior

Coast Guard officials and officials at all levels of command,

and prescribe inflexible personnel qualification

requirements. Still other provisions would diminish the Coast

Guard's capacity to adjudicate merchant mariner licensing

matters efficiently and effectively and support other vital

security adjudications of the Department of Homeland Security

(Appeals to National Transportation Safety Board). Still more

provisions would prescribe contracting and acquisition

practices for the Deepwater program, thereby increasing the

cost of, and adding delay to, the Deepwater acquisition

process, as well as circumventing the review and approval

authority of Coast Guard technical authorities (Coast Guard

Integrated Deepwater Program).

Among the new provisions is one that dramatically alters

admission procedures for the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. While

I have discussed Academy admissions several times with

Chairman Cummings and we agree that our process should yield

successful cadets and reflect our diverse society, the

proposed Congressional nomination process deserves full

discussion and deliberate consideration. Other new provisions

that affect how we execute our missions deserve similar

scrutiny. Conversely, the bill omits the Administration

proposal for much needed enhanced authority to prosecute

those who would smuggle undocumented aliens into the United

States by sea (Maritime Alien Smuggling Law Enforcement Act)

and the Administration's proposal to protect seafarers who

participate in investigations and adjudication of

environmental crimes or who have been abandoned in the United

States (Protection of and fair treatment of seafarers).

Over the last year in the course of hearings, personal

meetings with you, and regional forums with industry, as well

as in my public statements, I have assured you and the public

that we share a common objective: a robust marine safety

program suited to meet the evolving demands of industry and

the marine public. I am already taking aggressive steps to

right the balance between our marine safety mission and our

other vital responsibilities, and improve the effectiveness,

consistency, and responsiveness of our marine safety program,

consistent with the framework I presented to you last

September. Legislation such as the provisions I describe

above was unnecessary to start this process. As I have stated

on several occasions. I am the Commandant and am accountable

to you to produce the changes needed to improve program

performance.

Including these provisions and others in an Authorization

Act that would otherwise be welcome compels me to strongly

oppose the bill.

Sincerely,

T.W. Allen,

Admiral, U.S. Coast Guard,

Commandant.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Chairman, this is an important amendment. This is an attempt by us to get our criminal laws to catch up with the technology used by the bad guys, essentially.

If you were to look at one of these in the open sea, you would find out how difficult it is to spot them actually, even from the air. They are a very effective means by which they can deliver illegal drugs to this country, which they have done.

The Coast Guard has done a remarkable job in fighting this. But this law

will give us the ability to prosecute cases that are, we are incapable of prosecuting at the present time.

It will also alleviate the danger that is posed to our members of the Coast Guard in their attempt to retrieve the contraband that is thrown overboard when the perpetrators of these kinds of activities find that they are being chased by the Coast Guard. In this case, it will be illegal to be utilizing these kind of vessels for this type of purpose, but you will not have to prove the contraband actually is there.

This is an effective means by which we are giving an additional tool to our Coast Guard men and women around the world, and also to our prosecutors, to ensure that we deal with the continuing problem of drug trade.

But, in addition to that, as the gentleman from Texas mentioned, this could be used for delivering weapons of mass destruction to our shores. For that reason, if no other, I would hope we would get a unanimous vote in support of this amendment.

Madam Speaker, today is over 79 months after September 11, 2001. I rise today to discuss the grave matter that still lies before this Nation, now 6\1/2\ years after those horrendous attacks. Jihadism, or radical jihad, was with us before 9/ 11, has been with us since 9/11, and unfortunately, will continue to be with us into the foreseeable future in this, the 21st century.

It bears repeating what al Qaeda has done and intends to do to us, to our allies, to fellow nation states, and to fellow human beings around the globe. This is, in my judgment, the paramount issue of our time.

As one scholar wrote 1 month after 9/11, for Osama bin Laden and his followers, this is a holy war between Islam and the western world. If that is true, if it is also true, as stated recently in foreign affairs, that al Qaeda is a more dangerous enemy today than it's ever been before, this discussion is certainly worth having.

Let me briefly discuss what we are talking about. Who exactly are these jihadists? Are we referring to al Qaeda and its cohorts? Are we talking about Iran, Syria and the other nation states whose interests in the Middle East do not properly align with America's?

Or perhaps we mean Hamas, Hezbollah, or the myriad religious nationalist organizations across the Muslim world that share neither the ideology nor the aspirations of global transnational groups like al Qaeda that have, nevertheless, been dumped into the same category, them.

I would submit that we are primarily talking about al Qaeda and its minions, as well as those whose behavior is imitative of al Qaeda's, or any person or group which seeks to kill innocent civilian life for the purpose of coercing, through intimidation, fear and death, political, economic or cultural change.

While their aims and purposes may be somewhat divergent, depending on the geographical and geopolitical location of the perpetrator, wanton violence, death and destruction are their trademarks.

As the American people know, these aims and purposes did not originate on September 11, 2001. On February 26, 1993, murderous killers, using a Ryder van, bombed the World Trade Center, killing seven and wounding over 1,000.

In 1996, the Khobar Towers, barracks for our U.S. Army, were attacked in Saudi Arabia.

In 1998 the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed.

USS Cole was attacked October 2000, and September 11, 2001 soon followed.

Since 2001, attacks, actual and premeditated, have been a constant fact of life across the globe. There have been attacks in Bali, Indonesia in 2001 and 2005, a planned attack in Barcelona in 2003, the deadly attack in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 2003, a foiled plot in Istanbul, Turkey in 2003, a deadly attack in Casablanca, Morocco in 2003, a terrible attack in Madrid, Spain in 2004, March 2004, attempted attacks in the Philippines in 2004, the deadly London attack in July, 2005, an attack in Algeria in 2006, an intended attack in Denmark in 2007, and a planned attack in Germany in 2007.

Al Qaeda has also tried to overthrow the governments of Egypt in 2004, Jordan in 2005, and Saudi Arabia in 2007.

Let us not forget the organization functioning in Iraq, fomenting violence and death as they speak, al Qaeda in Iraq.

I found the following summation of events and actors from one contemporary scholar quite informative, and wanted to share with those of you listening this evening. He says this: 9/11 was an epic intercontinental version of the violence Islamists visited upon Algeria and Egypt in the mid 1990s. In other words, it was the culmination of years of failure.

From 1992 to 1996, while Osama Bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, were based in the Sudan, they, like other veterans of the Afghan jihad, focused on overthrowing apostate, as they called it, Muslim regimes.

Bin Laden's primary foe at that time was the Saudi monarchy which had incurred his wrath by inviting the U.S. troops, after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, for protection against Saddam Hussein. Al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian, was particularly concerned with Hosni Mubarak, whom he had unsuccessfully plotted to assassinate in 1995.

