Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, when the world is in trouble, they look to Americans for help. One of my constituents, Mr. Victor Lovelady, heard this cry while working in Algeria and sacrificed his life to answer it.

Victor embodied the very best of the American spirit. He was brave, compassionate, and in the face of great danger made the decision to help and protect others instead of himself. Courage like this should be applauded. That is why this week I nominated Mr. Lovelady for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This is our nation's highest civilian honor and recognizes individuals who have made ``an especially meritorious contribution'' to our society. It is clear to me that Victor Lovelady not only meets, but exceeds this standard.

Like many Americans, Victor Lovelady was a hard worker who put in long hours to provide for his family of four. As an industrial engineer and master electrician, he worked most of his life in his hometown of Nederland, Texas. Later he moved down the street from me in Atascocita, Texas. However, when work in his area slowed, he traveled back and forth to Houston daily for almost three years so that his children would not have to change schools. Victor never had a pension plan and always had to pay his family's insurance by himself. He never had more than two weeks off in a year. He longed to be able to retire and spend more time with his wife and children.

When the opportunity to work overseas for British Petroleum arose, Victor weighed the pros and cons. He knew that if he did this job for a few years, he would be able to make enough money to retire and be with his family. He was also assured that it would be a safe place to work.

On January 9, 2013, Victor arrived in In Amenas, Algeria to begin his new job at the BP Gas facility. On the morning of January 16, Victor and several other workers were in the cantina having tea when a colleague walked in with a gunshot wound to his stomach. Mokhtar Belmokhtar's al Qaeda linked terrorists had stormed their facility and were indiscriminately killing innocent employees.

Thinking quickly, Victor began to clean and dress the man's wound as the sound of gunshots grew louder and louder. After he bandaged the man and hid him in a food container, Victor began helping the other men with him hide in the cantina's false ceiling, lifting them up so they could climb in. In total, Victor propelled three men into the hiding spot. Only when it sounded like the terrorists had entered the cantina did Victor try to save himself. Unfortunately, when attempting to climb into the ceiling, he fell and injured his ankle. Moments later, the terrorists found him and led him away.

Victor's selfless and heroic actions saved four lives that day. This entire ordeal was witnessed and recounted to me by one of the men he helped protect. Sadly, Victor was killed the next day when Algerian, military forces attacked the convoy in which he was being held hostage.

Victor Lovelady may not be a household name, but there is no doubt that his contribution meets the Presidential Medal of Freedom's high standards. He worked hard to provide an honest living for his family and when in danger, thought first to protect others instead of himself. When his brother Michael testified about Victor's heroics before my subcommittee in July, there was not a dry eye in the house. Everyone who hears Victor's story is inspired to act with courage, conviction, and compassion--in other words, to act as a true American.

Mr. Speaker, I'm sure you and all of our colleagues are as touched by Victor's story as I am. He was a great man and his legacy will continue through his wife, Maureen, and his two children, Erin and Grant. I am honored to call this man and his family my constituents and will continue to fight to honor the legacy of their courageous husband and father.

And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, if a person is traveling down Farm to Market Road 1960 in Houston, Texas and glances over toward the massive airport grounds, it will not be uncommon to see men and women on horseback providing security for the airport perimeter. These are the Houston Airport Rangers. They will be celebrating their 10th anniversary on December 7, 2013.

In 2003, the Houston Airport System and Texas horse riding enthusiasts embraced the concept of a citizen-based crime prevention program designed to add an extra layer of security at the fence-line securing George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) and in return, horse enthusiasts would have exclusive access to thousands of acres of riding trails. Kind of like border patrol, just with boots and hats and on horseback!

IAH Airport is the only airport in our country with a dedicated volunteer rangers program. It's Houston's largest airport and the eighth busiest airport in North America. In 2012, nearly 40 million passengers traveled through the airport. More than 13,000 acres surround the airport, so it makes sense to have the right folks saddle up and patrol the trails on a regular basis.

The number of rangers has increased every year, and nearly 100 members have qualified for an Airport Ranger badge. Rangers share a passion for patrolling the range and keeping the peace--this passion has created a spirit of camaraderie amongst members. As Rangers ride their horses along the airport perimeter, they alert TAH security personnel of any suspicious or dangerous activity in their patrol area. Rangers keep track of their patrol hours--thousands of volunteer hours have been recorded since the program launched ten years ago. These Rangers are a special breed. But, would we really expect anything less from Texans?

