Pete Hoekstra

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize my colleague, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry) for 3 minutes.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), the distinguished minority whip.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 2 minutes to my colleague from the State of Michigan, a member of the Intelligence Committee, Mr. Rogers.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, before I close, could the Speaker tell me exactly how much time I have left.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Smith and I both have only one speaker remaining, so we would reserve our right to close in the order as determined.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. What is this Congress thinking? Some of my colleagues are scaring the American people into believing that the men and women in the intelligence community are spying on them. In reality, our intelligence professionals are focused solely on identifying and stopping the threat from radical jihadists. What's this Congress thinking? Some of my colleagues want to reward opportunist trial lawyers who are suing the very companies that stood up in America's hour of need. We should recognize what these companies did and protect them from these frivolous lawsuits. What is this Congress thinking? Some of the key leadership in this House, including this current Speaker, were fully briefed and involved in developing the strategies that were implemented to keep America safe in the aftermath of 9/11. Now some are running from those decisions. They should take responsibility for their actions. At the funerals last week for the victims of the recent terrorist attack in Jerusalem, Rabbi Shapira delivered a eulogy charging the government with not doing enough to keep Israel safe, for not delivering the strong leadership to face down a deadly enemy. That same enemy wants to attack America. The 9/11 Commission said, ``Terrorists could acquire without great expense communications devices that were varied, global, instantaneous, complex, and encrypted.'' As Rabbi Shapira last week questioned the leadership of his country, and in light of what the 9/11 Commission told us years ago, I ask the leadership of this House are we doing enough. Is the 2001 FISA law adequate? The answer has been, and continues to be, a resounding ``no.'' Are we doing enough to protect America, our troops, and our allies, when we go home without finishing this crucial work on intelligence surveillance? Is it acceptable to have our intelligence capabilities continue to erode? Continuing down this path is dangerous. I hope that when we return, America will not have its own Rabbi Shapira, our own Rabbi Shapira asking, Why did Congress go home without finishing its work? Why didn't the Democratic Congress do better? Why didn't the House recognize the danger and the threat? We should complete this work today. We should vote on the Senate bill. Why are we going home? Why are we going home with the work unfinished one more time? With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this bill is just the latest example of the complete and utter failure of the Democratic leadership in the House to give the intelligence community the tools that it needs to protect the American people and our allies from radical jihadists who have sworn to wage holy war against freedom in order to impose a radical religious tyranny. I urge my colleagues to oppose this override of the President's veto. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are finding out how tough it is to pass legislation in the intelligence area. But the lesson they need to learn, this is about national security, and national security issues need to be done on a bipartisan basis, can not be done on a purely partisan basis. The debate on this authorization bill is not about a single issue, as some would have you believe. It is about the need to ensure that we give the right tools to our intelligence professionals in this time of enhanced threat. What we should be talking about today is improving this bill so that it can have broad bipartisan support. But we also ought to be talking about FISA, FISA modernization. That is the vote that this House should be considering. That is the tool that our intelligence community has said that they need to keep America safe. That is the tool that, on a broad bipartisan basis, the model for how we should be doing legislation in this area. It's how they did it in the Senate, 68 Senators on a bipartisan basis saying we need to do FISA reform. We need to do it to keep America safe, to keep our homeland safe, to keep our troops safe, to keep our embassies and our personnel overseas safe, and to make sure that we also have the tools in place that so many of our allies rely on to keep them safe. But no, once again, this House moves in a partisan basis. It's been almost 25 days now that the leadership on the other side of the aisle has refused to even bring up for a vote FISA modernization. Each and every day, our capabilities in this area erode. One of the most important and one of the most successful tools that we have used to keep America safe over the last 7 years is slowly eroding. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle will not even allow it to come up for a vote. The United States continues to employ tough antiterrorist programs because the radical jihadist threat did not end with 9/11. One only has to listen to the statements by bin Laden, his deputy, Zawahiri, to understand the seriousness of this threat, its global implications, and the determination of radical jihadists to strike the American homeland. But instead of doing a bipartisan, national security issue, we continue to move down the path of partisan politics. The majority leadership of this House refuses to see or hear the continuing threat from radical jihadists. Even more troubling, the majority refuses to recognize that tough antiterrorist tools employed since 2001 have protected this country from terrorist attacks. Instead, some have distorted anti-terrorist programs as threats to the American people rather than tools that our intelligence agencies are using to protect us from threats of radical jihadist terrorism. Instead of helping to strengthen anti-terrorist tools, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have established a clear patent of trying to undermine and erode them, undermining and eroding the very type of people that we should be trying to help with this bill, the men and women who risk their lives each and every day in the intelligence community to keep America safe. There is no better example than the outright refusal of the majority leadership to allow a straight up-or-down vote on bipartisan FISA modernization legislation. Again, this is a bill that passed the Senate overwhelmingly, clearly supported by a majority of this House. There's ample reason to be concerned about this abuse of the majority's powers. I'm far more concerned at the impact that these actions are continuing to have and the capabilities of our intelligence professionals to protect our country, our people, and our allies from attack. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa).

