Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

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 President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the point I was making was that roughly a year and three-quarters ago when the very large tax cut was proposed by the administration and embraced by Congress, it was anticipated that we would have surpluses forever. It was anticipated that these wonderful surpluses were really good economic news and they would last not only for a decade but much more. Then, in a very short period of time, we had the following. We had an understanding that the country went into a recession. In March of 2001, we were told that the country went into a recession. Then, on September 11, we had a devastating terrorist attack in this country that blew a hole in the belly of this economy, along with the recession. Then we had the war on terrorism that ensued. Then we had corporate scandals. I think they were the most significant and perhaps the worst corporate scandals in this country's history. All of these things converged at the same intersection, undermining the confidence the American people had in this country's economy. The warning, some of us suggested, should have been heeded because there are economic expansion periods and contraction periods. The fact is that we went into an economic contraction, and those anticipated surpluses are now gone, replaced by very large projected budget deficits. I know there are some who come to the floor and say the deficit last year was $159 billion. It is not. The deficit last year was really $318 billion. The only way someone can say $159 billion is if they take the money out of the Social Security trust fund and use it for operating the budget and then show a lower budget deficit. That is what they do when they come to the floor of the Senate. Fast forward to January 2003. The President says: Yes, now our economy is in some trouble. I have a proposal. The proposal is a $670 billion tax cut over the next 10 years. I don't know where he gets the money for that. You borrow it from the kids, I guess. But the fact is we are fighting a war against terrorism which required us to increase defense spending by $45 billion last year alone and increases in homeland security to the tune of $25 billion to $30 billion. Is there anyone suggesting that anybody is paying for any of this? No. The President is suggesting, as the tonic for America, large tax cuts. These tax cuts would go on for 10 years and will be paid for by our children in the form of additional borrowing that they will be responsible for in order to give the highest income earners in the country--particularly those who have very large dividends--big tax cuts. I come from a small town. I went to a small school and had a high school class of nine. They only teach arithmetic one way in this country. None of this adds up. It just does not add up. So I think we ought to start over. Do we need to do something to stimulate this economy? The answer is yes. Should we put this country deeper in debt? Should we drink more of the tonic that helped us get into this trouble? The answer is no. What we ought to do is be thoughtful. What we ought to do is join in bipartisan agreements to say: Let's stimulate the economy, in this year, to give it some lift, put it back on track, to produce more jobs and more opportunity. We will not do that by borrowing $675 billion in the coming 10 years, adding it to the Federal debt, saddling our children with that additional responsibility. We will do that if we are thoughtful, by providing, for example, a rebate to the American taxpayers on a one- time basis, perhaps an investment tax credit, on a short-term basis, for business investments in capital equipment and capital goods. We will do that if we make the right choices. But I tell you, the wrong choice is to go back to the old formula that was foisted on this country over a year and a half ago by those who said: Don't worry. Don't worry. Times are good, and they will last forever. They did not. And now our responsibility, in my judgment, is to put this back on track with a plan that will work, one that is thoughtful, and one that respects the need to come up with the money to pay for these initiatives of ours, and, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, to give us the privilege, as Americans, to meet our responsibilities, yes, during times of national crisis. So I say to President Bush, and to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, I really believe we need to do something, but we need to do the right thing, most importantly. I hope, as we begin to debate this issue of an economic stimulus, of putting the economy back on track, we can find a thoughtful, aggressive way to do that without breaking the bank and without saddling our children with more debt. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. DORGAN. I think people watch these proceedings and think it is all very silly that the Senate cannot agree on an organizing resolution. I am trying to understand, if I can, some of the statements that have been made. My colleague from Kentucky said that last summer, for example, when the Senate went from Republican to Democratic control as a result of one Senator shifting from the Republican caucus to an Independent caucus and caucusing with the Democrats, he said the gavels were turned over immediately. As I heard that, it occurred to me that was not the case at all. History is history, and revisionist history is fun, but it is not accurate. Isn't it the case that last summer, for example, when the Republicans were in control and then one Senator moved to caucus with Democrats and the Democrats actually took control of the Senate, for 3 weeks the gavels were not turned over to the chairmen? I am not suggesting there is any justification for anything by making that point. My point is, when people come to the Chamber to talk about this, let's talk about what really happened, and if we can, let's talk about what is happening now for the moment. Isn't it the case that the reason the Senate is hung up is because the majority leader is saying: We have 51 percent of the votes in the Senate, and we want two-thirds of the money to run the place? Isn't that exactly what is hanging this up?

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield further?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I apologize for interrupting. I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized following the presentation by the Senator from Arizona.

