John Conyers

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I thank the floor manager for his statement and his commitment across the years for civil rights activity. I yield all but 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia, John Lewis, whose work and writings and the history that he has made in this area are well known across this country and, indeed, around the world.

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I'm delighted now to yield 2 minutes to Dr. James McDermott of Washington State, a dedicated leader for universal health coverage and a civil rights activist. We were at the United Nations together not too many years ago. (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Washington State. I now yield 2\1/2\ minutes to a former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, the gentlelady from Dallas, Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson).

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I am pleased now to yield 3 minutes to the gentlelady from the District of Columbia, Eleanor Holmes Norton, a brilliant lawyer who argues in the Supreme Court frequently and is a civil rights leader in her own right.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6344) to provide emergency authority to delay or toll judicial proceedings in United States district and circuit courts, and for other purposes.

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. We are in a spirit of bipartisanship and we are reaching out. Let's not nationalize the oil companies. We agreed on that. Let's go from shale to coal and let's go into all the alternatives. We are all for that. No suing. Drill, drill, drill. No sue, no sue, no sue. Now we are getting down to the 41 million acres of leased oil, and he knew I was going to bring that up, that have been unused, and I don't know how to make those oil companies drill and find out if there's anything there or not. Maybe they don't want to know. Maybe they do want to know but they don't have the machinery or equipment.

Mr. CONYERS. Maybe there's a technological problem that is beyond the understanding of we mere mortals on Judiciary.

Mr. CONYERS. Yes. The gentlemen yielded to me, so I will yield to him.

Mr. CONYERS. You know, we had a hearing on this subject. The oil execs of the five companies came before us. In the other body, three of them told us how much they made. As you know, they make the top profits of any executives in business, short of the pharmaceuticals, of course. I don't want to short them. We found out that two of them couldn't even remember how much they made. Look; salaries, options, stock, bonus. Who knows what else. I hope my dear friend from California will join me on the letter that I am sending to the two, referring them to look up their accountant, because I know they paid their taxes on April 15, and just give us a ballpark figure of how much they made. If the gentleman will join me in this consideration, I'd be very grateful. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen), a leader in universal health care activities.

