Dianne Feinstein

Mrs. FEINSTEIN

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I appreciate that very much. Mr. President, if I might just very briefly respond? Taggants have been studied. I am holding up one of these studies entitled ``Taggants In Explosives.'' The date is April 1980. The studying office is the Office of Technology Assessment. You can see the thickness of the study. On the issue of safety, what the Office found: In no case did the addition of encapsulated taggants significantly increase the sensitivity of the explosive materials to the test conditions. No evidence of any decreased stability or other significant changes was found in any of the tests with dynamite, gels, slurries or black powder. That is essentially the world that would be affected by taggants. The taggants would affect, really, these areas. In my amendment we do provide for a study, but what we say is at some point you have to say enough of studying and make a decision and go ahead. Twelve more months of study and then it is implementation, where taggants can be used with safety, with no increase in the volatility of the explosive matter, and where they could lead to being able to trace suspects in bombings. There have been two constituencies opposed to taggants. Let us be brutally frank. One of them is, once again, our friends in the National Rifle Association. And the second is the explosives industry. The explosives industry says taggants would add cost to us. In fact, the cost of using taggants in dynamite, water gels, slurries, emulsions, and cast boosters, as quoted are, per pound, $1.42; $1.47; $1.45, and $7.41 respectively. That is a minimal cost to be able to trace back where an explosive might be used in a bomb that can blow up as many as 168 people at one time. The National Rifle Association has once again opposed the use of taggants. I cannot figure out the reason for the life of me, but I suppose it is because we surround this area with a certain kind of anonymity. I think if ever we have seen the need to increase transparency in sales of explosives we saw it at the World Trade Center and we saw it once again in Oklahoma City. My amendment would also permit the study, and a study only, of chemical fertilizers that are used, like ammonium nitrate, to see if these fertilizers can be made inert. There are countries, for example, that add lime to ammonium sulfate and prevent it from exploding. Should we do that? I think we ought to study it. The amendment in the bill, the original, includes no study in the area of chemical fertilizers and chemical components which are increasingly used as bomb materials in this country. In response to my distinguished chairman, I would only say there is a time to study and there is a time to stop studying and take action. This issue has been studied in 1980. In my amendment it will be studied for another year. But then we will move ahead in the areas I have just mentioned: dynamite, water gels, slurries, emulsions, and black powder. All of these areas can be successfully tagged. The state of the art is there to do it. Switzerland has done it for a number of years. Other countries are doing it and there is no reason why we should not as well. I yield the floor.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I wonder if the Senator would permit me to respond to his statement prior to tabling?

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I send a modification to the desk.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Is the Senator from Delaware present?

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. May I proceed to do so?

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I do.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I would like to add my support of the Comprehensive Terrorism Prevention Act of 1995, which is the bill before us. For many years, it seemed to many Americans that the United States was immune to terrorism, that somehow it could not reach our shores. Perhaps it is because we are surrounded by oceans [[Page S7661]] on the west and the east, by friendly neighbors to the north and to the south. We may have fooled ourselves into a false sense of security, somehow thinking that we live on an island and that no terrorist would reach us. We were long ago disabused of any such notion about our safety abroad. The hijackings and hostage takings of the 1970's and 1980's taught all Americans that we could be the victims of foreign terrorists who were prepared to use violence to advance their causes. We have expended much time, effort and money to improve the safety of our airlines and our Embassies and to ensure the cooperation of other governments in combating terrorism. But for many, home seemed a refuge, a haven from the political violence that has plagued so many other parts of our world. But we can no longer comfort ourselves with such illusions--and illusions they are. What was once unthinkable here in America is today a reality. Terrorism can strike us here at home. It can strike with massive deadly force, and it poses a most fundamental threat to our freedoms--the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So that is why we must act, and that is why we must take action on this bill today. In the wake of Oklahoma City, there is a new imperative--a bipartisan consensus on the need for tough, comprehensive antiterrorism legislation that can move through the legislative process and become law quickly. So I would like to commend the distinguished majority and minority leaders, as well as the Senator from Utah and the Senator from Delaware, who are the distinguished chairman and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, for acting expeditiously to bring this bill to the floor. The purposes of the legislation are clear: To make it more difficult to carry out acts of terrorism, to toughen the penalties for committing or abetting acts of terrorism, and to strengthen the hands of our law enforcement authorities to prevent and respond to acts of terrorism. Terrorists do not wait to get caught. It is our job to give our law enforcement agencies the authority and ability to seek out terrorists before they act. We must find them before they find us. It is that simple and that important. I believe that terrorism, the ultimate act of cowardice, actually threatens our life, our way of life, and jeopardizes our most fundamental liberties. With all that at stake, it is important that we act today. One of the most important sections of this bill, in my view, is a section that toughens restrictions