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, in this morning's Los Angeles Times there was a story headlined ``Border Pursuit Crash Kills Two, Hurts Thirteen''. The paper reported that 2 women were killed and 13 people were injured--7 of them critically--when a pickup truck full of suspected illegal immigrants overturned, after a pursuit by the Border Patrol. The 15-year-old truck was packed with people huddled under a tarp as it sped west on Interstate 8. That pickup truck apparently smashed into a guardrail and overturned sending bodies tumbling down an embankment. According to the California Highway Patrol, two women were pronounced dead at the scene 20 miles north of the U.S.-Mexican border. Seven victims were taken to local hospitals in critical condition, and six other people with minor to moderate injuries. The issue of high-speed pursuit by law enforcement officials is not new. In fact, on Tuesday of this week, the Los Angeles Police Department announced that they were severely restricting circumstances in which officers could engage in high-speed pursuits, following a series of deadly crashes in that city involving fleeing vehicles. Los Angeles has become known as the car chase capital of the world. We have all seen the helicopters following police chases on live television. In 2001, the Los Angeles Police Department launched 781 pursuits. One-hundred and thirty-nine people were injured. Six people died in those pursuits. Fifty-nine percent of the police pursuits in Los Angeles resulted from minor traffic infractions. According to the Border Patrol, in 1996, 8 illegal immigrants were killed and 19 were injured when their vehicle tumbled into a ditch as part of a high-speed pursuit by the Border Patrol. There is a list of such cases. Look, this is not the fault of law enforcement officials. It is the fault of the people who are fleeing law enforcement officials. But we ought to have policies and training on high-speed pursuits, to make sure pursuit is appropriate. In cases where we have minor infractions, in cases where there is no imminent danger, we ought not have chases at 60-, 80-, or 100-mile miles per hour, in which innocent people get killed. Today I am writing to the head of the Border Patrol asking for an investigation into what happened yesterday. I want to understand what kind of pursuit policies the Border Patrol uses, and what kind of pursuit policies and training they have. This is happening too often. I think more law enforcement ought to follow the model of Los Angeles. I have a personal interest in this issue. My mother was killed in a high-speed police chase. She was driving home from a hospital one night about 9 o'clock in the evening on a quiet street in Bismark, ND. A couple of drunks driving a pickup truck fishtailed. Witnesses said the police were chasing them at 80 to 100 miles an hour, down a city street in Bismark, ND. There was a crash. My mother was an innocent victim. Three-hundred to four-hundred people a year in this country suffer that fate; some say up to 1,000. This is not some mysterious illness for which we don't know a cure. We understand what causes the death of innocent people with respect to police pursuits. We understand how to stop it. I believe if there is a bank robbery and guns are blazing and a getaway car is moving, the police ought to chase and ought to pursue because they have no choice. The public is desperately endangered in that circumstance. But such chases are inappropriate in many other circumstances. I have spent a lot of time on this issue in recent years. I remember talking to a county sheriff in North Dakota about this issue. He said: Just last week we had a police pursuit. We started this pursuit, and one of my deputies saw someone horribly drunk weaving all over the road. He began immediately to apprehend this person. The person took off at a high rate of speed, and my deputy saw two little children in the backseat of that car and immediately disengaged. We got the license number. We didn't chase. We arrested that person about 3 hours later and those children were safe. If they had not made that judgment call, perhaps that would have resulted in a car crash and the death of those children. I mentioned my family's acquaintance with this issue in a deadly way. Here are some other examples, which occurred recently in Los Angeles. In March of 2002, Henry and Anna Polivoda, 79 and 76 years old, were struck and killed by a fleeing suspect in a pursuit that began over a car registration. Henry and Anna were Holocaust survivors, but they couldn't survive a high-speed pursuit on a city street. They were innocent victims of that pursuit. A couple of months after that, a 4-year-old girl was killed when an auto theft suspect ran a red light on a busy downtown street, causing a chain reaction that knocked over a traffic light, killing the girl. This goes on and on and on. Yesterday's incident is one I know very little about--only that which I read in the newspaper. Of course, it brought back to me some very sad memories. I know that those who were attempting to smuggle illegal immigrants into this country yesterday are ultimately at fault. I know those smugglers who decided not to stop when the Border Patrol tried to apprehend them are at fault. But I also know this requires us, once again, to review when it is appropriate for us to engage in high-speed police pursuits and when it is inappropriate. I have undying admiration for the work law enforcement officers do every day and every night. While we lie safely in our beds at night, there are people patrolling our streets and keeping us safe. They deserve our enormous admiration for the work they do. It is dangerous and difficult. But I only ask this: How many more crashes, how many more deaths will it take for this country--all of us--to decide that in some circumstances it is inappropriate for law enforcement to engage in high-speed chases? I know a city police chief from a southern State. His daughter is dead as a result of a high-speed police chase. Now, this is a police chief. This is a law enforcement official. His daughter was killed in a chase that occurred as a result of a broken taillight. That broken taillight was a cause for law enforcement to want to stop the vehicle. The vehicle did not stop. It took off at a high rate of speed. Because of that broken taillight, the police pursued, and the police chief's daughter was killed--an innocent bystander at an intersection down the road. And it is always the innocent bystander who is killed. The drunk driver who killed my mother had almost no injuries, as is almost always the case with drunks. He was fleeing from the police. It was his fault. But in the circumstance I described with my mother, in that community, they did not have the kind of training I think they needed with respect to police pursuit. I think that is the case in many communities around the country. Today, I say to the police chief in Los Angeles: Good for you. Thanks for the announcement you made on Tuesday, to decide to restrict police pursuit and high-speed chases to circumstances where they are essential. We do not need to be entertained on a television network by having a helicopter following a chase. That ought not be what entertains the American people. Police chases are appropriate and necessary in certain circumstances. But in other circumstances they are killing innocent Americans. So what I wanted to say today is this: There have been too many examples with the Border Patrol of high-speed pursuits in which people are being killed, especially on Interstate 8. I think it is time for us to take a look at what is going on. I am going to ask the head of the Border Patrol to investigate this and report to us exactly what happened. I want the head of the Border Patrol, and all other Federal law enforcement authorities, to tell us about their policies and training with respect to high-speed law enforcement pursuit. I am not suggesting they should not be able to pursue; I am saying they need training and policies that determine when it is appropriate and when it is not. Mr. President, this is always a painful subject for me. I have been dealing with it for a long while. There are of course many others who have also been dealing with this. There was a wonderful woman in the State of Wyoming who lost a loved one to a high-speed police pursuit. She created a national organization called STOP, to deal with the problem. She and many other people who suffered and whose loved ones suffered as a result of being on the wrong end of a police pursuit--an innocent victim--tried very hard to make progress in requiring uniform policies and uniform training in this area. I am sorry to say that she died of cancer some while ago. I hope we will make more progress than we have in the past. We have made some progress in some areas, but not nearly enough. Yesterday's incident--this morning's news--I think reflects that once again. I do not come here assigning blame with respect to the incident yesterday. Clearly, the ultimate blame lies with the smugglers who decided not to stop when law enforcement authorities tried to apprehend them. But I want to know if perhaps policies which allow chases in certain circumstances are also contributing to the death of innocent people. If that is the case, we need to ask law enforcement to better train their officers, and create better policies. So I will send a letter today and call the head of the Border Patrol and ask for this investigation. I will share with my colleagues the results of it. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for 20 minutes.

