Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Chairman, I sit here and listen to this debate, and I have been through a number of the 12-or-so hearings that we have had in the Committee on the Judiciary on the PATRIOT Act; and I want to compliment this Congress, this bipartisan Congress, that met almost with a sense of urgency and almost a sense of emergency to write this PATRIOT Act just 3-plus years ago.

And throughout all of those hearings, we needed to put security in place, we needed to be able to access information. One of the standards was, why can we not access information in an international terrorist investigation as we can in a criminal investigation? We set higher standards here in this Congress rather than lower standards and, still, the debate comes back.

But I am astonished and amazed and pleased and in admiration by the work done by this Congress to put this language in this PATRIOT Act that has withstood all legitimate criticism. It has protected people's rights. There is not a name of an individual who had their rights violated by the PATRIOT Act. We have had the hearings, and we have had serious deliberation. I hope we have a serious consideration of these amendments and final passage of a very good PATRIOT Act.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to control the time on the leadership hour here tonight.

As you know, and I hope a lot of America knows, last week and this week we have been through some intense debates on the PATRIOT Act. Last week as a member of the Committee on the Judiciary, I sat in on a 12- hour mark-up and some 40 amendments that came from the minority party. We hammered out a bill from the Committee on the Judiciary that we brought to the floor of this Congress here today for a long debate. And in this long debate we saw bipartisan support, a number of constructive amendments from both sides, and a bipartisan vote of 257 to 171.

We passed the PATRIOT Act off the floor of this House of Representatives and will send it over to the Senate for their consideration and deliberations and a conference committee to resolve any differences we might have. We will bring it back to each Chamber so we can extend the PATRIOT Act and preserve the safety and liberty of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot help but comment on the remarks that were made by the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) who spoke just ahead of me and the allegation that the Republican committee chairman can think nothing of turning off the lights and shutting off the debate in the Committee on the Judiciary.

I was there that day and I am there every day hopefully standing up to defend the Constitution and fighting for freedom and fighting for the safety of the American people.

I will tell you that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner) runs that committee as good as any chairman I have served under or with in any level of government, be it in the State government or here in Congress. He announces the rules. He lives by the rules. He enforces the rules on us and on himself. When the time is up, the time is up and the gavel comes down and we move on to give another

individual an opportunity to speak on the issue.

If it was run any other way, we would not have that kind of an even- handedness that we have on the Committee on the Judiciary. And the day that was addressed by the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) was a day that had all Democrat witnesses. It was a hearing that was requested by them. They all signed a document demanding the hearing. Some of them that signed the letter did not show up, but we did; and we listened to the testimony all day long. The chairman followed the rules and when the hearing was over, the gavel came down. The committee hearing was adjourned and the microphones were shut off and the lights were shut off.

And I can tell you the gavel has come down on me. My microphone had been shut off. The lights have been shut off while I am standing there talking in the room. We follow the rules for Republicans and Democrats alike. I never felt an ounce of offense at that. I thought it was even handed, it was well balanced; and I think that the minority party is looking for something to, I will say, criticize and attack the most effective Members in this Congress.

We have this opportunity tonight to review what we have done with the PATRIOT Act and help clarify some of the murky issues that have been, I will say, demagogued here on the PATRIOT Act and our debate on the floor and also in committee. And there are a number of Members that are here tonight that know that there is more to be said. And hopefully when we finish this tonight we will put the lid on the PATRIOT Act here in Congress and let the Senate take it up and give it back to the American people as it appropriately ought to be.

To start this off for his perspective, I am honored to be here tonight with a gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter) who I always considered my wing man on the Committee on the Judiciary, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter).

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the presentation of the gentleman from Texas here tonight and his service here in the Congress. In the time we have served together on the committee I came to know the gentleman's ability, and the way that the gentleman has spoken to the issue of Chairman Sensenbrenner and how he handles that committee, the gentleman and I share that belief and respect for the way he has handled it.

We have a PATRIOT Act that has passed the floor of this Congress tonight because of the way it has been handled through that committee. And it will protect Americans for a long, long time to come.

I certainly am.

I want to move along in this discussion and celebrate this accomplishment here today and look forward to a future where we have more confidence in our security and safety and the ability to ferret out these terrorists before they hit us. That is the key to the PATRIOT Act. Not to just put resources in place to clean up the disaster, but preempting the disaster and being there to cuts it off before it happens.

One of the people, Mr. Speaker, who has worked with some of the disasters, worked with health care and the safety of the people, and a gentleman who also handled the PATRIOT Act with regard to the Committee on Rules, a professional absolutely in his own right, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) for his wise words, and I would like to associate myself with those remarks, particularly with the philosophy that we have a new norm; that we will not be going back to an old norm. The old norm allowed for a wall of separation between intelligence and prosecution, and that may have been the wall of separation that allowed the September 11 terrorists to attack us.

So the PATRIOT Act has removed that wall and allowed for that cooperation and that sharing of information and records, and I believe that has been part of the reason why we have not had a terrorist attack in this country since September 11. This reauthorization that took place in this Congress today, and hopefully will make its way to the President's desk fairly soon, is an authorization for the new norm, the norm where we will be with our intelligence people, with our FBI, and using our resources far more wisely than we were before.

But, Mr. Speaker, not a single piece of the PATRIOT Act allows the law enforcement people to access any data or information or anyone's private records in any fashion with more latitude than exists already in a criminal investigation prior to the passage of the PATRIOT Act. It is true today that there are more protections in the PATRIOT Act for civil liberties than there are for criminal investigations on the domestic side. It will stay that way, and in fact we have even expanded those protections.