Al Qaeda tried to help Islamists take power in Chechnya, where they had modest success, and Bosnia, where they had none. Gradually, al Qaeda's leaders realized that Islamism was losing its struggle against the regimes of the Muslim world. And as if to underscore this point, in 1996, Khartoum, that is, the Sudanese government, began mending fences with the West. And Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri were shipped off to Afghanistan.

It was there that al Qaeda adds a new strategy. Instead of going country by country, painstakingly trying to build local movements capable of overthrowing individual regimes, it would attack the far away enemy, the United States, in the hope that by humiliating the superpower that guaranteed political order in the Middle East, it would embolden the Muslim masses against their governments.

As was explained in the book, ``The War for Muslim Minds'', al- Zawahiri was the first al Qaeda leader to switch gears and give priority to the international struggle. The author continues, in an age of satellite television, Zawahiri reasoned, international media attention must replace the patient, close work of recruitment through Islamic charity organizations that in the past had targeted potential sympathizers and militants.

The first sign of this new offensive came in June of 1996, only a month after Osama Bin Laden had arrived in Afghanistan, when a truck bomb exploded outside of the Khobar Towers, a U.S. Army barracks in Saudi Arabia. 2 months later, Osama Bin Laden issued a declaration of jihad against Americans occupying the land of the two holy sites.

In February of 1998, Bin Laden, al-Zawahiri and other Islamist leaders broadened the new jihad, calling, in their words, for the killing of Americans and Jews wherever they may be. Six months later, al Qaeda destroyed the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The date of the attack, August 7, was no accident, for it was the 8th anniversary of Riyadh's decision to allow U.S. troops on Saudi soil.

Two years later, in October, 2000, al Qaeda operatives detonated an explosive-laden dinghy alongside the USS Cole, docked at a port in Yemen, killing 17 of our Marines.

This strategy reached fruition, of course, with the massive attack on 9/11, which garnered al Qaeda more media attention than it could ever have dreamed. Thus we have a general synopsis of al Qaeda's actions and behavior in recent history.

We do not need to dissect the Koran, the Hadith, consult with the Ulama, the Shari'ah, or the Sunnah, to explain

that these actions are beyond the pale of historic civilizational values. Whatever their source, reason and common sense dictate that these actions are hideous, egregious, murderous and unequivocally unacceptable in a civilized world. They would lead directly to local and international anarchy were they to be offered the least bit of implicit or explicit approbation.

Nonetheless, even those who agree with the quoted statement above have many times struggled to properly define our common enemy. Are they representatives of an Islamic insurgency? Do they symbolize a turn to Arabian Fascism, a totalitarian ideology inspired by a mythologic vision of the past which does not attract Arabs only but only those for whom the early Islamic wars of religion and conquest represent a golden age, which aims by force to restore this past not only in the world of Islam but ultimately throughout the world?

Others prefer the term, Islamicism, or Islamist descriptions and categorizations. I don't believe that these are quite precise enough. As Walter Russell Mead stated 4 years ago, we must find a better name for what we are opposing. Islamicism is an ugly term that also silently concedes that Bin Laden's ideology has a claim to be regarded as a legitimate form of Islam.

The phrase ``War on Terror'' has been the preferred nomenclature of this administration and others. I think it has its deficiencies. As one scholar has written, the War on Terror is a catchy phrase, but a clumsy and misleading one too. In fact, the United States is not fighting a generic war on generic terror. Our concern is with what Robert Art calls grand terror, terrorism like the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon that create devastation and economic dislocation on a scale approximating that of a war.

Currently, the only organizations in the world with both the will and the means to attack the United States on that scale are radical terror groups based in the Islamic world. It is this kind of terror by these people that we are fighting, so says Walter Russell Mead in his book, ``Power, Terror, Peace and War: America's Grand Strategy in a World At Risk''.

The al Qaeda attacks were more than a hideous act of terrorism. They challenged core elements of American grand strategies in ways that Basque and IRA terrorism never challenged basic elements of British and Spanish security.

Besides endangering the security of Americans in their our own hemisphere and nation, the al Qaeda attacks pose a direct threat to the ever closer economic ties the United States seeks to built in the world. The symbolic choice of target, the World Trade Center, indicated a sophisticated mind at work, and the tactic of mass terror was well chosen. The attacks significantly exacerbated a damaging recession, and the potential that terrorists would smuggle weapons of mass destruction into New York or other major cities threatened the rapid flow of goods and people on which the American trading system depends.

The stated goal of al Qaeda's leaders, to build a fundamentalist Islamic caliphate in Saudi Arabia that can unite Muslims into a common struggle against the west, using the oil wealth of the region as a key weapon, is a direct threat to the American presence in a region that every president, since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, has seen as vital to the national interests.

While many of the measures that will be taken against al Qaeda and its allies will look more like police work, or at most, covert action by intelligence agencies and special forces than conventional war, the scale of the violence the terrorists are ready to use and the total nature of their demands are more like the actions of a hostile great power than like those of an ethnic resistance movement. Well said, I believe, by Walter Russell Mead.

Because of these stark facts, as just articulated, I prefer the simple term jihadism or radical jihad, for that is specifically about which we are speaking.

As George Weigel argues in his new book, ``The War Against Jihadism,'' jihadism is the ``religiously inspired ideology which teaches that it is every Muslim's duty to use any means necessary to compel the world's submission to Islam.''

This ideology has nothing to do with a humble commitment to bettering mankind, reflecting on theological inspiration or transcendence, or furthering a collective knowledge of the physical and metaphysical world. No, its identity can be judged by its actions. Its commitment to death, destruction, and chaos, regardless of the victims' gender, education, age, skin color, creed, or socioeconomic status. It is cold- blooded and ruthless. It believes grievances, serious or superficial, are helped to resolve not through consultation, deliberation, and self- government but rather through intimidation, death and carnage.

How can one be so certain of this characterization? How can one attempt to perceive and interpret what guides the hearts and minds of others on our planet? All you or I have to do is simply listen, listen to the words and ideas expressed by such persons.

So let me begin in 1993.

As I have mentioned, it was in that year that the World Trade Center was bombed and several persons lost their lives and 1,000 were injured. The mastermind of the attack, Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheik, referred to the cells then as emerging jihad army as the Battalion of Islam. Just a few weeks before the bombing on February 26, 1993, Rahman said at a rally in Brooklyn, New York, God has obliged us to perform jihad. The battalions of Islam and its divisions must be in the state of continuous readiness to hit their enemies with strength and power.