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time. Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues today to sustain the President's veto. This is an ill-advised bill. This goes back to what we did in the 1990s, ``bugs and bunnies,'' telling our intelligence folks that it is time to focus your resources and your skills on studying the national security implications of global warming. There are many problems with this bill. But the sense of urgency that we have in the intelligence community today is, as my colleague from California pointed out today, we are going to tell al Qaeda exactly what may happen. We are going to give them our playbook. And at the same time we have limited our ability to listen to radical jihadists. It is now 26, 27, 28 days since FISA, or the Protect America Act, has expired. How many more days will my colleagues on the other side of the aisle wait before they take up this legislation from the Senate? Will it be one more day? Will it be three more days? Will it be two more weeks? Will it be two more months? How much greater do you want to increase the risk to the homeland, to our allies, to our troops, before you act? The Speaker of the House shortly after 9/11 agreed that we needed to act. It is beyond me why she doesn't want to act now and why we don't have that sense of urgency. It is time to bring FISA to the floor, and it is time to sustain the President's veto. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Again, the debate is about a bill that the President has outlined in his veto statement is deeply flawed, deeply flawed in the content of what is in the bill as to what it directs the President to do and the limitations that it places on the executive branch in being able to conduct the war against radical jihadists effectively. But it's also clear that the message clearly outlines the deficiencies of what is not in the bill: the inability and unwillingness of the Democratic leadership to bring to the House the Senate-passed FISA modernization bill; a bill that reflects the values of the Speaker of the House; a bill that reflects the values of the current Speaker of the House when she was on the Intelligence Committee in 2001 when these discussions were under way that talked about what do we need to do to give our intelligence community the tools that they need to keep America safe so that we can better understand the plans, the intentions, and the capabilities of al Qaeda and other radical jihadists. That is where the Terrorist Surveillance Program took root. Bipartisan, the President, the leadership of the House and the Senate, the leadership of the Intelligence Committees, and all of them united in saying we need to give this tool, this Terrorist Surveillance Program, to our intelligence community because it will allow us to collect the information, the data, that we can use to keep America safe. And that program was in place for over 5 years. It was in place and it proved to be very successful. And now for 30 days, almost 30 days, we've been unable to use that tool. Mr. Speaker, with that I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. I applaud my colleagues for speaking with such passion. I wish they had the same passion for addressing the tools that the leadership in the intelligence community have said that they have needed, that our intelligence professionals who are in the field have said that they have needed to keep America safe. And this leadership has been unwilling to bring it up for almost 30 days. The tool that they want, the tool that they need, and the tool that has proven to be so effective is the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which is an updated version of FISA legislation. It takes the FISA legislation, it moves it forward, and it updates it. But for almost 30 days, that tool has been eroding, putting our troops at risk, putting our homeland at greater risk, putting other U.S. personnel who are oversees at greater risk, and putting our allies who depend so often on the work of our intelligence community, putting them at greater risk. As al Qaeda in Iraq has said they want to attack Jerusalem, as Hezbollah has said that they intend to retaliate for the death of Mughniyah 3 or 4 weeks ago, as the radicals seek to destabilize the regimes in the Middle East of modern Islamic countries, people that are working with us in the war and the threat against radical jihadists, our answer to them is we're going to curtail our intelligence activities, and as a result, you will be at greater risk because we are going to be of less assistance. We are not going to be able to give you the intelligence that you've been receiving for the last 5 years because our techniques are limited. Mr. Speaker, with that I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. The Detainee Treatment Act, 2005, prohibits cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment, the standard found in the convention against torture. It applies to anyone held by U.S. authorities. We have dealt with that issue. We dealt with it in 2005. What my colleagues don't want to talk about is they don't want to talk about the other weaknesses in this bill. And it's clear, by what their actions have been for