Floor Statements

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of a strong consumer and privacy protection bill, H.R. 2929, the Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass Act or the SPY ACT.

First, I would like to thank my colleagues, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stearns), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns) and the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Bono), for their work on the SPY Act. I would like to commend them for the manner in which this bill was handled. The process was open. There was a sincere willingness to address each other's concerns and the work was organized around the goal of creating a strong and effective consumer protection bill. I think we have accomplished our goal.

The SPY ACT is a bill whose time has come. As we have learned from our constituents, friends and family from our own experiences, people are increasingly finding that their home web pages have been changed or that their computers are sluggish. They will get pop-up ads that will not go away no matter how many times they try to close them. They find software on their computer that they did not install and that they cannot un-install. Their computers are no longer their own, and they cannot figure out why. They think that the problem is with their computer, with a faulty program they installed, or with their Internet service provider.

But more and more often, it is becoming clear that they are the unwilling victims of spyware. Software that can collect personal information, track web usage and adversely effect computer performance. While some of the above examples may be written off as merely annoying, there are serious privacy and security issues at stake.

The tracking capability of the software is so powerful that it can record every keystroke a computer user enters. It can snatch personal information from a consumer's hard drive. People can see their bank account numbers, passwords and other personal information stolen because they quite innocently went to a Web site or clicked an agreement which downloaded spyware onto their computer.

Although we do not want to stop legitimate uses of the underlying software, like allowing for access to online newspapers without having to register every time the Web site is visited, we do want consumers to know what is happening with their constitutes and personal information and to stop truly nefarious abuses of the programs, like keystroke logging which can track and transmit every keystroke entered to an unintended recipient.

The SPY ACT ensures that consumers are protected from truly bad acts and actors while also preserving pro-consumer functions of the software. It prohibits indefensible uses of the software, like keystroke logging and homepage highjacking. Additionally, it gives consumers the choice to opt-in to the installation or activation of information-collection programs on their computer, programs that are not spyware, but only when the consumer knows exactly what information will be collected and what will be done with it.

Furthermore, the SPY ACT gives the Federal Trade Commission the power it needs, on top of laws already in place, to pursue deceptive uses of the spyware. The SPY ACT puts the control of computers and privacy back in consumers' hands, and I am glad that I was able to be a part of the process that brought this bill to the floor today.

Again, I thank my colleagues for this pro-consumer, pro-privacy and bipartisan piece of legislation.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I would like to join the gentleman in thanking our staff, as well, for the hard work and the good work they did on bringing this legislation now to fruition.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns), one of the people most responsible for this consumer protection legislation.

Madam Speaker, if I could inquire if there are any other speakers on the other side.

Madam Speaker, I have no other speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, perhaps the greatest disservice that the Bush administration and the Republican leadership have inflicted upon the American people is the lowering of expectations of what this great country of ours can be.

As the undisputed superpower of the world and the richest nation in the history of the planet, our opportunity to be a force to advance humankind in all respects is without limit and, one after another, this Nation has squandered those opportunities, leaving more Americans in poverty and without health insurance, breathing dirtier air, fewer with a chance of college, 1,027 dead in a war that has made the United States reviled around the world.

The Democrats are offering today a different vision, inviting all Americans to partner with us and each other in an America built on our shared values of prosperity, opportunity and fairness for all, national security, accountability and community.

Together, we can fulfill the great promise and the great hope that is the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, the Medicare Modernization Act: good for the HMOs, great for the pharmaceutical companies, bad for seniors and bad for persons with disabilities.

Let us consider the numbers.

$54 million: That is the amount drug companies spent lobbying Congress and the administration between 1997 and 2002.

675: That is the number of paid drug company lobbyists, more than 1 for each of the 535 Members of the U.S. House and Senate.

$67.7 million: That is the amount of drug company political contributions since 1999, and Republicans received 71 percent of those.

$891,208: That is the amount of drug company campaign contributions President Bush has received since 1999.

Zero: That is the number of Democrats who were allowed into the conference committee when this bill was finally crafted, the bill that was supposed to provide relief to seniors but really has provided great relief to the drug companies. That means that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), veterans of the House and experts on Medicare, were locked out of the committee.

Twenty-three percent: the percent of average Americans' out-of-pocket medical expenses spent on prescription drugs.

Seventy percent: the amount of discounts the Veterans' Administration obtains on cholesterol medications by using its bargaining clout with the pharmaceutical companies, something not allowed for Medicare beneficiaries.

Sixty-six cents: the amount the Veterans' Administration paid for a 30-day supply of Zocor, that is high cholesterol medicine, in 2002, compared to $3.77 at the retail pharmacy.

Thirty-six percent: the amount of U.S. medical research funded, by who? By you, the taxpayers, by the Federal Government, not by the pharmaceutical companies.

$139 billion: the amount of additional drug company profits to be reaped from the new Medicare law.

$46 billion: the amount of additional payments to Medicare HMOs expected from the new Medicare law.

$400 billion: That is how much the Republicans swore the Medicare bill would cost.

$540 billion: That is the amount the Medicare actuary, the numbers cruncher, knew it was really going to cost, but he was threatened with his job if he told the truth to Congress.

$576 billion: That is the recent estimate by the Office of Management and Budget of the cost of the Republican expensive and worthless Medicare plan.

$4,000: what a senior citizen with $5,000 in yearly drug costs would have to pay under the new Medicare benefit.