Nidal Ayyad was one of the Trade Center bombers arrested in March 1993. On his hard drive, the FBI recovered a ``claim of responsibility'' letter. In it, it says, ``We are the Liberation Army fifth battalion. Unfortunately, our calculations were not very accurate this time. However, we promise you that next time it will be very precise, and the World Trade Center will continue to be one of our targets unless our demands have been met.'' What a shame we didn't listen.

In February 1998, Osama bin Laden published a declaration of holy war against America. He said this: To kill Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is the individual duty of every Muslim who is able. Those are the words of Osama bin Laden in 1998. Jihadist leaders have delineated a terrible difference between themselves and Americans. Shortly after 9/11, Osama bin Laden told a reporter this: We love death. The U.S. loves life. That is the big difference between us.

Afghani al Qaeda operative Maulana Inyadullah has said, ``the Americans love Pepsi Cola. We love death.'' Sheik Feiz Mohammed, leader of the Global Islamic Youth Center in Sydney, Australia, preached these words: ``We want to have children and offer them as soldiers defending Islam. Teach them this: There is nothing more beloved to me than wanting to die as a mujahid.'' Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's spiritual leader, said in a speech, ``It is the zenith of honor for a man, a young person, boy or girl, to be prepared to sacrifice his life in order to serve in the interest of his nation and his religion.''

Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, has said, ``We are going to win because they love life and we love death.'' He's also said, ``Each of us lives his days and nights hoping more than anything to be killed for the sake of Allah.''

Furthermore, jihadist leaders have been quite explicit about their goals and aspirations. Al-Zawahiri has said, Like our glorious ancestors, the Afghan jihadists believe that they, too, had brought down one global superpower, and now these modern-day knights must recommit their efforts to wreaking havoc on the remaining one, the United States.

One scholar has noted that the contents of one of al-Zawahiri's texts depicted ordinary Muslims as passive, sickly, and devoid of conscience for which the only cure was an apocalyptic jihad.

Then, following the exemplary attacks on the far enemy, unspecified process would lead to the collapse of apostate regimes and the creation of Islamic states. These states would form the core of an Islamic caliphate that would eventually rule the planet.

Osama bin Laden has openly justified the brutality in the innocent deaths of 9/11. He said this: ``America and its allies are massacring us in Palestine,

Chechnya, Kashmir, and Iraq. The Muslims have the right to attack American reprisal. The September eleven attacks were not targeted at women and children. The real targets were America's icons of military and economic power.''

In the same interview, bin Laden openly discussed his willingness to use nuclear weapons. In October 2001, one month after September 11, bin Laden said, ``If inciting people to do that, referring to 9/11, is terrorism, and if killing those who are killing our sons is terrorism, then let history be witness that we are terrorists.'' He said, ``We practice the good terrorism.''

The next year Osama bin Laden issued a fatwa authorizing the killing of up to 4 million Americans and specifying in that fatwa that half of them should be children. This he calculated as a proportionate response to the number of Arabs killed by U.S. and Israeli actions, and the only way to really kill on this scale would be with a nuclear weapon.

In relation to 9/11 itself, bin Laden said, ``Here is America struck by God almighty in one of its vital organs so that its greatest buildings are destroyed. Grace and gratitude to God. America has been filled with horror from north to south and east to west, and thanks be to God. God has blessed a group of vanguard Muslims, the forefront of Islam, to destroy America. May God bless them and allot them a supreme place in heaven. As to America, I say to it and its people a few words: I swear to God that America will not live in peace before peace reigns in Palestine and before all of the army of infidels depart the land of Muhammad, peace be upon him.''

He continued, ``On the blessed Tuesday 11, September 2001, they launched their attacks with their planes and in an unparalleled and magnificent feat of valor unmatched by any in humankind before them. Yet with the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York, there occurred an even bigger destruction, that of the American Dream and legend of democracy.''

Osama bin Laden and al-Zawahiri have been quite open about their desire to institute a new caliphate. Osama bin Laden has said, ``These attacks took off the skin the American wolf and they've been left standing in their filthy, naked reality. Thus, the whole world awoke from its sleep and the Muslims realized the importance of the belief of loving and hating for the sake of Allah; the ties of brotherhood between the Muslims have become stronger, which is a very good sign, a great step toward the unity of Muslims and establishing the righteous Islamic Khilafah insha-Allah.''

Al-Zawahiri has said, ``the war with Israel is not about a treaty, a cease-fire agreement, Sykes-Picot borders, national zeal or disputed borders. It is, rather, a jihad for the sake of God until the religion of God is established. It is jihad for the liberation of Palestine, all Palestine, as well as every land that was a home for Islam from Andalusia to Iraq. The whole world is an open field for us.

``Supporting the jihad in Palestine with one's life, money, and opinion is the individual duty of every Muslim because Palestine was a land of Islam that was occupied by the infidels. This means that its liberation and reinstatement of Islamic rule there is the individual duty of every Muslim as unanimously decided by the nation's scholars, and such as the case with every land occupied by infidels.''

Examples of jihadist contempt and hatred for the infidels are. Bin Laden has said, ``this Is a War of Destiny Between Infidel and Islam'' and that ``the whole world is watching this war and the two Adversaries; the Islamic Nation on the one hand, and the United States and its allies on the other. It is either victory and glory or misery and humiliation.''

He's also said, ``O, young people of Islam, follow the orders of O Mighty God, his messenger and kill these people. Follow the example of Muhammad Bin-Musallamah and his companions. Death is better than living on this Earth with the unbelievers amongst us making a mockery of our religion and prophet, God's peace and blessings upon him. Fear God, try to please Him, and do not consult with anyone regarding the killing of those unbelievers.''

One al Qaeda stated, ``There Will Be Continuing Enmity Until Everyone Believes in Allah. We Will Not Meet the Enemy Halfway and There Will Be No Room For Dialogue With Them Until Everyone Believes in Allah. We Will Not Meet the Enemy Halfway and There Will Be No Room For Dialogue With Them.

An al Qaeda training manual gave ``guidelines for beating and killing hostages: Religious scholars have permitted beating. In this tradition, we find permission to interrogate the hostage for the purpose of obtaining information. It is permitted to strike the nonbeliever who has no covenant until he reveals the news, information, and secrets of his people. The religious scholars have also permitted the killing of a hostage if he insists on withholding information from Muslims.''

Again, an al Qaeda training manual says, Islam does not coincide or make a truce with unbelief, but rather confronts it. The confrontation that Islam calls for with these godless and apostate regimes, does not know Socratic debates, Platonic ideals, nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine gun.''

