Kit Bond

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. I thank the Chair.

Mr. BOND. I move to reconsider the vote and to lay that on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I send a second-degree amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I must object to that. I do commend the Senator from Rhode Island and the Senator from Oregon for their leadership on the issues which they have addressed. They have made a strong push, and they worked with us through the 20-plus pages of construction to get a workable means of achieving the goal they so eloquently champion. We will continue to work with them on those efforts dealing with the items the Senator from Oregon addressed. However, I must object to setting aside the pending amendment.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, we too want to move through this bill. This amendment, sponsored by the Senator from Rhode Island, was included in the Judiciary Committee substitute for the Intelligence Committee bill. We defeated that. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee has said we are going to come back and vote on all of these amendments one by one. At this point I think it is appropriate that the leaders are discussing or will discuss how we are going to proceed. In the meantime, we are not going to set aside amendments until we have some direction from the leadership on how they wish to handle these amendments. On the substance of the amendment, earlier today in discussing the Judiciary Committee substitute, I pointed out that the FISA Court, or the FISC as it is called, has said: We are not going to get into this area. We don't want to get into the business of trying to oversee how foreign intelligence is collected. That means whether it is collected or whether there is incidental collection, those challenges are significantly different from the challenges that the FBI would face in carrying out their court order. But it should be noted, as I believe the Senator from Rhode Island has, that the FISA court order, the FISC, will set out the requirement that minimization procedures be followed. There will be significant review and oversight of those because the person conducting the surveillance has a supervisor who will look over their shoulder. That supervisor knows there will be a representative of the inspector general who is watching, who is looking for any problems. That inspector general knows there will be a lawyer from the Department of Justice overseeing it to assure there is compliance. We have an Intelligence Committee with a very able staff, some of whom understand very well how the NSA programs work, whether it is under the FISC or under the previous time. It is our job, under our challenge, our charter, as an oversight committee of the intelligence community, to make sure these laws are followed. So I will say that when the FISC was challenged to take on a broader role in handling foreign intelligence, they stated in the December 17 released opinion, In re Motion for Release of Court Records, at the very bottom of page 19, footnote 31, the appellant claimed that the court could conduct a review because it is a ``specialized body with considerable expertise in the area of national security.'' The FISC itself said that this overstates the FISC's expertise: Although the FISC handles a great deal of classified material, FISC judges do not make classification decisions and are not intended to become national security experts. . . . (FISC judges are not expected or desired to become experts in foreign policy matters or foreign intelligence activities, and do not make substantive judgments on the propriety or need for a particular surveillance). Furthermore, even if a typical FISC judge had more expertise in national security matters than a typical district court judge, that expertise would still not equal that of the Executive Branch, which is constitutionally entrusted with protecting the national security. They cite a case, which says: . . . (``a reviewing court must recognize that the Executive departments responsible for national defense and foreign policy matters have unique insights'' into national security harms that might follow from disclosure). . . . At the end it says: For these reasons, the more searching review requested by the [appellant in that case] would be inappropriate. So while there are court orders that the minimization procedures be followed, there is an existing framework for significant oversight, and there is the oversight not only by the executive branch but by the legislative branch, and the FISC says that is not the business they are to get into. We will have an opportunity to revisit this when the matter is brought up. But I wanted to advise my good friend, a diligent worker on the Intelligence Committee, why we had argued against that provision in the amendment or the substitute that the Judiciary Committee proposed. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I will be speaking more at about 1:30 on the Judiciary Committee substitute, but I thought I would clarify a few concerns that have been raised that I have heard. I know there are a number of Members coming down, and I do not want to hold them up, but I do want to point out that my good friend, the senior Senator from Pennsylvania, was concerned that the President's terrorist surveillance program was not briefed to Members of Congress. It is my understanding it was briefed to the leadership of the Intelligence Committee and the leadership on both sides. Personally, I would have preferred that more Members be briefed, but it is my understanding that when these leaders were briefed, it was their view that in light of the urgency and the need and the difficulties of explaining what we were going to do prior to--which could delay the implementation of the terrorist surveillance program, that it was a consensus of these meetings that the President should not bring a measure before Congress modifying FISA to take account of the new means of electronic surveillance and electronic communication. Secondly, my good friend, the senior Senator from Connecticut, in his comments urged that we ban reverse targeting. I would call his attention