on access to explosives, and increases the penalties for possessing stolen explosives, for transferring explosives with knowledge that they will be used to commit a crime, for conspiracies involving explosives, and for using explosives to commit a crime. These provisions are long overdue and well-considered. Oklahoma City taught us what the people of Beirut and London, Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires have known for far too long: Bombs kill. That is their sole purpose--to blow up buildings and kill people. We should be doing everything possible to make it harder for terrorists to get their hands on explosives. I have a very personal interest in the issue of bombs. You see, Mr. President, I myself was the target of a terrorist bombing less than 20 years ago. An extremist group, the New World Liberation Front, tried to blow up my home, and failed only because the type of explosive they used does not detonate when the temperature drops below freezing and San Francisco experienced a rare frost that night. I was lucky, but so many others have not been. The proliferation of bombmaking materials has reached astounding proportions. According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, from 1983 to 1993 bombings in the United States more than tripled, from 910 to 2,980. The Department of Justice now puts out an annual Bomb Summary each year--who ever thought such a thing would be necessary?-- and in 1993 summary, we learn that the 2,980 bombing incidents, 541 of which were in California, caused 49 deaths and 1,323 injuries nationwide. Whether or not all of these bombing incidents can be classified as terrorist attacks, these appalling statistics clearly demonstrate the need to restrict access to bombmaking materials. Indeed, Mr. President, the problem is not merely with bombmaking materials. In my opinion, there is altogether too much information too readily available on how to conduct terrorist attacks. Books and manuals, some of them posted on the Internet, teach everything one could want to know about picking locks, stealing chemicals, building bombs--all the skills you need to be a successful terrorist. Later, I intend to offer an amendment that will strengthen this legislation by making it a crime to teach or disseminate bombmaking information with knowledge that it will be used in a crime. Mr. President, another extremely important section of this bill deals with the problem of aliens who are members of terrorist organizations. It should be clear, that the risks of allowing alien terrorists to work their way through ordinary deportation hearings, which are often lengthy and slow-moving, are unacceptable. Yet this is the case under current law. In terrorist cases, our law enforcement authorities must be granted expedited procedures for deportation. I am pleased that the pending legislation provides for a special ``terrorism court,'' composed of U.S. district court judges appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, that would be able to deport expeditiously alien terrorists without risking the disclosure of national security information and techniques. In the rare cases where evidence against an alien is highly classified, a summary of the evidence will be provided to the alien. In addition, the pending legislation would make membership in a terrorist organization a sufficient basis for exclusion from the United States. The point of this provision, is that when the Government has reliable information regarding terrorist activities of specific aliens, we cannot afford to wait until they commit crimes to deport them. The special court will hear evidence, and if it makes a compelling case that the alien is a member of a terrorist organization, the alien will be deported. I am confident that we can trust a panel of five Federal judges, appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States, to fairly weigh the evidence disclosed. And importantly, there is provision to not fully disclose sensitive information that could lead to the deaths of Americans and others. Such disclosures should not be necessary just to deport someone dangerous. Mr. President, one of the most serious problems we face is that international terrorist groups use the open environment of the United States to raise funds for their terrorist activities. The President has already delineated a list of organizations--such as Hamas and Hizbullah, and Jewish extremist groups like Kach and Kahane Chai--that raise funds in the United States for terrorist activities that undermine the Middle East peace process. The legislation before us will help put an end to that, by making it illegal to raise funds for any activity conducted by an organization deemed by the Secretary of State to be engaged in terrorist activities. Some have raised the objection that certain groups, that may conduct terrorist operations, also run humanitarian or social service operations, like schools and clinics. But I simply do not accept that so-called humanitarian works by terrorist groups can be kept separate from their other operations. I think the money will ultimately go to bombs and bullets, rather than babies, or, because money is fungible, it will free up other funds to be used on terrorist activities. Mr. President, we have all witnessed over the years the harm done to U.S. citizens and U.S. interests by international terrorism. The bombings of United States Embassies, the slaughter of 241 U.S. marines in Beirut, the hijacking of American airliners, the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, the holding of American hostages. All of these images are deeply imprinted on our national psyche. These incidents, and the hundreds of others like them, aimed at Americans and non-Americans alike, pose one of the greatest threats today to international stability and security. Terrorism, as we have seen in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Hebron, can wreak havoc on regimes, such as Egypt, and exacerbates social tensions. It disrupts the lives of ordinary people, the flow of commerce, and the policies of affected governments. The State Department's Patterns of Global Terrorism report tells us that in 1994, there were 321 international terrorist attacks, over one- fifth of which were anti-U.S. attacks. And although this figure represents a 23-year low, it still means that there was an average of nearly one terrorist attack per day in 1994. All told, these attacks killed 314 people and left another 663 wounded. In the face of this problem, the United States should demand, and