After a group of Saudis wrote an open letter to the United States expressing their belief that Islam was peace and tolerant, bin Laden wrote in response: ``As to the relationship between Muslims and infidels, this is summarized by the Most High's Word: `We renounce you. Enmity and hate shall forever reign between us--till you believe in Allah alone.'

``So there is an enmity evidenced by fierce hostility from the heart, and this fierce hostility, that is, battle, ceases only if the infidel submits to the authority of Islam or if his blood is forbidden from being shed or if Muslims are at that point weak and incapable. But if the hate at any time extinguishes from the heart, this is great apostasy! Allah almighty's Word to his Prophet recounts in summation the true relationship: `O Prophet! Wage war against the infidels and hypocrites and be ruthless. Their abode is hell--an evil fate!' Such then is the basis and foundation of the relationship between the infidel and the Muslim. Battle, animosity, and hatred direct--directed from the Muslim to the infidel--is the foundation of our religion. And we consider this a justice and kindness to them.''

That's Osama bin Laden's response to Muslims who wrote an open letter to the United States describing their religion and peace and tolerant, and he rejected that.

Slow debilitating attrition of will and resources in Iraq, and in general, are what jihadists openly desire as well as the importance of Iraq to the impending Islamic rule. Bin Laden said this: ``America is definitely a great power, with an unbelievable military strength and a vibrant economy, but all of these have been built on a very weak and hollow foundation. Therefore, it is very easy to target that flimsy base and concentrate on their weak points. And even if we are able to target \1/10\ of these weak points, we will be able to crush and destroy them and remove them from ruling and conquering the world.''

Osama bin Laden has called Baghdad, ``The Capital of the Caliphate,'' and said, ``I now address my speech to the whole of the Islamic Nation. Listen and understand. The issue is big and the misfortune is momentous. The most important and serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War, which the Crusader-Zionist coalition began against the Islamic nation. It is raging in the land of the two rivers. The world's millstone and pillar is in Baghdad, the capital of the caliphate. Al-Zawahiri has stated, ``So we must think for a long time about our next step and how we want to attain it. It is my humble opinion that the jihad in Iraq requires several incremental goals.

``The first stage: expel the Americans from Iraq; the second stage: establish an Islamic authority or amirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphate--over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq . . . the third stage: extend the jihad wave to the secular countries neighboring Iraq. The fourth stage: It may coincide with what came before: The clash with Israel, because Israel was established only to challenge any new Islamic entity.

Bin Laden added: ``Finally, I'd like to tell you that the war is for you or for us to win. If we win it, it means your defeat and disgrace forever as the winds blow in this direction with God's help.''

So the war in Iraq, according to bin Laden, is ``a war over the destiny of the entire worldwide Muslim community.''

Also in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was responsible for three lethal hotel bombings in Amman, Jordan, numerous beheadings, including that of Nicholas Berg, the bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Iraq, where 22 perished, the murder of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim, a revered cleric, in a car bomb that killed him and over 100 people outside Shia Islam's holy shrine in Najaf.

In the background of one of this murder's filmed beheadings was the trademark black banner of al-Zarqawi's newest group, al-Tawhid wa al- Jihad, or Monotheism and Jihad.

Jihadist leaders have not been ambiguous in their characterization of the United States. Hezbollah leader Nasrallah has said, ``Let the entire world hear me. Our hostility to the Great Satan is absolute. I conclude my speak with a slogan that will continue to reverberate on all occasions so that nobody will think that we have weakened. Regardless of how the world has changed after 11 September, death to America will remain a reverberating and powerful slogan: Death to America.''

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said, ``Undoubtedly, I say that this slogan and goal is achievable, and with the support and power of God we will soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism and will breathe in the brilliant time of Islamic sovereignty over today's world.''

``Open your eyes and see the fate of Pharaoh. Open your eyes and see what happened to the Portuguese Empire, see the final fate of the British Empire. I'm telling you''--referring to the major powers--``if you do not abandon the path of falsehood and return to the path of justice, your doomed destiny will be annihilation, misfortune and abjectness.''

Again, Ahmadinejad said, ``The anger of Muslims may reach an explosion point soon. If such a date comes, they--referring to the Western governments--should know that the waves of the blast will not remain within the boundaries of our region and will engulf the corrupt powers that support this fake regime too.''

In relation to America, Osama bin Laden has said, ``It's been made clear during our defending and fighting against the American enemy that this enemy's combat strategy is heavily dependent on the psychological aspect of war due to its large and efficient media apparatus, and of course its indiscriminate aerial bombing which hides the cowardice and lack of fighting spirit of the American soldier. Likewise, let me remind you of the defeat of the American forces in Beirut in 1982, soon after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, when the Lebanese resistance was personified by the truck laden with explosives that struck the main military base of the U.S. Marines in Beirut, killing 242 soldiers-- towards hell was their destination, and what an evil destination that is.'' Bin Laden continued, ``We found that out from our brothers who fought the Americans in Somalia. They did not see it as a power worthy of any mention. It was the big propaganda that the United States used to terrify people before fighting them. Our brothers, who were here in Afghanistan, also tried the Americans. God gave them and the mujahideen success in Somalia, and the United States pulled out, trailing disappointment, defeat and failure behind it. It achieved nothing. It left quicker than people had imagined.''

Al-Zawahiri added, ``This is the fumbling that precedes the defeat. Bush and Blair are hiding the true disaster they're facing in Iraq and Afghanistan. They know better than others that there is no hope in victory. The Vietnam specter is closing every outlet.''

These thoughts should give us pause, and they remind us of how irrational and bloodthirsty are enemies truly are. After all, are any of Osama bin Laden's complaints really meant to be sincere? He complained about economic sanctions against Saddam Hussein. Well, did he encourage Saddam Hussein to abide by the U.N. resolutions to accelerate the cessation of such sanctions? He complained about U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. Did he offer his advice to persuade Saddam Hussein to change his ways so that U.S. troops could leave Saudi Arabia? He criticized U.S. support of oppressive regimes. Has he spoken out forcefully for minority rights, democratic freedoms, the strengthening of civil society, the rule of law and economic transparency?

He criticized U.S. support of Israel. Has he in any way issued thoughtful statements outlining a path forward towards peace, articulating areas of compromise and concessions that can be worked out on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide?

He has criticized American pressure on OPEC to keep oil prices low. Besides being contrary to the petroprofits which demand provides, which would be in his economic self-interest, has he spoken up for responsible economic policies such oil-producing states could turn to in order to turn their back on the need to produce oil? If he is so critical of America's demand, does he thus support ending OPEC's monopolistic tendencies so that other consumers can rightly partake in the legitimate capitalist practice of supply and demand?