2.7 million: the number of seniors expected to lose existing retiree drug benefits under the new Medicare law.

Six million: the number of low-income seniors and persons with disabilities are expected to pay more for prescription drugs under the new Medicare law.

Seventeen percent: the average profit margin of the top-ten drug companies in 2002.

3.1 percent: the average profit margin of the rest of the Fortune 500 companies in 2002.

Seventeen percent: next year's increase in Medicare Part B premiums.

2.5 percent: That is the expected Social Security cost of living adjustment increase next year.

53.6 percent: That is the percent of the average 65-year-old's Social Security recipients benefits that would go to out-of-pocket Medicare expenses in 2026. In other words, more than half of their Social Security check would end up going to pay for Medicare expenses.

Now, at the time that this bill passed, I warned my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who thought it was so great and that the senior citizens would love it. I have to tell my

colleagues, another zero in my district. That is the number of senior citizens who think that the Medicare Modernization Act is a good deal for them.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for leading us in these Special Orders so that we can talk truth to the American people.

The fact of the matter is that a large majority of Americans do think that the country is going in the wrong direction. They do not think they are better off today. In listening to some of our colleagues on the Republican side, it sounds like they think that the American people just do not get it; that if they would just look at their charts and really understand the truth, they would understand that things are really better.

But the fact of the matter is that it is the Republicans who do not get it, or are not listening to the people who are telling them that no, in fact, maybe they do not even read the newspapers, except the articles they like to read, because the headlines, I think it was during the convention, in fact, that were saying that, in fact, a million more people now are without any health insurance in the United States of America, that more Americans have fallen into poverty in the United States of America. The fact that there is the kind of poverty that we have here in the richest country in the world is a disgrace in and of itself, or that there are people without health care.

We are facing health care issues in my family, and one of my loved ones was just in the emergency room, got a bill for one night in the emergency room, $16,500. Now, fortunately, she has health insurance. What if she did not? She would have a bill for $16,500. You find me an American family that can easily absorb that kind of thing.

Mr. Speaker, we know that college tuition is up. We know that wages for average workers are down. We know that there are problems in after- school programs all over. We know that property taxes are going up, often wiping out any possible tax benefit that they may have had on their income tax, if any. We know that seniors are going to

be paying more for Medicare. Maybe they got a measly check for a refund on their income tax, more than eaten up by the increase that they are facing in their prescription drugs and then their Medicare premiums. So they better check it out. The American people understand the country is going in the wrong direction and the economy is not good.

But I bring my colleagues good news. I have found the people who are benefiting. My husband has a pilot's license, so he gets all kinds of mail and he got this in the mail, a beautiful picture of a private jet. And it says on the front, ``Bank with it. Land the ultimate tax benefit with a Cirrus high-performance aircraft.'' You look on the back and it says, ``Deduct up to 79 percent. Your defining moment is now. Better get moving. Take delivery of the internationally acclaimed Cirrus aircraft before December 31st, 2004, and you will be able to take off with more than you think. Interested, aren't you? For only $220,000, you can purchase a Cirrus srV.'' That is the low-end Cirrus plane. And, it says, ``You must act quickly to take advantage of this incredible tax advantage. Delivery slots are limited for the remainder of 2004,'' and then they cite the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Act of 2003. ``If you ever needed an incentive to fly, this is it,'' they say.

The Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Act of 2003, this new law makes the purchase of a new aircraft financially more attractive than ever, by providing increased incentives for new aircraft purchases delivered before December 31, 2004. This law allows bonus depreciation up to 50 percent off the purchase price of the new aircraft, and then it talks about additional write-offs.

Anyway, so get out your checkbook; $220,000 for a Cirrus srV. Your total first-year deduction, first-year deduction, $172,800, or 79 percent.

So do not tell me that there are not people benefiting from this tax cut. We got another ad that my husband cut out from Flying Magazine which he subscribes to that shows the man with his jacket flung over his shoulder coming out of this airplane. I guess this is the guy who has benefited or can benefit from the tax cuts.

Now, you explain to people who do not have a job, have been looking for a job, who cannot afford that $16,500 bill in the emergency room of a hospital, who cannot send their child to college, who does not have any health benefits from the new job that he or she got because there are not any benefits, why this is so doggone important. ``Bank with it. Land the ultimate tax benefit with a Cirrus high-performance aircraft.''

These are the people, this is the priority of this administration, while the rest of us, of our I guess not very smart constituents who have not figured out how great the economy is and are struggling every night at their kitchen table to figure out just how to make ends meet and have a decent life for their family. You better believe that for most Americans, this means nothing. This is a slap in the face to them.

We can do better as a country. If they think the country is in the wrong direction, it is. It is topsy-turvy, when we are not looking at those people who want an after-school program for their child, or want to be able to send their kid to college, that we are going to be able to provide a 79 percent tax break to somebody buying a private jet.

I thank the gentleman for letting me talk about this tonight.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 3313, the so-called Marriage Protection Act. This bill would expressly forbid the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, from hearing cases on a Constitutional matter. That not only sounds absurd to me, but I'm sure it confuses American Government students across the country who are learning every day about our system of checks and balances and the role of the courts in our country.

But this bill not only violates the principle of separation of powers, it also grossly violates our equal protection and due process rights. This bill singles out a group of people who simply want to live in peace with the person they love and denies them access to the courts in order to fight for equal rights. If we pass this bill, then I wonder who is next--what group of people is next on the target list for being singled out and denied rights?