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

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, are we in morning business?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, there has been a great deal of discussion in recent days about the American economy. The President was in Chicago the middle of this week and proposed a new plan talking about tax cuts in order to stimulate the economy. Others in the Democratic Caucus in the Senate and the House have talked about various plans for tax cuts to stimulate the economy. While all this discussion about the economy is important, I wanted to mention something else that is happening in the American economy that gets precious little attention. There is an economic blight that is occurring in our country that is out of sight and therefore it is not very well understood by most Americans. I want to talk about it for a moment. In the last Congress, with Senator Chuck Hagel from Nebraska, I introduced legislation called the New Homestead Economic Opportunity Act. I visited briefly yesterday with Senator Hagel and we are going to be talking about reintroducing that legislation very soon in this Congress. I wanted to make a couple of comments about it and alert colleagues that this legislation is something we are going to work very hard to try and get approved by this Senate. There is a problem in this country with the economy. This is not a problem about the American economy in its entirety. It is a problem about the economy in the heartland of our country. This map shows the rural counties of high out-migration in the country, that is, counties in which people are moving out, not in; counties that are losing population. If we draw an egg shape from North Dakota down to Texas in the middle part of our country, we have the heartland of America being depopulated. This is the heartland of America, which is North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, right on down to Texas, including some States on both sides. This is the part of the country that we populated a century and a half ago with something called the Homestead Act. My great-grandmother, named Caroline, with her six children--her husband having died, she was an immigrant widow from Norway--decided to move to the prairies of North Dakota. She pitched a tent, built a house, started a farm, and raised a family. She had a son, who had a daughter, who had me, and that is how I come from Hettinger County in North Dakota. A century and a half ago, we populated the middle part of our country through something called the Homestead Act, saying to people: move there, build there, and create a family there. We will give you some free land. It is called the Homestead Act. So they did. In covered wagons they came to the middle of our country. Now a century and a half later, people are moving out in a relentless depopulation. In every one of these States--North Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, Wyoming--people are moving out of the rural counties. The percentage of out-migration is shown on this chart. In North Dakota, about 90 percent of the counties are losing population. I grew up in a county in southwestern North Dakota. My home county is bigger than the State of Rhode Island. When I left there were 5,000 people who lived there. Now there are 2,700 living there. In the year 2020 the demographers say there will be 1,700 living in my home county, a county larger than the State of Rhode Island. In this county, there is a town called New England, ND, a wonderful little community. Donna Dorman is the minister at the Lutheran Church in New England. She said that as a minister she presides over four funerals for every wedding. Think of that: Four funerals she officiates at for every wedding. This is a Lutheran minister. What does that say about the towns, where the population is getting older, people are moving out, young couples that stay are not having children. It is the opposite of the movie ``Four Weddings and a Funeral.'' Four funerals per wedding. That is a description of what is happening up and down the middle part of the country with this steady depopulation. Then we have people in other parts of the country who are trying to recreate what we have in the middle: Great schools, good places to live, safe neighborhoods, good places to raise children. They are trying to recreate that in other population centers of the country. We have people leaving the middle of America, in the heartland. The question is, What do we do about this? Can we do anything? William Jennings Bryant said destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; destiny is a thing to be achieved. The question is, What kind of an economy do we want in this country? Do we care about the heartland? Do we want to do something about the depopulation of the heartland? When America's cities were in deep trouble several decades ago, with the decay of America's cities and the economic blight affecting America's metropolitan areas, guess what the Congress did. The Congress said, let us help; let us develop an urban renewal program, a model cities program. And we did. We invested in America's cities. And America's cities are doing well. We turned around the major metropolitan areas of this country with programs deciding that the cities are too good, too important, to be allowed to fail. So we had model cities and urban renewal programs. What about America's heartland? Is that important enough to save? Is it important enough to care about? Senator Hagel and I introduced a piece of legislation called the New Homestead Economic Opportunity Act. We do not have land to give away to people who would come out and homestead anymore. We did a century and a half ago. We gave them free land. We do not have land to give away. What we do have is tax and other financial incentives to offer to encourage people to stay there, to come there, to live there, to grow there, to build there, and to do business there. We have the capability to say to them: If you are going to run a business in a rural county that has lost more than 10 percent of its population in the last 20 years, you may benefit from investment tax credits. You are a new student who has graduated from school and are employed in a high out-migration rural county, you will get some help paying off your college loans. There are tools we can develop and use to do that. Senator Hagel and I have written a piece of legislation that has now been joined by 10 other members of the Senate, Republicans and Democrats, saying this country owes it to itself to save the heartland. Let me describe why I think this is important to do. Some would say, well, whatever is, is; whatever happens, happens, and do not pay too much mind to it. If for some reason the incentives for life in America in the year 2003 do not provide people some inertia or encouragement to settle in Hettinger County, ND, that is just the way it is. I suppose you could have said that a century and a half ago and we would not have the wagon trains taking the pioneers out to go homestead. They did not say it then. They said it is important to populate the heartland of our country for a number of reasons. I will discuss the value system in rural America that nourishes and refreshes the values of our country. I come from a wonderful State of 640,000 people. I grew up myself in a very small town. There were 400 people when I was living in that town. Now there are fewer than 300 people in that same community. I graduated from a senior high school class of nine students. In my State, in communities like that, there are wonderful people and they are great places in which to live. In my State, there is a small town called Sentinel Butte, ND. They have one gas station. The man and his wife who run the gas station are nearing retirement age and do not want to work all day long, so when they close the gas station in early afternoon, they hang the key to the gas pumps on a nail in the front door. If you want gas and they are not open, take the key, unlock the pump, pump gas, and write your name on a tablet that is right below the key. That is a value system that is important. It works in rural America. There is a place called Marmarth. They have a hotel in Marmarth that is a very small town but no one works at the hotel. If you need a bed, go take a bed and get some rest. And there is a cigar box tacked on the inside of the door when you leave. When you are done sleeping at that hotel, when you leave, please put a little money in the cigar box. Is that a big business? No. Is it important to Marmarth? Sure. In a town called Tuttle, the grocery store closed. That little community understood you need to have a grocery store. No one would come in and build a grocery store. So the city government built it. The city council decided we have to build a grocery store. And I was there the day they cut ribbons on the grocery store in Tuttle, ND. They blocked off Main Street and had the high school band play. What was that about? Cutting the ribbon on a new grocery store in Tuttle, ND, that was developed by the city council of Tuttle, ND. In Havana, ND, they cannot keep a cafe open, unless they have people in town sign up for the time they are going to work for nothing to keep the cafe open. When is it your turn to work in the cafe? That is the way the community