has every right to expect, full cooperation from all friendly governments in the battle to combat international terrorism. Cooperation today is by and large quite good, although some nations are not as cooperative as we would like. The pending legislation would increase the incentive for other governments to cooperate in our antiterrorist efforts by prohibiting U.S. assistance to countries that provide aid or military equipment to terrorist states. The seven state sponsors of terrorism-- Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria--do not deserve such assistance until they can justifiably be removed from the list of state-sponsors. The bill would also expand the type of assistance that we can provide our allies under the Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program. With the expansion of such programs, and the increased incentive for other countries to cooperate with us, the United States can help forge even greater international consensus on combating terrorism. But again, Mr. President, the primary lesson of the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings is that from now on we face the possibility of a serious terrorist problem here at home. In addition to international terrorist groups that may set up cells in the United States, there is a growing danger of armed extremist groups of Americans, who hold antigovernment views, using violence to pursue their agenda. We have all heard the inflammatory statements of some members of militia and other right-wing extremist groups attacking religious or ethnic groups, predicting violent revolution against the Government, or slandering Federal law enforcement officers, who risk their lives to protect the very freedoms that allow the extremists to make their outrageous statements. But we have been warned. When heavily armed people with the ability to make bombs make threats, we ignore them at our peril. For that reason, Mr. President, perhaps the most important provisions of this legislation are those that strengthen the ability of Federal law enforcement officers to monitor extremist and potential terrorist groups. These provisions grant Federal law enforcement agencies enhanced access to credit, telephone, financial, and certain commercial records in counterterrorism cases. It will no longer be required to have evidence of criminal activity, but it will allow officers to investigate groups whom they suspect may be engaging in criminal activity. The effect of these changes in law will effectively be to untie the hands of our law enforcement officials. Currently our agents are unable to be proactive--they are only able to react to criminal activity, and launch an investigation of suspect individuals or groups after there is credible evidence of wrongdoing. These changes will allow our law enforcement officials to take steps to stop terrorist attacks before they happen. By investigating, monitoring, and infiltrating groups that may be involved in terrorism before a crime is committed, our agents can actually help prevent terrorist acts, and perhaps prevent the kind of horror we all witnessed last month. Passive investigation by the FBI of any group with terrorist potential is absolutely necessary in this day and age. As FBI Director Louis Freeh testified before the Judiciary Committee earlier this month, we ``can't afford'' even one terrorist nuclear incident. Infiltration and court-ordered surveillance are critical to preventing that doomsday scenario from becoming a reality at some point in time. As long as the FBI and police do not encourage illegal conduct or otherwise entrap group members, we simply have to have the information that good surveillance--and only good surveillance--can provide. I want very much to make a few comments on the habeas corpus provisions. I suspect that these provisions are often complicated, that they are not always well known. But I believe very strongly in the provisions of this bill. As President Clinton recently said--and I could not agree more--``swift punishment, including the death penalty, where appropriate, is critical in efforts to combat terrorism.'' I strongly believe that the death penalty can act as a deterrent to the most violent of crimes and is an appropriate punishment for those who knowingly take another life. There has been a lot of discussion as to whether the death penalty is or is not a deterrent. But I remember well in the 1960's when I was sentencing a woman convicted of robbery in the first degree and I remember looking at her commitment sheet and I saw that she carried a weapon that was unloaded into a grocery store robbery. I asked her the question: ``Why was your gun unloaded?'' She said to me: ``So I would not panic, kill somebody, and get the death penalty.'' That was firsthand testimony directly to me that the death penalty in place in California in the sixties was in fact a deterrent. But the deterrent impact of the death penalty is weakened when it cannot be imposed swiftly after a verdict has been reached in a fair trial. As the Senate Judiciary Committee heard at its hearing on habeas reform last March, the extraordinary delay in carrying out capital sentences is in effect a form of terrorism against the survivors of murder victims, traumatizing them year after year by preventing justice from being carried out. Let no one doubt, Mr. President, that habeas reform should and must be an integral part of this legislation. Indeed, I spoke a few days ago with Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson, and a number of surviving family members of the men and women who lost their lives in Oklahoma City in that blast. It was a moving conversation and one that I will not forget. In sum, each of the survivors with whom I spoke, as well as the attorney general, urged the swift adoption of the habeas proposals in this legislation. Each conveyed to me that justice will not fully have been done until those responsible for the bombing have been tried, convicted, and the death penalty imposed and swiftly carried out. As Alice Maroney Dennison, the daughter of Mickey B. Maroney, a special agent with the Secret Service, said to me: ``I'm 27 years old and they took my father. I cannot be 47 when this man goes to death. That's not fair.'' Mr. President, Alice Maroney Dennison's plea, and indeed the voices of all of the family members of Oklahoma City's victims, a number of whom just about a half-hour ago held a press conference in front of this Capitol, must be heard, and their loved ones must not have died in vain. Mr. President, it is time