It strikes me that this bill is yet another example of how the Republican leadership in this country simply changes the rules when things aren't going their way so that the outcome will shift in their favor, regardless of the effects on our civil rights. We've seen votes held open for hours and funding cut off for popular and critical programs just so the Republican leadership can have their way. And, in this case, the Republican leadership is willing to go so far as to change the Constitutional rules and principles that we have lived by for centuries--the guarantee that any group or individual who feels their rights have been violated can go to court to seek redress--in order to protect a law that we passed eight years ago. This is simply unacceptable, and I urge my colleagues to vote no on H.R. 3313.

Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today with a sense of urgency to call on my colleagues to act now, before we adjourn, upon the crisis that is developing more and worsening every day in the Sudan.

Over 1 million Sudanese have been displaced and 30,000 have been killed so far in Darfur, and we understand that a minimum of 1,000 people a day are dying, being killed. Women and girls are being systematically raped and brutalized by thugs who have been reported to sing with glee as they inflict pain and humiliation beyond belief.

I stand here today not only as a Member of the United States House of Representatives but as a Jew, as part of a people who are still haunted by the killing of 6 million during World War II, while there were people in the world who knew what was happening, and as a grandmother who does not want to face my grandchildren who say to me, Grandma, you were in the Congress when people were killed in a genocide in the Sudan, what did you do. That is a question we all have to ask ourselves.

We should pass a resolution today before we leave this Congress that we will act, not just talk about it.

Mr. Speaker, my heartfelt gratitude to all of those who made it possible to bring this bipartisan resolution to the floor tonight, and particularly to my colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne), who has long toiled to make this evening happen and this resolution happen.

Some issues transcend the regular business of this House, the important business of policymaking, and transcend partisan politics, and move into the realm of moral imperative.

The genocide that is occurring at this moment in the Sudan, the murder and the rape of women and girls, even little girls at this moment, is one of those moral imperatives. And if we in this most powerful nation on Earth fail to act when our actions could prevent much, even if not all of the loss of life, then we share in the blame.

I stand here tonight not only as a Member of Congress, but as a Jew and as a grandmother. Each year in the Capitol Rotunda, there is a solemn and inspiring ceremony to mark the Holocaust, the slaughter of 6 million Jews by the Third Reich, and one of the themes of that event is never again. But it did happen again, and the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) listed the scenes of genocide since World War II, and now in the Sudan. And this House and the other body and the administration have a choice to make: Do we or do we not act to stop it?

Every day that we delay, a minimum of 1,000 people die. We have to make a choice tonight. Before we leave this body for 6 weeks, we need to make a choice. And as a grandmother, I do not want to look into the eyes of my grandchildren who say to me, Grandma, you were here when thousands of people died. What did you do to stop it? I want to be able to say, I did help to stop it. We all need to make that choice.

This resolution is so important, but it is just a first step. The other body needs to act. This administration needs to act. We need to call it what it is and we need to proceed to stop it.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to oppose H.R. 3574, the so-called Stock Option Accounting Reform Act. The bill will actually take away the power from the Financial Accounting Standards Board, an independent agency, to protect investors, pension holders and workers by requiring corporations to expense stock options.

In the wake of Enron and other corporate scandals, this is the wrong message to be sending to all those workers and investors who lost their life savings and retirement security, and it is the wrong policy to pursue if we want to boost consumer confidence and improve our economy.

We know from all the corporate scandals that have come to light that accurate and transparent accounting is vital to corporate accountability and shareholder confidence. Yet the accounting treatment of stock options allows corporations to continue to distort their true financial standing.

Stock options make up 80 percent of compensation packages for corporate managers. In 2003, CEO pay at 350 major U.S. public companies averaged $8 million, with stock options as the largest component. Despite those facts, stock options are the only form of compensation that may be completely absent from corporate financial statements.

H.R. 3574, a supposed compromise from the FASB rule, only counts stock options given to the top five executives, when calculated using what Warren Buffett describes as ``fuzzy math,'' in the bottom line but not those options given to all the other employees.

The special accounting treatment of stock options which this bill would allow to continue has fueled abuses linked to excessive executive pay, inflated earnings, dishonest accounting and corporate misconduct. Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz believes that the absence of stock option expensing requirements has ``played an important part in the spread of other forms of financial chicanery.''

A report by a blue-ribbon panel of the Conference Board found that the current treatment of stock options has fostered a vicious cycle of increasing short-term pressures to manipulate earnings to bolster stock price so that those receiving options could cash in, take the money and run.

FASB is currently working to address this problem, yet Congress with the passage of this bill will undercut its effort. I would suggest that we let FASB do its job and oppose this legislation that would eliminate the possibility of the transparency that stockholders and pension recipients need.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to oppose H.R. 3574, the so-called Stock Option Accounting Reform Act. This bill will take away Financial Accounting Standard's Bd., FASB's, an independent agency, power to protect investors, pension holders, and workers by requiring corporations to expense stock options. In the wake of Enron, and other corporate scandals, this is the wrong message to be sending to all those workers and investors who lost their lives' savings and retirement security, and it is the wrong policy to pursue if we want to boost consumer confidence and improve our economy.