the last 4 weeks, they don't want to talk about FISA. As my former ranking member has indicated, it is tough to pass an authorization bill. It is tough to pass legislation. She and I worked together and passed, with our colleagues in the Senate, an Intelligence Reform Act, which in many ways has worked and in some ways we need to go back and take a look at. But one of the things that we learned through that process is to make it work, you need to do it on a bipartisan basis. The problem with this bill is that it is a partisan bill. It passed the Senate with a very narrow majority. It passed the House on a partisan vote. That's not how you're going to get it done. You're going to do it the same way that the Senate has done the FISA bill. But the interesting thing is the model for getting something done, which is a bipartisan bill, which is what we did on intelligence reform, we had Republicans and Democrats who came together to make it a majority; and we also had Republicans and Democrats who opposed us, and it was sometimes very painful. Now, when the Senate has gone through that process and passed a bipartisan bill on FISA, the model, 27 Democrats, 41 Republicans coming together and modernizing FISA, the end result is this leadership on the House side refuses to deal with it. It's on every intelligence issue that we've dealt with in this Congress. When it comes to national security, when it comes to intelligence, there is not an ounce of compromise. It's all about getting everything, and that's why the President vetoed this bill, because it is not a bipartisan bill. There are many weaknesses in it. All the focus on their side is torture. Talk about FISA, which makes a real difference to our men and women in the intelligence community today. Mr. Speaker, with that I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I will yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Speaker, it's interesting, as we go through this process and we talk about what's in the bill, the provision that we are talking about, or at least the other side is talking about, is a provision that was dropped in in conference. It came from the Senate. It didn't come from the House. We ought to follow that model. Follow the leadership. It's interesting, we follow the leadership here when it's a partisan vote coming from the Senate; but when it's a bipartisan effort from the Senate, the leadership on the Democratic side will not respond and will not follow. On this bill, we are going to sustain the veto. It is a flawed bill through and through. It would be interesting for this House to do the right thing, to have a vote on a national security issue, the modernization of FISA, to bring that vote. I am very much afraid that we are going to go home Thursday or Friday of this week and we are going to go on a 2-week recess and, once again, we will not have dealt with the modernization of FISA. That means that we will go through a period of 6, 7, 8 weeks of eroding capabilities, each and every day becoming more vulnerable to radical jihadists and other groups who want to harm America. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I yield myself 2 minutes. It is interesting to talk about waterboarding. It hasn't been done for 5 years. It is interesting to talk about we are going to get rid of cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment. We did that in the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005. It is prohibited, prohibited on any person that is held in U.S. custody. So it is easy to talk about those things. It is time that the House start doing the hard stuff and the heavy lifting. That heavy lifting has now been put off for almost 4 weeks. And my fear is that we will leave without having resolved the issue between the House and the Senate, and we will go away for 2 more weeks because the House and the Democratic leadership refuses to do the heavy lifting and refuses to do the hard stuff. They are willing to go back and do the stuff that was done in 2005 and address issues that haven't occurred for over 5 years. But when it comes to keeping America safe and doing what is necessary and giving the tools to the intelligence community to keep us safe, leadership of this House is unwilling to act and is unwilling to do what is necessary. With that, I reserve the balance of my time

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I yield myself 1 minute. The Detainee Treatment Act outlaws cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment. There seems to be a sense of urgency to do what we have done and do it again. It is too bad that there is no sense of urgency to give our individuals in the intelligence community the tools that they need to keep us safe. The Senate has passed FISA. We should do the same thing. And we should do it before we go home. We need to start doing national security issues in a bipartisan basis. The longer we continue going down this path of making national security and intelligence issues purely partisan, some might call them purely political issues, we risk the security and the safety of the American people. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 4 minutes to a member of the committee from Texas (Mr. Thornberry).