for meaningful habeas corpus reform. This bill contains it. Let no one doubt that comprehensive reform is critical, and particularly in capital cases. Much has been said about the case of Robert Alton Harris in California, a vicious murderer, and what he did when he was out of prison in San Diego. He went to a drive-in. He wanted to take a car. There were two 16-year-old boys in the car eating hamburgers. He took the car with the boys in it. He took the youngsters to a remote location. He killed one. The other dropped to his knees crying and begging for help, and he killed the second. Then he ate their hamburgers and went on to commit other robberies. This man actually filed no fewer than 6 Federal habeas petitions and another 10 such petitions in State court before he was ultimately executed 14 years later for his crime. In all, Harris and his attorneys were able to engineer 14 years' delay of his capital sentence. It was 14 years of unresolved grief for the survivors of his victims. In California today there are currently 410 convicted criminals on death row. On June 7, the longest serving member of California's death row population, Andrew E. Robertson, will mark the 17th year of his incarceration. He [[Page S7663]] has managed to delay his capital sentence by filing habeas petitions for 17 years. In California, since 1978, when the people of the State voted to put back into place the death penalty, 18 prisoners on death row have died of natural causes or committed suicide. Only 2 have been executed. Only 2 have had their sentence carried out, while 18 have either committed suicide or died of natural causes, all of them delaying their sentence. Another case deserves attention as well. Clarence Ray Allen committed murder in 1974. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1977. From within prison he ordered the murder of the witnesses to the first murder. In September 1980, his assassin shotgunned to death three people and gravely wounded a fourth. Six years later, the California Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and death penalty. During the next 2 years, it considered and denied a State habeas corpus petition in which a prison inmate is permitted to attack his sentence on factors outside the appellate record. The U.S. Supreme Court declined review. On September 2, 1988, a Federal district judge issued a stay of execution. Over 6 years later that stay remains in effect, and the case is still mired in the district court. Unfortunately, this is a typical case. This points out a need for the habeas corpus reform in the bill before the Senate today. In fact, according to Attorney General Dan Lungren's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March of this year, there are ``currently 410 inmates on death row in California. We have had 2 executions occur since 1992, the only 2 in the last 27 years. The number of capital cases pending on Federal habeas corpus has more than doubled since 1991,'' when he first testified here on this issue. In 4 years, the number of Federal habeas corpus cases on death row in California has doubled. Mr. President, since the death penalty was reinstated in California, as I said, many more prisoners on death row have died of natural causes and suicide than of a carrying out of their sentence. This problem is not unique to California. According to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, during the year ending September 30, 1994, there were 11,918 prisoner petitions for habeas corpus review in the U.S. district courts alone. That is the reason habeas corpus reform has been a high priority of the Judiciary Committee. We should do it right and not merely pass a bill labeled with the term ``habeas reform'' for the sake of passing legislation. That is why all 58 California district attorneys opposed the habeas provisions included in Senate bill 1607, the crime bill as originally introduced in 1993, and legislation introduced that year, Senate bill 1657. I am very pleased to say that the habeas provisions included in the bill currently under consideration by the Senate are identical to those included in the Habeas Corpus Reform Act, Senate bill 623, legislation strongly supported by the attorneys general of California and Oklahoma and which, I believe, strikes an appropriate balance between the need to assure due process of those both convicted in capital and noncapital crimes and the need of any rational judicial system to bring cases to closure. Most importantly, Mr. President, this bill provides habeas petitioners with one bite of the apple. It assures that no one convicted of a capital crime will be barred from seeking habeas relief in Federal court. In my view, it appropriately limits second and subsequent habeas appeals to narrow and appropriate circumstances. Furthermore, the bill requires States which provide for counsel that habeas appeals must be filed within 6 months of when a State prisoner's conviction becomes final, or in States where standard for the adequacy of counsel are not adopted, such appeals must be filed within 1 year. So there is an incentive that if there is an adequacy of counsel standard in your State, there is 1 year from which the habeas petition must be filed. Time limits are also imposed upon courts. The bill requires that Federal courts must act promptly on habeas appeals and establishes a mechanism by which courts of appeals will screen habeas petitions before they are permitted to go to a Federal district court for resolution. Finally, unlike the crime bill proposals that I and the Nation's law enforcement officials opposed 2 years ago, the bill does not dictate to the States precisely what counsel competency standards are adopted, but rather it properly provides States with an incentive to formulate their own plans by making expedited timetables I have just described available for States to do so. I believe there are two things that are an effective deterrent to crime. One of them is the speed of the trial. The other is the certainty of punishment. The habeas corpus reforms in this bill will make much more certain the certainty of punishment. I am very pleased to support them. I am very pleased to give my commendation to the committee chairman, the Senator from Utah, and to support this bill. I think this is an important moment for our country and for this Congress. We have an opportunity to take bold action which will go a long way toward increasing the security of our citizens. This comprehensive package of antiterrorist legislation is an important step also in the recovery for the people of Oklahoma City, the people of the State of Oklahoma, and the people of the United States. For while the wounds of that day will never fully heal, today we begin to act to help prevent future sorrows and to help the American people be reassured that their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness will not be threatened by the menace of terrorism, whether from foreign shores or our own. I yield the floor.