Mr. Speaker, joining us tonight is the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn), who has brought a real talent to this Congress and someone who I really enjoy working with and look up to and admire for the energy she brings to this task. Mr. Speaker, I yield such to her for her comments tonight.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

A number of other subjects pop to mind as I listened to the gentlewoman from Tennessee. One of them is with sunsets. That has been a subject matter here in this debate and throughout

the markup last week, that is, the argument that we should sunset the PATRIOT Act so we force hearings so we can have legitimate oversight, and that oversight comes back on a regular basis.

The argument against that is we have had 3\1/2\ years of demagoguery on the PATRIOT Act and not a single lawsuit has been filed, even though there is a special provision, section 223 of the code, that provides for a person to seek redress of damages if they have been violated by the PATRIOT Act. Not a single lawsuit has been filed.

Section 215, looking into bookstore records and library records and the computer records in the public library, that major subject matter that has been brought before our national discussion board and on the Web for now several years, not a single time has the PATRIOT Act been used to look in bookstores or library records. But we want to preserve the ability to do that with law enforcement investigations. We know that the 9/11 terrorists did use the libraries, and we know that one of the optimum drop points for spies and surveillance and intelligence work is a library. You can write a note, put it in a certain page in a library book, put the book back on the shelf, and walk out of the library. That is the drop. And the pickup is the person that comes behind, knows the name of the book and picks up that information.

We must maintain that ability to look into libraries and bookstores, and we must also maintain appropriate government oversight responsibility. We preserved a couple of sunsets in the PATRIOT Act; but the fact remains, if the majority or minority party determines that they want to have hearings, if they are hearing complaints from their constituents, if there are complaints that are being filed or lawsuits being filed, we can call for hearings at any time, whether majority or minority, and get those hearings and get that public oversight and make the appropriate changes. I accept that. It is our responsibility to do.

One of the other points is the NSL, the national security letter. The argument is that could be used without appropriate oversight. In fact, the national security letter does not allow any FBI officer to read any documents and search into any telephone records or financial records except for the fact that it lets them look at the record of the records, the record of potential financial records or computer records to see if there is a pattern. If the pattern is there, then they have to go forward to get the warrant; and that warrant under the PATRIOT Act has a higher standard than under a criminal investigation.

That covers some of the things that have been an issue. We have quite a group of people here tonight. I am feeling a little out of place. I have a judge on my right, a judge on my left, and a judge behind me. When I look at these three judges, if I were actually King, I would appoint them all to the Supreme Court; but since I cannot, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for his remarks.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I appreciate the gentleman's remarks on this. And I have read some of those records associated with the PATRIOT Act investigations. And, in fact, I read some of those records throughout an investigation I am somewhat familiar with, and if we read through that carefully with the idea of what this would have been like without the payment PATRIOT Act, what would we have had for information? I think with many of those investigations, it would easy to make the case that we would have had a disaster at the other end rather than an arrest and prosecution at the other end of that. So to preempt this is what we need to be doing, and I am absolutely all for that.

I cannot resist marking that the individual that accused us of fear mongering is also the individual that went to Iraq and surrendered before we liberated the Iraqis and the individual who refused to put his hand over his heart when he led Pledge of Allegiance here one morning to open the House Chamber for the day. So I would put that only within that contest. I do not what drives that kind of thought process.

I am very proud of the patriots we have in this Congress, and they are on both sides of the aisle. They just seem to be in a bigger number over here where we have the majority at the present time.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think the gentleman has brought out an important point here. And that is that this debate was envisioned to produce a product that brought view points in from each side and a properly functioning legislative process. Whether it be a city council or county supervisors or the State legislature or the United States Congress, we have an open debate and we put our ideas out there, and as the ideas get debated, the amendments are offered. Some are successful and some are defeated and some are negotiated. And, in fact, we negotiated the sunset to be a 10- year sunset. Some people thought it ought to be considerably sooner than that. Some thought we ought to split the difference out to a 4 or 5 year. Some people thought we should not have sunsets, and I was actually among those. And yet the negotiation came down to a 10-year sunset. That was a compromise that would get the ball moving down the field, and that is what we resolved on that particular issue. But when we reach that static position when each side makes their case in a legitimate open debate and we arrive at that center position that we can all live with, then we move forward. And that is something that has been classic in the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act, and that has been how the debate has brought us all together to the middle so that we could have this bipartisan vote of 257 votes here to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield to another judge from Texas, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe).

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman from Texas, and I appreciate the contributions here tonight.

I would like to take us back a little bit and recap what has happened here in the last 3\1/2\ going on 4 years, and that is that, yes, we were attacked from within and the vulnerabilities that are inherent in a free society were exploited by people that came here and people who have a hatred for our freedom and a hatred for anyone whom they declare to be a infidel. Their number one and number two targets, preferred targets, are Jews first and Christians second, but western civilization is their main enemy.

That thought process, that cult, that barbarism, is bred around the world in regions where they are taught in madrassas to hate anyone not like them, to kill anyone not like them.

There are something like 16,000 madrassas, hate teaching schools, just in Pakistan alone, and if you look at those schools around Saudi Arabia and if you look at the funding stream that runs around the world, that network is what brought al Qaeda into the United States for that September 11th attack, that network is what attacked London on July 7, and that may be the network that also attacked London today, although we do not have the records in today. It is part of the network that attacked Spain on that March 11 day that changed the political destiny of Spain and caused them to make a decision to pull their troops out of Iraq.

The worldwide war that we are up against, the PATRIOT Act addresses it domestically so that our FBI and our CIA, our domestic investigators and our terrorism investigators will cooperate together.

They will be able to do roving wiretaps in an era when trading cell phones on the run is almost a normal procedure. We do not go back to a landline any longer and go home to make our phone calls. Our phone is with us. Our communication is where we are, and we have to have an act that catches up with technology and allows for roving wiretaps.

We have to be able to look at some financial records and some credit card records and maybe some bookstore and library records to see the pattern. If the pattern justifies a warrant to go in and take a deeper look, then a Federal judge will have to provide that warrant, a higher standard than if it were a regular criminal investigation.