Mr. Speaker, join me in honoring the Airport Rangers program for its 10 years of dedicated service and commitment to make Harris County, Texas a safer place to live. I do not know of another crime prevention program of this caliber that is completely run by volunteers. Next month, they will celebrate their 10th anniversary with a Texas style celebration: Texas country music, barbeque and horseback riding--sounds like heaven.

Happy Trails, y'all.

And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, as the old Israeli saying goes, ``What you don't see with your eyes, don't invent with your mouth.''

Iran and six world powers, including the United States, are meeting in Geneva to negotiate over Iran's nuclear weapons program. The U.S. must be clear and unequivocal: There will be no reductions in sanctions without verified steps to show that Tehran is abandoning, not just freezing, its nuclear weapons program.

Sanctions are what have brought Iran to the table to talk in the first place. In 2012, the Islamic Republic's net exports of petroleum dropped to their lowest level since 1990. Its GDP has dropped for the first time in 20 years. The Iranian Central Bank acknowledged an annual inflation rate of 45 percent in late July 2013; many economists believe it is more likely in the 50-70 percent range.

In short, the Iranians are feeling the pinch. The sanctions are working.

But getting the Iranians to the negotiating table is not good enough.

If we reduce sanctions now, we give up one of our main sources of leverage for the negotiations. Why stop what is working before we even start talking? Tehran wants to ease the sanctions to a tolerable enough level so that it can continue developing nuclear weapons without pain to its economy.

If we ease sanctions now, Iran will doubt our resolve, continue to run out the clock, and develop nuclear weapons knowing that there will be no serious consequences.

If the U.S. caves in at this critical time, other countries around the world will likely follow its lead and ease their own sanctions. In short, we would be right back to where we were in 2004: Iran marching toward a dangerous nuclear weapons program with no significant sanctions in place. Only this time, it would be much worse. Tehran has continually blocked international inspectors from seeing its nuclear facilities because it has something to hide.

Iran is closer than ever before to crossing the threshold and developing a nuclear weapon. Iran's stockpile of medium-enriched uranium has nearly doubled in a year, and its number of centrifuges has expanded from 12,000 in 2012 to 19,000 today.

Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to build a nuclear bomb in as little as a month, a recent report by the Institute for Science and International Security states. It goes on to say that if Iran built a covert enrichment plant with the specific purpose of enriching uranium as quickly as possible, with current Iranian technology it could produce enough material for a nuclear bomb in a week. Backing off from sanctions now should not be an option. We simply do not have time.

If we want diplomacy to succeed, we shouldn't be talking about reducing sanctions but rather ratcheting them up. My colleagues and I in the House of Representatives passed an additional sanctions bill in July that would inflict even more pain on the Iranian regime. These new sanctions would go after more sectors of the Iranian economy and more individuals in the Iranian government. The U.S. Senate should ignore the president's objections and pass these sanctions immediately. If peace is to carry the day, we cannot start backing down now.

Nobody wants war with Iran. We should not give up the one peaceful tool that has finally impacted the Iranian regime enough to change its cost-benefit analysis. It would be foolish and dangerous to reduce sanctions without Iran proving that it is dismantling its nuclear weapons program. And that's just the way it is.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, for the first time in nearly 20 years, the United States is producing more crude oil than it imports. U.S. oil output is soaring due to the fracking boom in North Dakota and, yes, in Texas and some other areas. That is the reason.

The Energy Information Administration said this week that oil production by barrels is up 11 percent from last year and 63 percent over the last 5 years. If this trend continues, with the expanded use of renewables, and, of course, the completion of the Keystone XL pipeline, it is entirely possible that we could see total energy independence in this country in the next 10 years. Imagine what our foreign policy could be if we were energy independent. We could make Middle Eastern oil, turmoil, and politics irrelevant.

However, all of this progress has been made despite the current administration. How ironic it is the administration takes credit for all the oil production boom when it does everything it can to stonewall this boom.