He has criticized the United States for being in Afghanistan and Iraq. Has he offered any thoughtful solutions to those two geopolitical challenges? Surely a man who has criticized President Bush for not signing the International Criminal Court and for America's campaign finance problems can muster the intellectual strength to offer such astute suggestions as must be at the brim of his cerebral storehouse of knowledge.

But we know the answers to these questions. Osama bin Laden has no desire to do any of these obvious suggestions, they're merely a mirage for his murderous ideology. As Hassan Butt, a former jihadist, explained, ``I was a fanatic. I know their thinking. When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.'' He adds, ``By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed this `Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence, Islamic theology.''

Now, I would not call it ``Islamic theology.'' I myself would call it jihadism or radical jihad to make clear what Rudy Giuliani said some 4 years ago. He said, ``Those who attacked us on 9/11 not only hijacked airliners, but they hijacked a noble religion.'' And we ought to keep that in mind.

As we've recently been debating in this war, the nature of intelligence has changed, but it is still indispensable. It's an essential element of any effective risk assessment. If we're going to effectively be able to protect ourselves against terrorist attack, we need to be involved in risk assessment. Risk assessment simply is looking at threat, looking at vulnerability, looking at consequence.

We can look at vulnerability and consequence with the information that is at our disposal, within our grasp, that is, when we try and figure out vulnerability, we look at perspective targets of the enemy, and we can assess what our vulnerabilities are. We can look at a dam, we can look at a building, we can look at the Capitol and we can say, what are the possibilities of attack here? How can we protect ourselves against those areas that we have not defended or thought of defending in the past?

Consequence. We can do models ahead of time to figure out what the consequence of an attack would be against the Capitol, against a dam, against a set of highways, against a number of large buildings in a metropolitan area and so forth.

What we don't have within our own information base is the third part of a risk assessment, that is, what is the threat? Because the only way we can determine the threat is by gathering information from the enemy; in other words, intelligence gathering; in other words, listening in on what the other

side has to say; in other words, capturing their communications.

And it's not easy; intelligence gathering is difficult. And as pointed out by some in that arena, all intelligence bureaus get things spectacularly wrong much of the time, which just goes to the point of how difficult it is to be able to gather the information, analyze the information, draw conclusions from that information, and then make sure that in a timely fashion we distribute that information or the conclusions that we've obtained from them.

In fact, one of the reasons we didn't prevent 9/11 is simple: Neither the CIA nor its intelligence agencies, Western or Muslim, had a spy or an informant inside al Qaeda's command structure. And the stark reality is that our human intelligence against al Qaeda and other Sunni militants will probably never be as good as what we had against the Soviet system during the Cold War.

Nevertheless, the importance of intelligence is why I've been working so hard to find a long-term solution to our surveillance situation. As one distinguished Member of the other body has said, without a long- term solution, ``the quality of the intelligence we're going to be receiving is going to be degraded. It is going to be degraded. It is already going to be degraded as telecommunications companies lose interest.''

In a letter dated February 22 of this year, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Attorney General Michael Mukasey both wrote to the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. In it they said this: ``We have lost intelligence information this past week as a direct result of the uncertainty created by Congress' failure to act.'' What were they talking about? Well, let me explain.

In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Admiral McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, stated that prior to the enactment of the Protect America Act--that is the FISA fix that we did last August which has now been allowed to expire--``we were not collecting somewhere between half and two-thirds of the foreign intelligence information which would have been collected were it not for the recent legal interpretations of FISA which required the government to obtain FISA warrants for overseas surveillance.''

Admiral McConnell said he came onto his job coming out of the private sector to return to government service with the responsibility of collecting information, that kind of information that would provide us with forewarning of what the terrorists intended to do. But he discovered that as a result of a decision made by the FISA court which changed the rules of the game because of technology changes, we were unable to do the job that he was given the responsibility for. Think about that. We had blinded ourselves to somewhere between one-half and two-thirds of the legitimate foreign intelligence targets that otherwise we would have been looking at. Now, we had the Protect America Act, which was the fix for FISA, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and that was in effect from the end of August until February 16 of this year. And what happened after it expired? Admiral McConnell and Attorney General Mukasey said, ``Because we've allowed it to expire, we have lost intelligence this past week as a direct result of the uncertainty created by Congress' failure to act.''

Now, we've heard some say that really that's not true because all of those intercepts that were in effect as a result of the new law that we had from the end of August until February continue in effect for a year, and that happens to be true. But that only solves part of the problem because, unless one believes that al Qaeda and its affiliates and its associates around the world have put their feet up on the desk and said, you know something, we're not going to plan anything else because the Congress can't listen in on what we're doing, unless that's a reality, we have put ourselves at jeopardy because we don't know what we don't know. We don't know the kinds of information that otherwise we would be able to gather, the kind of information that has allowed us to protect ourselves. That's why many of us on this floor have come and said, well, why not pass the bipartisan Senate FISA bill now?

We have almost every Member on this side of the aisle who is committed to it, and we have, I think, over 20 Members on the Democratic side who have, in writing, said they support it. Together, that is more than a majority in this House. So in other words, we could form a majority if we brought that bill up on our next legislative day that would allow us to accept the Senate bill. And we could have it signed into law by the President and we would no longer find ourselves as vulnerable as we are today.

Congress should act because we are in the legislative branch and have the responsibility to act. Let me repeat that. Congress has the responsibility to act. These issues should not and were not intended to be left to unelected, more cumbersome aspects of our government. They're inherently about legislating and about us, representatives of the people, doing our duty to protect the people.

After all, as Andrew McCarthy said in a National Review article dated March 4 of this year, ``At bottom the dispute over the warrantless surveillance program is about the division of power between the political branches: Is it the executive or the legislative department that has ultimate authority over foreign intelligence collection? By nature that is a political question, not a legal one. In our system such issues are supposed to be worked out through the normal democratic process: legislation and elections. They are not the province of lawsuits in which, A, the public's interest is purportedly represented by groups like the ACLU, which, let's face it, holds views much different from those of the American people at large, and, B, the final policy determination is made by the judiciary, that is, the unaccountable nonpolitical branch . . . The genius of our system is that it does not draw many fixed, immutable lines between executive and legislative authority or between liberty and security. We have the capacity to rachet up or down depending on threat conditions. We rely confidently on our politics and the sound judgment of the American people. Voters can remove a President or lawmaker who strikes the wrong balance.''

I have taken the time to speak on these threats today because I believe unequivocally that they are real threats. They are why I have worked so hard to pass legislation such as the bipartisan SAFE Ports Act of 2006. There are legitimate threats out there to which we must respond. But I must say there are those who take an opposite view.