We need all of these tools to preempt the terrorist attacks on us in this country, and those tools so far have been part of the reason why we have not been attacked again. Many of us believe though that those attacks are inevitable, and I am one of those people, and I think they will be worse next time. I think we need all of these tools and more.

By looking around the world also, the President's doctrine, the Bush doctrine that he laid out several weeks after the September 11, 2001, attacks, that the media just caught up with after he gave his second inaugural address here last January, the Bush doctrine of promoting freedom and liberty around the world, is that free people never go to war against never free people. That would be consistent with the history of this country.

So in Iraq and in Afghanistan we have created the habitat for freedom, and the Afghanis have gone to the polls and voted and the Iraqis have gone to the polls and voted and helped select their leaders and are directed their national destiny and established a climate and culture where there is a growing desire for freedom.

If that freedom can continue to take root, and if that freedom can be contagious across the Arab world, from Afghanistan to Iraq and Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Syria and Jordan and the Middle Eastern countries all across the region, if freedom can be manifested there and take root in establishing the fashion that it is here, the way it is with our brothers in Great Britain, then there is a climate there that does not breed terrorists any longer. We will have eliminated the habitat for terror by replacing that habitat of a radical Islamic society with that of freedom and democracy.

Now, that does not solve all the problems. If that happens, we also know that from the London bombs, that we have second generation terrorists, sons of moderate Muslims that travel and establish themselves within Great Britain, and these children were either born there or naturalized there, but they were taught in a moderate Muslim, peaceful society, and yet they still found their Madrassas in the mosques and they still bought into the culture of death, and they still blew themselves and 56 or so Londoners up and wounded however many others.

These terrorists, these radical Islamists, according to Benazir Bhutto, a former Prime Minister of Pakistan, told me there are not very many, perhaps 10 percent, are sympathetic to al Qaeda, but of about 1.2 or 1.3 billion Muslims in the world, 10 percent is 120 million to 130 million. I call that a lot; not ``not very many,'' but quite a lot of potential either terrorists or terrorist supporters and sympathizers, and we cannot kill them all and we do not want to, but we have to defend ourselves from them.

Mr. Speaker, the Jahadists that are killing Londoners and Americans and Spanish and other Muslims around the world, these terrorist attacks that are taking place, they are parasites that live amongst the host, the Islamists. The terrorists are the parasites; the hosts is Muslim, the Muslim religion. So they feed off of the host, they travel with the host and on the host, they are funded through the host, through the mosques, so they can go anywhere in the world and find themselves a small core, a cell of sympathizers, a sleeper cell, and the network of funding is collected around the world, and the networks of communications and the network of training and where the training camps are all can be fed through the network of the Muslim religion.

I will call upon moderate Islam, if you exist out there, and I believe you do, then cleanse thy selves, rid yourselves of this parasite. We cannot do that for you. We can work with you and we can cooperate with you, but until you do, there will not be peace in this world, there will not be safety in this world, and there will not be an end to this war on terror.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert).

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, His Honor, Judge Gohmert, and Judge Poe from Texas, Judge Carter from Texas, the gentlewoman from Tennessee, and the gentlewoman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey), all of us who have participated in this tonight. We have had an opportunity to discuss the PATRIOT Act and kind of put the final frosting on the cake here in the House, I hope, and maybe bring a better and more objective perspective to the PATRIOT Act for the American people, Mr. Speaker.

So we have a long road ahead of us. We will work with the PATRIOT Act to provide the maximum amount of domestic security and will continue the Bush doctrine to eliminate the habitat that breeds terrorists around the world. We are going to ask for the rest of the countries in the world to shut off the funding, shut off the training, shut off the feed mechanism that funds these terrorists. We are going to ask the moderate Islam to purge the parasites from your midst; you are the only ones that can do it. We are going to take a look at our borders, both north and south, and we are going to slow down that human river of about 3 million illegals that poor across there, that huge haystack of humanity that, amongst that 3 million or so, are hundreds and perhaps thousands of terrorists, certainly thousands of criminals that prey upon Americans.

Mr. Speaker, if we can all get that done by the end of the 109th Congress, I am going to take the day off.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 11 o'clock and 35 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, July 22, 2005, at 9 a.m.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) for picking up this amendment and introducing it on my behalf. I introduced this amendment on behalf of the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder), and we have all been working on this same cause; it has to do with sex trafficking and the dehumanization that comes from sex trafficking, Mr. Chairman.

I will just add to this debate that we know that it is dehumanizing and it is against the policy of the United States.

There was legislation that was introduced last year that went into the Federal code that would prohibit any funds from going to organizations that do not have a policy specifically opposing sex trafficking and prostitution. But we have not gotten a report back from the Secretary of State's office, in spite of the fact that there have been a number of letters written, by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) in particular, requesting that report.

This amendment requires a report from the Secretary of State be delivered to the appropriate committees and allows this Congress to oversee the funding that we appropriated. Mr. Chairman, I will insert for the Record the letters that have been sent by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder). I would conclude my remarks with a request for support for this amendment.

House of Representatives,

Committee on Government Reform,

Washington, DC, February 11, 2005.

Hon. Condoleezza Rice,

Secretary of State, Department of State, Harry S Truman

Building, Washington, DC.

Dear Ms. Secretary: Attached you will find a letter dated

October 22, 2004, in which the State Department was asked to

provide the Subcommittee with a listing of any grants that

have been awarded under the authority of the United States

Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of

2003 or the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization

Act of 2003 that did not fully comply with anti-prostitution

and sex trafficking provisions therein.

The deadline for the provision of this information,

November 1, 2004, has long passed. Please update the

Subcommittee regarding the status of this request by

Wednesday, February 16, 2005.