keeps the cafe open. All of these things represent a value system that I think is important to this country--wonderful small communities making do for themselves, great places in which to live, great places in which to raise children, safe streets, good neighbors. We are going to lose all of that unless the Congress decides the heartland is worth saving. The New Homestead Economic Opportunity Act is a piece of legislation Senator Hagel and I will reintroduce in the next couple of weeks. My hope is that Senators, Republicans and Democrats, up and down the heartland, will join us as cosponsors once again this year and that we can work together creating tools by which these States, these counties, these small cities that are losing population, can begin once again to build a future home and opportunity for themselves. There are some who say, well, this is just the way things are, just a force of life that is not going to change. People are moving from rural areas to the cities. My State is also an agricultural State with a lot of family farmers. I know there are some who look at that and say, Why would someone farm? I suppose you have to live on a farm to understand the values and the forces that make you believe it is a wonderful way of life. I notice that there is a television network that is going to do a reality show which I read about yesterday--and shook my head once again, as is so often the case with modern television shows. They are looking for a poor farm family somewhere in this country. They are going to take that poor farm family, they said, and put them in a mansion in Beverly Hills and then do reality television to see how they react, a poor farm family in a Beverly Hills mansion, kind of like ``The Beverly Hillbillies.'' They are doing what I think they call their ``hick search'' now, looking for these people who would not fit in. Then they would send them out to a mansion in Beverly Hills so they can do a television show and make fun of them. There is precious little to make fun of, in my judgment, about the value system of life on the family farm in this country. It is about struggling against the odds. It is about perseverance, sometimes against hope, almost. It's about developing survival skills. These are people who put a seed in the ground and then have to pray and hope the seed comes up to a plant, so that it grows into a plant and perhaps it will rain, so it grows and perhaps it won't rain too much so it doesn't drown out, maybe the insects won't come in and eat it, maybe it won't get crop disease, maybe it won't hail, maybe you won't get a windstorm that knocks the crop over. But, in any event, in the fall when you have grown that seed into a crop, having put all your money into it in the spring to try to get the seed into the ground, then if you are lucky enough to get a crop, then you have to hope that the price is decent in August, September, October, because if you lost the crop you lost everything, and if you get a crop and don't get a price in the fall you have lost everything. Those are the odds these farmers have faced, those who have elected to go to the prairies in the heartland of our country and begin to farm. They produce America's food. But they do more than that. They produce communities. They are a seedbed of values that, as I said, nourishes and refreshes the value system of our country. My fervent hope is that we will find a way in this Congress to understand, just as we did in dealing with the blight of America's cities, that we have responsibility to deal with the relentless out- migration that is crippling so many rural counties up and down the part of America's heartland that you see marked in red. I think there is a tendency for some to think what is between California and New York is simply 6 hours in an airplane seat. That, of course, is not the case at all. What is between California and New York is a wonderful part of America and a part of America that we should care a great deal about, a part of America that is suffering a great deal at this point with the out-migration of people. You see it in red on this map. As we proceed, there will likely be things that are very partisan here on the floor of the Senate, and perhaps properly should be because the political parties come to this debate on a range of issues believing in different things--not different goals, but dramatically different ways to achieve the same goal, in many cases. But my hope is that even as we have those debates which can and perhaps will be partisan debates from time to time, there will be some issues on which Republicans and Democrats can say: Sign us up together. This is not about getting credit. It's not about forcing the other side to lose or demanding that we win. It is about doing together that which needs to be done for the preservation of this country, for the preserving of values in this country, and for the nourishing of hope for certain people in this country who have lost hope, especially those living in the heartland and living in circumstances where their neighbors have left, their community is shrinking, family farmers are leaving. We can do better than that. My hope is that we will find a bipartisan way in this Congress to decide this, too, is an urgent priority for our country and pass legislation of the type Senator Hagel and I will reintroduce once again, called the New Homestead Economic Opportunity Act. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I regret what happened in the Senate today. We passed some legislation that will offer some assistance to some who are unemployed in this country, but we left 1 million people who should have received the help of Members of the Senate, from the Congress, and from the President, without the kind of help they need. A lot of folks in this country don't have people clogging the hallways of the Capitol lobbying on their behalf--certainly not the people who are without means, at the lower end of the economic ladder; they have not hired people in the hallways of the Capitol to represent their interests. They rely on us to do that. There are so many families in this country who know things that Members of the Senate do not know. They know about a second shift, they know about a second job, they know about a second mortgage, and they know about buying a secondhand car. They know firsthand that they are the first in this country during an economic downturn to be called into an office and be told, by the way, you are being laid off, you are losing your job. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Americans have had to go home to tell their families that, through no fault of theirs, they were given a notice that their job was gone. They are no longer employed. It is a devastating thing for families to experience that. In most cases, during an economic downturn, the Congress has moved very quickly to say, yes, you lost your job, but it wasn't through your fault, it wasn't something you did, and we want to help you, we want to extend a helping hand during this rough spell in the American economy. Congress has always done that--that is, until last year when we tried and tried in the Senate to pass legislation to extend that helping hand and extend unemployment benefits, and now again today when we made the effort once again. It is terribly disappointing that today the President is in Chicago announcing his tax proposal. At a time when we are experiencing very substantial budget deficits, the President is proposing a tax cut of $675 billion over the next 10 years. That is $65 billion, $70 billion a year for 10 years in tax cuts, and then we are told: But there is not enough money really to fund that rather small amount needed to help those who are unemployed, who have lost their jobs. I do not understand that. It is interesting to me, and also a little perplexing, that we are told the budget deficits are just a result of the economy; it is just because the economy turned sour. A year and three-quarters ago, we had a debate in the Chamber of the Senate about a new fiscal policy. We were told we ought to embrace the idea of very large tax cuts for the long term. Some of us stood up at these desks and said: Wait a second, it is pretty hard to see very far down the road. Shouldn't we worry perhaps some unforeseen consequences could run this economy into the ditch and cause very serious problems? Not to worry, they said. We have all that covered. We have contingency plans. So just pass this big tax cut of ours. The Congress did--not with my vote, but they did pass that large tax cut. Within months, we discovered our economy was in a recession. Months later, on September 11, we were attacked by terrorists. And then there were corporate scandals almost unprecedented in this country's history. The tech bubble burst in the stock market. All of a sudden, very large Federal budget surpluses turned into very large Federal budget deficits, and now we are in a fix. Now we have competing needs, one of which is the item we discussed today: The need during an economic downturn to reach out a hand and help those who need help, to help those who have lost their job, by extending unemployment benefits. Another competing interest and need was announced today by President Bush, saying what we really need at a time of unprecedented budget deficits--as far as the