Recently one commentator, Michael Hirsh, in the Newsweek Web Exclusive of February 21, asked his readers this: ``Think about this for a moment. A small group of ragged American haters, who had one lucky day of mass murder nearly 7 years ago, will continue to define the foreign policy of the lone superpower for years, possibly decades to come. There's something wrong with this picture. Yes, we can all agree that 9/11 was one of the worst moments in American history. And we can certainly agree that al Qaeda must be completely eliminated. But the group has never come close to duplicating 9/11. Even the train bombings in London and Madrid that were attributed to al Qaeda-inspired cells were minor in comparison . . . The rational policy would be to replace the overblown `war on terror' with what we should have been engaged in every day since 9/11: a war of annihilation against al Qaeda, an all-out effort to rid the Earth completely of the small, lunatic group that attacked us on that day. This is a task we should apply ourselves to fully, at long last. But it is absurd to assign the term `transcendent challenge' to such a band of murderous anarchists, who have about as much hope of achieving their grand dream of turning the Mideast into an Islamist caliphate as scientists have of proving one day that the moon is made of green cheese. Terror cells may be spreading, but their ideology, such as it is, keeps dying every time it is exposed to the open air. Even in the tribal regions of Pakistan, safe haven to the newly regrouped Taliban and al Qaeda, voters last week turned out radical religious groups because of their ineffectiveness. Al Qaeda and related terror groups are hardly the `heirs' to communism and totalitarianism, as Bush has described them.''

With all due respect, I profoundly disagree. Does anybody believe, for instance, that Libya, with its leader, gave up its nuclear weapons, its weapons of mass destruction, because they just wanted to sit down and reason together? Is it by accident that Libya, Khadafi, changed their position after we moved aggressively to respond to terrorism in the Middle East? I think not. And with all due respect, I do believe these threats I've outlined here today are real and that they are the heirs to communism and totalitarianism. And while their victims may not as yet add up numerically to the quantified brutality of previous dictators and killers, nonetheless, their potential to do equivalent destruction is without question. The focus on ``one lucky day,'' while disrespectful to the other victims of jihadism before and after 9/11, cannot be allowed to turn into ``many'' lucky days.

We also have a situation today where the possibility of obtaining a nuclear weapon and exploding it in a metropolitan area cannot be swept off the table as unthinkable. In fact, we ought to be thinking about it every day and thinking about how we prevent it.

We have seen and can envision without straining credulity what would happen in our large cities and our places of governance or commerce were other attacks such as 9/11 to be initiated. What would happen to us all, urban and rural, large and small, men and women, east and west, north and south, if our dams, our transportation structure, our trains, our subways, our purification system, our ports, our electrical grids, or our energy sources were to be maliciously struck? The results, both real and psychological, would be catastrophic.

Nevertheless, we must not give in to fear. Instead, we must think about what victory will mean in this confrontation, and whatever the definition of our terms of multifaceted success, we must continue to properly consider the possibility of what success means to al Qaeda. Those in the United States may not have an agreed theory of victory or path to get there, but Osama bin Laden and his cohorts certainly have. Bin laden's goal, as he; his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri; and others have often articulated, is to drive the United States out of Muslim lands, topple the region's current rulers, and establish Islamic authority under a new caliphate. The path to this goal, they have made clear, is to ``provoke and bait'' the United States into ``bleeding wars'' on Muslim lands. Since Americans, the argument goes, do not have the stomach for a long and bloody fight, they will eventually give up and leave the Middle East to its fate. Once the autocratic regimes responsible for the humiliation of the Muslim world have been removed, it would be possible to return to the idealized state of Arabia at the time of the Prophet Muhammad. A caliphate is in vision from Morocco to Central Asia, sharia rule prevailing, Israel destroyed, oil prices skyrocketing, the United States recoiling in humiliation and perhaps even collapse just as the Soviet Union did after the mujahideen defeated it in Afghanistan. These are their goals, and these are the goals we must understand if we are to be successful in defeating al Qaeda.

Remember, they warned us prior to 9/11 as to what they intended. They issued a fatwa. They said they would go after the World Trade Center once again. And we, as a Nation, didn't take them seriously enough.

We are facing a strange ruthless ``hydra-headed'' enemy. As some have recently demonstrated in their research into the biographical backgrounds of jihadists, many of these individuals are simply driven by individual alienation and group dynamics, while, as I have pointed out, the leadership often has more ideological views. These differences must be exploited. Also, as the RAND Corporation has recently reported, our ability to help states with their counterinsurgency measures has to be greatly enhanced.

So, Madam Speaker, whatever the means, whatever the solutions, whatever the minor delineations between the terror-using groups, whatever the tactics we must use, we must take this jihadist threat seriously. It is our first duty as representatives in a constitutional government and as trustees charged with preserving and protecting our Constitution, which upholds our equal natural rights as citizens in this great land and as a part of this esteemed republic. Let us be wise. Let us be discerning. Let us be steadfast. Let us uphold our Constitution. And in the end, let us be successful.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, this is an important amendment brought to us by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Fossella). It essentially would allow us to attach the FISA bill to the underlying bill.

And some would say, what connection could there possibly be?

Well, you have to understand the underlying bill, in at least four places, refers to the concern of pathogens, pathogens in our water.

And what are pathogens? According to greatlakes.net, pathos is Greek for suffering, and gen is a suffix meaning producer, also from the Greek. Thus, a waterborne pathogen is a disease maker that occurs in the water. These germs are living microscopic organisms, microorganisms or microbes that take in food, give off waste, grow, reproduce and die. And the most common types of waterborne pathogens are bacteria, but they're also viruses, protozoa and certain kinds of algae.

So why would the gentleman from New York's amendment be in order, from a germaneness standpoint, and why would it be important for us?

All you have to do is go to the INTERPOL Web site where it discusses the threat and prevention of bioterrorism. And therein, INTERPOL states, ``an effective biological weapon

is potentially devastating and much easier to make and transport than a nuclear weapon. Bio weapons are, however, relatively safe for the terrorists. Pathogens are virtually undetectable and can be brought reasonably easily into a country by an individual and can then be propagated in large quantities.'' INTERPOL says this.

``Recognizing the imminent dangers represented by this lethal form of crime is the first step in countering the threat. Thereafter, it is vital to put in place the tools which will enable society to take appropriate measures.''

If you go to the CDC and you ask, what are the bioterrorism agents, they list 27 of them, waterborne bio agents: Anthrax, Brucellosis, Cholera, Botulism, Glanders, Plague, Q fever, smallpox, and it goes on and on and on.