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I meant ``or.'' I beg your pardon.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to offer an amendment to address what I believe is a rather surprising problem in our society, and that is the distribution of bombmaking information for criminal purposes. This amendment is simple, and I think this cartoon in USA Today really describes what the situation is. Here is a youngster sitting in front of his computer learning how to put together a bomb. Here is the mother on the phone saying, ``History, astronomy, science, Bobby is learning so much on the internet.'' This amendment would prohibit the teaching of how to make a bomb if a person intends or knows that the bomb will be used for a criminal purpose. Additionally, the amendment would prohibit the distribution of information on how to put together a bomb if a person intends or knows that the bomb will be used for a criminal purpose. The penalty for violation of this law would be a maximum of 20 years in prison, a fine of $250,000, or both. Now, you might ask, how is that possible? How would anybody do this? I think the next chart I will put up will show clearly how it is possible and what people today are doing. Let me show you this. This is from the internet, entitled ``Stuff You Are Not Supposed to Know About.'' It advertises the Terrorist Handbook. It says, Whether you are planning to blow up the World Trade Center, or merely explode a few small devices on the White House lawn, the Terrorist Handbook is an invaluable guide to having a good time. Where else can you get such wonderful ideas about how to use up all that extra ammonium triiodide left over from last year's revolution? Well, that is just part of it. What that then leads to is a whole series of recipes on how to put together a bomb aimed at killing, injuring, or destroying property. The handbook goes on to give a step- by-step instruction on what to do. Let me quote from a section on acquiring chemicals: The best place to steal chemicals is a college. Many State schools have all of their chemicals out on the shelves in the labs and more in their chemical stockrooms. Evening is the best time to enter a lab building, as there are the least number of people in the building. Of course, if none of these methods are successful, there is always section 2.11. chem lab. It tells how to dress to look like a student. It tells where the shelves are that the chemicals are on. The handbook lists various explosive recipes, using black powders, nitroglycerin, dynamite, TNT, and ammonium nitrate. It provides explicit instructions for making pipe bombs, book bombs, light bulb bombs, glass container bombs and phone bombs, just to name a few. Now, I have heard people say, oh, but the Encyclopedia Britannica has eight pages on explosives, and nobody criticizes that. Well, I have read the eight pages on explosives, and it does not say how to make a toilet paper roll booby trap. What legitimate purpose is there for a toilet paper roll booby trap other than to kill somebody? You do not blast out the stump of a tree. You do not need it for mining. You need it for no civilian or military purpose other than to kill. Or a vacuum cleaner booby trap. Again, no civilian or military purpose, no blasting out of tree trunks, no mining use. A traffic cone booby trap. A video alarm booby trap. A washing powder box booby trap. How to develop this thing in a bottle or a box of soap powder. Light bulb bombs. The Terrorist Handbook describes, ``an automatic reaction to walking into a dark room is to turn on the light. This can be fatal if a light bulb bomb has been placed in the overhead light socket. A light bulb bomb is surprisingly easy to make. It also comes with its own initiator, an electric ignition system.'' And then it goes into detailed instructions and diagrams of how to put one together. I am not going to repeat those on the floor of the U.S. Senate. But I can assure you that the Terrorist Handbook provides these step-by-step instructions. One of the more appalling descriptions of bombmaking involves a baby food bomb. The following information was taken from the bulletin board, computer bulletin board off the internet. Baby food bombs. ``These simple, powerful bombs are not very well known, even though all of the material can be easily obtained by anyone, including minors. These things are so''--and then there is a four-letter word--``powerful, that they can destroy a car. Here is how they work.'' Then it tells how they work. It says, Go to the Sports Authority or Herman's sports shop and buy shotgun shells. At the Sports Authority that I go to, you can actually buy shotgun shells without a parent or adult. They do not keep it behind a little glass counter or anything like that. It is $2.96 for 25 shells. The computer bulletin board posting then provides instructions on how to assemble and detonate the bomb. It concludes with these words: If the explosion doesn't get them, the glass will. If the glass doesn't get them, then the nails will. I do not think our first amendment, or the framers of the Constitution, want to protect the freedom of speech for criminal purposes. Clearly, these bombs are there for one reason and one reason only and that is a criminal purpose. Let me give you another example that came through on April 23 of this year on the internet. Are you interested in receiving information detailing the components and materials needed to construct a bomb identical to the one used in Oklahoma? The information specifically details the construction, deployment and detonation of high- powered explosives. It also includes complete details of the bomb used in Oklahoma City, how it was used and it could have been better. Another examples comes from April 25 on the internet. I will quote it: I want to make bombs and kill evil Zionist people in the Government. Teach me, give me test files. Feed my wisdom, O Great One. That was April 25 on the internet. The forward to the book ``Death by Deception: Advanced Improvised Booby Traps'' states: Terrorists, IEDs [improvised explosive devices] come in many shapes and