eye can see--is more tax cuts, $675 billion in additional tax cuts. Interestingly enough, in terms of priorities, they say no to the people who have lost their jobs and need their unemployment extended, but they say yes in public policy, in this tax proposal, that we ought to tax people who work: Let's tax work and let's exempt investment. What kind of a value system is that? There are many ways of making money. Some of them are to go to work, work hard, and get a paycheck. No one is proposing eliminating the tax on the paycheck, are they? So they say: Let's tax work. Another way to make money is to collect substantial dividends from stockholdings and stock purchases, and the President is saying: Let's exempt that; we should not tax that at all. I do not understand the value system: Let's tax work but exempt investment. Guess what that says. That says to the American people who are working--who, in my judgment, are the people who make this economic engine work well--we are going to tax you, but the folks who just sit back and collect their dividends--incidentally, the folks at the top of the income earning ladder--we are going to exempt you. Not with my vote we are not. Yet in terms of priorities on the very day the President says let's have a $675 billion tax cut, let's keep taxing work and exempt from taxation investment, he and our colleagues on the other side of the aisle say: We cannot afford that small amount of money to extend unemployment benefits to those at the bottom of the economic ladder, those who have had to come home with shattered dreams to tell their family: I have lost my job. What a devastating situation that is. These are people who want to work, who did work and, through no fault of their own but through a bad economy, lost their ability to work. The best tradition in this country has always been for this Congress, during an economic downturn, for sound reasons, including trying to provide some stimulus to the economy, to say to those who have lost their jobs: We want to help you. It helps this country to help you. We are there now to give you some help during a tough time for you and your family. I regret very much that today we were not able to do that for 1 million Americans who look to Capitol Hill and this capital city for us to make the right decision at the right time. Today, regrettably, the majority in the Senate failed. There will be another day, and my hope is we will see a different decision, a better decision for those folks at the bottom of the economic ladder who want to work, who did work but lost their jobs, and for whom no one is clogging the hallways of Congress lobbying on their behalf. If this were a big economic interest, you can bet this Capitol would be full of people, well paid, with dark suits, ready to make the case for their economic interest. There are a lot of folks out there today who are going to gather around their supper table and talk about their lot in life during an economic downturn and talk about where they looked for a job today, talk about the job they used to have, and talk about the hopes they had that we would help them during this tough period. They today will be mighty disappointed. My hope is in a week or in a month, perhaps we can persuade our colleagues that today's decision was the wrong choice for our country and certainly the wrong choice for a lot of American families relying on the Congress to make the right decision today. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise to speak as a cosponsor of S. 105. This bill repeals provisions of the Homeland Security Act offering certain liability protections to pharmaceutical companies. Mr. President, these provisions protect the manufacturers of a vaccine additive called thimerosal. This additive is a mercury-based vaccine component. It was used extensively in the past, until some parents began to claim that it caused autism in their children. Those parents are now seeking their day in court against the manufacturers of the drug. And the effect of the provisions in the Homeland Security Bill is to steer claims away from the courts and to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. I do not know whether the scientific evidence will ultimately support the parents' claim that their children's autism was caused by thimerosal. Right now, the research on the link between thimerosal and autism is inconclusive. But I do know that the manner in which these particular provisions were added to the Homeland Security law is just plain wrong. These provisions were at last-minute addition to the version of the Homeland Security Act that was passed in the House of Representatives. And like many things done at the last minute, without the benefit of thoughtful debate, these provisions were poorly conceived. The Chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform, Dan Burton, expressed his concern about these provisions in a letter to his colleagues. He noted that the scientific debate about thimersoal was unresolved. And he argued that some parents of autistic children might lose all legal recourse if the provisions passed, because the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has a narrow 3-year statute of limitations, and some parents may not have filed petitions on time. Chairman Burton pleaded with his colleagues not to ``stampede'' into cutting of the legal rights of these children ``without hearings and a full public debate.'' Despite these pleadings, the provision remained in the House version of the Homeland Security Act. When the bill came to the U.S. Senate for consideration, many Members--on both sides of the aisle--expressed concern at the way that the provisions had been introduced. They argued that the provisions did not belong in the Homeland Security Act, and should be considered at some later time. Senators Daschle and Lieberman moved to strike these provisions from the Homeland Security legislation. In the hours before the vote, it appeared that the thimerosal language would indeed be struck--until the Republican leadership reportedly gave some Members assurances that the provisions would be struck in the next Congress. Unfortunately, enough Members accepted these assurances that the thimerosal provisions remained in the Homeland Security Act. Once the bill was signed into law, and the public became increasingly aware of what had happened, an interesting thing happened: No one would admit authorship of the provisions. The House majority leader's office initially claimed that it had been the White House's idea. The White House said that it had nothing to do with it. And the companies that were the beneficiaries of the provisions said that they were as surprised as anybody. So the public was left to ask: Who did this? This is not the way that Congress should legislate. What happened in this instance is deplorable, and it undermines public confidence in our legislative process. If there are good, legitimate reasons to give liability protection to the makers of thimerosal, let us have a thoughtful debate about them. Let us have hearings. I understand that the new majority leader, Senator Frist, has been working on legislation for some time in this regard. Senator Frist now controls the floor, and can ensure a prompt, thoughtful debate about reforms to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. In the meantime, let us strip the thimerosal provisions currently in the Homeland Security Act. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I come to offer a few remarks today about the end of this legislative session. But of course, as is always the case when I have an opportunity to sit in this Chamber and listen to my colleague, Senator Byrd, I learn a great deal, and it is always a joy to do so. I am going to be very brief. I have to make a speech to a convention at a hotel near the Capitol in a few minutes, but I did want to say at the end of this session, and especially after the election of this year, something about what I believe is ahead of us. We have just gone through an election. That is the exercise that the late Claude Pepper used to describe as the miracle in the U.S. Constitution. He said every second year our Constitution provides that the American people are able to grab the steering wheel of this country and decide which way to nudge our country, which direction to provide America. So that is what the elections are about. This election is described by some in the press as dispiriting and disquieting to those of us on the Democratic side of the aisle. To me, it is not dispiriting or disquieting. I wish the election had gone differently, but over two cen- NOTICE If the 107th Congress, 2d Session, adjourns sine die on or before November 22, 2002, a final issue of the Congressional Record for the 107th Congress, 2d Session, will be published on Monday, December 16, 2002, in order to permit Members to revise and extend their remarks. All material for insertion must be signed by the Member and delivered to the respective offices of the Official Reporters of Debates (Room HT-60 or S-123 of the Capitol), Monday through Friday, between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. through Friday, December 13. The final issue will be dated Monday, December 16, 2002, and will be delivered on Tuesday, December 17, 2002. None of the material printed in the