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I yield back any time we have remaining.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1285, I call up the bill (H.R. 6304) to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to establish a procedure for authorizing certain acquisitions of foreign intelligence, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Members of the House, several months ago on October 16, 2007, to be exact, the House passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act legislation, known as the RESTORE Act. In the view of this Member, the RESTORE Act was a reasonable and balanced one giving the administration the power it needs to combat terrorism while protecting our precious rights and liberties. The legislation before us today, which I concede includes significant improvements over the Senate legislation, goes beyond what I think was a reasonable bottom line in the form of the RESTORE Act. Title I of the bill continues the House approach by providing mechanisms to ensure that FISA's longstanding exclusivity is crystal clear. It states only a new statute directly addressing the executive branch's foreign intelligence surveillance authority can modify FISA. Secondly, it provides sunshine by requiring that the government requests to private parties for surveillance assistance must actually cite the statutory authority under which they're issued. Now in earlier versions of FISA reform, the administration claimed that prior court approval of procedures for overseas surveillance would hurt national security. This matter is now laid to rest with the consensus that upfront court review is indeed appropriate. The requirement for individual warrants and probable cause determinations for Americans overseas is an improvement over even the original FISA legislation. There is a provision in the legislation that permits the Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence to begin surveillance prior to seeking court approval for the necessary procedures in exigent circumstances. This is intended to be used rarely, if at all, and was included upon assurances from the administration that agrees that it shall not be used routinely. The measure before us further requires extensive oversight by Congress and the independent Inspectors General to prevent abuse. It mandates guidelines for targeting minimization and to prevent reverse targeting and tasks the Inspector General to monitor compliance with those protections. Now title II of the legislation concerning telecom liability raises the most serious concerns in my view. In the past, I have said I would be open to developing a set of procedures that allow both plaintiffs and defendants to make their case. Unfortunately, this bill goes well beyond that and changes the substantive standard for legal liability by the telecom community, by the telecom companies and does so on a retroactive basis, retroactive immunity. And so I appreciate that the final bill does not send the matter to a new secret court and does grant the court a meaningful role in the determination. Unfortunately, these improvements do not redeem the overall provision. Title III of the bill will also ask the Inspector General to conduct independent investigations into the President's warrantless wiretapping program. This inquiry will help uncover the truth for the American people, hopefully, about the President's activities. And then there is a part in here about an emergency provision any U.S. citizen can be wiretapped. And I strenuously object to that. Six years ago, the Administration unilaterally chose to engage in warrantless surveillance of American citizens without court review. We are now restoring the balance through enhanced Congressional oversight, Inspector General investigations, and procedures to ensure that FISA remains the exclusive means for authorizing electronic surveillance. This bill continues the House approach by providing mechanisms to ensure that FISA's longstanding exclusivity is crystal clear. First, it states that only a new statute directly addressing the executive branch's foreign intelligence surveillance authority can modify FISA. Secondly, it provides sunshine by requiring requests for assistance to cite the statutory authority under which they are issued. A conforming amendment to Title 18 Section 2511(2)(a) is meant to underscore the need to specify the specific statutory language being relied on, and must be read in conjunction with the entirety of Sec. 102 of the legislation. It should not be read to imply that assistance may be sought for electronic surveillance, as defined in the statute, which is not specifically authorized by statute. In earlier versions of FISA reform, the Administration claimed that prior court approval of procedures for overseas surveillance would hurt national security. This matter is now laid to rest, with a consensus that up-front court review is in fact appropriate. The requirement for individual warrants and probable cause determinations for Americans overseas is an improvement over even the original FISA legislation. There is a provision in the legislation that permits the Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence to begin a surveillance prior to seeking court approval for the necessary procedures in ``exigent circumstances.'' This is intended to be used rarely, if at all. In the normal course of events the DNI will have ample time to submit such procedures to the FISA court for its approval before initiating a particular surveillance. The Congress provided this authority at the request of the DNI to meet unforeseen and extraordinary circumstances, and the Administration agrees that it may not be used routinely. The Administration understands that the Congress expects its use to be very rare if it is used at all. The oversight committees will be informed of any use of the exigent circumstances provision and are committed to effective oversight to insure that it is not used to avoid the requirement to secure court approval of the procedures in advance in all but the most extreme circumstances. The exception must not swallow the rule. The bill requires extensive oversight by Congress and the independent Inspectors General to prevent abuse. It mandates guidelines for targeting, minimization, and to prevent reverse targeting, and tasks the Inspectors General to monitor compliance with those protections. ``Reverse targeting'' is specifically prohibited in Section 702(b)(2). The Intelligence Community agrees that this language prohibits the targeting of one or more persons overseas for the purpose of acquiring the communications of a specific is person reasonably believed to be in the United States. Thus, Section 702(f) requires the government to adopt guidelines to insure that this abuse does not occur and the FISA court must review and approve these guidelines and assure that they are consistent with the Fourth Amendment. The oversight committees of the Congress intend to conduct rigorous oversight to insure that these provisions are faithfully observed. In this connection the Committee attaches particular importance to the required annual review and the reporting in that review of the number of disseminated reports which contain a reference to the identity of a US person. There is currently ongoing multi-District litigation in which a federal District Court is conducting a review of the telecom carriers' activities and the lawfulness of the President's warrantless wiretapping program. This bill does not strip jurisdiction on that Court and provide blanket immunity, as many wanted. Instead, in cases where the program was actually designed to detect or prevent a terrorist attack, the Court will assess an Attorney General certification that can assert--among other reasons for dismissal--that the carriers got certain requests and directives from the Administration. The Court will look to see if the Attorney General's certification is backed up with substantial evidence. That means not only the underlying directives and requests, but supplemental materials as well. And in cases where the Government claims that the company did not provide the alleged assistance, a bald assertion is not ``substantial evidence''--the Government will have to back up its claims to the Court's satisfaction. That Title II of this bill provides procedures for assessing lawsuits relating to warrantless surveillance since 9/11 does not imply that such surveillance was lawful or that the Congress as a whole believes that the service providers acted lawfully in providing assistance. Nor can the provision remove the power of the courts hearing the cases to determine if this provision is constitutional. No company or private citizen asked by the executive branch to provide assistance in securing the private information of Americans without authority of law should read this language as implying that Congress will act in the future to provide such a grounds for dismissing a lawsuit. On the contrary, companies should be on notice that the Congress is very reluctantly providing this defense as a one- time action in an extremely unusual circumstance. It expects private citizens and companies to provide assistance only when specifically authorized by law. For over 30 years we have mandated that telecommunications carriers not be a merely unquestioning partner to surveillance activities. This bill provides many ways for the companies to question or challenge directives or requests for assistance, and we expect these to be used any time there is something unusual or novel being requested. Today's compromise will give the District Court direction and procedures for handling the pending lawsuits. However, it is important to note that the question of whether FISA's existing security procedures at 50 U.S.C. 1806(f) preempt the state secrets privilege is still being litigated in the courts in a case against the Government. Nothing in this bill is intended to affect that litigation, or any litigation against the Government or Government employees. Today's vote is not the end of the matter. The bill provides for a 4- year sunset, but this doesn't mean we cannot or should not revisit these issues in the next congressional session. We will conduct vigorous oversight, and will be monitoring the program through the reports and audits. We will be keeping a close eye on the development and implementation of reverse targeting, minimization, and targeting procedures, in order to not only make sure that they are followed, but to inform us as we consider what improvements need to be made to this legislation. On that note, I will reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, is it true that I have 10 minutes remaining?

Mr. CONYERS. I am going to recognize Mr. Nadler, Ms. Lofgren, Mr. Scott, Ms. Jackson-Lee, Mr. Holt, Ms. Lee, Mr. Capuano, Mr. Kucinich and Mr. Inslee. A couple of them will get 1\1/2\ minutes. The first one to be recognized is the chairman of the Crime Subcommittee, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), for 1\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I would like now to yield to the chairman of the subcommittee on the Constitution and the Judiciary, the gentleman from New York, Jerry Nadler, 1\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I would like to yield now to a senior member of Judiciary, Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas, 1 minute.

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Zoe Lofgren), the Chair of the Immigration Subcommittee.

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), a distinguished member of the Intelligence Committee, 1 minute.

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I am pleased now to yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), cochair of the Progressive Caucus and a leader in the Congressional Black Caucus, 1 minute.

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I would like now to recognize the distinguished gentleman from Washington, Jay Inslee, for 1 minute.

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield to the gentleman that has more measures in the Judiciary Committee than anybody else in Congress, Dennis Kucinich, the distinguished gentleman from Ohio, 1 minute.

Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, I will take this time to use the remaining time that is allotted me.

Mr. CONYERS. I would like to point out that the grant of retroactive immunity to the telecoms is inconsistent with our basic principles because we are breaking with a very proud tradition of intervening for the first time in a pending court decision in an effort to reach a preordained legal outcome. This is a bad precedent. And may I point out, too, that we are in a period in which the executive branch has been deemed by many constitutional authorities to be very near the description of an imperial Presidency. We've gone too far. I hope that we will get a strong vote against this because the struggle for restoring our precious rights and liberties must continue. I return all time that may be remaining on our side.