forms, but these bombs, mines, and booby traps all have one thing in common: they will cripple or kill you if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In this sequel to his best-selling book ``Deathtrap,'' Jo Jo Gonzales reveals more improvised booby-trap designs. Discover how these death-dealing devices can be constructed from such outwardly innocuous objects as computer modems, hand-held radios, toilet-paper dispensers, shower heads, talking teddy bears, and traffic cones. Detailed instructions, schematic diagrams, and typical deployment techniques for dozens of such contraptions are provided. Now, none of this is for use in any constructive civilian or military project. All of them are used for criminal purposes. Other titles of books that teach people how to make bombs include: ``The Guerrilla's Arsenal: Advanced Techniques for Making Explosives and Time-Delay Bombs''; ``The Advanced Anarchist Arsenal: Recipes for Improvised Incendiaries and Explosives.'' Well, there are those who would say this is just a simple first amendment exploration. Do not worry about it. People are just curious. Well, let me tell you that on Friday, Orange County bomb squad Sgt. Charlie Stump told me that a 14-year-old was in his garage making a pipe bomb with an 11- and 12-year-old watching him do it. The information to make this pipe bomb came from the Improvised Munitions Black Book, which can be obtained in any gunshop through the Paladin Press mail order outlets. So this youngster blew himself up, and right next to him was the handbook that he used. Another example. In Mission Viejo, a 20-year-old junior college student went into the so-called survivalist movement and accidentally set off his own bomb and killed himself. Again, the manual was sitting right next to him. So, according to the sergeant, these books tell you in vivid detail how to make bombs, how to kill people, how to destroy cars, how to destroy trains--whatever type of destruction you want to do, these books will tell you how to do it. The purpose of this amendment is to say that if you know or intend this will be used in a criminal way, you have committed a Federal criminal offense by putting out this information. Other examples include the following: One of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers was arrested with manuals in hand. In 1989, four Bethesda teenage boys were killed when a homemade pipe bomb subsequently went off. They were following instructions from another manual. In 1987, a California teenager blew himself up with homemade bombs. The ``Improvised Munitions Black Book'' was found nearby. Enough is enough. Common sense should tell us that the first amendment does not give someone the right to teach others how to kill people. The right to free speech in the first amendment is not absolute, and there are several well-known exceptions to the first amendment which limit free speech. These include obscenity; child pornography; clear and present dangers; commercial speech; defamation; speech harmful to children; time, place, and manner restrictions; incidental restrictions; and radio and television broadcasting. I do not for 1 minute believe that anyone writing the Constitution of the United States some 200 years ago wanted to see the first amendment used to directly aid one in how to learn to injure and kill others. I believe that the distribution of information on bombmaking, if we know that information will be used for a criminal purpose, should be illegal. At a recent hearing of the Judiciary Committee, I asked FBI Director Louis Freeh if anyone has a first amendment right to teach someone how to build a bomb in this country. He replied that it is a very important debate that very few people have reviewed. He suggested that it is a question that should be taken up by Congress. That is what we are doing this very day. My amendment is specifically aimed at preventing and punishing the distribution of material that will be used to commit serious crimes external to the distribution itself, and only when there is intent or knowledge that the information will be used for a criminal purpose. In other words, it is not aimed at suppressing contents per se, or fashioned as a prior restraint. Its purpose is addressing the facilitation of unlawful criminal conduct. Now, we will talk for a moment about current law. There currently is a Federal law on the books that is similar to my proposed amendment. Title 18, section 231(a)(1) of the Criminal Code states: Whoever teaches or demonstrates to any other person the use, application, or making [[Page S7684]] of any firearm or explosive or incendiary device . . . knowing or having reason to know or intending that the same will be unlawfully employed for use in, or in furtherance of, a civil disorder . . . shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both. At least 18 States have similar bombmaking laws on the books, including Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Virginia. I know that concerns have been raised by some civil libertarians and others about the constitutionality of my amendment, because it in essence takes this section which I have just read of the code and says if you, additionally, distribute that information with the knowledge or intent that it will be used for a criminal act, then you are guilty of a Federal violation. So if you read information that is within a terrorist handbook, where the beginning page of the handbook says, ``Whether you are planning to blow up the World Trade Center, or merely explode a few small devices on the White House lawn, this is the information you should have,'' that clearly sets, in my view, the purpose and intent of providing the information. The current law, section 231 of title 18, has already been used to prosecute several criminals. It has been constitutionally upheld by the courts. In the United States versus Featherston, 1972, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the statute ``is not unconstitutionally vague'' and affirmed the convictions of two defendants who were prosecuted under the law. The fifth circuit wrote: . . . the statute does not cover mere inadvertent conduct. It requires those prosecuted to have acted with intent or knowledge that the information disseminated would be used in the furtherance of a civil disorder. I know, though, that the true test of the amendment's constitutionality will be if and when it comes before the courts. And, I welcome that opportunity. The last time the Supreme Court directly dealt with the issue of freedom of speech restrictions