Oil and natural gas production on Federal lands is down 40 percent compared to 10 years ago. Most of the new drilling is on private and State land, not Federal land. Under this administration, 2010 had the lowest number of offshore leases since 1984. Imagine what we could do if we could speed up the permitting process on Federal land.

To address this, H.R. 1965 expands onshore oil and natural gas production on Federal lands and streamlines the leasing and permitting process, among many other commonsense provisions, to help get the government out of the way of progress.

Mr. Speaker, from Bubba in southeast Texas to the Pope, no one is off limits to the surveillance of the National Spy Agency, NSA. Americans are fighting the Soviet-style surveillance by filing thousands of open records requests on the NSA. Citizens want to know if the ``snoop and spy'' agency has monitored their emails, phones, computers, and location devices. Rather than transparency, the citizens have received just a form letter with no answer to their questions, all because it is a spy secret.

Citizen Joel writes, ``I should have the right to know if I am under surveillance.''

Courts should put a stop to the NSA Soviet-style surveillance and grant injunctions and open records requests.

The NSA is addicted to spying and snooping. It has no authority under the PATRIOT Act nor the Constitution to impose domestic dragnet surveillance on citizens. This is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment.

NSA acts like the people are the enemy of the state. However, this NSA activity is the enemy of personal privacy in the United States.

And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, the health of the Nation is now in the hands of government. Let's see how it is working out for people who work for a living. Many Americans are feeling

the pain of government health care, and here is what some of them have sent me from my congressional district in Texas.

Billie from Spring, Texas, writes:

I can't afford what ObamaCare will cost. How can they say

it is better? My company pays part of my insurance, and the

insurance is good. Why do I have to change to something I

cannot afford? It doesn't make any sense. My doctor told me a

lot of them will retire rather than deal with this horrible

health care law. The quality of doctors will diminish. I

thought the government was for the people.

Well, Billie, apparently the government is for the government and not for the people.

James from Humble, Texas, says:

Please defund ObamaCare. My employer has already informed

us our health care will be changing, and this comes at a very

bad time for my family. We will be forced into exchanges and

employer informs us the company has the right to end

subsidized retiree health care in the future. Higher costs,

higher deductibles, and total confusion. This will have a

negative impact on our economic future as we enter our

retirement years.

Small business owner Terrence Wolfe from Humble says:

Defund ObamaCare before we collapse our entire economy. We

cannot afford it as a Nation, and I cannot afford it as a

small business owner. I cover 80 percent of the premium for

all 10 of my employees. All of us are bracing for at least a

20 percent to 40 percent increase.

Shannon Rudd from Humble, Texas, says:

I cannot believe ObamaCare is still a reality. The

government has no business managing health care insurance.

Furthermore, they have no right to tell Americans if they can

or cannot have a procedure performed once the insurance is

forced on individuals. Forcing people to pay a fine if they

choose not to have health care is asinine and the furthest

thing from democracy.

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, Shannon is wrong about it being a fine. It is not a criminal penalty; it is a tax. If it were a fine, you could have due process, you would be presumed innocent, your day in court, your jury trial, but under a tax, you have to pay the tax first and then fight the IRS to try to get it back. Good luck with that.

Sharon Coyle from Spring, Texas, says:

Now what? We may get the delay in ObamaCare mandate after

all because of the cluster it has turned out to be, but what

about those of us who have insurance through our employers?

My gold level of my insurance no longer allows me to

participate in the flex spending account. I ultimately ended

up having to go to a lower plan because it was cost-

prohibited. My deductible is higher and now my copays are

higher.

I will be paying at least $2,000 to $3,000 more per year on

top of the $7,200 I already pay. We were told it is because

of ObamaCare.

This is a big dupe to America. Obama wanted everything to

be more fair. Sure, we all have insurance now, but no one can

afford to go to the doctor.

Well said, Sharon.

Robert Arnold from Humble, Texas, says this:

It is incomprehensible that we put men on the Moon in 1969,

but we can't get into a $400 million Web site to purchase

insurance.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, those glitches seem to be a real problem.

Kenneth Earl Beeney from Kingwood, Texas, says:

Now when I look at what is available with OBCare, the plan

that is closest to ours is going to cost $745 a month. This

is absurd. It does not look like we will be able to keep our

current policy, so we are being forced to pay $400 per month

for coverage and the deductible will be $12,000.