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, it's interesting that this debate is about something that hasn't been done for 5 years. What we need to be talking about is what we haven't been able to do for the last 30 days. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are talking about a technique and a procedure that hasn't been used for 5 years, but they're unwilling to talk about the technique that enables us to identify what terrorists may have planned for the United States. They don't want to address giving the tools to Americans who work in the intelligence community that have proven to be effective. They're willing to give our playbook to al Qaeda, but at the same time they've taken away our most effective tool, to try to determine exactly what al Qaeda may be up to. It is probably the most glaring deficiency in this bill, but there are many others. It fails to provide adequate resources for human intelligence. The earmarks we've heard about. It fails to constrain the size of the intelligence bureaucracy. It fails to rationalize how we're going to put the intelligence community together. And then, interestingly enough, it continues the misplaced priorities. We are unwilling to deal with FISA. We are unwilling to give that tool to our intelligence community, but we feel that it's more than appropriate to tell our intelligence community to go out and conduct a formal assessment of ``national security,'' the national security aspects of global warming. Our intelligence professionals in the field need to be really wondering what's going on in the House, where they've now watched us for 30 days avoiding dealing with the tough issue that has proven to be so effective in keeping America safe, and at the same time we're arguing here, and the majority is arguing that, forget about surveilling al Qaeda and radical jihadists, take your resources and study national security aspects of global warming, although there's many other agencies that already work on that. So, shelve FISA. As a matter of fact, don't even talk about FISA. Don't even bring it to the floor. Don't do any work on it. Don't put any proposals out there. Have no bipartisan discussions on where we go with FISA. Leave that on the shelf. Let our capabilities erode. Go out and study global warming. What are the priorities of this House? How are we going to keep America safe when we, on one hand, handcuff our intelligence community, and on the other hand, we're telling them go out and study the national security aspects of global warming? With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. At this point in time, I would like to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Unbelievable. But now 5 weeks ago, when we started into this process one more time, we said exactly what my colleague was highlighting, both my colleagues, the terrorists have not stopped. They continue their attacks in Pakistan. Five weeks ago is when they had some major bombings in Pakistan just before the elections. They had the major bombing in Afghanistan. But we also then started hearing from al Qaeda in Iraq saying they wanted to use Iraq to do what? Do you remember? Al Qaeda in Iraq said, we want to use it as a base to attack Jerusalem. And then a major terrorist died in Lebanon. We're not sure exactly what the circumstances were. Some think it's Israel, some others say it might have been Hezbollah itself. But one of the key leaders of Hezbollah passed away, and the statement from Hezbollah then was, ``we're going to hold Israel accountable.'' And what happened today? Martyr Mughniyah, within the last hour, a TV station affiliated with Hezbollah, said this group may not be affiliated with Hezbollah, but the group, Martyr Mughniyah, as far as we can tell, a new terrorist group, along with the Gaza Martyrs' Group, which may also be a new terrorist group, claim responsibility for the Jerusalem operation. So, with the events of the last 5 weeks, some new identified terrorist groups have popped up. And most likely, if there is any intelligence that our allies, because we said, who is going to be vulnerable by our diminished capabilities? It's going to be America's homeland. It's going to be our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is our embassies around the world, and potentially our allies. With what al Qaeda in Iraq and what the various organizations have now said after the death of Mughniyah, these are new terrorist groups.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Yes.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Right.