final issue of the Congressional Record may contain subject matter, or relate to any event that occurred after the sine die date. Senators' statements should also be submitted electronically, either on a disk to accompany the signed statement, or by e-mail to the Official Reporters of Debates at ``Record@Sec.Senate.gov''. Members of the House of Representatives' statements may also be submitted electronically by e-mail, to accompany the signed statement, and formatted according to the instructions for the Extensions of Remarks template at http://clerkhouse.house.gov. The Official Reporters will transmit to GPO the template formatted electronic file only after receipt of, and authentication with, the hard copy, and signed manuscript. Deliver statements to the Official Reporters in Room HT-60. Members of Congress desiring to purchase reprints of material submitted for inclusion in the Congressional Record may do so by contacting the Congressional Printing Management Division, at the Government Printing Office, on 512-0224, between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. daily. By order of the Joint Committee on Printing. MARK DAYTON, Chairman. turies we have elections that change and move and in other ways affect this democratic system of ours--this system of democracy, I should say--and I accept the election. The election described a government by the American people as a government that is very divided. The House of Representatives they chose is about 51 percent Republican, 49 percent Democrat. The Senate they have chosen is about 51 Republican, 49 Democrat. Of course, there is a special election in Louisiana in December that may alter that. The point is the American people have chosen a very closely divided government. That is not dispiriting to me at all. We are able, those who come to this passion and this public calling, to look ahead to great challenges in our country and understand with the President and with the cooperation of Democrats and Republicans, we have to work together to meet these challenges. The change in the Senate from a Democratic majority to a Republican majority is not much of a change, after all, because it simply moves a couple of seats around. It is now 51 to 49 instead of 50 to 49 to 1. The fact is, in order to get things done to meet the challenges we face in America, we must find ways to work together. The art of this democracy working is through compromise. There are some who come here and decide to say, here is what I believe and I will not move from that point in the compass. I will not accept anything less than that which I believe today, on Wednesday. That is not the way to get things done. We will be best served as we meet significant challenges ahead if we, the President and all in the Senate, understand we serve the same master; that is, the American people. And we want for this country the same thing: To do well, to grow, to prosper, to be safe, to be secure. Much of the agenda we work on, especially on the Democratic side of the aisle, is an agenda that is almost timeless, the things people sit at the supper table in the evening and talk about, as they have supper together as a family. These are the things we have worked on for decades. Questions that a family asks: Do I have a good job? Does dad or mom have a good job? Does it pay well? Does it offer job security? Do grandpa and grandma have access to decent health care now they have reached their declining income years? Are we sending our children to schools we are proud of? Are our children entering a schoolroom door that is the best we can make it? Do we live in a safe neighborhood, free from crime? Is our country safe? Is the security of America safe? These are issues the families care about and are issues we work on in the Congress and the Senate. There are some who come to public service with a very critical message of our country; it is the easiest thing in the world. It takes no talent at all. I could demonstrate it in 2 minutes. The easiest thing in the world is to take a flaw in our system and hold it to the light and say, look at this, isn't this ugly? Look at this imperfection, isn't it ugly? Yes, it is a flaw and an imperfection and there are many in our great country. But that is not the norm in America. We have industries that spring up looking at our imperfections. We have television programs that entertain the American people with other people's dysfunctional behavior, and they get great ratings. But it is not the main of what America is about. It is so easy to give the negative side. I am tempted but I will not; in 2 minutes I can recite the awful things about our country. We have people who are professionals doing it on radio and television and in politics every day: Look how awful this place is. It is not awful at all. This country is a country born of the courage and blood of patriots. It is a country that survived the Civil War. It has overcome a depression; beat back the forces of Hitler, Nazism. It is a country that has done what no other country has done. It has built the strongest economic engine for growth and opportunity for people in the world. It has split the atom, spliced genes, cloned animals, inventions too numerous to mention. It is a country that had people build airplanes and learn to fly them, had people build rockets and go to the moon and walk on the moon. Along the way, it cured smallpox and polio, invented the telephone, the television, the computer. It is a strong country with a resilient people, people who live in communities and help each other, who care about their kids, care about their future. Gregg Easterbrook wrote ``America the OK.'' I like the title--and the book. I like the title because it describes a different attitude about America, ``America the OK.'' That book came out some while ago but came out at a time when, as is usually the case, there were so many voices talking how awful things were in America. There is not a better place on Earth to live. We are lucky to be Americans. We are lucky to be alive now. When I mention the challenges ahead, first and foremost is a national security challenge. That is an awesome challenge. There is no question that the September 11 tragedy that befell our country and killed so many innocent American citizens reminds all this is a big, troubled world in many respects and national security is very important, as is homeland security. We must find ways to work together in a big, free, and open country, to provide some assurance of security for the American people. We must do that without diminishing the basic civil liberties that exist in our Constitution for the American people. This discussion about a national identification card, about a database in which they will data mine all the information about people's lives to find out if there is somebody doing something untoward, that is not the way to approach providing security for our country, by diminishing the basic civil rights in our country. We face this very significant threat from Osama bin Laden, who apparently still lives. I might say, in the early part of this year I was in Afghanistan, I flew from Tajikistan-Uzbekistan to Baghram Airbase in Afghanistan, myself, Senator Daschle and others. Flying over the mountains of Afghanistan, preparing to land at Baghram, I looked down at the hills and understood deep in those caves were terrorists led by Osama bin Laden plotting the murder of innocent Americans by crashing airplanes into the World Trade Center. You understand especially more than ever when you look on the mountains that we cannot ever be oblivious to what is going on in the rest of the world. We do so at our peril. What happens in other parts of the world is of significant interest to us. So national security is very important. I don't think there is any division, any partisanship, on that issue. We care about this country. We care about its security. We care about the men and women who wear its uniform proudly in the armed services. In addition, the issue of national security, another part of security that is important is economic security for our country because all we can become in this country relates to having the economic engine that provides people opportunities so people can work, have jobs that pay well, with security, to build the good schools, send your kids to good schools, and provide health care for grandma and grandpa and do the things that make this a great place in which to live. That economic security and all of the attendant issues dealing with this economy are also very important. I am proud to be part of a caucus in the Senate that says, here are the things we think we need to do to strengthen our country and provide opportunity to people in this country. Not handouts, opportunities. There are times when people are down and out and have a tougher time with it, when it is important for a country to say, let us help you up. But the most important element of what we are about is to provide opportunity. There is no social program in America as important as a good job that pays well. That is what represents the basis for providing for a family and providing opportunity in the future. This is a big old world, with 6 billion people; about half of them have never made a telephone call; 2.5 billion live on less than $2 a day; 150 million children are not in school. It