Sincerely,

Mark E. Souder,

Chairman, Subcommittee on Criminal

Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise to urge support of this amendment which condemns the attacks made by radical Muslims since the Oslo Peace Accords in September of 1993. These attacks claimed the lives of 53, at least 53 innocent American victims and at least one unborn child in Israel.

My amendment is simple in procedure, but it is sincere in its substance. It honors those innocent Americans that have fallen victim to the terror of radical Islam by listing each victim's name, age, place of residence, location of his or her death, and the cause of their death. My amendment also demands that the Palestinian Authority work with Israel to protect all innocent individuals, regardless of citizenship, from terrorist atrocities.

We should honor the victims killed by terrorists in Israel and all over the world with the same spirit that we have honored our victims of September 11. The September 11 victims and those killed in Israel are all victims of radical Islam and, sadly, the death toll continues to rise as evidenced by the recent London bombings of July 7.

The terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 are the same kind of terrorists who blow themselves up on buses or in

crowded shopping areas in Israel and kill our soldiers on the streets of Baghdad. Terrorism does not discriminate between women and men or between children and adults. This is because terrorists hate freedom and worship death. It is with heavy hearts that we as freedom-loving people are bound together across language barriers and religious beliefs. Together, we fight radical Islam which preaches a culture of death.

My amendment is a small, heartfelt measure to honor those Americans killed in Israel by radical Islamists. I am hopeful that it will send a message to their loved ones that we are all in this together. Our fight to defend our God-given rights to freedom will honor those who have died at the hands of the culture of death and properly preserve our freedom for future generations.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on this amendment, Mr. Chairman.

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

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

I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) for his remarks and his support and his defense for the freedom and the safety of people across this globe for decades. I say to the gentleman, as to the small part that I add to the effort that he has brought, I feel it a privilege to be standing on this floor together with the gentleman speaking for freedom and safety of freedom-loving people everywhere. We so often and so easily forget that there are people dying in the Middle East that do not show up on the front page of our papers, and we stand with the people in Israel, we stand with all freedom-loving people.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on this amendment that honors them.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Tancredo amendment. I think it is high time that we brought this to the floor of the Congress. I also associate myself with the remarks of the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos).

We have a lot of broad international issues, and we are here debating them on this floor. I have an issue that I think has not been properly heard, and I appreciate the time to address it. It is the issue of AIDS in Africa.

Mr. Chairman, I have traveled to Africa. First, I sat on this floor, and I believe the date was January 28, 2003, when about 10 feet behind me the President of the United States in his State of the Union address spoke to the issue of committing our resources to AIDS in Africa. I watched as we had a standing ovation that was led from this side of the aisle and with great enthusiasm I applauded the President's initiative because I had been reading the information on Uganda and the ABC policy that had come from Uganda on AIDS prevention, which they had done without resources from the United States: Abstinence, Be faithful, and if those fail, then Condoms.

I went to Africa less than a year ago, particularly Southern Africa, and I went to the AIDS orphanages and to the hospitals and to the clinics. I met with the people distributing the anti-retroviral drugs and the condoms. I looked for the A, the abstinence, and the B, Be faithful, and I had a lot of trouble finding its existence in Southern Africa.

So when I raised the issue before a large meeting in one of those countries in Southern Africa, and in that meeting I recall there were 24 people, among them USAID people, Peace Corps people, Centers for Disease Control people, people from the U.S. Council and others, the team that is administering the resources that are going to AIDS in Africa. And I asked them, What are you doing about promiscuity?

Their answer was we cannot change the culture, so we are distributing drugs and condoms.

But if they have a sexual life expectancy of another 25 to 30 years, how many more people are infected? Can we treat our way out of this problem, or must we find another way to solve it in conjunction with our anti-retroviral drugs?

Their answer was you cannot change the culture. But what they are doing is seeking to change the culture by promoting condoms, not by promoting a lifestyle that will protect them from this disease. So we are not addressing promiscuity.

I will agree with the USAID, the Peace Corps, the CDC, and a number of others that are out there, sometimes you cannot change the culture. Our difficulty is changing their culture, not the difficulty in supporting the people in Africa who have a culture that can be supported that can help eradicate this disease.

So I call for that. I appreciate the work done by the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) as well. We have had good discussions on this. We have some insight into this, and they are working with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), but I am asking sincerely that we can have some hearings to have some insight into the actual results of the U.S. resources that are committed into Africa. I want to protect them and get them cured of this disease, but we need to do it in the appropriate way so we save the maximum number of lives.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter), his Honor, for yielding to me.

And Mr. Speaker, Your Honor; and over here on the right, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert), his Honor; and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. McCaul), his prosecutorship, it is quite an honor for me to stand here amongst these honorable individuals who have stood up for the law in the fashion that they have. And, by the way, they are all Texans, and I am in elite company here tonight and privileged to be here. And I appreciate their role in this Congress and the direction that they help take this country and the vision that they bring to this floor consistently night after night. I see the faces of some of them here defending our Constitution, defending our rights, and defending our freedom.

I have the privilege to serve on the Committee on the Judiciary in the United States House of Representatives, and I have served there for 2 years with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter) as my wing man on the right and always bringing me back to the rule of law and an excellent listener. And I hope I have picked up some of those traits, although I have got some room to go.

And what I listened to this year and partly last year was the debate over whether we had 11, 12, or 13 hearings on the PATRIOT Act. I am not sure what that number is. I do not necessarily take a position. A dozen plus or minus one, that is a lot. And we had those hearings because that is part of our due process. It is part of our full responsibility, and we heard throughout the last presidential campaign and across this country continually complaint after complaint after complaint about the PATRIOT Act. It was going to be taking away people's rights and Big Brother was going to be intruding upon their most private documents and we would be handing over the investigation to an unchecked Justice Department that would go in and violate our privacy for no good reason except to look over our shoulder, compile records, and build databases that would someplace along the line violate our freedom. So we held those hearings, Mr. Speaker, so that we could hear from the public on where these violations might have taken place.