Now, we have a bill before us which says we have to be concerned about our beaches. By the way, it's not just the coastline. Under this bill this includes the Great Lakes. And it says we should be concerned about pollution, and they define pollution by the number of pathogens per volume. And I see nothing in this bill which says we're only concerned about industrially produced pathogens or accidentally produced pathogens. And if that's the case, we ought to be concerned about terrorist produced and introduced pathogens. And that's why the gentleman's amendment is both germane and appropriate and ought to be supported, because what it says is that we need the intelligence to understand which pathogens that the terrorists are attempting to introduce here, where they might introduce it, and to make sure that our first responders, which are referred to in the underlying bill, understand what it is they're faced with, how they prevent it, and if they can't prevent it, how they deal with it.

So this is a serious amendment. It says that the only way we can protect our coastal waters and the people who live in them, swim in them, work in them, is if we know the information ahead of time. And we don't have that information. That information is held by the bad guys.

The only way we can find out what the bad guys intend to do is, frankly, by listening to them, capturing their communications. That's why this FISA bill is important generally, but it is important specifically to this bill, a bill which tells us we are trying to protect our coastal waterways, the coastline, the Great Lakes and our estuaries. And the only way we can do that is to know who intends to damage it, who intends to introduce these pathogens as a direct threat to us and how we respond to that.

So I would hope that the gentlelady's point of order is rejected, and I hope that we will be able to vote on this bill, support this bill. And if we can't have FISA for anything else, let's at least protect our coast lines, protect the Great Lakes, protect the estuaries and everybody therein.

Sounds like a silly argument that we would limit it to that, but we have, under the rules, not been allowed to bring the FISA bill to the floor. Let us add it to this bill, where it's germane, where it would go to the actual intention of the bill and, in fact, refers to the major parts of the bill, that is, how do we know what pathogens are introduced; how do we respond to them; how do we make sure our American citizens are protected from them; how do we close down those waterways and those beaches when they've been introduced, whether or not they've been introduced accidentally, by industrial pollution or, it seems to me, something we ought to be concerned about, by those who wish to kill you and me, our children, and our grandchildren.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Point of Order

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank the gentleman for the time, and I rise in support of this bill.

I was with my 90-year-old mother on Sunday back in Sacramento. And I remember when my mom used to drag me and my six brothers and sisters off to the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra. And I remember when she worked with the leaders of the orchestra to bring other performers over to perform. It's not an easy thing when you have an organization like that. I know the gentleman from Iowa is talking about some of the more expensive organizations, but we're talking in this bill about all of these nonprofits being able to have the flexibility to bring foreign artists over here.

Interestingly, the Congress, a number of years ago, asked the agency involved to have a flexible system which would allow them to make the request up to 1 year before. And what happened was the agency turned it around and

said well, you couldn't do it unless it was at least 6 months or a year before. So, it sort of defeated the very flexibility Members of Congress asked for to allow this to happen.

We should understand that what we've been trying to do is get the agency to deal with these applications in a timely fashion. And the idea that you would get premium service is really kind of an interesting idea, to ask the government to do what it should do, but to do it on time we now charge you for it. Well, we do that in some circumstances because we do have difficulty with budgets, but here we're talking about only nonprofit art organizations.

So many times on this floor, it seems to me, we do more than we should; we go out and we solve problems that aren't there. We often pass legislation in search of a problem. This is not that case. This is a problem that does exist. These organizations, the Alabama Symphony Organization, the Florida West Coast Symphony, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, the Hubbard Street Dance in Chicago, the Louisville Orchestra, the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, Opera of Cleveland, Paul Taylor Dance Company, Pittsburgh Opera, Sarasota Opera, Florida Grand Opera, I mean, you can go down and down and down, and you see this is all over the country, a request of community organizations that are not profit that are just asking for the flexibility to be able to bring foreign artists here, which also creates an environment for U.S. artists to go overseas. And I'm old enough to recall during the Cold War that was one of the things we thought was a good thing. In fact, if you think about it, the Soviets, that's one of the things they didn't want, they didn't want American artists over there and they didn't want their artists over here. Why? Because it really began to open the eyes of many people as to some of the greatness that we have and the freedom that we have and the artistic merit that exists in a country such as ours.

So, I would just hope that we would support this bill. It should not be controversial. Hopefully, it will be a unanimous vote.

Mr. Speaker, oftentimes what is said on this floor reveals the differences between the two parties or the difference between the two approaches. The gentleman who just spoke before me made an allegation about the breathtaking and overwhelming nature of the President's request for information. Frankly, I thought what was at stake at the time was the breathtaking and overwhelming threat that this Nation faced after 9/11. That's what the President was responding to. That's what the President utilized in his request of American companies that come to the aid of their country. And here we stand saying we cannot reward them except to give them lawsuits.

The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Reyes) says if the companies are innocent, as if there is some question. I sat through all of those briefings. There is, in my judgment, not one iota of evidence that the companies acted inappropriately whatsoever. Not one iota of evidence sitting there after question after question after question; yet, on this floor, we raised the very question of those companies by saying if they are innocent. And what does Mr. Reyes say? If they are innocent, then it will be decided the good old American way: Go to court.

Well, I'm a lawyer, but I don't think most Americans think the American way in every instance is to go to court. If you look at the legislation we have before us, it is rewarding the Good Samaritans with a lawsuit.

There is a fig leaf here, yes. Now the majority side says, You know, there is a problem that we have to address with respect to telecommunications companies. That's progress, because when we were arguing on the floor with your previous provisions, you didn't even admit that. Now you do it, and now you say we are going to take care of it by the State's secrets doctrine and by going to a secret court proceeding.

It is a fig leaf to allow Members to vote for a bill you know is never going to become law. It is not effective. How do I know? Twenty- five attorneys general of the United States say it doesn't work. They say support the provision that's contained in the Senate bill. Democrats and Republicans alike from Texas, from North Carolina, from Oklahoma, from Florida, from Alabama, Arkansas, Alaska, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Virginia, West Virginia, Washington, Utah, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania.

No, Mr. Speaker, the President is not wrong. No, Mr. Speaker, he is not doing this to protect himself. He's doing it as these attorneys general of the United States recognize to allow us to go forward in protecting the American people.

Don't harm these telecommunications companies with friendly fire.

Would the gentleman yield?

I was here for the last three secret sessions we had. They are unusual, but it is within the rules that did deal with subject matter dealing with legislation that we were to talk about. We should be careful, however, while some classified information might be discussed, the information that those of us on the Judiciary Committee and Intelligence Committee received of the program we were read into, we are not able to discuss what we were briefed on specifically. We are, as I understand under the rules, able to draw conclusions and attempt to present that based on what we saw, but the fact that we have a secret session does not allow us to speak to that.