We know from all the corporate scandals that have come to light that accurate and transparent accounting is vital to corporate accountability and shareholder confidence. Yet, the accounting treatment of stock options allows corporations to continue to distort their true financial standing.

Stock options make up 80 percent of compensation packages for corporate managers. In 2003, CEO pay at 350 major U.S. public companies averaged $8 million, with stock options as the largest component. Despite those facts, stock options are the only form of compensation that may be completely absent from corporate financial statements. H.R. 3574, a supposed compromise from the FASB rule, only counts stock options given to the top five executives--when calculated using what Warren Buffett describes as ``fuzzy math''--in the bottom line, but not those options given to others.

The special accounting treatment of stock options which this bill would allow to continue, has fueled abuses linked to excessive executive pay, inflated earnings, dishonest accounting, and corporate misconduct. Nobel Prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz, believes that the absence of stock option expensing requirements has ``played an important part in the spread of other forms of financial chicanery'' where corporate energy and creativity was ``directed less and less into new products and services, and more and more into new ways of maximizing executives' gains at unwary investors' expense.'' A report by a blue-ribbon panel of the Conference Board found that the current treatment of stock options has fostered a vicious cycle of increasing short-term pressures to manipulate earnings to bolster stock price so that those receiving options could cash-in, take the money, and run.

FASB is currently working to address this problem, yet Congress, with the passage of this bill, will undercut its effort. FASB's proposed rule would remove the perverse incentives to manipulate earnings and help bring transparency to corporate financial statements. FASB is trying to close an accounting loophole that has allowed corporations to understate executive compensation and distort the companies' financial standing. Investors and pension plan managers want the kind of accurate financial information that FASB's rule would provide: it would help them make informed investment decisions about retirement security. Let us let FASB do its job.

Two years ago, when we passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, we recognized the need to protect the Financial Accounting Standards Board, or FASB's, independence for setting accounting standards. We knew then that if we wanted true corporate accountability, if we wanted to protect investors and pension holders, then we needed to make sure that an independent body was overseeing accounting standards to which corporations had to adhere, and FASB's independence became an important part of the Act. We knew that then, but how soon we forget. As Consumers Union states, ``Those reforms (to hold corporations accountable) will have proven to be all but meaningless if less than two years after they were enacted, Congress reneges on its promise and subjects the independent, standard-setting process to political interference.'' That is exactly what we will do--render meaningless our own reforms--if we pass H.R. 3574.

As Alan Greenspan recently said, ``With respect to stock options, I think it would be a bad mistake for the Congress to impede FASB in this regard. And in this regard, as best I can judge, the FASB changes in recommendations with respect to accounting procedures strike me as correct, and it's not clear to me what the purpose of the Congress is in this particular procedure.'' It is not clear to me either. What is clear is that if this bill passes, we are telling investors, pension holders, and workers that Congress believes it is fine to keep them in the dark, and that corporations can continue to hide their true financial standing. I urge my colleagues to vote no on H.R. 3574.

I appreciate this discussion tonight and just wanted to make a few points. The gentleman said that there has been talk from the Bush administration, from the President himself, on how there has been this great recovery. I wanted to point out what was in the Wall Street Journal today that talks about that, yes, for some sectors of the economy, there has been a recovery.

They talk about a two-tier recovery that is going on where wealthier households are the big beneficiaries of a stronger stock market and higher corporate profits and bigger dividend payments and boom in housing, but ordinary people are not seeing that same kind of recovery.

And they show some very telling statistics here. For example, hotel revenue was up 11 percent in the first 5 months of 2004 at luxury and upscale chains, but just up 3 percent at economy chains. At the five- star Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colorado, $600-a-night lakeside suites are sold out every day through mid-October.

Mr. Speaker, let me give the gentleman a couple of other examples that will kind of surprise him, I think. At least I do not know people who spend this kind of money. At high-end Bulgari stores, and I may not be pronouncing it right because I am not sure what they are, but ``at high-end Bulgari stores, meanwhile, consumers are gobbling up $5,000 Astrale gold and diamond `cocktail' rings made for the right hand, a spokeswoman says. The Italian company's U.S. revenue was up 22 percent in the first quarter. Neiman Marcus Group, Inc., flourishing on sales of pricey items like $500 Manolo Blahnik shoes, had a 13.5 year-over-year sales rise at stores open at least a year. By contrast some `same stores' sales at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., retailer for the masses, were up just 2.2 percent in June. Wal-Mart believes higher gasoline costs are pinching its customers. At Payless ShoeSource, Inc.,'' and I know about Payless Shoes, ``which sells items like $10.99 pumps, June same-store sales were 1 percent below a year earlier.

``A similar pattern shows up in cars. Luxury brands like BMW, Cadillac, and Lexus saw double-digit U.S. sales increases in June from a year earlier. Sales of lower-tier brands such as Dodge, Pontiac, and Mercury either declined or grew in the low single digits.''

So it is not just the gentleman that thinks that maybe there is a difference, but this economist from J.P. Morgan, Dean Maki, says: ``To date the recovery's primary beneficiaries have been upper-income households.'' He said, ``Two of the main factors supporting spending over the past year, tax cuts and increases in stock wealth, have sharply benefited upper-income households relative to others.''

So we have the good times for upper-income Americans and pretty hard times or certainly not better times for most other Americans.