And I will point out that the PATRIOT Act is simply an act that moves the investigations of international terrorism up to a level of actually a higher standard of protection for the people in this country than there is a criminal investigation. So a search warrant that is achieved under the PATRIOT Act requires a court order, and a search order that is granted under a criminal investigation could be a grand jury subpoena, which is simply a rubber stamp. A case has to be made before a judge to get a search warrant under the PATRIOT Act. And some of those investigations have used section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, and in fact it has been used 35 times. And I have read some of those incidences. They are in a classified version if it is sensitive to the safety of this Nation. But I have read some, and there is nothing in there that is unusual or nothing that I can find that compiles data that can later on be used in a fashion that violates privacy. It is all focused on national security.

We have too few resources to invest them anywhere else except in our national security and in crime enforcement. And yet we have heard continually the PATRIOT Act is going to go in and it is going to check out library records wherever they check out a book, wherever they get on a computer in a library, and Big Brother is going to be watching over their shoulder when they go on the Internet down at the local public library.

And, by the way, when people go into a bookstore and buy a book or a magazine, we are going to have those records and we are going to keep a

huge nationwide database so we know what they are thinking because what they are reading must be what they are thinking.

But, in fact, after all those hearings and in the last hearing, which is the one we heard so much about, the minority party brought all of the witnesses, all four witnesses, and they made their testimony about how egregious the PATRIOT Act was. And I asked a question of the CEO of Amnesty International, after he had made all those allegations, could he just kindly into the record give us the name of one individual, just one individual who had their rights violated under the PATRIOT Act. And the answer was, well, a librarian in Texas is intimidated and this person is afraid and it puts a chilling effect out on people that think their documents that they access in the library should be private.

But, Mr. CEO, could you name a person?

And I pressed and pressed and pressed until I ran out of time. Then I asked him, would he enter it into the record and we will give him a week to respond with the name or the names of the individuals who have had their rights violated by the PATRIOT Act.

And the chairman, at the conclusion of the hearing, reiterated my request, put it into the record. And the response that we got back was very vague in its allegations and devoid of names, addresses, and phone numbers of people who had had their rights violated by the PATRIOT Act.

If in a dozen plus or minus one hearings, if in the final hearing that had all critics' witnesses at the hearing, there was not still a single name that was presented to this Congress on someone who had had their rights violated by the PATRIOT Act, then it falls back to the supposition of, well, it could happen, could it not? And for that after all of this, after these years of the PATRIOT Act and its clear record and its record of success, as was referenced by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. McCaul) earlier, we would repeal the PATRIOT Act on the supposition that someone's rights could one day be violated?

There is not a shred of evidence that that has happened. Of the 35 times that it was used, it was not used in a library. It was not used for books. It was not used for a computer in a library. But there was an amendment that passed on the floor of this Congress that would prohibit the use of U.S. funds for enforcement, federal taxpayers' dollars for enforcement, of those sections of the PATRIOT Act so that it would turn libraries off limits, book stores off limits; and they said they made an exception for computers, but it included also the sign-up list in the library so they could not even go look at the sign- up list in the library and find out whose computer was not exempt. They are all exempted by that amendment. We cannot let that happen when we bring the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act and get it finally concluded and get it into law.

And this is something that is critical. It is critical to the future of this country, for the safety and security of this country, for us to be able to do a simple international terrorist investigation domestically within the United States and protect the rights of people.

And my view is this: That after 12 hearings plus or minus one, after these cases that cannot be brought forward that people's rights may have been violated, and they were not, I am impressed with the work that was done on the part of this Congress before I got here. And they were under the pressure of the dust of September 11, 2001, drafted a PATRIOT Act in a pretty fast legislative hurry, and there is not any part of that that I think was picked apart in an effective way. We made a few minor changes to make sure that people were protected a little bit more, but it really did not change the substance of the PATRIOT Act.

We have got a good bill here. It needs to be put into code. There will be a 10-year sunset on it by the position that we put in it. That is a pretty wise thing. It takes it out of the realm of short-term politics, but it is a law that can stand, I think, in perpetuity with this country.

And we are faced with an enemy in this country and around the world that we need to define and understand. It is not just law enforcement that controls this enemy. This enemy is a parasite. Radical Islam, the Islamists. The parasite lives on the host, the host called Islam. The Muslims have the mosques where the parasites, the radical Islamists, congregate. And the parasites live on the host, feed off the host, are funded by the host. And we need the help of the host to eradicate radical Islamists. And if we do not have that kind of help, there is going to have to be some other steps that are taken. And one of those, I hope, is a web page that goes up in the United States so that these sermons in the mosques go up where our public knows what is being said about the hatred of Americans.

I thank the gentleman for bringing this special order tonight. All these Texans, judges, and honorable people that do this good cause, I am glad to be part of them.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Price) for yielding to me. I appreciate the opportunity to speak here tonight, and I appreciate his organizing this Special Order so that we can further take a look into some of the things that we can do to improve the health care circumstances within this country.

Mr. Speaker, health care costs are escalating. And there are few options for small business owners to choose from when selecting insurance coverage for their employees. In order to keep and attract talented workers, sourcing affordable, quality health insurance is a top concern. As an owner/operator of a small construction business for over 28 years, I am well aware that the largest challenges here are access and cost.

But even though small business is the backbone of our American economy, over 60 percent of the estimated 43 million people without health care are small business owners, both employers and their dependents. Additionally, small businesses, which create two out of every three jobs in this country, continue to struggle with the high cost of offering health insurance to their employees. The structure of the current health care industry does not allow many small business owners and their employees access to affordable health insurance. As a result, uninsured figures continue to rise as the cost of insurance continues to skyrocket, pricing many small businesses out of the marketplace.