is a big, difficult, challenged world in many ways, and we are enormously blessed to live here, right here, in this great democracy. We come from different parts of our country, different backgrounds, different philosophies, to arrive here amidst 100 seats in the Senate. None of us owns a seat here. We are here as a matter of privilege--privileged to represent those who sent us here from our home States. When we come to this Senate and in public policy engage in debate, there are some who look at that debate and say: Look, isn't that awful. Debate has broke out in the Senate. I remember one day reading the Washington Post and one of the critics some number of years ago said--talking about some very aggressive debate in public policy here in the Senate: This has just degenerated into a dispute about principle. I thought to myself: Well, I hope so. That's why I came here--about principle. Debate is what best serves the American people. The old saying: When everyone in the room is thinking the same thing, no one is thinking very much--that is a very important thing for us to remember here in the Senate. We will best serve the cause of our country's future and best serve the American people by continuing to be aggressive about that which we believe for the future of this country; by standing here, offering ideas that represent the approaches we believe will advance America's interests. The next session of Congress, both because of national security and also economic security issues, will be a very difficult Congress. There is no question about that. But it will not be made more difficult by me wanting to see the other side lose. I want America to win. And this country wins when we best serve this country's interests by not wishing others to lose, but offering the best ideas we have and hoping that they will engage us in a way that selects the best of all the ideas offered in the Senate to advance this country's interests. My fervent hope is that the next couple of years will be years of accomplishment in which all of us together can think we have done a good job in a troubled time for this country; in the face of threats-- terrorist threats, national security threats--we have still advanced the interests of this country, even while keeping this country safe; advanced the interests of people who work for a living and want education, good schools, they want health care. They want the things that make this a good life, as well, here at home. If we do that, at the end of 2 years I think we will have accomplished something very significant for this great country of ours. I thank the Senator from West Virginia for his indulgence as well. I saw by his papers he is intending, perhaps, to visit with us today a bit about Thanksgiving, and what a perfect, appropriate subject, the week prior to Thanksgiving. I will yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, let me observe, if no one has, as of yet, it is the 85th birthday today of our colleague from West Virginia, Senator Byrd. I gave him a note a few moments ago, not only wishing him a happy birthday but, on this last day of this Congress, saying to him how much all of us appreciate the fact he has given so many years of public service to our country. I pointed out--if I might just continue for a moment--in a note to him that as I read the book about John Adams by David McCullough, John Adams seemed, as they were trying to create this country, to write to Abigail, plaintively asking: Where will the leadership come from? Who will emerge as the leaders of our great country? As they put this country together, of course, the leaders were there. John Adams said: There is only us--George Washington, Mason, Madison, Ben Franklin, and so on. For over 2 centuries, the question before this democracy has been: Where will the leadership come from? Where will the leadership emerge? This country has been enormously blessed by having leaders emerge throughout its history. A significant part of that history here in the Senate has been blessed with the leadership of one Senator Robert Byrd. So today, on his 85th birthday, let me join his colleagues in wishing him, on behalf of a grateful Nation, a hearty, happy 85th birthday, and many more.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, will the Senator from West Virginia yield?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, there is an important provision in the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (H.R. 5710), that, if misinterpreted, could limit the ability of the U.S. Customs Service to effectively protect our borders. Section 413 of this bill appropriately seeks to ensure that user fees that are currently used exclusively by the Customs Service for the purposes set out in 19 U.S.C. 58(c) will continue to be used for that sole purpose. These fees are paid by commercial vessels, aircraft, railroads and passengers that enter the U.S. This money is used to ensure that there will be Customs personnel available to clear these arriving goods and passengers efficiently when they arrive. I am concerned that the wording of section 413 could be misconstrued since it merely states that these fees must be directed to the commercial operations of the Customs Service. I want to clarify that the intent of this provision is that these fees continue to be used for the purposes for which they were originally intended as set out in 19 U.S.C. 58(c). Additionally, I have consulted with Senator Baucus and Senator Lieberman and they both agree with this view. The work done by Customs inspectors at our ports of entry is critically important to our country's security and economic health. More than 1,100 Customs inspector positions, as well as overtime pay for Custom's employees, are currently funded out of the fees referred to in section 413. It is imperative that these fees continue to be used as intended. This statement serves as clarification that this is the purpose of section 413 of the Homeland Security bill being considered by the Senate.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, there is an important provision in the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (H.R. 5710), that, if misinterpreted, could limit the ability of the U.S. Customs Service to effectively protect our borders. Section 413 of this bill appropriately seeks to ensure that user fees that are currently used exclusively by the Customs Service for the purposes set out in 19 U.S.C. 58(c) will continue to be used for that sole purpose. These fees are paid by commercial vessels, aircraft, railroads and passengers that enter the U.S. This money is used to ensure that there will be Customs personnel available to clear these arriving goods and passengers efficiently when they arrive. I am concerned that the wording of section 413 could be misconstrued since it merely states that these fees must be directed to the commercial operations of the Customs Service. I want to clarify that the intent of this provision is that these fees continue to be used for the purposes for which they were originally intended as set out in 19 U.S.C. 58(c). Additionally, I have consulted with Senator Baucus and Senator Lieberman and they both agree with this view. The work done by Customs inspectors at our ports of entry is critically important to our country's security and economic health. More than 1,100 Customs inspector positions, as well as overtime pay for Custom's employees, are currently funded out of the fees referred to in section 413. It is imperative that these fees continue to be used as intended. This statement serves as clarification that this is the purpose of section 413 of the Homeland Security bill being considered by the Senate.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Of course I will yield.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, let me conclude by saying, I understand the angst and the concern expressed by my colleague. After September 11, a day that this country experienced a terrible, terrible tragedy--we have come together and we have worked together to try to protect our homeland. But there have also been, in this period, instances where we have gone overboard. We should not sacrifice privacy rights in the name of homeland security. We need to find an appropriate balance between the two. There is much we can do, and much we should do, and much we will do, in my judgment, to improve law enforcement capabilities, but we can do that without injuring the American people, without diminishing the right to privacy. I understand the point that the Senator from West Virginia makes. But my point is, if someone is creating an office with the expectation that Congress will amend the 1974 Privacy Act so that the Federal Government can track where you shopped, where you spent money, where you traveled, what airline you ride on, how much you owe, what kinds of grades you received--if someone thinks that the Congress is going to allow that to happen, that someone is sadly mistaken. I do not think Congress is going to allow that to happen. I am not going to allow that to happen. My colleague from Florida spoke on the floor earlier today and it prompted me to want to come to say, as one Member of the Senate, I think there will be many of us who come to the floor of the Senate and say, this isn't something that will be allowed. This is not something that Congress will entertain in any serious way. The right to privacy is critical. It is important. And we must respect it. So I spoke about two things: One is the need for law enforcement officials around the country to access the State Department terrorist watch list. That is important, and it is necessary. I also spoke about the prospect of gathering raw data about everybody in the country, about everything they do, to identify ``suspicious'' behavior. That is dangerous, and we ought not to consider it. Madam President, others want to speak. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise to say a few words about the issue of homeland security. I will not talk at the moment about the bill itself, which we will vote on tomorrow, but a couple of issues dealing with homeland security that are very important, that have been raised in recent days and need to be discussed. One issue deals with something that is happening in the Defense Department. My colleague Senator Nelson from Florida spoke of it earlier today. That is the creation of an Information Awareness Office and the prospect of having an agency that would amass your most personal information--credit card purchases, travels, medical information, and so on--and put it into a single database. That concerns me greatly. I will speak about that in a moment. But first I will speak about another issue relating to homeland security. This is an issue that was recently highlighted by a task force headed by former Senator Warren Rudman and former Senator Gary Hart. That task force included former Secretaries of State Warren Christopher and George Shultz, retired Admiral William Crowe, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and others. There is a very significant blue ribbon task force. They issued a report that was sponsored by the Council of Foreign Relations. The report was titled ``America Still Unprepared, America Still In Danger.'' The task force found that 1 year after the September 11 attacks, America remains--according to them--dangerously unprepared for another terrorist attack. At the top of the list of concerns in this task force was this: 650,000 local and State police officials continue to operate in a virtual intelligence vacuum without access to terrorist watch lists that are provided by the United States Department of State to immigration consular officials. Why is this important? Well, consider that 36 hours before the September 11 attack, one of the hijackers who piloted the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, named Ziad Jarrah, a 26-year-old Lebanese national, was actually pulled over by the Maryland State Police for driving 90 miles an hour on Interstate 95. If this fellow's name had been on the State Department terrorist watch list--and it happens that it was not--there would have been no way for that Maryland State trooper to know it. That Maryland State trooper can type a name into the system and go to the NCIC where they have the database of convicted felons, but that trooper has no access to the watch list that the Immigration Service has courtesy of the State Department. You have all of these people around the country--law enforcement officials--who are actually the first line of defense and the first responders in the event something happens. And they are out there stopping people with traffic stops and stopping suspicious people who are driving automobiles without license tags, and so on. They don't have any idea whether someone they have just stopped is a known terrorist on a watch list prepared by the State Department and given to the Immigration Service and given to the consular offices. Why? Because they currently have no mechanism to access it. Right now, a county sheriff somewhere in a northern county in North Dakota is patrolling a road. If down that road for some reason would come a terrorist who crossed over a remote section on the border between the United States and Canada and a county sheriff stops that known terrorist who is on the watch list for driving 90 miles an hour on Highway 22, there isn't any way that county sheriff is going to be able to access that watch list and know that he or she has pulled over a known terrorist. That is wrong. Let me read an excerpt from the Hart-Rudman report, discussing what they regard as a top concern: With just 56 field offices around the nation, the burden of identifying and intercepting terrorists in our midst is a task well beyond the scope of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This burden can and should be shared with 650,000 local county and State law enforcement officers. But they clearly cannot lend a hand in the counterterrorism information void that now exists. When it comes to combating terrorism, the police officers on the beat are effectively operating deaf, dumb and blind. That is from the report. Again, quoting from the report: Terrorist watch lists provided by the United States Department of State to immigration and consular officials are still out of bounds for State and local police. In the interim period, as information sharing issues get worked out, known terrorists will be free to move about to plan and execute their attacks without any bother from local law enforcement officials because they can't know their names and they can't access the list. My staff has been in contact with this task force. We have also been in contact with the State Department and the White House, asking when something is going to be done to connect the dots here. Since we made these contacts, the administration is apparently looking for ways to integrate that terrorist watch list--called the Tipoff database--with the National Crime Information Center which is accessible by State and local law enforcement officers. I call on the administration to expedite, as much as is possible, the effort to make this happen. We can't waste another day in this regard, as all of us know. The head of the CIA said the other day that we are in as much risk from a terrorist act as we were the day before September 11. If that is the case, then we ought to expect that all law enforcement officials around this country would have access to that terrorist watch list. Let me go now to the second issue. I just spoke of the need for law enforcement to have access to a list of known terrorists and those who associate with known terrorists for purposes of protecting this country. Well, one can certainly go to the other extreme in gathering information in the name of homeland security. And a good example of that is a project that is being developed in the Department of Defense, by the Information Awareness Office. The Information Awareness Office is developing a long-term plan for what is called data mining. A master plan would be developed by which all of the information that moves around electronically in our country--every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy, every medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit, every e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you ever received, every bank deposit you made, every trip you book - would go into a massive database. And the Federal Government would use the database to identify suspicious behavior. That is not what we ought to be doing in this country. We ought to have a war on terrorism. But we ought not, in our zeal to engage in this war on terrorism, in any way break down the basic civil liberties that exist in our Constitution. The right to privacy is one of the most basic rights in America--the right to expect there is not a Big Brother with a massive computer system gathering all the information about everything everyone is doing in this country and evaluating it, perusing it, and moving it back and forth to try to determine who might or might not be doing something maybe suspicious. That is not, in my judgment, in concert with the basic civil liberties that we expect in this country and that are guaranteed to the citizens in this country. We must stop this before it starts. I understand that a change in law--specifically a change in the 1974 Privacy Act--would be required to implement this data mining program. That, in my judgment, is not going to happen in the Congress. I would not support such a change, and I think most of my colleagues would oppose a change of that type. (Mrs. MURRAY assumed the chair.)

Mr. DORGAN. Well, I happen to----

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I understand the concern expressed by my colleague. Let me say, there is a great disinfectant in this country, and that disinfectant is sunlight. If we can shed some light on these kinds of proposals, I do not think there is any question the American people will demand--will demand--of this Congress to preserve the basic rights, and especially the basic right to privacy that exists and that they expect to continue in the life of this country. So I understand the point that the Senator from West Virginia makes, but I believe the more we disclose the efforts of those who would suggest that it is all right to snoop about everybody and everything that goes on in this country, the more we will expose, in my judgment, the great, great concern and anger of the American people to demand their right to privacy and demand that we not amend the 1974 Privacy Act in order to accommodate this kind of activity.