was over 20 years ago, in Brandenburg versus Ohio, 1969. As I understand it, this case involved a Ku Klux Klan leader's right to advocate destruction of property and other violence as a means of obtaining political reform. I think it may be time, especially in light of Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center bombings, for the Supreme Court to deal with this issue again. In today's day and age, when violent crimes, bombings, and terrorist attacks are becoming too frequent--2,900 bombings a year, 541 in California alone in the year 1993--and when technology allows for the distribution of bombmaking material over computers to millions of people across the country in a matter of seconds, I believe that some restrictions on speech are appropriate. Specifically, I believe that restricting the availability of bombmaking information for criminal purposes, if there is intent or knowledge that the information will be used for a criminal purpose, is both appropriate and required in today's day and age. As Wisconsin District Judge Robert Warren wrote in the Progressive case dealing with the publication of information on how to build an atomic bomb: What is involved here is information dealing with the most destructive weapon in the history of mankind, information of sufficient destructive potential to nullify the right to free speech and to endanger the right to life itself . . . . While it may be true in the long run, as Patrick Henry instructs us, that one would prefer death to life without liberty, nonetheless, in the short run, one cannot enjoy the freedom of speech or the freedom of the press unless one first enjoys the freedom to live. I could not agree more with Judge Warren. Enough is enough. I do not believe the first amendment gives anyone the right to teach someone how to kill other people or provide certain information that will be used to commit a crime. Even our most precious rights must pass the test of common sense. I thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, it is interesting to see, because in 1977 Senators Abe Ribicoff and Jake Javits presented language mandating the introduction of explosive tagging over a period of time. During consideration of the bill, the National Rifle Association--who somebody has just said is for taggants--opposed the inclusion in the program of black and smokeless powders used by some hunters to hand- load antique rifles. The National Rifle Association was successful at the committee level at deleting the requirement that these powders be tagged. Nonetheless, the requirement that other types of explosives be tagged was left intact. The bill never reached the Senate floor. In the 96th Congress, the antiterrorism legislation was reintroduced with provisions for gradually phasing in identification tagging over a 2\1/2\-year period. The legislation was considered in the House by the Aviation Subcommittee of the Commerce Committee. It was supported by the Airline Pilots Association and the Airline Transport Association. The House Members and Glenn Anderson, the subcommittee chair, wanted to wait for action on the subject in the Senate before taking the issue up in the House. The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee marked it up on May 7, 1979. The only controversial aspect of this Omnibus Antiterrorism Act, Senate bill 333, was explosive tagging. Again, the NRA and the Institute of Makers of Explosives lobbied hard to kill the entire program and made wild accusations about the cost, safety, utility, and burdensomeness of taggants. So the principal supporters, Ribicoff and Javits, and the principal opponent, who was Senator Stevens at the time, agreed to postpone committee consideration pending an examination of taggants by the congressional Office of Technology Assessments. That was the report I held up this morning. OTA was not to conduct original research, but rather was supposed to review existing data and report its findings back to the Governmental Affairs Committee no later than August 6, 1979. OTA went out. They established a staff drawn from science foundations, Lawrence Livermore Lab, to carry out the proposal. They also formed an advisory committee composed of representatives from the law enforcement community, the explosives industry, and the gun lobby to provide input. It is my understanding that one of the explosive industry members was later indicted for selling explosive materials to Libyan terrorists. Despite the efforts on the part of OTA to comply with the August 6 deadline, it soon became apparent that the deadline could not be met. So a new deadline was set for Thanksgiving. In the interim, American hostages were seized in Iran and the Senate decided to postpone consideration of the underlying bill until the situation was clarified. This gave OTA more time to develop its report, which was finally released on April 28, 1980. That is the report I mentioned this morning. At this point, the National Rifle Association, I am told, hired lobbyists to lobby against the bill. I am told that the people hired were paid more than $250,000 for the effort to defeat this. They were successful in getting several trade associations in the construction industry, including the Crushed Stone Association, to launch campaigns against the bill on the theory that taggants would increase the cost of explosives by more than 100 percent. In fact, the estimate is less than 10 percent. I read those figures into the Record this morning. By the date of the markup, it became clear that the Javits-Ribicoff approach would not win. Senator Glenn offered a compromise. That did not go ahead. The committee vote was 8-7 in favor of an Eagleton motion, who was an opponent of taggants. And on and on and on it goes. Now here we are with a massive incident in the United States--two of them--the World Trade Center and the building in Oklahoma City. And now, today, this afternoon, the phones are heating up. Senators that I thought would be for this are calling. They are now getting the agriculture communities involved, saying they do not want a study. Just the study on ammonium nitrate, the fertilizer that blew up the building and killed 168 people, we were being told we should not study it. I cannot believe it. It is unbelievable to me that anyone could oppose a study to see if fertilizers can be made inert so they will not detonate it.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Yes.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I will yield.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. May I respond?