I really like my current policy and the premium fits our

budget. What can be done?

Mr. Speaker, this is bad news for the middle class.

Merin Porter from Houston, Texas, says:

I am the sole breadwinner for a family of five. I am

eligible for affordable insurance through my employer;

however, my family coverage is prohibitively expensive--

$18,000 per year, or more than 30 percent of my take-home

pay. As you can imagine, it is only affordable to us if food,

shelter, and clothing were a luxury and not a necessity.

Mr. Speaker, Merin should not have to choose between feeding the family and being forced into ObamaCare. Why has the government done this to the people? As Billie says and said it best, ``I thought the government was for the people.'' Well, apparently not.

And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, the House of Representatives has voted numerous times to repeal ObamaCare, but the President finally admitted today that ObamaCare is just not working. And so to save his flawed legislation, he has decided to selectively enforce the law, the individual mandate, the idea that you can keep your own insurance. He says he won't enforce the fine for noncompliance for 1 year.

His method is unconstitutional. The Constitution requires Congress to write, rewrite, and amend laws. No President can just use administrative discretion to not enforce laws or change the law. Administrative discretion is just not mentioned in the Constitution. Selective enforcement violates the 14th Amendment.

No President can just administratively change any law. What's next? Is he going to raise taxes by administrative order?

Congress must write the law. The President must enforce the law.

The House will address this very issue legally tomorrow by bringing up legislation that now the President seems to support. I assume the former constitutional law professor will sign on this excellent legislation that you can keep your insurance if you like it.

And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1, rule I, I demand a vote on agreeing to the Speaker's approval of the Journal.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, ObamaCare has been nothing short of a painful government illness.

On the first day Americans were due to enroll in their health care plan, they just couldn't do it. Errors flashed across their computer screens. It was a glitch here, a glitch there, everywhere a glitch, glitch, glitch.

Out of the 500,000 Americans that should have been enrolled by now, only a handful were able to sign up thanks to technical incompetence, negligence, and those glitches.

Americans will be penalized if they can't sign up, but how are you supposed to when the Web site doesn't work?

Computer glitches should take minutes to fix, not weeks. These glitches are just a sign of things to come when the government takes over America's health. If the government can't even get the Web site right, how will government get health care right for the American people?

ObamaCare has the compassion of the IRS, the competence of FEMA, and the efficiency of the post office.

And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, last year, Iran's net exports of petroleum dropped to their lowest level since 1990. Its GDP has dropped for the first time in 20 years.

The Iranians are feeling the pain of sanctions. Now the Iranians say that they will negotiate if the sanctions are reduced. Reducing sanctions without verifying that Tehran is abandoning, not just freezing, its nuclear weapons program is misguided and reckless.

The U.S. is moving toward an appeasement deal with Iran, and Iran is giving up nothing.

Last Thursday, I met with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, who called this deal to reduce sanctions with Iran a ``bad deal, a very bad deal.''

The French Foreign Minister called the so-called deal a ``fool's game.''

Iran will not negotiate in good faith, and the U.S. is being played.

Meanwhile, Iran stalls, delays, and lies about its quest for nukes. We must be clear to Iran that they must totally abandon their nukes or their sanctions are here to stay. No deal, Mr. Rouhani.

And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, is the administration aware of the actions that are taking place in the administration?

A little history:

Fast and Furious:

Everyone knows the President did not know about this tactic

until he heard about it through the news media.

A quote from White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

So lower level operatives blamed. No accountability.

Benghazi: 5 days after the attack, the administration still blamed it on a video. We learned later that the White House was told that this was a terrorist attack within 3 days of the attack.

So when did the President find out this was a terrorist attack?

In any event, no accountability. Video blamed. No one in the administration was held accountable, and the killers have not been brought to justice.

The Department of Justice's wiretapping of the Associated Press:

Other than press reports, we have no knowledge of any

attempt by the Justice Department to seek phone records of

the Associated Press.

Once again, this was from White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

Lower level operatives blamed. No accountability.

The IRS scandal: The investigation was not a matter that should be conveyed to the President.

That was Jay Carney once again.

Lower level operatives blamed. No accountability.