Many factors contribute to the overall cost of health care. Lack of competition in the small group market, litigation, and mandates are just some of the many culprits driving up costs. The problems facing small business owners, their employees and families must be addressed as part of the overall health care debate.

I support health savings accounts, HSAs, recently enacted under the Medicare Modernization Act, coupled with hide-deductible health care plans. They are a way for small businesses and individuals to lower their health care premiums. Along with HSAs, individuals should be allowed to deduct 100 percent of their high-deductible health plan premiums if they are not subsidized by an employer plan already. High- deductible health care premiums are defined as a minimum of $1,000 and up to $5,100 deductible for individuals and a minimum of $2,000 and up to $10,200 deductible for families. I have introduced a bill titled the Health Insurance Affordability Act, H.R. 37, which would allow for this type of deductibility for health insurance premiums.

Currently, large businesses are allowed to deduct employee health insurance premium payments, as are small businesses, for their employees as a business expense. Unfortunately, employees of small businesses that cannot afford to provide health insurance coverage are not able to deduct the cost of health insurance. This group of people includes waitresses in diners, workers in dry cleaners shops, temporary workers; and that is just a few. With the rising cost of health care coverage, many of the Nation's small employers are dropping coverage, which increases the number of uninsured Americans.

In the 2004 State of the Union Address, President Bush proposed that individuals who buy catastrophic health care coverage as part of our new health savings accounts be allowed to deduct 100 percent of their premiums from their taxes, President Bush's fiscal year 2006 budget request stating the following: ``Above-the-Line Deduction for Certain Health Insurance Premiums, under this proposal all individuals who purchase a high-deductible health plan in conjunction with a health savings account would be allowed to deduct the amount of the health plan's premium from their taxable income even if they do not itemize their deductions.'' That is the President's proposal. It mirrors my proposal on H.R. 37, the Health Insurance Affordability Act, which I drafted and dropped last year as well as this year. This new deduction would make high-deductible health plans more affordable.

We should follow the President's lead and continue to promote personal health care ownership and control of health care policies. H.R. 37 provides an above-the-line tax deduction of the health insurance premiums for those who buy their own HSA plan. Several HSA providers report that a high number of previously uninsured individuals are buying HSAs in the individual market. By allowing consumers to deduct the premiums, we are building on the benefits of HSAs and will make health insurance affordable for America's uninsured population.

Health savings accounts will also help reduce the number of uninsured Americans by allowing small businesses more choice in the current small group market. Additionally, individuals who have catastrophic health care coverage with a health savings account should be allowed to deduct 100 percent of their premiums from their taxes. HSAs, along with 100 percent deductibility, will provide small businesses with more accessible, affordable options in the health insurance market.

A government-run health care system is not the solution to the health care problems facing small businesses. A government-run health care system or mandates and minimum benefit packages forced upon small employers will deter or even destroy entrepreneurship and the growth of small businesses.

Mr. Speaker, the small businesses in this country lead in new jobs. They lead in employment. They are at a disadvantage today because the structure of health insurance premiums is wrong, and it is wrong because it lacks full deductibility for the people who utilize it. And this goes back in history to World War II when we had wage and price controls and when that order came out, employers were looking for a way to compete in a shrinking labor market because much of the labor put on a uniform and went overseas to fight World War II.

So in keeping with the freezing of wages and prices, instead they gave health care benefits to their employees; and it was not really circumventing a raise, but it was keeping with the freeze, but it was benefits to compete for that shrinking labor supply that was there.

That tradition now has been in place over 60 years, and in this 60- plus years, we have watched it get more and more distorted every year. So if a large corporation or a government employer can offer a health insurance benefit that is fully deductible and especially to large corporations and there sits a ma-and-pa operation, a family farm, a gas station, a convenience store, a company that is hiring part-time labor, these people that are disadvantaged from the current structure, when they are disallowed from full deduction of their health insurance premiums, should be allowed that deduction. That is what the Health Insurance Affordability Act does, H.R. 37. It is one piece of the whole puzzle that we need to do.

The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Price) is bringing forth a more comprehensive discussion here tonight. I have targeted on H.R. 37 because I think it is the one thing that we can do to bring deductibility to the employees who are not able to deduct their health insurance premiums. But I believe that if a Fortune 500 company can deduct a full coverage insurance plan and every dime that they put into that full coverage insurance plan is an above-the-line deduction, a Schedule C deduction, on their income tax, then that also should be available for every citizen whatsoever in the United States of America.

H.R. 37 takes us down that path. It gets us closer. It does not get us all the way. We will not get this done overnight. It has been over 60 years to get in the condition that we are in.

I thank the gentleman from Georgia for organizing this Special Order tonight and for bringing his professionalism in the health care industry and his experience as a doctor that actually sees how this works in the lives and minds of patients to the floor here tonight and to everything he does here in this Congress. I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Price) and appreciate his yielding to me.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me this time, and I thank also the gentleman from Georgia for bringing this resolution before this Congress this evening and for acting as quickly as we all have.

It is a good feeling to be here with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle with the Committee on the Judiciary talking about defending the Constitution in concert instead of conflict. I appreciate this opportunity to do so.

And I found myself standing on the floor last night quoting Justice O'Connor and agreeing with Justice O'Connor, and it has been a little while. But she nailed it exactly right. What happened, though, in this case, in the Kelo case, was five of nine Justices amended our Constitution. That is exactly what they did. They amended our Constitution with their sliver thin majority opinion. Fifth amendment: ``nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.'' They drew a line through the words ``for public use,'' and now the fifth amendment reads: nor shall private property be taken without just compensation; and, by the way, government will decide what just compensation is, who shall be compensated, and for what purpose, be it public or be it private.