to section 703(b), subparagraph 2 and subparagraph 3, which do explicitly ban targeting of overseas terrorist activities in order to gain information on U.S. persons. That is explicitly banned. The Senator from Connecticut also spoke warmly of the exclusive test that existed in FISA from the period from 1978 forward. We have included in the bill the exclusive means test that worked for some 30 years. That is in section 102. Without getting into classified information, we can say that this bill does not allow our intelligence community to listen in on conversations or read mail unless those persons are afforded the protection of the Intelligence Committee bill. To clarify that, the collection is carefully limited and overseen. There have been comments that the collection efforts by the NSA are not subject to oversight. I can only suggest to the people who have raised those concerns to ask members of the Intelligence Committee how much time we have spent looking into electronic surveillance. I can assure them that we enjoy looking into all these issues. We do so on a continuing basis. We have done so extensively over the last 9 months. I am sure they can count on us continuing to exercise that oversight. The Intelligence Committee has been set up specifically to review all of the intelligence collection methods of our intelligence community. They do a great job. We look over their shoulders and suggest ways they can improve the collection and analysis and also take steps to ensure they stay carefully within the boundaries of the Constitution and the laws that apply to them. With respect to collection methods such as 12333, we also oversee that as well. So the people of America can be assured that the laws, the Constitution, and the regulations are being complied with. That is our job in the Intelligence Committee. We intend to continue to do so. I didn't want to leave without clarification of the suggestion that some of these matters were not attended to. I see my colleague from Utah. I thank him for his great work. He is not only a valuable member of the Intelligence Committee but his work on the Judiciary Committee reflects his keen understanding and devotion to ensuring that we do a proper job of oversight and legislation when it comes to these very important collection methods. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be given the full 15 minutes that was allotted to us before the 2 o'clock vote. I have some remarks, and I believe Senator Rockefeller, if we need that, would like the full 15 minutes.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, last night, as I was preparing to leave my office, I learned, with surprise, that Senator Leahy had made significant modifications to the pending Judiciary Committee substitute. Our study during the night of these modifications revealed that the partisan, Democratic-only Judiciary Committee substitute remains deeply flawed. While some aspects of the modified substitute have been cleaned up-- and, in fact, appear to borrow language that Senator Rockefeller and I have been negotiating over the past several months as part of our perfecting managers' amendment--the substitute contains many problematic provisions that I cannot support. In contrast to the underlying Intelligence Committee bill, I doubt that the problematic provisions in the modified substitute were vetted with the Republican Judiciary Committee members, the intelligence community, or the Department of Justice. It should be no surprise, then, that the DNI and the Department of Justice continue to oppose the modified substitute. Let me clarify some matters that were brought up by the distinguished senior Senator from Massachusetts. First, the Protect America Act, which expires on February 1, was not negotiated in secret. The DNI asked the Intelligence Committee in April to consider a bill he set up. He came before our committee and testified openly in May. He came before the Senate in a classified meeting in S-407 in June. When we had not been able to get a markup in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and time was running short, he offered a stripped-down version that would allow intelligence collection to continue. We were unable to get a markup, so we filed with Leader McConnell the bill on Wednesday. That bill sat on the floor Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. There were secret negotiations, but those were on the majority side. The chairmen of several committees worked without informing the members of the Intelligence Committee or, to my knowledge, any Republicans on any of the committees, and they finally presented that to us less than an hour before we went to the floor. So that was negotiated in secret. It was unacceptable, and it did not allow intelligence collection to continue. I am glad to say, on a bipartisan basis, we rejected the secretly negotiated bill and passed the Protect America Act. The Protect America Act did not expand on the authorities of FISA, other than to clarify the means of collection, which previously were by radio. Most communications overseas are by radio. Many communications were going through America. This bill before us today, the Intelligence Committee bill, does not, as my friend said, expand on the powers of the intelligence community to collect. In fact, they impose more restrictions to guarantee the privacy rights and the constitutional rights of Americans. Those are in the bill. Those were negotiated. We pushed the DNI and the Department of Justice lawyers as far as we could to build in additional protections. Those are in the bill. Now, if one reads the bill, you would see that reverse targeting is prohibited in section 703(b), subparagraphs 2 and 3. It does strengthen the privacy protections. That is why the Senate Intelligence Committee bill is the bill that we should pass. Moving back to the Judiciary Committee substitute, there is no provision for retroactive or prospective immunity for communications providers or for preemption of State investigations into providers' alleged assistance to the Government in relation to the terrorist surveillance program. The distinguished chairman of the committee, Senator Rockefeller, laid out at length, and very forcefully, why this protection is needed. This protection is needed to assure that we can have the continued assistance of carriers who might be called on not only in terrorist matters but on many domestic crimes to provide assistance. Furthermore, if we don't have that protection, if these lawsuits continue, it is quite likely that the court proceedings will get into details further on how the collection of electronic information and communications is accomplished. Every time we talk about that and lay out more, we give more information and more guidance to the terrorists themselves on how to avoid our surveillance. We don't want to be in that position. The next problem with the substitute from the Judiciary Committee is that, unlike the managers' amendment that Senator Rockefeller and I intend to offer for the Senate's consideration, the new substitute doesn't fix the reporting problems of the Wyden amendment, which had a great objective--and I agreed with the objective--but it is unworkable. We are going to make it workable in our bill. Furthermore, it requires the intelligence community to perform the impossible task of estimating and recording U.S. person communications in its possession. Anybody who wants to know why that is so, we would be happy to meet with them in a closed meeting and explain why that is not workable. It would be an impossible burden, one we cannot undertake on the committee. Next, the substitute modifies the exclusive means provision from the original substitute, but it is still problematic and requires an express statutory authorization. That presumes that after the next attack Congress will be in a position to act quickly to pass necessary authorizations. I don't think we want to impose that provision. The underlying Intelligence Committee bill provides the same exclusive means, directions, and limitations that were in the FISA bill initially. Another problem with the Judiciary Committee bill is that it places a provision in the Intelligence Committee bill that would have allowed collection to continue until the FISA Court of review has--if they had gotten an unfavorable ruling from one judge, it allows collection to continue until the court of review rules on it. This is a real problem if there is one unfavorable opinion that might put us deaf to collections that are necessary. The Intelligence Committee determined that anything except an automatic stay through the FISA Court of review could jeopardize our intelligence collection. This was already a compromise from the full automatic stay that was in the Protect America Act. Next, the substitute would impose unreasonable new restrictions on the use of foreign intelligence information, including information not concerning U.S. persons, obtained or derived from acquisitions using targeting procedures that the FISA Court found to be deficient in some manner, throwing out vital terrorist information because we didn't protect the constitutional rights or there were some procedural flaws in targeting a foreign terrorist in a foreign land. It creates a superexclusionary rule in the foreign intelligence arena that is at odds with the 9/11 Commission's mandate for the intelligence community to find and link disparate pieces of foreign intelligence information. Read what they said. It was important. They said we are not sharing information, and we need to share information within the community if we are going to have a chance to prevent the next 9/11. On reverse targeting, the substitute changes the bright-line reverse targeting provision in S. 2248 to a new rule that changes ``the purpose'' to ``a significant purpose.'' This change is a significant concern to the DNI and DOJ. They told us it creates so much uncertainty in the appropriate legal standard for collection, and it may confuse analysts trying to follow the standards. This could inadvertently lead to less robust intelligence collection. Under the bulk collection, while the new substitute modifies the bulk collection prohibition in the original Judiciary Committee substitute, it doesn't solve the problem. This provision could have significant unintended operational consequences, and it is unnecessary given restrictions in S. 2248 about intentionally targeting persons in the United States. As I said, for example, if a general is about to order troops into Fallujah, this prohibition could impede the ability of the intelligence community to listen to calls coming into and out of that city without a court order. The FISA Court would be commanded, under the Judiciary Committee's substitute, to assess compliance with minimization procedures used for the acquisition of foreign intelligence information from individuals outside the United States. As I reported earlier in my floor speech, there is a FISA Court opinion, In Re: Motion For Release, December 11, stating: The Court recognizes the executive branch has the expertise in national security, and the Court should not be making judgments as to which particular surveillance unit should be conducted. Finally, it replaces a 6-year sunset with a 4-year sunset. As the Senator from Massachusetts said, this bill ought to be reviewed continually. Exactly. That is what the intelligence community should do. We should not have a provision that would sunset the authority for our collection of vital information. But we should have continuing oversight which the Intelligence Committees have provided and will continue to provide to make sure that collection is proceeding in a manner consistent with the Constitution, with the laws, and the regulations overseeing it. We provide a robust oversight of the NSA collection. That collection must be done in a manner consistent with the guidelines that Congress has laid down, the Constitution has laid down, and the administration has laid down. If there is any problem with that, then it is up to the Intelligence Committees of both Houses to bring before the Congress, if we cannot correct it by interceding with the people in the agency, a bill to change it. I see my chairman, Senator Rockefeller, is here. I will be glad to yield the remaining 3 minutes of my time to the distinguished chairman of the committee.

Mr. BOND. I am going to offer a motion to table, but yes.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I move to table, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank the chairman for his extensive discussion of this measure. This is one of the significant additions we are making to the preexisting FISA law. It is something that was brought up and discussed in the committee. There was general agreement that an American or a U.S. person who goes abroad ought to be provided some form of protection. We discussed it at length. The objective was provided in a very brief statement in the amendment that appeared before the committee. I was very concerned about it because I knew just enough about the FISA law to be thoroughly confused about how it would work. I voted against it but expressed my desire and willingness to work with the sponsor of this amendment and the other members of the committee because it was a good idea. Well, we found out how complicated it is to amend and to change the FISA law because of the many working parts, not only within the law but within the actual means of interception. Well, we worked for better than a month on a bipartisan basis with the proponents of this measure--and I consider myself a proponent of this measure--with the intelligence community, lawyers for the Department of Justice, and we came up with a simple little 25-page statutory provision. It is now included in the managers' amendment. Should anyone think it is simple to amend FISA, I suggest you begin reading at page 5 of the measure before us, and read through page 29, I believe it is, to show how it is accomplished. Nevertheless, this puts in a new layer of protection for U.S. persons. Obviously, we are concerned. Those are American citizens who are abroad. There were questions raised: Well, if I go abroad, can the intelligence community tap my phone without a court order? Well, first of all, the intelligence community is not going to be tapping anybody's phone or trying to listen in on any--intercept any conversations unless they have good, solid information that that phone is in a terrorist's hands. They have to have intel before they even look at that conversation. That intel could come in many forms which I won't describe here, but that--first of all, if you are abroad, you would not have been targeted unless you had certain reasonable connections with a terrorist activity or a terrorist who would give the Attorney General and the intelligence community the basis for asserting that there was a terrorist content to the phone conversation. Now, why do they do this? Because they have more communications than they can handle. They have more terrorist communications almost than it is possible to keep up with. The last thing they want to do is target a conversation of a U.S. person or an American abroad who doesn't have any connection to terrorist activities. So previously, only if there was one of the connections that would give reasonable grounds to lead the Attorney General to say that there was valuable foreign intelligence collection would you collect on it. But now, if that is an American citizen or, more broadly, a U.S. person, they have to go to the intelligence court, the FISC, to get an order--two different kinds of orders depending upon how the collection is going to occur--and get an order finding that there is probable cause to believe, as the chairman has said, that this person is an agent, officer, employee of a foreign power and has foreign intelligence information that may be communicated. So this is a protection that I hope those concerned about the use of electronic surveillance will understand is a significant step we have taken toward protecting the rights of American citizens. But I point out the fact that it took us a month and about 24 or 25 pages to accomplish it. But with that being said, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support it. This is a major new expansion of protection for American citizens, U.S. persons, and this is one of the privacy constitutional right protections added by this bill that was never there before. I urge my colleagues to support it. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, this measure has been considered in the Intelligence Committee. I believed it was not necessary to require additional paperwork, but also I think it is important to note that some of the charges made about the powers given to the intelligence community are way out of bounds. This measure before us does, in fact, put further constraints on the intelligence community. There are powers that exist in both the intelligence community and in law enforcement agencies which may not be affected here. But to say this offers broad new means of getting into business records and other personal effects of individuals--this is a bill devoted to electronic surveillance. The reason we needed to do the bill on electronic surveillance was the fact that the means of electronic surveillance have changed, and the old FISA law did not permit the kind of collection that previously was permitted when communications outside the United States were by radio rather than by cable. The whole purpose of this bill is to ensure that there are procedures in place to permit surveillance targeting people reasonably believed to be outside the United States who have connections with terrorist activities, so that they are an agent or an employee or an officer of a foreign power and have legitimate foreign intelligence information. That is the test. That is what this does. Arguments about the nature of foreign intelligence surveillance should be limited to this bill. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, as the sponsor of the first-degree amendment has noted, this was debated and it was adopted on I believe a 10-to-5 or 9-to-6 vote in the committee, but we found out there were substantial problems with this amendment to which the intelligence community objected. We modified it to the provisions that are now in the current managers' amendment and the underlying bill. The major problem with this amendment is the pleadings. Pleadings have historically been protected during any litigation involving FISA. Congress has only received limited access to certain pleadings, certain actions for audit purposes in controlled circumstances. This amendment I have offered incorporates the national security protection, which the author of the underlying amendment suggested, and it does provide for the 5 years of back opinions from the FISC. This gives the 5 years. We have had semiannual reports from the FISC on all of the opinions handed down in the previous 6 months. It is somewhat burdensome, but I have been negotiating with the Department of Justice lawyers. They say while it is burdensome, this is not objectionable. They prefer not to have it, but the one thing on which they are standing firm and believe they cannot accept is to require turning over the pleadings. The pleadings are actually some of the most sensitive intelligence information we have because in those pleadings the Government has to describe the facilities to be used, the targets of the collection, the information, and how the information is going to be collected, who gave them the information, how they got it. This is the ultimate description of sources and methods. Any time the sources and methods or the assets are disclosed, it is possibly a death sentence to someone who is working with us undercover or as an agent. The Department of Justice believes this information is so sensitive that it has to be kept extremely closely held within the court and the people who must see it to issue the order. Without that protection, they believe that our most sensitive assets, our means of collection, where the facilities are, the whole framework of our intelligence system could be brought down. The opinions themselves go into legal reasoning; they give the justifications. They are the end product of the work of the FISC. What the Department of Justice says the intelligence community is unwilling to give is to lay out and submit to Congress the whole list of information of sources, methods, facilities, targets, the names of assets, or the identification of assets that could result in death for the informant, the agents, or the assets. We have accepted a portion of the amendment proposed by the Senator from Wisconsin. This accepts another portion, but that final portion is objectionable and is a red line. I urge my colleagues not to support the amendment which turns over the very most secret sources and methods which the intelligence community cannot afford to share. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND. Madam President, I thank my colleague from Oregon. As usual, he states objectives that he and I agree with. We both have the same desire, to protect American citizens, U.S. persons, certainly military men and women and their families on military bases. I would say to my friend, under the clear provisions of section 703 and 704, if they are an American military person overseas, the first test would be: Are you an officer or an employee of a foreign government? Obviously, they are employees of our Government. But you would have to be acting as an agent of a foreign power, and, furthermore, there would have to be intelligence information provided showing that there was reasonable grounds to believe there was intelligence information. Now, there could be the situation, as there has been in the past--it has happened within the CIA; it has happened within the military--that some person may turn into an agent of a foreign power even though they are wearing our uniform. That is a very rare situation. But in that instance, then, you would be able, if you had intelligence information, to suggest this person was acting as an agent and had the appropriate foreign intelligence. Absent that, nobody is going to sweep them up, nobody is going to listen in, nobody is going to listen in to their phone calls back home to their families or their families' calls to them. Now, my colleague mentioned some other questions about collection. And this is a very important discussion, a complicated discussion, but regrettably a classified discussion. So let me suggest to him that we understand. He has talked to the Department of Justice. I believe they have had some confidential discussions. We would be happy to have more with him. I regret we cannot have them on the floor of the Senate because they go into matters which are classified. But he and I share the same objective. We have slightly different ways of getting there. There are certain items I think have to be discussed off the Senate floor. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND. I object, Mr. President.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, if I may respond to the Senator from Rhode Island--I apologize to the Senator from Maryland--I say to the Senator from Rhode Island, what I said was his provision was in the Judiciary substitute that we defeated. We did not deal with his amendment in the Intelligence Committee. We discussed it. He offered it, and it was accepted in the Judiciary substitute. That amendment was defeated. What I raised was the concern that our leadership has about going back and revisiting all the elements of the Judiciary substitute. I thank the Chair, and my apologies and thanks to my colleague from Maryland.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Jesse Baker, a Federal Government detailee for Senator Hatch, be granted the privileges of the floor for the consideration of this bill.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, today I wish to recognize a devoted pastor, community leader, father and friend: Reverend Dr. Wallace S. Hartsfield, Sr. On January 1 of this year, Reverend Hartsfield retired as senior pastor of the Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church in Kansas City, MO. He served as the congregation's pastor for more than 40 years and as a dedicated member of the clergy for more than 55 years. Dr. Hartsfield has worked as a key leader and mentor in social, political, and religious circles in Kansas City and throughout the country. He has served at every level of the National Baptist Convention of America and as the president of the General Baptist Convention of Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska. My friend, Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, has dubbed this remarkable leader the ``Godfather of Preachers'' for his ministerial knowledge and superior oratorical skills. Countless Kansas Citians--and Americans--have been touched by this man and his messages. Always positive, Dr. Hartsfield speaks out for peace, social and racial justice, AIDS intervention, faith, and hard work. And like a true pastor, he cares deeply for his congregation and the surrounding community. My guess is he will not slow down much even in retirement. As a measure of our appreciation for Pastor Hartsfield's long service to the community, Congressman Cleaver, Senator McCaskill, and I worked to enact legislation designating the U.S. Postal Service facility at 4320 Blue Parkway in Kansas City the ``Wallace S. Hartsfield Post Office Building.'' This designation is but small recognition of Dr. Hartsfield's many accomplishments as a minister, dedicated community activist, civil servant, and compassionate role model. I am proud to call him a friend. Future generations will look to his leadership and example to find hope and inspiration. Dr. Hartsfield has truly made the world a better place.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, born in Grenada, raised in Pascagoula, and educated at the University of Mississippi--there is no denying where Trent Lott is from. He is a true son of Mississippi. Trent is one of my few colleagues who knows how to say ``Missouri'' right. In all seriousness, it has been an honor to work with Trent Lott, and a real pleasure for Linda and me to get to know his wonderful wife, Trish. Senator Lott has had a remarkable career in Congress that has spanned seven Presidents, two impeachments, and most importantly, decades of progress that has made Mississippi and America stronger and more prosperous. He saw Watergate up close and personal, oversaw the end of the Cold War, spearheaded enactment of historic welfare reforms, shepherded passage of tax relief in both the Reagan and Bush administrations that made America's working families more prosperous, and helped pass numerous historic trade agreements to create more U.S. jobs. While his career in Washington began in the House, he quickly became a creature of the Senate and built a reputation as a parliamentary master. Getting work done in the Senate is no easy task. I like to say it is a lot like getting frogs in a wheelbarrow. Some may call it herding cats. However you would like to say it, Senator Lott knew how to get the job done. Senator Lott always knew how to count votes and get the best deal based on Republican priorities and principles. In the Senate, there is no higher compliment. And in that respect, Trent is a Senator's Senator, reflected both in his work on behalf of Mississippi and on behalf of America. On behalf of the country, his belief in fiscal responsibility led to a historic tax cut agreement that produced the first balanced budget since 1968. His belief in investing in a strong national defense has made our country safer. On behalf of his home State of Mississippi he has been tireless in his efforts to promote economic development and expand job creation. From investing in schools to improving infrastructure, his contribution has been extensive and lasting. Thanks to Senator Lott, Toyota, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and many other companies have a home in Mississippi. It has been a tremendous honor and privilege to serve with Trent Lott. I join my colleagues in congratulating the Senator and thanking him for his many years of service and our friendship.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, we yielded some time to the distinguished chairman from my side. How much time is remaining on this side?

Mr. BOND. Forty-six. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, first let me begin by thanking our majority leader, Senator Reid, and our minority leader, Senator McConnell, for bringing this very important bill to the Senate floor. It is critical that we discuss it, debate it, vote on it, and pass it. I express my great thanks to the chairman of the committee, Senator Rockefeller, for his thoughtful discussion of the bill and his urgent request, in which I join, that all Members of this body move forward, adopt cloture, and adopt this bill. I wish to thank the chairman and all of the members of the committee and the staff of the Intelligence Committee who have labored long and hard over many months, beginning well before the April request for legislation, to understand the program. I believe almost all of us have gone out to the NSA to see how the program works and to see what the protections are that are built in. We have asked questions many times over. I think I have heard the same questions asked many times, and each time they are explained, I learn a little bit more. I think we have a good understanding--not a perfect understanding--of the process, but we do fully appreciate how important it is. The bill before us today reflects a tremendous amount of work and compromise. The distinguished chairman and I and others have had disagreements. We view things a little bit differently. But I think it is significant for this body to realize we came together, the majority and the minority, in a 13-to-2 vote to present to this body a good compromise. Nobody is 100 percent happy with it. I don't expect them to be. But this is about as good as we can do in earthly matters, and particularly in congressional matters, if we can come that close, I think it is a good product. Obviously, I have some disagreements with the chairman on the Protect America Act of which I was a principal sponsor. Because that bill was passed--had to be passed hurriedly before the August recess--what we were able to do in that bill was to restore the FISA process with a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court acting as it had originally been intended to act: to approve collections on U.S. persons in the United States. We changed the law so that technological changes would no longer bring within the FISA Court jurisdiction--or the FISA Court workload, more appropriately--collections on foreign targets where very often they were communicating with foreign recipients of messages. That was never the purpose and, as I indicated on the Senate floor, the FISA Court objected to the intelligence community having to be burdened by approving collections against targets where there was only minimal impact on any U.S. citizen. The Protect America Act did fill in a critical national security intelligence gap. We all heard about it for a number of months. The intelligence community was shut out of the ability to go up on foreign targets which might have had vital information. Now, we have had time to consider all of the aspects of this collection program, and we have come up with a plan that will modernize the bill not only to make sure it keeps up with modern technology, but that it adds additional protections under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This morning, in a few minutes, we will hear from some of our colleagues about why they are not happy with the bill coming before us. I would venture that some individuals made the same speeches back in 1978 before the passage of that bill as well. But let me state the measure very plainly. The question is, Can the intelligence community of the United States obtain signals intelligence on foreign persons believed to be terrorists and reasonably believed to be outside of the United States, and do so in a manner that will protect us. We know the electronic surveillance that was done under the President's program and under the current FISA Court jurisdiction has provided valuable intelligence which has helped to thwart attacks on the United States and, more importantly, as we heard from GEN Stan McCrystal, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, when the outmoded FISA law application shut down our ability to collect foreign intelligence, the people most greatly at risk were our men and women in the service overseas who did not have the benefit of collection of intelligence that might have foretold attacks on them. So our men and women volunteers defending America, protecting security in the world, were without the protection our technology enables us to collect at the same time they were fighting overseas, and this kind of information could have been a big help. Well, the legislation we are looking at today contains far greater protections for U.S. persons than this body ever conceived of or was ever willing to grant Americans when it passed FISA 30 years ago. We have gone further than ever before in this bill in protecting Americans' privacy rights, and I am proud to be part of the process that is shoring up our national security while protecting to the greatest extent possible the liberties of all Americans. The chairman is correct; we made many changes. We added many protections--important protections--that the Director of National Intelligence agreed were necessary additions to provide protections for Americans, U.S. persons that were not previously in the law. But I believe we can say today that Americans can feel safe and secure; that not only is their privacy being protected but their lives are being protected from terrorist attacks if we pass this bill which will modernize and extend FISA. We have an urgent need to proceed to the Senate's consideration of the FISA amendments of 2007. Just last week, the Senate heard from our Director of National Intelligence, ADM Mike McConnell, and Attorney General Mike Mukasey in a closed briefing about the vital importance of this legislation to our intelligence collection efforts. This legislation will give the intelligence community the tools it needs today and in the future to protect our country. The Protect America Act, passed in August by Congress, allowed the intelligence community temporarily to close critical intelligence gaps that were impeding the intelligence community's ability to protect our troops and to detect terrorist plots against our homeland. That temporary legislation expires in less than 2 months, and we must not let those dangerous gaps reopen. Two months may seem like a lot of time, but when it comes to this bill or when it comes to floor action in the Congress in both Houses and then a conference, it is a very short time period. Anybody who has watched this distinguished deliberative body and its counterpart on the other side work knows that 2 months sometimes can go in the flash of an eye. The Senate will go out of session this week until mid-January, leaving only about 2 weeks for us to work out our differences with the House to get a bicameral bill sent to the President--one that he can sign into law before the current Protect America Act expires on February 5. I regret the majority did not let this important bill get to the floor sooner, particularly when we had the DNI on the Hill last March urging Congress to modernize FISA, giving us his template of legislation for FISA modernization in early April. But we are here in the last week before Christmas, and I hope we will not waste any time in passing the bill on the way to becoming law. I sincerely hope we are not going to leave ourselves in the same uncomfortable position we found ourselves in this past August when the Senate's consideration of the Protect America Act had to be passed very quickly. Because the Senate waited from April until August to act, we found ourselves in a chaotic rush to pass a bill, and there were genuine fears in the intelligence community that a terrorist attack against the homeland might be in the works. If we had acted in a more timely manner, we would not have had some of the hard feelings we do today that resulted from that rushed process in August. That process produced a bill that continued FISA as it was originally intended but did not include the additional protections we have added today. The good news, however, is that all of that is ancient history now because the product we have coming before us today is a thoroughly bipartisan Intelligence Committee bill that was put together in close coordination with the subject matter experts in the offices of both the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice. I can assure my colleagues that all of the good ideas we have had--I have had and other members of the committee have had--when we have taken them to these experts, we have found out you have to do it this way if you want to accomplish the results you want. Some of the things we attempted to do had impossible burdens that we did not understand until we laid them out for these experts. They have told us how to accomplish our purposes and do so in a manner that would be effective in protecting the interests, and yet not destroy the ability of the intelligence community to collect the information we need. So I implore my colleagues in the Senate to move as quickly as possible on this bill since its construction has been quite deliberate so that we do not repeat the history of the hasty manner in which we had to pass the Protect America Act. But that also means we must pass a good bill that will not get vetoed. We don't have time for that. It is always fun to posture and make political statements, but what is more important, we don't have to do that. The bill coming before the Senate out of the Intelligence Committee offers the legislation that gives the intelligence community the flexibility it needs to protect our troops and those of us in America, while protecting the privacy and civil liberties of Americans. With two small fixes that Chairman Rockefeller and I intend to add to the bill in a manager's amendment, I have been assured that the President will sign that bill. Now, let me comment a minute on exclusivity. We are working on an agreement on exclusivity that states to the greatest extent possible this will be the exclusive legislative means for the President to collect foreign intelligence. As one who used to be a student of the Constitution and still remembers a little bit of it, I have been impressed to read over the years how article 2 of the Constitution has been interpreted. Article 2 of the Constitution has been interpreted to say that the President--the President alone--has the power to collect foreign intelligence. That power was used by Presidents going back in history. President Carter and President Clinton have used that bill to collect information. The FISA Court of Review has said, in the in re: Sealed Case, that the President's power to collect foreign intelligence remains. The President has put this bill under the FISA Court. So he has accepted the jurisdiction of the court in assessing the appropriateness of the collection means that have been requested. We cannot erase by legislation a constitutional power. That constitutional power that the President has was fully laid out in the opinions and advice given by the Department of Justice and the intelligence community to any carriers that may have participated in the collection of information during the pendency of the President's terror surveillance program. One other item I will comment on is the sunset. The provision we have in the bill--the 6-year sunset--is a compromise we reached. I don't believe a bill such as this should have a sunset. FISA did not have a sunset. It stayed in effect from 1978 until 2006. We should have reviewed it before. That is what we are in business for. The Intelligence Committee of the Senate continues to hold hearings and have oversight of the intelligence community, and I would expect that if we see problems in the bill, we will move to correct them when we see them, not wait to a sunset. General Mukasey strongly opposed having any sunset on the bill, and I oppose lessening the sunset from 6 years. In fact, I prefer to see that sunset provision out of the bill. To summarize, S. 2248, the bill passed out of the Intelligence Committee by a solid bipartisan vote of 13 to 2, on which I hope the Senate invokes cloture in a few minutes, will be the proper means of assuring the intelligence community can go forward with the vitally important collection of signals intelligence, while at the same time protecting the civil rights and privacy of all Americans and U.S. persons. The bill is an extremely delicate arrangement of compromises that will fall apart if significant changes are made to it. By ``fall apart,'' what I really mean is it won't become law. We need a bill that Democrats and Republicans can support, that the DNI says will work for the intelligence community, and that the President will sign into law. That means the first principle we need to follow today is that the age- old advice that doctors and others use: ``do no harm,'' and not deconstruct what the Intelligence Committee has carefully crafted. We don't have time for poison pill amendments or any other sort of political posturing. The Senate Intelligence Committee bill is a good one and needs to become law without further delay so our intelligence collectors and troops in harm's way will have the tools they need before the Protect America Act expires in February. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to vote with Chairman Rockefeller and me to proceed to this bill. I yield the floor and I reserve the remainder of my time. What is the time remaining?

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I yield 13 minutes to the Senator from Pennsylvania, then 5 minutes to Senator Sessions, 5 minutes to Senator Chambliss, and 5 minutes to Senator Kyl. That would conclude the time on our side, and I think that will put us at a vote or it will consume the time on our side. So I unanimous consent that be the order.