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. If I may, Mr. President, I would like to amend the amendment by removing the word ``likely.'' So that the amendment reads: Information pertaining to, in whole or in part, the manufacture of explosive materials, if the person intends and knows that such explosive materials or information will be used for, or in furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a Federal criminal offense or a criminal purpose affecting interstate commerce.

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

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. In response to the Senator, I would like to send an amendment to the desk. I was going to do it at 11:30.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, the amendment I am offering today is an amendment to require the use of taggants. Now, what is a taggant? A taggant is a tiny, microscopic, color-coded plastic or ceramic piece which can be mixed with explosive materials to allow law enforcement agencies to trace a batch of explosives like we currently do with car serial numbers. In other words, it might be possible, therefore, to identify the place of purchase of these explosives and therefore to, quite possibly, trace the purchaser. Why is this important? It is important because we have seen in this Nation a rising incidence of bombs. In my own State in the last few years, there have been about 500 bomb incidents. The Department of Justice tells us that about 80 percent of these result in an actual detonation. Consequently, there has been major loss of life from bombing incidents. I think this was brought home to every American by the incident in Oklahoma City. It is a complicated amendment because it is actually two parts. First, it requires the Secretary of the Treasury to do a study within 12 months, and then within 18 months to implement the results of that study or put into place a system by which taggants can be included in across-the-counter explosives. The affected explosives would include dynamite, water gels, slurries, emulsions, and black powder. Second, it would require a study on the use of diffusers in another body of agents used in explosives, and those are common chemicals such as the ammonium nitrate fertilizer that was used in the Oklahoma City bombing--common chemicals, these kinds of chemicals, as well as pool chemicals that can be utilized. This part of the amendment would only require a study, however, as to how these chemicals can be made inert or diffused or nonexplosive. The amendment also has language so that it will not impair the effectiveness, the safety, nor the environmental impact of the explosive materials which are covered. This past Friday in Los Angeles, I met with members of the Los Angeles County bomb squad, the Orange County bomb squad, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms bombs experts, and FBI experts, and virtually everyone in the room supported the use of taggants as a possible viable law enforcement tool. Taggants have been available for use in the United States and elsewhere for some 20 years but, frankly, special-interest groups have prevented their use. The current bill only provides that a study be done on the feasibility of using these taggants. There is no deadline. This means that 16 years of delay that has already taken place could be followed by another 16-year period of delay. My amendment includes two real deadlines. First, the report must be done in 12 months; and, second, after 18 months, the use of taggants would be required. I think the potential effectiveness of taggants was highlighted by a study conducted in the late 1970's when ATF seeded a very small portion of explosives, 10,000 pounds, with taggants. Despite this relatively small sample, these taggants actually helped solve a bombing in Maryland. In other words, by seeding just 10,000 pounds of explosives with taggants, they actually got leads to one bombing which led to the conviction of the individual responsible. If we had required taggants years before, we could have had crucial evidence in about 17 percent of the bombs cases that occurred between the years of 1987 and 1993. People will say taggants do not work or should not work. They will say they should not be included. But I will tell my colleagues that Switzerland for some time has incorporated taggants into explosives, and it has resulted in the conviction of many who have perpetrated bombings. I should say that, although ammonium nitrate was used along with diesel fuel, the people I have spoken to also believe there had to have been another accelerator included in that explosive batch of materials, and that accelerator most probably could have been tagged with a taggant. I believe the amendment before my colleagues is well thought out, Mr. President, and I believe it can and should be supported by both sides of this Chamber. I thank the Chair and yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. And I also retain the remainder of my time.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Delaware for that very eloquent exposition on taggants. I must say that it never ceases to amaze me, because outside people are saying they are for legislation to begin to tag explosives where safe and not adding to the volatility. Yet once again, I must tell the Senator, the lobbying of those special interests is starting up again to, one by one, move Senators off of this legislation. This led me to get a little bit of the history of taggants before this body. While the Senator has been here for a long time, I am a relative newcomer, 2\1/2\ years, and I did not realize this issue has been raised now for 22 years before this body. It might be interesting to go back into a little bit of the history. It actually began in 1973 when Congress asked ATF to look into possible methods of fighting terrorists in criminal bombings. That year, ATF and the FAA established an ad hoc committee on explosives seeding. That same year, ATF formed an inner agency advisory committee on explosives tagging. Also in 1973, the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, which we knew as LEAA, sponsored a study by Lawrence Livermore Lab, managed by Aerospace Corporation, to study the feasibility of identification tagging of explosives. Several companies, including 3M and Westinghouse, began taggant development. By 1976, this was far enough advanced to be the subject of the pilot tagging program developed by aerospace under the contract with the Bureau of Mines. The results seemed positive, in 1977, with the Omnibus Antiterrorism Act. Mr. President, was the Senator here in 1977?

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. In the first paragraph and the last.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I did not mean to. Did I?

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. The ``1'' is an ``l''. It is a lower case.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. That is correct.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I am happy to, or I am happy to wait. I am trying to use the time usefully.

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I will change it to ``intends or knows.''