The economic strength of the United States of America has been rooted in our property rights. We look across our history, and we see this Nation that we have and the wonderful economy that has grown. It has grown because we had collateral called ``real property.'' Real property that could be collateralized by bankers and financial institutions so investors and entrepreneurs could pledge that collateral and borrow the capital and build the businesses. That is what put the transcontinental railroad across this country. That is what has built the businesses on Wall Street and in Washington, D.C., in Iowa, and all across this land has been the guarantee of property rights. We look at a Third World country where there are no guarantees like that, and it is easy to see these people cannot borrow money against their collateral, they cannot ensure their property as collateral; so when they get a paycheck, they buy two or three bricks and they go home and they mix a little mortar and they lay two or three bricks up alongside that house, and over 30 years, they build a house two or three bricks at a time as opposed to paying for that mortgage payment one payment at a time. That is how much difference it makes to have property rights.

The victims of this, I happen to have brought along some pictures of these individuals. Here are three entities that are affected by this decision: Here

is Susette Kelo. She received notice of condemnation from the New London Development Corporation, which, by the way, is an entity that was empowered by the City of New London, a private corporation. This was the day before Thanksgiving in 2000, and ``we are going to take your home.''

And this: Bill Von Winkle's, one of the 15 properties condemned because of this decision. And Susanne and Matt Dery, both may lose their home. They have had that home for 20 years.

The difference of what happens between small towns and large towns too, in an incorporated community of 50 people with five council members representing 10 percent of that city, three of them, a majority of that, can decide that they do not like a particular blighted region like a single house and condemn that house and put up a convenience store. They can do so also in a large city by wiping out whole sections of communities, whether they be business interests or not.

Offered By: Mr. King of Iowa

Amendment No. 18: Page 110, line 1, insert after the dollar

figure the following: ``(reduced by $1,500,000)''.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I bring an amendment here before this body to address an issue that we have discussed here in earlier amendments that has to do with the fifth amendment decision by the Supreme Court.

American homes and businesses are no longer safe after the recent Supreme Court ruling in the Kelo v. City of New London. The Supreme Court allowed the government to seize private property for private use, not public use, and without a justifiable public use, totally contradicting our Constitution. The fifth amendment to our Constitution is clear: the government can only seize private property for public use; and when it does, it must pay just compensation.

The fifth amendment says: ``Nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.''

What good are the property rights protected by our Constitution if the government can take your own home away from you whenever it wants? Our free society is based upon property rights; and without the right to private property, our economy would fail, and Americans would be unable to keep or enjoy the fruits of their labor.

The use of eminent domain for private property is a perversion of what eminent domain is supposed to be. Eminent domain can be used to build roads and for other similar public-use projects, but the power of eminent domain has been abused by State and local governments to benefit private property development. That is simply wrong. The homeowners should not be forced out of their homes or to sell their other private interests by the strong arm of the Supreme Court. But the Kelo v. City of New London in its recent decision this week does that, Mr. Chairman; and it takes away the homes of a number of individuals, at least 15 of them, and I would point these out.

This is the home of Susanne and Matt Dery. They may lose their home of 20 years. And this is the home of Bill Von Winkle, it is his business, it is one of the 15 properties condemned for economic development, Mr. Von Winkle. Here is the subject of the lawsuit, Susette Kelo. She received notice of condemnation of her New London home from the Development Corporation of New London that had been granted the authorization by the city council the day before Thanksgiving in the year 2000.

This runs exactly contrary to the protection that we are to have in the fifth amendment; and yet the Supreme Court has disregarded the Constitution and, in fact, amended the Constitution in this rolling constitutional convention that seems to be coming at us nearly every week from the Supreme Court.

So my amendment strikes $1.5 million from the overall budget of the Supreme Court, out of the $60 million; and it is roughly the amount, the nominal amount of the homes that will be confiscated in New London. It is a token. It is nominal. It is not the full value of those homes, Mr. Chairman.

But what it does is say is this Congress is going to speak up for the people whose property rights have been significantly diminished by this decision, this Kilo decision, and we are going to find a way to defend the property rights of the people of this country.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I would point out that we did increase the budget to the Supreme Court this year and significantly. This is a $60 million operating budget. About $2 million of that goes for the wages of the Supreme Court Justices. The balance of that is for operations. This simply goes to their administrative fees. They would be the ones that could prioritize their security versus the overall cost. But if this is a precedent to reduce funding, in fact, it is not reducing funding. It is just reducing the increase in funding, $1.5 million. If this is a precedent, then so be it. It is time we had a precedent. The judges in the Supreme Court swear to uphold the Constitution just like we do, and they are the last people on this continent that should be amending the Constitution. They are charged to uphold the Constitution. This Congress needs to send a message.

I would point out, too, that I am far from in the minority on this opinion, and I do not look at the Supreme Court Justices as whether they are appointed by the Republicans or by the Democrats. When they go to court, they do not seem to maintain some of the semblance of their previous party, and I think we all recognize that. But I will say, it was a five-four decision. It was a decision as close as a decision can be, and if one of justices had changed their mind, it would be five- four the other way. And we have a Constitution that is at least partially whole for the fifth amendment. But what we have particularly, I want to point out on this Floor that Justice O'Connor is one who I agree with on this case, and she said, and I quote in her opinion: ``The absurd argument that any single-family home that might be razed to make way for an apartment building or any church that might be replaced with a retail store, or any small business that might be more lucrative if it were instead part of a national franchise, it is inherently harmful to society and thus within the government's power to condemn.''

I ask for a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Offered By: Mr. King of Iowa

Amendment No. 18: Page 110, line 1, insert after the dollar

figure the following: ``(reduced by $1,500,000)''.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, to clarify that point of order, again, this is the amendment that takes $1 million out and puts $1 million back in, and it is for the purposes of raising the issue to discuss some of the things that I think we should be doing, particularly in Africa with regard to

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to say I appreciate the chairman's work on this, and the comments that I have heard, and I look forward to that dialogue.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding me time and for bringing this amendment to the floor.