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. We might have. But the key thing here is if these are new terrorist groups that we didn't know about before, guess what? And our allies, the Israelis, got meaningful intelligence about this group. The law on surveillance would be the law that was in place on 9/10/01, the very law that the President, his national security advisers, our current Speaker of the House, bipartisan leadership in the House and Senate all said would not work. Another example within the last hour. All right. Dynamic situation. And remember, I think we all know that intelligence only works when you do it in a timely way. You know, 2-year-old intelligence is no longer intelligence; it's data. It's information for historical purposes. To keep America safe, intelligence has to be real-time, and the only law didn't do it. Again, when we talked about what potential threats would be, 5 weeks ago we said, you know, there have been people who have been arrested because they were going to allegedly murder the Danish cartoonist. There was a plot in Denmark to do this. And I said, well, that's interesting. But there is another threat on the horizon. Dutch TV refuses to show anti-Koran film as terror alert is raised. What is this? We've known for quite some time that a Dutch parliamentarian was going to do a video on Islam, his interpretation of Islam. I'm not saying whether it's right, whether it's wrong, but as a parliamentarian you would think that he could have the opportunity to express his views on Islam in a country that, I think in Rotterdam now the most popular baby's name is Muhammad. But he was going to give his views of Islam and was preparing a video. And there were allegations that there might be some things that were inflammatory in this video, people saying he might burn the Koran. Who knows. We don't know what's in it. But the Dutch Government now, it just came out that the Dutch, we knew this video was in development, not knowing what was in it, but the Dutch now, the TV networks have refused to show it. But he may release this film on the Internet, which has caused the Dutch, again, a very firm and strong ally in Afghanistan in the war against radical jihadists, the Dutch have gone on a high terror alert. If there are groups, new groups that form as a reaction to this new video, the old law will apply. Our hands will be tied behind our back. Our intelligence community will be limited in its ability to help the Dutch protect their assets. And as we have known from the past, when radical jihadists have an opportunity like this, they don't just focus in on a particular country. They use it as an opportunity to go after modern Islamic regimes in the Middle East, countries in northern Africa, all of Europe, not just the Dutch, and the Americans. But if there are new groups that haven't been identified before, the old rules apply, which means we are more vulnerable. It is absolutely unconscionable that here we are 3 weeks later and once again we are going home without dealing with this. And it's not because of a heavy workload. It's because they don't want to do what the Senate has done. The Senate passed a great bill, 68 votes, bipartisan. And we all know how hard it is to get 68 votes in the U.S. Senate today. But a broad bipartisan bill that gave our intelligence community the tools that they needed, and it gave to the telecommunications companies the help that they needed to do their work. I mean, it's absolutely unacceptable to have one of our colleagues up here today to talk about the intelligence community. Remember the last debate on the last bill, not talking about what our intelligence community is doing to protect American lives. And American intelligence officials, people working in our intelligence community, have lost their lives keeping America safe, and our friends on the other side say what? They're Big Brother. Well, you know what? They're Big Brother, but they are not big brothering America. They're focused on one thing: finding radical jihadists. But these folks belittle the effort of our intelligence community and give the American people the impression that our intelligence community is just looking for ways to destroy Americans' civil liberties. I have met with these people. I know they're focused on a couple of things: protecting Americans' civil liberties as they keep America safe. And to belittle the work of our intelligence community is absolutely unacceptable, and it's really an embarrassment that those kinds of comments are made on the floor of this House.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. That's exactly right. The individuals in our government. This was never the administration's program. It was never the President Bush program. This was always the American Government's program, because the administration identified what we needed to do and how we could do it and they went to the bipartisan leadership of the House and the Senate, a small group, because if you have these kinds of capabilities, you don't want it broadcast to al Qaeda and radical jihadists about what your capabilities are. You want to use it as an effective tool. But on a bipartisan basis, the leadership of the House and the Senate and the leadership on a bipartisan basis of the Intelligence Committees in the House and Senate signed off on these programs. The current Speaker of the House was briefed four times in the 8, 9 months immediately after 9/11, and you know what? Number one, now she's not bringing to the floor the very changes that she supported in the aftermath of 9/11, but the companies that we went to and asked them for their help. And when these companies said we know the administration is supportive of this, have Members of Congress been informed, the administration could truthfully say, yes, they have been briefed. They've been informed. They know what we're going to ask you to do, what information we expect to get and how we expect that to keep America safe. They're now throwing them under the bus. But the more important thing is the urgency of today. We need these companies to help us. They help us all the time. And we're having a chilling effect on these types of American businesses that in many ways are helping us in basic law enforcement activities, not only radical jihadists but basic law enforcement, because they're now being told if you help us, recognize that in many cases we're going to throw you to the wolves, which in this case are the trial lawyers. I appreciate my colleagues having this discussion and debate. Thank you very much for allowing me to be a part of this. I need to get going. I was hoping I could say I'm going to a meeting where we are going to work out the final details on FISA, but now that's not the case. I've got to go to a different type of meeting. But thank you very much for furthering the effort on this very, very important issue.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Chairman, you know it's a good day today where we have the opportunity to go back and reauthorize the Corporation for National and Community Service. This is a program that 15 years ago is a program that I supported, and I'm glad that this Congress is going to take the steps to move this program forward and continue the efforts in this area. However, if we're really going to protect the Corporation for National and Community Service, if we are really going to protect the individuals that are working in these types of programs, what we should have been doing today and what we should do is we should extend the terrorist surveillance program. We should pass FISA modernization. You know, 3 weeks ago the majority said that this bill would come to the floor. They needed a 3-week extension to get the bill done. That expires this week. We're going to have a long day today. We'll be here till 2 or 3 o'clock, which I think will be the third week in a row where we will go home early and we will not take care of this vital national security issue. We've had a 6-month extension, we had a 2-week extension. The program now has lapsed for 3 weeks. Each and every day our capabilities erode just a little bit more. And each and every day we remove these capabilities to track foreign terrorists by our Intelligence Community, each and every day America becomes a little bit more vulnerable. Americans living at home, people in this program, our men and women in uniform in Afghanistan and in Iraq, they're a little bit more vulnerable. Our embassy personnel around the world are a little bit more vulnerable. Earlier this week the statement was made, well, you know, we'd maybe like to do FISA this week but the schedule is just too full. We're not going to have the opportunity to get to it. We're not going to have the opportunity to get to it. We're going to be done working some time in the middle of the afternoon and we're going to leave a national security issue laying on the table for the third week in a row? Will the majority deal with this issue next week? Will they deal with it before we go on recess? Or will they allow it to lapse for 6 weeks? How vulnerable does America need to become before the majority decides to act on FISA? I just wonder if the majority's even looking at what's going on around the world, taking a look at the attacks that are taking place in Pakistan, taking a look at the attacks that are happening in Afghanistan, listening to the rhetoric that's coming out of Iran, listening to the rhetoric that's coming out from al Qaeda in Iraq, listening to the rhetoric that's coming out of Hezbollah in Syria and in Lebanon. There are threats against our allies. There are threats against Western Europe. There are threats against our friends in Northern Africa. There are threats against Western Europe, and yes, there are threats against the United States of America. They're not listening to what al Qaeda and radical jihadists and other terrorists are saying. They're not reading what these individuals are saying, because if you were listening to what they were saying, if you were reading what they were writing, and if you were watching what they were doing, you would understand that the threat is real and that it is a grave mistake to allow this intelligence tool and to allow other intelligence tools to erode continually. Yes, America's more vulnerable today than it was 3 weeks ago. America is more vulnerable today than it was 14 months ago because, on national security issue after national security issue, the other side refuses to give our intelligence community the tools that they need to keep America safe. These tools have developed. They've evolved. They've been working very, very well in protecting America. But for the last 14 months, the majority has not only let these tools evolve and deteriorate, in many cases they've been under direct attack from the majority. Today our intelligence community is paying a price because they do not have the tools necessary to keep America safe. Hopefully, America will not pay a price because the intelligence community hasn't been given the tools by the majority to keep America safe. It's time to bring the Senate bill to the floor. This is a bill that has widespread support, passed by 68 votes in the Senate, supported by a majority of the Republicans and the Democrats in the Senate. Bring that bill to the House. Bring it up right after the GIVE Act. Make sure that we've got the tools in place to keep America safe and to keep the people working in this program and other programs safe.