If I could just go on for another minute, there was an article also in the New York Times on July 18. The headline was: ``Hourly Pay in U.S. not Keeping Pace with Price Rises,'' and the lead is: ``The amount of money workers receive in their paychecks is failing to keep up with inflation.'' So this is really the relevant number. Even though we may be seeing some increase in jobs, what we are finding is that wages are going down, that American workers are having a hard time keeping up with inflation.

Last Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that hourly earnings of production workers, nonmanagement workers ranging from nurses and teachers to hamburger flippers and assembly-line workers fell, wages fell, 1.1 percent in June after accounting for inflation. The June drop, the steepest decline since the depths of the recession in mid-1991, came after a 0.8 percent fall in real hourly earnings in May.

And one other article I wanted to quote from the New York Times on Sunday, if I could, and that will end my comments: ``If President Bush was correct when he asserted recently that the economy was strong and getting stronger, why are so many people not only out of work but also looking for jobs?

``Mr. Bush noted with evident relief that the Nation had added 1.5 million jobs since last August. Senator Kerry and his supporters complain that the country still has about a million fewer jobs than when Mr. Bush took office.

``But,'' the New York Times says, ``neither statement captures properly the shortfall of jobs that has built up over the last 3 years. An accurate estimate is not 1 million but 4 million, and possibly higher.''

So the real job numbers, the real numbers of the shortfall of jobs, is about 4 million jobs. This tells us average workers are not even keeping up with inflation, and this Wall Street Journal article tells us today for some people they can go out and buy $5,000 cocktail rings made for the right hand, that there is a boom business in that. We have a two-tier recovery. Ordinary people are not feeling it.

Mr. Speaker, I commend to the attention of my colleagues the text of an article written by former Congressman Abner Mikva, who also has an extremely distinguished legal career history, which appeared in the July 16 edition of the Washington Post. I strongly agree with the concerns Mr. Mikva expresses in this article. I, too, believe the Bush Administration has gone dangerously too far in its detention of American citizens and foreigners. I share the hope that this President will return to the traditions that have made our democracy strong.

[From the Washington Post, July 16, 2004]

Dangerous Executive Power

(By Abner Mikva)

In 1971, along with the late Rep. Spark Matsunaga and

others in the House of Representatives, I sponsored the Non-

Detention Act, which states: ``No citizen shall be imprisoned

or otherwise detained by the United States except pursuant to

an Act of Congress.''

This simple provision of law has served as a bulwark

against the United States' ever again establishing internment

camps for citizens--as it did during World War II--without

the acquiescence of Congress. It also stilled the concern

occasioned by a McCarthy-era statute that authorized some

camps (which were never opened) to hold those engaging in

riot or insurrection. The purpose of the Non-Detention Act

was clear: to prevent the executive from detaining U.S.

citizens without explicit statutory authority.

Recently the Supreme Court considered the Non-Detention Act

in the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi, a U.S. citizen taken

prisoner in Afghanistan while allegedly fighting for

the Taliban. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that ``a

state of war is not a blank check for the President when

it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens.''

But did an act passed by Congress shortly after Sept. 11,

2001, provide the President with the statutory authorization

to detain U.S. citizens that was required under the Non-

Detention Act?

Justice David Souter stated that the post-Sept. 11 law--the

Authorization for Use of Military Force--is ``fairly read to

authorize the use of armies and weapons, whether against

other armies or individual terrorists.'' But this act never

uses the word ``detention,'' and, Souter wrote, there is ``no

reason to think Congress might have perceived any need to

augment Executive power to deal with dangerous citizens

within the United States, given the well-stocked statutory

arsenal of defined criminal offenses covering the gamut of

actions that a citizen sympathetic to terrorists might

commit.''

Although Congress gave the president the power to use

military measures to fight terrorism, it did not strip U.S.

citizens accused of terrorist activities of the protections

of citizenship. U.S. citizens accused of involvement in

terrorist activities should be charged with a specific crime

or released--not held indefinitely.

The lesson of history is that if Congress is going to

authorize the detention of American citizens for indefinite

periods, it needs to do so directly and intentionally, so

that it can be held accountable. Why? Because executive

detention is a dangerous power that otherwise can too easily

be abused, as the Japanese American detention camps showed in

World War II.

Our more recent history shows that many are being detained

based on suspicion of involvement in a terrorist conspiracy.

Some were released after a period of detention, without any

charges being filed. Others, such as Hamdi or a Chicago

suspect named Jose Padilla, accused of plotting to detonate a

``dirty bomb,'' are still being held. Today, after the Hamdi

decision, such persons have limited right to access to

counsel and some ability to challenge in court the factual

determination of whether they can be deemed ``enemy

combatants.'' But they lack the basic right to know the

charges against them or to receive a host of assurances of

due process available even to a U.S. citizen charged with

treason.

The principle at the heart of the Non-Detention Act was

affirmed by Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote (with Justice

John Paul Stevens's support): ``The very core of liberty

secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has

been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the

Executive.'' As O'Connor observed, ``It is during our most

challenging and uncertain moments that our Nation's

commitment to due process is most severely tested; and it is

in those times that we must preserve our commitment at home

to the principles for which we fight abroad.''