This is a discussion and debate that this country needs to have, and it takes me back to about 6 weeks ago when the incident in Denver where the alleged shooter, Raul Gomez-Garcia, shot Officer Donny Young in the back of the head and killed him and wounded another officer. We suspected that he would abscond to the sanctuary of Mexico and he did, and the plea bargain has already taken place. I am not certain if he is back in the United States under that plea bargain; but this policy, this sanctuary policy that exists in Mexico is a policy that requires us to plea bargain down the crimes in this country and tells the shooters, you can shoot and run to Mexico.

I will pose a hypothetical situation, but it is one that could happen.

Just suppose Osama bin Laden was picked up by Mexican police in Mexico City. There is no way that Mexico extradites Osama bin Laden to the United States until we plea bargain that down to something less than life imprison, no capital punishment, no life in prison. Can my colleagues imagine sitting on the parole board for Osama bin Laden and having to release him into the streets of the United States of America because of a sanctuary policy that exists in the state of Mexico?

That is the leverage that is out there now, and we are paying for these countries in foreign operations money to alter the crime and punishment policy in the United States. That must stop. It can stop with the Deal amendment.

Offered By: Mr. King of Iowa

Amendment No. 11: Page 29, line 18, after the dollar

amount, insert the following: ``(reduced by $1,000,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. King of Iowa

Amendment No. 12: Page 29, line 18, after the dollar

amount, insert the following: ``(reduced by $1,000,000)

(increased by $1,000,000)''.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, first I would like to state my appreciation for the work done by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), committee chairman, on this overall bill and his work and cooperation at all levels and the flexibility that he has demonstrated in the interests across this broad country.

I bring before this Congress an amendment that addresses an issue that Americans understand, and it is an issue that I think Congress needs to understand maybe more thoroughly than they do at this point. And that is that government has a role in promoting the general welfare in the United States, but we have gone past that role; and now with our Medicaid and Medicare funding, we are opposed to be purchasing sexual impotence drugs with taxpayers' dollars all across this country. We have been doing so since 1998 with regard to Medicaid, and now CMS is poised to do so also with Medicare. That will be implemented in January, simply 6 months from now, and if we are not able to put a stop to this bureaucratic decision, then we will be down the slippery slope of millions of people who believe the entitlement is taxpayer-funded recreational sex drugs.

So my amendment simply prohibits any use of any of the resources or funds provided in this act from being used for the administration or funding of Viagra, Levitra and Cialis. It is that simple. It is something that I think we have a consensus on.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the remaining time.

To bring this towards a close, as I listen to this debate, I think it is clear to us that this is an inappropriate investment on the part of taxpayers' dollars for us to compel the taxpayers to pay for sexual impotency drugs. I take issue with some of the statements made, for example, no evidence of abuse for medically appropriate situations exist. Certainly it does.

I recognize that the amendment of the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle) in the bill addresses some of the abuse, and that is the abuse of these prescriptions going into the hands of sexual predators, rapists, and child molesters. Now, this amendment would not be necessary to do that, but there is other abuse that goes beyond that. There is record of abuse that existed.

No one paid any attention, until I raised this issue last November and December, and the traction has not been there for a policy change. That is why I need to bring this amendment here in the only fashion that I can with the leverage I have in this Congress.

We will spend, over the next 10 years, over $2 billion, our CBO score runs it up over $2 billion, and $105 million in this next year.

This is, as the gentleman from Virginia said, the only opportunity that we have to stop this funding under Medicare and also to stop the balance of this funding under Medicaid before such time as it becomes a huge entitlement.

There are only two reasons for sex, there has only been, and one of them is for procreation. We do not subsidize any kind of fertility drugs under any kind of Medicare or Medicaid, because we decided that that is inappropriate. So we do not either subsidize procreational sex. Recreation is another thing. We do not subsidize the recreation of others either. So under either one of those categories, this is wrong.

I urge the adoption of this amendment against Federal funding for Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to prohibit any funds from being spent by the Department of Education in violation of current federal law.

According to existing federal law, any state providing illegal aliens in-state tuition discounts must provide these discounts to all students, regardless of state of residence. Section 505 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act of 1996 clearly states that:

``Notwithstanding any other provision of law, an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State (or a political subdivision) for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit (in no less an amount, duration, and scope) without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.''

My amendment simply seeks to enforce existing law.

Not only is providing in-state tuition to illegal aliens against the law, it would also place a huge financial burden on our society. The costs to states of providing in-state tuition to illegal aliens throughout the U.S. help illustrate the high cost of these measures. Approximately 126,000 illegal aliens under 21 were enrolled in college in the year 2000. At non-resident tuition rates, they would pay between $503 million and $655 million annually. If they were made eligible for in-state tuition discounts, they would pay only $155 million to $201 million--leaving taxpayers to make up the difference of $349 million to $454 million. Given the fiscal constraints our nation is currently under, no good reason exists to spend additional money to give tuition discounts to illegal aliens.

As public universities across the country increasingly limit enrollment increasing the intake of illegal aliens into these schools will mean fewer opportunities and less aid for United States citizens and legal immigrants. This will also result in greater expense to the state taxpayers. Out-of-state tuition is typically two to three-and-a- half times higher than in-state tuition. The revenue lost as a result of providing in-state tuition to illegal aliens would have to be paid for by someone.

Finally, giving special treatment to illegal aliens is fundamentally unjust to legal immigrants who have invested a great deal to comply with our immigration laws or obtain legal citizenship. We should not reward those who have broken our immigration laws with the same benefits as those who have made an effort to respect the law. This measure is a fundamentally unjust and expensive attempt to integrate illegal aliens into our state and federally funded higher education systems.

Please join me in supporting this amendment to enforce existing law and avoid rewarding law-breakers.

Offered By: Mr. King of Iowa

Amendment No. 26: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following: