Kit Bond

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. BOND. Through the Chair, I would ask my colleague if he wants to apply these same standards to Canadian truckers. Because it is my information, I do not have it documented, that the standards required of Canadian truckers are less than the standards required of Mexican truckers. The Canadian truckers coming into the United States, into North Dakota and beyond, do not have to have U.S. insurance. I would ask my colleague if he is concerned about the Canadian trucks coming in as well and what he plans to do about those.

Mr. BOND. May I ask my colleague another question?

Mr. BOND. It relates to the fact that the U.S. Federal inspectors will be going to Mexico and making those inspections with Mexican trucks would satisfy his concern about the enforcement. Before the trucks can come in, U.S. Federal inspectors go to Mexico and make the inspections. Does he think we ought to be doing the same thing in Canada, for example? What about requiring Canadian trucking companies to have U.S. insurance as well?

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on behalf of the Foreign Operations bill, and I thank the managers of the bill for putting forward an excellent measure. I have a couple of areas I wish to speak about at some length, but let me give the framework in which I will talk about it. I come to the floor a lot--I spoke this morning about military action, but I come to the floor to talk about intelligence. We are, at least in my thesis, in a worldwide war against those who have declared us to be their enemy. It is an ideological war. I think, by any stretch of the imagination, most people realize that a war against this kind of enemy is only 20 percent kinetic, it is 80 percent economic/educational. What we are doing in this bill some people object to--spending money on foreign operations--because they think, oh, it is do-gooderism; it is trying to make us feel good, helping people in the world. Well, clearly we are carrying out an important mission to help less developed countries throughout the world. That is certainly one of the areas where America's generosity has always shown through. Our private charities are even more robust than what we do through government. I continue to hear people back home saying: If we just cut out foreign aid, we could do this and we could do that. But foreign aid is minuscule. I, frankly, think it ought to be more. If we are going to turn the tide against those who are committed to radical views, to misusing and misinterpreting their religion to declare war on us, we have to deal with them not only kinetically when they pick up arms or when they threaten to bomb us, but we have to help create the conditions in those countries where people are not driven to earn a small amount of money for planting a roadside bomb or an IED or even get a little more for their family by committing suicide in a terrorist attack. There are some things we can do through this bill that I think are very important to connect with those countries which view us with suspicion. We can help change the attitude--not of everybody; not of the committed mufsidoon. Those are people who, in the name of Islam, kill innocents, men and women, fellow Muslims. They are too often called jihadists. They are not for jihad. Jihad is a legitimate self- fulfillment and improvement by Muslims. They commit hirabah, which is the terrible form of violence these Muslims commit. We need to show people in the countries from which they come that America can be a force for good. There are a couple of things that are very important. No. 1 is establishing and improving educational exchanges. No. 2 is economic assistance to help them build their economy. I will talk about that later. No. 3 is getting Americans on the ground. I have traveled to a lot of countries, and I have spent a lot of time in Southeast Asia. They keep telling me that the best emissaries the United States has are Peace Corps members, the Peace Corps members who have been here, and those in other volunteer organizations--if they come with a church, if they come with a charity or a nongovernmental organization, if they come with the volunteers in the financial services program. When Americans come, even as tourists, they can make a difference. I wish to talk just a minute about the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps, as I said, is one of the important weapons we have, not only to help them understand us but to help us understand them. At no other time in this Nation's history has the work of the Peace Corps and its volunteers been more vital or valued. Peace Corps volunteers are the good face of America in the developing world. They provide practical, hands-on experience while spreading compassion and good will, which is vital in winning the hearts and minds of people all over the world. The United States is no longer the only game in town, and we can no longer take for granted that countries will line up to want to support the United States. China, for example, with over 1 trillion U.S. dollars, is aggressively engaging in courting countries all over the world on economic, diplomatic, and cultural fronts, frankly shutting us out, moving us out of the game by establishing what the Chinese call their Confucius Institutes, thus promoting their language and culture through internationally affiliated institutes. The Chinese Ministry of Education estimates that by the year 2010 there will be approximately 100 million people worldwide learning Chinese as a foreign language. And it plans to set up 100 more. They will be learning Chinese, not English. I ask, why are we reducing and not increasing our efforts to promote American values, our culture, our way of life? As I said, to fight the war on terror, our efforts are 20 percent kinetic, 80 percent public diplomacy--international exchanges, education, aid, and community development. In other words, I believe that putting more sandals on the ground will prevent having to put boots on the ground in the future to fight militarily what we could have won economically with education and diplomacy beforehand. Only about 20 percent of Peace Corps volunteers are serving in predominantly Muslim countries. There are far too few. In key areas, there are just not enough. Why? We just do not have the money. The money stayed stable, and costs have gone up. We have been declining in Peace Corps participation. Why is it important to have them in Muslim countries? Because they provide alternatives to the Wahabist view of life, financed too often by our Saudi Arabian friends. They are too often promoting the Salafists' radical agenda--barbaric ideologies, trying to reach impressionable Muslims. Numerous accomplishments have been achieved over the past 6 years by our American volunteers, and the Peace Corps is poised to meet not only the growing demands from interested countries but from thousands of Americans who want to serve as well. I believe the Peace Corps should obtain its full request in 2008 in order to expand opportunities to enter these countries, vitally important countries in Southeast Asia and elsewhere, and I hope we will get a more robust request from the administration next year. It should not be hindered in expanding the number of volunteers in countries where the Peace Corps already exists and is advancing American ideals and building good will. Budget tightening has already occurred at many posts, and program closures are likely without additional funds. Many of our diplomats and host country officials say that the Peace Corps is the most effective and cost-efficient U.S. agency in getting a better view of America. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the conference committee. I hope we will be able to restore the President's full request for the Peace Corps. It is an investment in an effort vitally important to improving the lives of those in the developing world. I also wish to talk about another initiative. I have been on the floor talking about it a long time; that is, effective grass roots development for agriculture in Afghanistan. Agriculture is the main building block of the Afghan economy, but it has suffered from disinvestment and neglect. Over 70 percent of Afghans live in rural areas and derive their income from agriculture. Yet the public and private support infrastructure for agriculture is yet to be rebuilt. I talked to some Missouri farmers--I will discuss it more later--who were over there with our National Guard. They tell us that they believe the Afghans could move a tremendous leap forward if we got them 19th century, not 21st century, not 20th century, but 19th century tools and equipment because they are that far behind. I thank the managers of the bill. They have used in this bill $20 million for USAID to set up and develop a nationwide agriculture extension system. It would establish and execute a strategy through a consortium of U.S. land grant universities, integrating the program into Afghanistan institutions, guided by local councils, comprising community, private sector, and government education leaders. Our U.S. education extension service transformed American agriculture over the last hundred years, and it can do a lot to improve the livelihood of the people in Afghanistan and counter the other influences, such as the cultivation of poppies for the drug trade. Unfortunately, we have given money to USAID in the past, and it has been largely ineffective. USAID has refused to set up an extension system in Afghanistan. They continue to rely on large, DC-based contractors who apparently have had no impact. They lack that expertise and capacity-building know-how and expertise which will create sustainable development. Over 5 years and hundreds of millions of dollars later, after USAID has been spinning its wheels, Afghanistan now accounts for 92 percent of the world's opium supply. I recognize USAID and the Department of State are large bureaucracies that cannot operate as effectively as the military can in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the community development efforts they are tasked with are paramount to establish a strong economy that will allow the Afghan farmers and the Afghan people an alternative to opium production. When I was in Iraq, for example, I observed our warfighters taking action and picking up the mantle where State and USAID's hands were tied. In Ramadi, we saw the marines, after they had pacified Ramadi, went in and rebuilt the Blue Mosque, the absolutely central Sunni mosque for that entire region. There was a tremendous amount of goodwill created, showing them we supported their religion. In Afghanistan, a member of my staff, a month ago, returned from Nangarhar Province with members of the Missouri National Guard. As a result of my working with the Guard and what we saw on the ground and the fact that the President, Hamid Karzai, had asked for extension service assistance but USAID was not able to produce it, I asked the National Guard to send an agricultural development team over to see what could be done. They came back with a very promising response. The team and subsequent others we hope will be established by the Department of Defense through the National Guard will be composed of citizen soldiers who come, in their civilian lives, from farming, agribusiness, and construction trades. Each AG team will have extension service experts--whether it is in soil or meat technology or other things that have been identified as pressing needs. They are going to focus on more efficient use of irrigation, crop rotation, cold storage, harvesting, processing, and agribusiness. They will not just be giving farmers seeds, they will be building real, long-term relationships and capacity-building that will sustain agriculture in Afghanistan, to bring it into the 19th and even into the 20th century. They will be doing so in a place where building trust with the populace is paramount. From my time as Governor, I have always been impressed with not only the capacity and the ability and dedication of our National Guard throughout the United States but their flexibility. The National Guard structure, capabilities, and the skill-set of the citizen soldiers in the Army are uniquely positioned to execute a position that many others are incapable of fully executing. I hope the USAID and State Department will follow the lead of its Department of Defense cohorts in Iraq and Afghanistan. As I said, 80 percent of the war on terror is nonkinetic-- agricultural development, education exchanges, Peace Corps volunteers, and public diplomacy. If USAID continues to rely on giving large chunks of money to cumbersome contractors in its foreign aid, it will fail, and I will see if I can convince my colleagues to choose another route. Efforts in Afghanistan, like the land grant extension initiative and the agricultural development teams, are models for how we should be conducting the nonkinetic war we must fight against those who vowed continuing war against us and the way of life we espouse. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, as we approach the sixth anniversary of September 11, 2001, we are reminded of the consequences of ignoring the threat al-Qaida and other ``mufsidoon'' terrorists pose to our Nation. Al-Qaida and radical extremists declared war, or ``Hirabah,'' on this Nation in the early 1990s, and not until 2001 did we finally take that threat seriously. While some in our own country refuse to believe this reality, that terrorists--Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri--agree that Iraq is the central front in the war on terror, our entire intelligence community testified in open session before the Senate Intelligence Committee last January that to retreat from Iraq prematurely on a political timetable would invite disaster. They testified that a precipitous withdrawal of American forces would lead to chaos, regional sectarian conflict, Shias and Sunnis killing each other. It would create a safe haven from which al-Qaida could launch further and much more robust attacks on America, and it could lead to the possible deployment of troops, this time not to a fledgling democracy but to prevent the spread of a radical Islamic Caliphate, with a capital in Baghdad and borders reaching from Spain to Indonesia. A precipitous withdrawal would also send a message to the enemies of freedom all over the world that the American people lack the resolve to win; that while our brave military cannot be defeated, politicians in Washington can; that when the going gets tough, America gets going-- home. Next week, General Petraeus will deliver a progress report on the new strategy in Iraq. I expect this report to show that finally we are seeing real progress in the security situation in several key areas. This issue should not be a political one, but unfortunately there are those who are politicizing our fight there. This battle is too important to be used by those who want to declare defeat in Iraq for their own short-term political gains in 2008, claims such as, ``the war is lost,'' and claims that the success of the surge ``misses the point'' are troubling at best and dangerous at the worst. Sadly, there are some in this body who are vested politically in defeat. I find it disappointing that some in Congress would now say they will refuse even to believe General Petraeus, despite the fact Democrats and Republicans unanimously approved his appointment in February. General Petraeus takes his responsibility for our troops on the front line seriously. He is highly respected, has an outstanding military career, and should be listened to. I am confident he will deliver a report based on facts on the ground and not political conditions at home. I hope more of my colleagues will listen to our military leaders when they deliver Iraq's progress report. The worst case scenario would be for a majority in Congress to ignore our military leaders and continue to demand timetables, withdrawal dates, and attempts to control troop movements. Military decisions must be made by our military commanders on the ground, not micromanaged by Congress in our wonderful air- conditioned hall, thousands of miles away. We have seen what has happened in the past when politicians have tried to run a war--from Vietnam to the Iranian hostage crisis. On the political front, I agree that Prime Minister Maliki is not getting the job done, at least not getting the job done on the timetable that we have artificially set, but that much more work needs to be done. However, as we have seen for months now, progress is occurring from the bottom up at the local level. Our military, our leaders, and our troops in the field tell us that they are being successful. They are making progress. This is no time to quit. The Al Anbar Province, where I and several Intelligence Committee members visited a few months ago, has been demonstrating tremendous signs of progress, even back then. This was the area controlled by al- Qaida just a year ago, where al-Qaida said they were going to establish the headquarters of their evil empire, the Caliphate. In fact, today, General Jim Jones will be releasing his report that reached the same conclusion I did after my visit. You saw different headlines in the paper today about that report--not surprising. They wanted to focus on other sites. But today's Washington Post reported: U.S. and Iraqi alliances with Sunni tribal forces in Anbar province have produced ``real and encouraging'' military progress and intelligence cooperation, and there are promising signs they can be replicated elsewhere. It is here, where local tribal leaders and sheiks are cooperating with American and Iraqi Army commanders to take their neighborhoods back from al-Qaida. As a result, we have seen a decrease in sectarian violence, an increase in weapons cache discoveries, and some relative stability. This is a classic example of how General Petraeus's counterinsurgency strategy, or COIN strategy, is working. We should have had this policy 2 or 3 years ago. But General Petraeus has written a book, the Army and Marine field manual. When he talks about dealing with the counterinsurgency, you go in, you clear, you hold, you work with local forces, and you help them rebuild. Show them that there is progress that can come when they cooperate with those of us who are trying to prevent violence and terrorism from taking over their country. When we were there, the marines in Ramadi had just finished rebuilding the Blue Mosque, the sacred point for Sunnis in Al Anbar, and they are using that. We are working with them. Our military is beginning to replicate these successful lessons in other parts of Iraq. Sure progress is slow, but progress is real. With a new counterinsurgency strategy in place, our military shows the momentum going our way, and with this momentum it is clearly the wrong time to cut the legs out from under them with a new strategy. We are witnessing the increasing likelihood that our troops can find success and return home victorious. Even previous critics such as the Brookings Institution's O'Hanlon and Pollack, writing in the New York Times, said this is ``a war we just might win.'' But let me be very clear about one thing. Our U.S. national security interest is seeing relative peace and stability established and maintained in Iraq for the short and intermediate term because only by assuring that stability, and our coalition forces working with Iraqi security forces, can we ensure we will avoid the genocide among Shias and Sunni, the opening of Iraq to a safe haven for al-Qaida and its related terrorist elements, and the likelihood of a regionwide sectarian war, bringing in other countries in the region, creating havoc, chaos, threatening Israel, cutting off oil supplies, and having an international crisis. Long term, we have an interest in seeing real reconciliation and political accommodation accomplished by the elected officials of the Iraqi Government. Iraqis are going to have to make those decisions for themselves--who does it and how they do it--but we have to realize that before you can have political compromise and success, you have to have stability. Secondly, political reconciliation takes time. It took a long time to put the United States of America together. If you read, as I hope you have, the book about Lincoln's Presidency, ``A Team of Rivals,'' you see even in 1860-1864, we were still fighting those battles in a war at the same time, but Abraham Lincoln persevered and we came through. So not only as a policymaker but as a father concerned about our future generations, I understand the tremendous sacrifice our troops have made in support of a policy in Iraq. Our troops on the ground have told me, in many different ways, they understand they are making progress. They understand they are making these sacrifices; they are willing to do this for the good of our country. One particular quote sticks in my mind when they were first told about the possibility that Congress would set arbitrary time limits for withdrawal. Their response was: We have made far too many contributions and too many sacrifices to see it all be for naught. This coming from troops on the ground who have seen their colleagues shot up and sent the belongings of lost comrades back home. They made a contribution to the peace and security of the United States, and they do not want us pulling the rug out from under them. Let's remain committed to seeing the job done to protect this country from the radical and extremist attacks of al-Qaida and others. Our Nation's security, our credibility in the world, the freedom of millions of Iraqis and many other people threatened by this kind of terrorist attempt to establish a caliphate are depending upon us. I urge my colleagues to listen carefully and accept the recommendations of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, two men of unquestioned integrity who will be presenting the situation on the ground, not as we view it on TV, not as some mischaracterize it but from the people who have the responsibility for our missions, our vitally important missions, important not only for Iraq and the Middle East but to our own national security. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire. I am not at liberty to disclose the amount, but it is very significant. I cannot give him the percentages, but it is more significant than the Senator has suggested.

Mr. BOND. I thank the Senator from Utah.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. I hope I have the attention of all of my colleagues because I believe we have an opportunity--we have an absolute necessity--to pass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act modifications prior to leaving for the August recess. It is absolutely critical for our national security that we change the law which currently, by its application, is denying our intelligence community a very significant portion of the signals intelligence they could collect on al-Qaida and other terrorist sources who may well be planning another 9/11 attack on the United States. It has been publicly disclosed that al-Qaida's discussions are more active now than they had been since 2001 and even more since 2001, but we are, because of the application of this law, partially deaf to those communications. If we are to protect our homeland, the people of America, as well as our troops in the field, we have to collect better intelligence because that is our only significant weapon to fend off the attacks of those, through their misguided ideas, who want to inspire terror and kill as many Americans as possible. The Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, whom I believe the people in this body have come to know and respect, told us in April that it was urgent that we reform the FISA law. He sent us a proposal on April 27. He appeared before our committee in open hearings on May 1 and discussed at length the challenges and the threat we face and the need for revision of the FISA law. I had hoped we would move on that at the time, but some wanted to get more Department of Justice opinions. Nothing happened. I offered my version. My version, on behalf of Republican members, drew no response. The DNI, Director of National Intelligence, Admiral McConnell, came before a session of the entire Senate in S-407, our classified security area, a month ago, and he told us about the need to reform the law and to reform the law now. A significant number--not a majority--of this body was there, but everybody who heard him speak recognized the absolute, compelling necessity to move. Since time was running out, he offered a slimmed-down proposal. There are a number of things which need to be done with respect to FISA that can wait, and to accommodate the concerns of some on the other side of the aisle, he agreed to hold off dealing with issues such as carrier liability and streamlining FISA. But he presented to us a measure that he said was critically important, that must be passed so we don't remain deaf during August to discussions of threats being carried on by al-Qaida and others seeking to do us harm. As a result of the submission he made, we had another hearing for all Members of the Senate on Tuesday night, and at that Tuesday night session, several Democratic chairmen raised concerns with him about his proposal and their desire to have a different form. I was not privy to their negotiations, but through the good efforts of Director McConnell, I found out what they were proposing, and it was obvious to me, as it was clear to Director McConnell, that this would not allow him to do what he needed to do and would not allow NSA to move forward on collection of vital information needed for his job to keep America safe. The next day, the admiral modified his original proposal to take into account some of the reasonable concerns the Democrats raised, things he thought he could live with. Leader McConnell and I introduced that on Wednesday evening. Since that time, there have been several more iterations coming from Democratic staff and some Democratic chairmen that have been presented to Director McConnell. He has reviewed them, and they do not meet the needs. He has responded to them, to try to find ways to accommodate them, and he has not been able to accommodate them. The admiral now is traveling and out of contact. He said that given the lateness of the hour and the fact that this is such a critical issue, the negotiations are over, and he said he would make one more accommodation to meet concerns of the majority party. So he has agreed that he would support and urge the President to sign the McConnell-Bond measure introduced on Wednesday night, with one accommodation; that is, to add a 6-month sunset to provisions of the law allowing the operations to continue under the orders put forward at that time. It will be my intent, after discussions with the leaders, to attempt to call this measure up so we can go to work on it and get it done, to keep our country safe and to allow us to come back after the recess and work on other portions of the FISA law that may be necessary and I think are very necessary. But right now, to keep the country safe, we need to pass this measure. The Director of National Intelligence said----

Mr. BOND. I would be happy to.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, the Senator from Georgia--and a valuable member of the Intelligence Committee--is precisely right. What we have before us is what is absolutely necessary to keep our country safe. He asked for the basic provisions. Basically, what Senator McConnell has proposed--which is not a Republican proposal, it is not a Democratic proposal, it is the proposal of Admiral McConnell as the Director of National Intelligence--is that the Government, the intelligence community, can listen in on communications from foreign sources, foreign intelligence, of somebody located overseas. If they find a suspect in the United States--and we call that a U.S. person--then any collection has to go before the FISA Court, which was established in 1978, before any collection can start against that target. It allows the Attorney General, with the Director of National Intelligence, to authorize that collection. Now, the DNI's proposal has made a number of accommodations to the points raised by our Democratic chairmen at that Tuesday night meeting. It includes having the FISA Court review the procedures to ensure that the targets of our collection without a warrant are overseas. I don't think court review is necessary, but it is an added layer of protection that several key Democratic chairmen wanted. I have been to NSA. I have seen how the procedures are so carefully monitored, with layers of oversight, supervision, reviews of attorneys, reviews of the inspector general, to make sure that the only intelligence they are collecting without a warrant is where the target is a person reasonably believed to be outside the United States.

Mr. BOND. I would be happy to.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 5 more minutes to answer the questions that have been raised.

Mr. BOND. I thank the Chair. I thank my colleague from Georgia for a very fine statement. I don't remember all of the questions, but I do remember his last question, which was, is it imperative for national security that we adopt this now. The Senator is correct. We were unable to accept communications prior to September 11, 2001. After that tragedy occurred, the President instituted a program, which he revealed several years later, to intercept foreign calls from al-Qaida coming into the United States and, because of concerns and questions raised in oversight, the President put the program to intercept foreign intelligence under the FISA Court. Now, at this point, because of the change in technology since the time FISA was adopted in 1978, inadvertently the new technology being used comes under FISA and prevents, in many instances, the collection of information on a foreign target. The foreign targets are the ones, as the Senator from Georgia so correctly pointed out, who were giving information, and still give information and direction and strategic operations, to terrorists who may well be in the United States. Yes, it is vitally important that we change this now. I hope my colleagues will review this and that we can get a large, bipartisan majority. This is not a Republican proposal. I tried my Republican proposal and didn't get a majority to support that. There are Democratic proposals and, to the extent they can be accommodated by the DNI and allow him to take the collections he needs against foreign targets, without a warrant--unless we can change the law, he will be deaf and we will be endangered in August and thereafter. Regarding the question my colleague from Georgia raised about terrorists communicating in the United States, if there is collection, if we have intelligence that there are terrorists communicating in the United States--they would be non-U.S. persons--we would still have to go to the FISA Court to get an order before anybody can collect on them. If a U.S. person receives a call, the U.S. person's participation is what they call minimized and it is put aside. That person does not become a target if he or she is a U.S. person, unless and until there is a FISA Court order included.

Mr. BOND. Yes.

Mr. BOND. Yes. I have a very important message from the DNI: We understand that the FISA court judges urgently support a more appropriate alignment of the court's caseload and jurisdiction away from the focus on non-U.S. persons operating outside of the United States. The judges have clearly expressed both frustration with the fact that so much of their docket is consumed by applications that focus on foreign targets and involve minimal privacy interests of Americans. That is the end of the statement that has been communicated to us by electronics from the DNI--that FISA Court judges have asked today that we pass a law that gets them out of the business of overseeing foreign target collection. I yield the floor.

Mr. BOND

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes. First, before my good friend, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee leaves the floor, through the Chair, may I address the chairman of the Intelligence Committee. The Director of National Intelligence is sitting right off the floor here, and he has not seen--he has just seen your bill. He does not support it. I ask if the chairman of the Intel Committee would step outside and talk to the Director of National Intelligence to see whether, in fact, he does or does not support the Rockefeller bill or the bill that we introduced on behalf of the DNI, which is now pending as amendment No. 1927.

Mr. BOND. Yes. Would you be willing to step off the floor to ask the DNI?

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished Senator from Connecticut.

Mr. BOND. I yield to the Senator from California 2 minutes.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Georgia.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I yield the remaining time on this side to the distinguished minority leader.

Mr. BOND. Mr. President, how much time remains on this side?

Mr. BOND. All right. Mr. President, first, I want to make a point clear. I had referred earlier to comments made by my good friend, the distinguished chairman of the Intelligence Committee, who thought the bill they introduced was a bill that Admiral McConnell had supported. Admiral McConnell has just released a statement saying that he appreciates the efforts to address critical gaps in our current intelligence capabilities: I cannot support the proposal. It creates significant uncertainty in an area where certainty is paramount in order to protect the country. I must have certainty in order to protect the Nation from attacks that are being planned today to inflict mass casualties. Really, there are a number of problems with the bill that has been presented on the other side. But the main problem is it says you do not need a court order to collect on communications between persons who are not located within the United States, and the rest of the collections are required to have a court order. Now, this morning, I read on the Senate floor a declassified summary of an order issued by the FISA Court saying this provision, this statute, FISA, must be amended because due to uncertainties and technological changes, they are spending so much time having to work on orders for collection involving the foreign targets--foreign targets whose impact on the privacy rights of Americans is minimal. Why is that a problem? The problem is, you do not know--if you are targeting a foreigner--whether that foreigner is going to call or communicate with another foreigner. If you do not, under the bill provided by Rockefeller and Levin, you would have to get a court order. You would have to get a court order if you could not prove the person they were communicating with was not in the United States. And you cannot do that. That is an impossibility. That is an impossibility. You cannot have an order that tells you they are going to be foreign communications only because you do not know until you intercept the communication to where it is going. Now, there are a number of other questions about the bill. I just have to say the concerns that have been raised--and they are legitimate privacy concerns--are addressed by minimalization procedures. Under what is called the McConnell-Bond bill--which was requested by Admiral McConnell, who modified his original proposal--under that bill, if an American citizen is caught in a communication from an al-Qaida target or another foreign target, then that person's participation is minimized. And if it is not foreign intelligence, that is completely dumped. Under our bill, like under the previous FISA provisions, you cannot target an American citizen or a U.S. person, including people here on green cards and here in the country, without getting a court order. That is what the FISA Court was set up to do--just to protect people in the United States. There are protections for the U.S. persons who are caught, incidentally, and they are minimized. Their names are not even identified unless there is evidence of terrorist activities. Now, the measure we have provided, the McConnell-Bond bill, S. 1927, is one which does meet the needs that were identified by the FISA Court and by Director McConnell to clear up the backlog because there is a huge backlog they cannot work through. The FISA Court is overburdened. They cannot work through and issue the orders because of the tremendous amount of paperwork. So we must do this now. We must do this tonight to give the intelligence communities the powers they need to collect information at a time when the threat is heightened. If we do not do that, we are in great danger. We have to do other things, and we will come back and revisit the other things, such as dealing with carrier liability and streamlining the process. Those we must do. That is why we included the sunset at a year. Mr. President, I yield 1 minute to the Senator from Florida.