Thirty-three years ago Congress expressed the same vision

with the plain words of the Non-Detention Act. The Supreme

Court has left it to the lower courts to decide on a case-by-

case basis whether the Authorization for Use of Military

Force or future congressional enactments satisfy the

requirements of the Non-Detention Act and give the executive

branch the right to detain American citizens. I hope the

courts will set the bar high and prohibit the detention of

U.S. citizens by the executive unless Congress specifically

authorizes such detention. And I hope Congress will take care

in the future to avoid the kind of ambiguity the Supreme

Court found to exist in the military force act. Finally, I

hope this president will return to the traditions that have

made our democracy strong and realize that if he believes he

needs additional powers to fight terrorism, he should make

that case to Congress and the people.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Farr- Schakowsky-McGovern amendment. This amendment simply puts the House on record in support of language that the House has already agreed to as part of the defense authorization bill, and it is consistent with the Committee on Appropriation's report language on troop levels in Colombia.

The amendment allows for funds to support an increase in the number of U.S. military personnel in Colombia but continues the practice of this Congress to limit that number. The amendment allows for the current cap of 400 U.S. military personnel allowed in Colombia to be raised by 150, for a total of 550.

Mr. Speaker, when Plan Colombia was first presented during the 106th Congress, we were told it was strictly for the purpose of counternarcotics. In order to ensure that would be the case, the House placed strict prohibitions on funds being used for purposes other than counternarcotics.

Since enactment of Plan Colombia, the policy has changed. Now, as many of us have warned, the Bush administration is seeking to increase military involvement by the United States in Colombia. The administration wants to double the number of U.S. soldiers that are permitted to be deployed to Colombia.

This House placed caps on the number of U.S. troops in Colombia for a reason, and we should stick to the caps. We have provided $3 billion to Colombia over the last several years. This bill seeks to provide over $700 million for the Andean Region, including Colombia, and now we are being asked to commit more of our Nation's sons and daughters to the violence in Colombia.

Make no mistake, this is no longer a counternarcotics mission, and it is not a fight against terrorism that has anything to do with 9/11. It is a war, and sending more troops to Colombia means risking the lives of more Americans.

My colleagues on the other side of this argument seem to see no limit to what is an acceptable cap on U.S. investment in Colombia in terms of dollars and lives. As justification, they seem comfortable to toss around terms like the ``war on drugs'' and ``fighting terrorism'' without really discussing what that means and what the implications are for our country.

Despite our investments in Colombia so far, there have been no improvements in the overall problem of drug consumption in this country, and there has been no reduction in the violence in Colombia.

I have seen firsthand what a beautiful country Colombia is. I have met people from all sectors of Colombian society and traveled throughout Colombia. It is a wonderful nation but one in the midst of a civil war.

I believe what the Colombian people want and need from the United States is support to help improve the lives of its people. Sending troops will not accomplish that goal. If we allow the administration to double the number of U.S. troops in Colombia this year, what will next year's request look like?

We have heard from numerous military and civilian experts about the strains being placed on our Armed Forces as a result of the military conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq and additional homeland security needs. Instead of sending another 400 of our service personnel to Colombia, we should look for ways to ease the burden on our forces.

Vote to affirm the House-passed defense authorization and in support of the Committee on Appropriations. Support the Farr-Schakowsky- McGovern amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for coming down to the floor this late in the evening and giving the rest of us an opportunity to talk about what is a very important issue, and that is top leadership in our country. And something that I have thought about for a long time from the moment I received this holiday card from the Cheneys, one of the things about being in the United States Congress, I do not know that we are so popular necessarily, but we are on a lot of lists, and we get holiday cards from dignitaries, some from all over the world and am honored to get holiday cards from the top leadership in our country. And it is a lovely card. It shows the interior of the residence of the vice president and has a pleasant greeting that you might expect, ``Our best wishes to you and your family in this holiday season and throughout the year ahead, Lynne Cheney and Dick Cheney,'' and I thought that was really nice and getting ready to hang it up along with my others, and then I looked at the quote that is here.

And generally when there is a quote, it is something inspiring like ``peace on earth, good will toward mankind,'' et cetera. And I read this quote, and it says, ``And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice,'' meaning God's notice, ``is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid,'' speaking about God's aid.

I looked at that again, because I got a kind of shudder when I read it. ``And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?''

And what I read in this, and I do not know if I read it wrong, is that this notion of an empire rising with the assistance of God. And I was really upset by this, that this was not exactly this notion of peace on earth; but, rather, this depicted this kind of view of building an empire and doing it with God on our side. And quite frankly, I found this troubling.

The vice president subsequently was questioned about it, and he just sort of offhandedly said that Lynne had picked out the quote and he had not really paid much attention to it, but I found it particularly, at the time that it was received while we were and have been engaged in this war in Iraq that many do feel is part of a vision of building an empire, to be a very, very chilling notion.

I wanted to also talk a little bit about the Halliburton connection, and of course all of us do that at some risk, because if we run into the vice president, we may be subject to some unpleasant language, as Senator Leahy found on the floor of the Senate. But things that are undisputable that the vice president has said about Halliburton and his connection with Halliburton, ``gets unfairly maligned simply because of their past association with me.''

And then he said in January 22, 2004, ``I would not know how to manipulate the government contract process if I wanted to.''

And then also that same day, January 22, 2004, ``I severed my ties with Halliburton when I became a candidate for vice president in August of 2000.'' In fact, however, the vice president received $178,436 in deferred payment last year from Halliburton, and so that was not entirely accurate.