Secondly, that which is discussed in the secret session cannot be revealed even if it is of an unclassified nature. It does not prohibit you in the later debate on the floor from discussing the same subject saying the same thing; it is that you cannot refer to it having been in the secret session.

And I hope that helps the gentleman.

Believe it or not, I was, as young as I am now.

Will the gentleman yield?

As a member of the Judiciary Committee who's read into the program, when Mr. Blunt talked to me about the possibility of this effort, it was in the context of how do we make that careful distinction, and those of us who've been read into the program, to try and inform the membership without violating the confidentiality under which we work. And the suggestion was that a secret session might allow for a freer discussion, while those of us who've been read into the program still protect the classified nature of the program.

Now, I don't know if it's going to work. All I'm saying is it's no information that's, from my standpoint, that is unknown to other members of the Judiciary or the Intelligence Committee who've been read into the program, but it's our effort to try and find some vehicles by which we can inform the membership while still preserving the confidential status of that information. It's nothing that we have within our bosom that no one else has. It is information that we're trying to find a vehicle to allow the other membership to be informed. And I hope that helps the gentleman.

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Is it true that the rule that was the subject of the motion of the gentleman from Ohio with respect to not holding a vote open for the purpose of changing votes was adopted by this Congress at the beginning of this Congress?

Mr. Speaker, further parliamentary inquiry. Is it true that that rule was, in fact, a separate title and voted separately by this House by a vote of 430-0?

Mr. Speaker, further parliamentary inquiry. Consistent with the rulings of the Chair last night, is it true that the only enforcement mechanism of that rule adopted by this House is a privileged resolution such as offered by the gentleman from Ohio?

Further parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker. If such a privileged resolution is tabled, as was just done by this body, is it true that there is no alternative enforcement mechanism?

Further parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker. Is it available to other Members of this House who feel aggrieved by the vote last night to bring a privileged resolution similar to that brought by the gentleman from Ohio?

Is it true, Mr. Speaker, that if individual Members brought such motion seriatim that that would not be considered dilatory but, rather, within the authority of each Member of this House as a separate and individual Member of this House?

Mr. Speaker, further parliamentary inquiry. Is the enforcement mechanism referred to previously, exercised by the gentleman from Ohio, also available to other individual Members of this House?

I thank the gentleman.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I've served in this body for 14 years stretched over 30. Twenty-nine years

ago, I think it was the first official action I took on this floor, was to bring a resolution to expel a Member. It was not something I wanted to do as a freshman. But we had a true ethics problem at the time. And frankly, I didn't think we were dealing with it in the appropriate way. That was sort of my baptism of fire here.

Since I returned to Congress 4 years ago after an absence of 16 years, I have applauded the work of the Ethics Committee because often I and my staff consult with the staff of the Ethics Committee to ensure that we are acting within the rules of this House. And I must say the return that we have received in terms of information, advice and counsel from the Ethics Committee staff has been professional, exceptional and helpful. And so, when I see memos or letters that are addressed to the membership from the Ethics Committee, I pay attention to it.

I try and incorporate that information in my decisionmaking. So when I received the letter from Congressman Hastings with the memo enclosed, I thought it was a benefit to me as an individual Member of this House in making my decision.

I came to the floor, frankly, not knowing what I was going to do on that ethics package. I sat with the gentleman from Missouri and went over it. We, in fact, went over the memo that was given to us by Doc Hastings, not just because it was given to us by Doc Hastings, but because it was a professional opinion of those on the staff of the Ethics Committee that I have learned to trust. It doesn't mean that I follow blindly their opinion, but it does mean that I am educated by that information.

For the life of me, I could not understand any rule adopted by this House or the committee that would deny me, as an individual Member, the benefit of that information when, in the judgment of the ranking member, he thought it might help me and others make a decision. And when you review the rules cited by the gentlewoman in the letter that contained the threat of a complaint to be filed against the gentleman from Washington, I cannot find the basis for a complaint.

Now, I have not served on the Ethics Committee, I will admit. I have practiced law for 30-some years. I have been the attorney general of the State of California. I have prosecuted people. I have put people in prison. I have done investigations of other elected officials.

I have had to compartmentalize, and understand that when you do a criminal investigation and it doesn't rise to the level of a complaint or an indictment, you cannot, as a matter of honor, as a matter of ethics, use that information in debate, in informing the public, even though you may find that the individual that was under investigation happened to be stupid, happened to be unethical, because you got that information by way of an investigation of a criminal matter.

So, while I haven't served on the Ethics Committee, I believe I have over the course of my political and legal career been able to read legislation, read rules, and not only find out what the spirit of the law is, but the letter of the law. And I cannot find in the citation by the gentlelady from Ohio any basis for making a claim against the gentleman from Washington.

Now, we can disagree on that. I am not on that committee. She is the Chair. However, the thing that troubles me perhaps the most is that this was made public. A complaint about the gentleman breaching confidentiality about a matter that was not of interest to an individual Member, that is, was not directed at a Member in terms of an investigation, that alleged breach is revealed by a breach of confidentiality that gives the gentleman from Washington very little opportunity to defend himself. And that is part of the crux of the debate last night.

Yes, as the Speaker said, we all are subject to criticism, some fair, some unfair. That is part of the business of being in politics. But the fact of the matter is, we here should not enhance that kind of platform for irresponsible allegations against one another. And one of the ways we ensure that we don't do that is the confidentiality with respect to complaints against somebody.

So, I would just hope that the people of the gentleman's district in Washington would understand that in the judgment of many, I would say most in this body, virtually universal, there is no basis for a claim of complaint against the gentleman from Washington. He did nothing to reveal anything with respect to an investigation, anything with respect to the business of the Ethics Committee. What he did was give us the benefit of judgment of professionals on that committee pertaining to an upcoming legislative debate.

Have we gone so far in this House that we deny ourselves of information that would inform the debate? Is that what we are talking about? Talk about turning the first amendment on its head, saying that the House of Representatives, which is supposed to be the great debating society of this institution, ought to be denied an opportunity to debate when informed.

I love this House. I came back to this House. I may die in this House. I love the institution, this House. And I think we who believe this institution is important to the American people believe it is also important to those who have been privileged to serve here. If we do not have respect for ourselves, how can we ask the public to have respect for us? If we do not have respect for ourselves, how can we have respect for this institution?

So, Mr. Speaker, I rise in sorrow about the accusations made against my friend from Washington and want to stand here and say I have found him in every way to be an honorable man, and that his actions over this last week were anything but dishonorable, were in fact efforts to inform this House, which is what we all ought to be about when we vote.

I thank the gentleman.