ObamaCare Web site disaster: Secretary Sebelius claims the President was not aware of the Web site problems until the Web site was launched.

Once again, lower level operatives blamed. No accountability.

NSA spying on foreign leaders? U.S. officials claimed the President did not know about this. The President refuses to say whether he knew or not.

But anyway, lower level operatives officially blamed.

NSA spying on Americans: The President claims he did not know the extent of the spying on Americans.

Lower level operatives blamed. No accountability.

Mr. Speaker, exactly who is running the country--lower level operatives? Has the government gone wild? Is there a shadow government operating without the knowledge of the White House? Is the President out of tune with what is taking place in his own administration or is he aware of those actions?

If the President were unaware of all of this, the White House needs to hold people accountable, to hold these lower level operatives accountable for their actions--their improper actions, their bungling, their incompetence. The White House needs to fix this out-of-control government immediately.

The White House needs to take responsibility for the actions of his administration and quit blaming others and lower level operatives. That is the White House's responsibility. After all, to quote the constitutional law professor, ``The buck stops with me.''

And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, the most important person in my life, my grandmother, always told me that you never hurt somebody you claim you love. This simple, but powerful, statement is one to reflect on this month, October, Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

When I came to Congress, I met a remarkable woman named Yvette Cade from Maryland who was the victim of horrible domestic abuse. After being denied a protective order by a judge, Yvette's estranged husband came into her place of employment, poured gasoline on her, and set her on fire. This incident changed her life forever but does not hold her back, and now she advocates for other domestic abuse victims.

Domestic violence affects all races, religions, and economic groups. I am working along with my friend from California, Jim Costa of the Victims' Rights Caucus, to make sure that Congress deals with this issue not just in October but every month of the year. Domestic violence is never the fault of the victim. It is the fault of the perpetrator.

Mr. Speaker, you never hurt somebody you claim you love.

And that's just the way it is.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I appreciate those comments.

It is true, Congressman Green, you and I, our careers have mirrored. We spent time at the courthouse together, you as a defense lawyer, me as a prosecutor. We became judges at about the same time. We got elected to Congress at the same time. We have known each other now almost 40 years, and I want to thank you for all that time you have been serving the community of Texas. And our districts match each other in the Houston area. We share the same common boundary.

I also think it is appropriate that we are wearing purple ties. If I remember correctly, if you take red and you take blue and you mix them together, you get purple. How appropriate because this is a bipartisan endeavor where we are trying to show the horrors of domestic violence nationwide. It is not a Democrat issue; it is not a Republican. It is an American issue. And I guess it is a purple issue, if we can use that phrase.

As you have mentioned, spending time at the courthouse, I saw a lot of these types of cases, and we have come a long way. And, yes, it is true, I remember the days when domestic violence, when some spouse would beat up another spouse, no matter how bad the injuries, unless it was death, many times the police would say, This is a family problem. It is not a criminal problem; it is not a public problem. It is a family problem. They have to deal with it.

Because of that, many women, primarily, were rejected from prosecuting their spouse when they beat them up. As Congressman Green mentioned, the days of spouse filing charges and then being pressured by sometimes the batterer or family members to drop the charges, and then charges would be dropped. I found that frustrating as a prosecutor, and you found it frustrating when you were trying to help those women get those cases filed.

We finally did something in Texas that made a whole lot of sense. We took the spouse, the victim, out of the prosecution process. So it was the State of Texas versus the guy, and the spouse really had no control over the prosecution. The spouse certainly couldn't drop the charges. It took it off of her burden, and made those people who wanted the case dropped to deal with the State rather than the victim. That was a good thing because then those people started getting prosecuted.

Jim Costa, a Democrat from California, he and I started the Victims' Rights Caucus when I came to Congress. It is a bipartisan caucus, a purple caucus, of both sides that advocate on the part of victims with about 85, 90 members.

One of the things that we are very concerned about, of course, is spouses that are victims of crime. I say that because when somebody beats up someone in the family, it is not the fault of the victim; it is the fault of the person that does the assaulting. The victim is not to blame. We have to get it through to our culture--and I think we are gradually doing that--to understand it is not the victim's fault. It is the person who commits the crime, commits the assault.

The most influential person in my life was my grandmother. God bless her. She lived to 99 years of age. She told me a lot of things and was very wise.

You would be glad to know, Congressman Green, she was an old- fashioned Texas Yellow Dog Democrat. She never forgave me for being a Republican. Anyway, we got past that.

She said that you never hurt somebody you claim you love. That was a true statement when she told me, and it is still a true statement. You never hurt somebody you claim you love, especially in the family situation. That is something that we need to live by and hold people accountable when they violate that important rule of life.

You mentioned the Violence Against Women Act. That is a good piece of legislation. I supported that for the reasons you mentioned, but also it does something else. It helps the immigrant community. Too often we find in Houston, where we have a lot of immigrants from all over the world, that someone that is in the United States, if they are assaulted by someone else that is in the United States, both undocumented, the batterer tells the victim, If you call the police, I am going to send you back to where you came from. He can't do that, but she thinks he can do that, so she doesn't call the police, and this guy gets away with hurting her. Plus, she continues to be victimized.

We changed that law because of VAWA. They can come forward. They can get a special visa. They can testify. This person can get prosecuted as they should. It is a good piece of legislation, and we certainly should be enforcing the rules under the VAWA law.

People that I have come in contact with over the years have impacted me. Of course, many of those have been victims of crime, many of those victims of domestic violence. One that I met after I came here to Congress was a wonderful lady that lives real close to us. She lives over in Maryland, Yvette Cade. She has made her story public, so I will use her name.

Yvette Cade was estranged from her husband. Her husband was under a protective order to leave her alone. She didn't have a lawyer. She didn't have someone like you, Mr. Green, representing her. She had to represent herself. When the protective order came to be renewed, she represented herself in the courtroom, and the judge denied the protective order. It was withdrawn.

Soon after the judge made that horrible decision, the estranged husband found her over at the video store where she worked supporting herself. He walked in carrying a jar of gasoline, and he poured it over Yvette Cade, and he set her on fire, that wonderful, precious lady. It is all on videotape from the store.

I don't know how she did it, but she survived. A passerby saw what happened. He helped her. He put the fire out. She has had numerous surgeries, and she is alive. Today, she advocates on behalf of victims who are abused in the family. She is quite a remarkable person, and she is a victim of crime.

Our culture needs to treat these people in a special way, whether it is to prosecute the criminal or to take care of them when their physical and mental needs need to be met. We are doing a better job of that. This month, we recognize those wonderful people who have been abused.

We still have the problem of convincing them that the crime is not their fault. They are embarrassed so often. As I told victims of crime as a prosecutor and even as a judge: You don't need to be embarrassed for what happened to you. The person who did it needs to be embarrassed.

It was part of our responsibility, I think, in the criminal justice system to make sure that happened. I won't go into all those types of cases that you are familiar with in unique sentencing, Mr. Green, but we made sure that the criminal knew that he was to blame and the victim was not to blame for that conduct.

After hearing 25,000 felony cases at the courthouse--and, Congressman Green, I am not going to relate all 25,000 of them, but I would like to mention another one. When we think of domestic violence, we need to remember not only the spouse, but we need to

think about the children that are involved, too, because many times they are the victims of domestic violence.

There was a young girl who was a second-grader, and, like a lot of kids today, she rode the bus back and forth to elementary school. I will call her ``June.'' One afternoon, she is riding the schoolbus home, and she wouldn't get off the bus. She just sat there, and she was literally gripping that bar that is on the seat in front of you. Finally, the schoolbus driver came back and tried to talk to her and asked her, Why won't you get off the bus? This is your home. This is where you live.

June replied, I don't want to get off, because I am only safe when I am on the bus going to school, at school, and when I am on the bus going home. Bad things happen when I get off the bus.

You see, she went back into a situation where she was constantly battered by the ``live-in boyfriend'' is what I am going to call him. Because of the bus driver and doing what she did, they called the police and an investigation took place. That person was prosecuted; but, more importantly, June is safe and her mother is safe.

We need to understand that victims of domestic violence live, many times, quiet lives of desperation and fear. It is our responsibility as Congress to eliminate that the best we can, to provide services for victims, to let them understand that crime is not their fault, that it is the fault of the perpetrator. On the other end, we need to make sure those perpetrators get the justice that they deserve at the courthouse and they are held accountable for those actions that they commit against someone in their family.

Mr. Speaker, Grandma was right. You never hurt somebody you claim you love.

Mr. Speaker:

The administration puts forward a false choice between the

liberties we cherish and the security we provide. No more

illegal wiretapping of citizens, no more ignoring the law

when it is convenient--that is not who we are. That is not

what is necessary to defeat the terrorists. We will again set

an example for the world that the law is not subject to the

whims of stubborn rulers and that justice is not arbitrary.

This administration acts like violating civil liberties is

the way to enhance our own security. It is not.

Mr. Speaker, those were the words of Senator Barack Obama in 2007.

That was then. This is now.

The NSA, the National Spy Agency, as I call it, is continuing its stealth intrusion into the lives of not only Americans but of foreign leaders as well, whom Senator Obama once talked about. The NSA has been caught eavesdropping on the Germans, the French, and now new reports say 60 million phone calls in Spain were monitored by the NSA.

A bit more history about the NSA and its spying:

The Department of Justice stealthily seized information from 20 different Associated Press phone lines, including some in the U.S. Capitol--right up there. The Department of Justice stealthily seized phone records of Fox News reporter James Rosen, of his parents and of several Fox News phone lines. In the month of January of 2013 alone, 125 billion phone calls were monitored worldwide, and at least 3 billion of them were phone calls in America.

The NSA stealthily seized from Verizon Business Network Services millions of telephone records, including the locations, numbers and times of domestic calls. A secret government program called PRISM allowed the NSA to search photos, emails and documents from computers at Apple, Google and Microsoft, among many other Internet sources.

NSA and the Snoop and Spy Caucus say this spying on Americans and our allies is necessary to catch the terrorists. They even claim terrorist attacks have been prevented. If this is true, show the evidence. Prove it. Where are the terrorists who supposedly have been thwarted by these surveillance tendencies?

Even if it is true, which I doubt, it still violates the law. In my opinion, it violates the PATRIOT Act. The PATRIOT Act doesn't allow for this nonsense. It violates the constitutional right of privacy, Mr. Speaker. It violates the Fourth Amendment and the right of persons to be secure in their homes, papers and effects without government intrusion. Government cannot use the old Soviet-style, dragnet approach, hoping to catch a big fish while also catching the endangered species of freedom.

Those who argue otherwise say they must seize the whole haystack to find the needle in the haystack. Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what is prevented in the Fourth Amendment. I would like to quote the Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons,

houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and

seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue

but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation,

and particularly describing the place to be searched and the

persons or things to be seized.

The Fourth Amendment specifically prohibits government from seizing the whole haystack to find the one needle.

Mr. Speaker, the American people have lost trust in government. It is time for Congress to intervene to prevent the invasion of privacy by government against the citizens. The Federal Government must stop redlining the Fourth Amendment.

According to an administration official, the President did not sign off on this stuff, and was unaware of the depth of the surveillance of foreign leaders.

Who did sign off?

Mr. Speaker, is there a shadow government in America that operates outside the law, outside the knowledge of the administration?

Sort of spooky, isn't it, Mr. Speaker?

Technology may change, but the Constitution does not. We can have security but not at the cost of losing individual freedom because, to quote the constitutional law professor:

There should be no choice between the liberties we cherish

and the security we provide.

And that's just the way it is.

Madam Speaker, Pakistan is a disloyal, deceptive, and devious ally of the United States. Pakistan harbors Taliban terrorists that are at war with our troops in Afghanistan. Pakistan hid out Obama bin Laden. Pakistan put the Pakistani doctor that helped the United States take out ``the devil of the desert'' in prison for 30 years.

Pakistan is playing the United States for a nation of fools. Otherwise, why would our Government just send $1.2 billion to Pakistan? Haven't we learned that Pakistan takes our money and slyly and seditiously uses it for purposes counter to U.S. interests?

Pakistan has become the Benedict Arnold ally of America. Why do we pay Pakistan to hate us? Madam Speaker, they will do it for free.

No American taxpayer money to Pakistan. Use that American money in America. Freedom-loving nations that give Pakistan money in the delusive hope of fighting terrorism are sailing the ships of the foolish--and the United States has become the admiral of the fleet.

And that's just the way it is.