But perhaps more troubling are some of the issues that have been raised that really do question whether or not there was any connection between the vice president's office and the contracts with Halliburton, which it seems that U.S. officials have estimated that the Texas company's Iraq deals, Halliburton, from everything from oil repairs to meals for the troop would eventually total something like $18 billion.

Now, $18 billion, when I was in the State Legislature in Springfield, that was getting a little bit close to the budget for the State of Illinois, and I am sure that it is an amount of money that does exceed the budget of many States and certainly of many countries around the world. $18 billion is a lot of money.

But what was found was that in fact in the fall of 2002, preparing for war, and this is the fall of 2002, we had not voted yet, or at least a decision had not been made yet to go to war, the President and the vice president at the time were still saying that this was not a done deal that we were going to war; but in making preparations, the Pentagon sought and received the assent of senior Bush administration officials, including the vice president's chief of staff, before hiring the Halliburton company to develop secret plans, secret plans, for restoring Iraq's oil facilities. That is what Pentagon officials told Congressional investigators.

So secret plans were being developed, and at that time Halliburton, after connecting with the vice president's office, the vice president's chief of staff, gets this relatively small contract. I think it was about a billion 4. That is all, just a billion 4 contract, kind of walking-around money.

These are, after all, the statements about the lack of connection with the vice president. It says on March 5, 2003, a Pentagon e-mail sent by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineer official said, the e-mail said, ``Douglas Feith, who reports to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, approved arrangements for the contract to rebuild Iraq's oil industry, contingent on informing White House tomorrow that we anticipate no issues since action has been coordinated with the W.H. VP.'' That was an e-mail.

Now, we know that to be true. That is not a speculation. This is an e-mail. This is a document that we have that is suggesting people who have no reason to malign the vice president, that that kind of connection was made that suggests very strongly, to say the least, that the vice president of the United States, who was the former CEO of Halliburton, that before major multi-billion dollar contracts were awarded, that there was a checkoff.

Now, the vice president says they still stand by their statements that there is no connection.

The only thing one could think of is that for some reason, that the vice president's chief of staff did not tell him or something like that, but it seems to me if anyone feels the necessity to check with the vice president's office, whether or not he was involved directly in conversation, then I think the American people need to question that connection. Why would anybody need to do that or feel the need to do that? This is very important.

Let me just say this. We talk a lot about separation of church and State, but in some ways this lack of separation between corporations that are looking to make profits and the public interest, and what our mandate and the mandate of all elected officials is to protect the public interest. This blurring of those divisions is very, very troubling. Are the interests of private corporations going right up to the vice president's office? That is a worthwhile thing for Americans to know about.

I want to correct something. First of all, in that first small contract, and I was making a joke about $1.4 billion, and I was wrong about that, it was only a $1.4 million contract; but according to the General Accounting Office, the Pentagon acted improperly in tapping Halliburton company to plan the post-war repair of Iraq oil fields, a small-scale task order that opened the door to a much wider role for the company in Iraq, the General Accounting Office said in a report released Monday. That was the middle of June of this year.

The contingency planning task was valued at only $1.4 million but was significant, because it enabled the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to award a no-bid contract to Halliburton to fulfill a larger mission of actually restoring Iraq's oil industry to pre-war capacity.

I think the fact that a number of these contracts too were no bid contracts, that some of which ended up with Halliburton actually paying fines of engaging as they did in the oil that they were importing and overcharging and overcharging for employees, that ultimately had to be either ended or fines were paid. But, nonetheless, the bottom line is that this is a company that it appears is making about $18 billion overall in contracts in Iraq. And if this is in part at least the consequence of some kind of or benefited by a special relationship, then I think that the American people are entitled to know the full facts about that.

I thought the suggestion that really takes the cake,

that even surprised me was that while we are being told that the world is safer than it was before, we are being told that plans are being considered to postpone the November elections. I never heard such a thing like that, that we should be so filled with fear that maybe even the November elections would have to be moved. I think all Americans ought to be up in arms about that.

Just on that point of the November 2 election, the gentleman was discussing what possible motivation, the last thing that we want to do is to create in people's minds a fear about voting on November 2. What our democracy is based on is the fullest possible participation and Americans have nothing to fear but fear itself. And what I worry about is that there is a fire being instilled that somehow that people, that something could happen and it would not be safe to vote. Quite the contrary.

This is the land of the free and the home of the brave. And the most important unit of our democracy is our vote. And to even imply that we would at a time when we want to declare and spread democracy around the world, even consider the postponement of an election is completely unacceptable.

I think that all of us have to, as leaders in this country, make sure that that notion is stomped out immediately, that no matter what happens that we will go forward with an election on November 2. And if there is some kind of a threat about that, if there is some specific threat, after all, we did not raise the color from yellow to orange, if there is some specific threat that is known, then share that with the American people. Let us know what people need to defend themselves against and protect themselves.

The spreading of a generalized fear and then connecting that to the election is as specious I think as connecting Saddam Hussein with al Qaeda over and over and over again, which now the 9/11 Commission and the Senate Intelligence Committee has said there is no connection. There is no connection. Everybody ought to plan to vote confidently on November 2.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to express my disappointment with the wholly inadequate level of funding in the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2005 for grants to combat violence against women. Women in this country are in the midst of a crisis, continuing to be terrorized by sexual assault, domestic violence, and stalking, and the situation is not getting much better. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least one out of every six women and girls in the United States will have been beaten or sexually abused in her lifetime.

So what is the Republican leadership's response? According to this bill, it is to cut funding for grants to states to combat violence against women. This bill closely follows the President's request and cuts VAWA funding by 1 percent from last year's levels down to $383.5 million. Funding for Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) programs in the Department of Justice, programs which serve to protect older and disabled women from violence, to provide transitional housing for women fleeing abusive partners, to protect students on campus from sexual assault, to reduce stalking, remains $55 million short of full funding. this is simply unacceptable.

We have the money in this country to help every women who is raped, to provide counseling and services to every family trying to overcome domestic violence, to train police officers to help victims of stalking--yet the President's budget chooses not to do this. Instead, the Republican majority chooses to spend more of our money on tax cuts for the wealthy.

I go back to my district and I see women who have worked so hard to survive domestic abuse and sexual assault. I meet families who have lost a mother or a sister to domestic violence. When they ask me--what is my government doing to help me? What is my government doing to make sure this doesn't happen to another woman?--I will have to tell them that the government is not doing nearly enough. The Republican leadership is cutting funding for programs to prevent violence against women. This is a disgrace.

Mr. Speaker, I am joined tonight by several of my colleagues to do a short series of 5-minutes to help shed light on President Bush's record on women. We are very grateful to the National Women's Law Center that produced a report called ``Slip-sliding Away: The Erosion of Hard-won Gains For Women Under the Bush Administration,'' and the National Center For Research on Women that wrote a report called ``Missing: Information About Women's Lives.'' They compiled reports on the actions taken by the Bush administration that have eroded hard-won gains for women. These are rights and guarantees for equality that my colleagues and I, and those who came before us, have worked for years to gain in order that our daughters and our granddaughters would not have to endure inequality, violence, or lack of opportunity.

During the last 3\1/2\ years, so many of those gains have been rolled back, chipped away and, in some cases, obliterated all together. My colleagues will elaborate on some of these actions, but let me at least provide my colleagues with a list of the administration's actions. I have only 5 minutes, so this list will be a sample rather than an exhaustive list.

Despite a persistent wage gap and barriers to equal opportunity like sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination, the Bush administration has advocated policies that make the situation worse for women at work.

The Bush administration has completely eliminated the Equal Pay Matters initiative.

The Department of Justice has weakened enforcement of the laws against job discrimination and abandoned pending sex discrimination suits without notice or explanation.

The Department of Labor repealed regulations that allowed paid family leave to be made available through State unemployment compensation funds.

The Bush administration has proposed new regulations that would deprive millions of women the right to overtime pay.

The Bush administration has been proactive in undermining title IX, a program that promotes equality for girls in education and sports, a landmark piece of legislation that our late dear colleague, Patsy Mink, had so much to do with passing.

The Department of Education ``archived'' a guidance on sexual harassment in violation of title IX, making this guidance unavailable to victims of harassment, parents, schools, and the public.

The administration has tried to eliminate funding for the Women's Education Equity Act, which provides curricula and materials to help schools comply with Title IX and research on model programs to promote gender equity.

The Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to strike down the use of affirmative action to achieve diversity in higher education, while the Department of Education encouraged colleges and universities to avoid using affirmative action instead of guiding them on ways they can permissibly do so.

The Department of Education has proposed removing existing safeguards that ensure all girl and all boy classes and schools do not perpetuate stereotypes and second-class status for girls.

President Bush's most recent budget proposal would result in 300,000 children losing child care assistance by 2009.

The Bush administration has proposed modifications to the welfare law that would impose harsh new work requirements on mothers in poverty while opposing increases in their child care assistance.

The Bush administration has proposed privatizing Social Security which would hit older women especially hard by siphoning money out of the system, thus reducing benefits for poor women.

The administration has proposed eliminating the savers credit that gives additional tax credits to low and moderate income individuals and families who contribute to retirement accounts. At the same time, the President has proposed weakening the protections for low and moderate income individuals in employer pension plans.

President Bush signed a Medicare bill that prohibits the government from using its bargaining power to get lower costs on prescription drugs hurting the 80 percent of older women who use prescription drugs every day.

The Bush administration has proposed changes in Medicaid that would result in the denial of health care coverage to many poor women who are now eligible for Medicaid.

President Bush, for the first time since Roe versus Wade, was decided in 1973 signed into law a bill that unconstitutionally restricts a women's right to choose and that blatantly disregards any consideration for possible threats to a woman's health.

President Bush has cut millions of dollars in funding for international women's family planning which is used to promote maternal and infant health and reduce unwanted pregnancies and infant death.

Too bad I could not get through the long list which was just a summary in itself of the ways that women's rights have been eroded under this administration.

Mr. Speaker, when we as Members of Congress choose to look the other way at wrongdoing, when the agreed-upon standards of ethics of this body are seriously violated and no one makes a peep, the credibility of this institution is seriously damaged.

One of my colleagues has filed a complaint with the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, the Ethics Committee. He has raised serious questions about Majority Leader Tom DeLay's conduct, questions related to bribery, extortion, fraud, money laundering, and abuse of power. Some Republicans have tried to dismiss this complaint as mere partisan politics rather than respond to the substance of the charges. The gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle) threatened that as a result of this complaint from now on it is a matter of, quote, you kill my dog, I'll kill your cat.

This House has a duty to investigate wrongdoing, and we should do it immediately and seriously; and we should do it without killing dogs or cats.