Pete Hoekstra

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry), a member of the committee.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, this motion to instruct is about priorities. America continues to face threats. We are engaged in a global struggle against radical jihadists. For a time of war, for a time of threats like this, the priorities of portions of this intelligence bill are completely misplaced in critical areas. The motion to instruct would make our priorities clearer by eliminating provisions providing for earmarks and by ensuring the maximum level of funding for increasing human intelligence collection. Our intelligence programs should be based on only one primary consideration: what best ensures that the intelligence community is able to do its job in the best interest of the national security of the United States. This motion would ensure that we are appropriating and authorizing funding on a bipartisan basis to critical human intelligence programs based on the merit of these programs and the intelligence we learn from them. The unclassified National Intelligence Estimate's key judgments released publicly just yesterday illustrate how important intelligence gathering is to our national security. As we take a look at where we want to put our priorities, it is clear from what we have learned and what we understand in this committee the importance of putting resources, the necessary resources on human intelligence, and to remove them from earmarks, Members' pet projects, which don't necessarily always go through the rigorous process necessary to ensure that the funding for these projects and these programs is appropriate. I encourage my colleagues to vote for this motion to instruct to make sure that we put the resources where they will make maximum benefit to the intelligence community. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, this is about priorities. It is about priorities in terms of allocating dollars to those programs which the intelligence community and the committee itself has taken a look at and thoroughly debated and thoroughly gone through and said this is where the money needs to be spent versus putting money into Members' projects. This is not about a project for a school back home or things that we see in some of the other appropriations bills. These are national security, intelligence priority projects; and putting earmarks into this bill is something that we think is inappropriate, especially as we have gone through that process, at least for one of these, where the committee didn't go through a process where it went through the committee and wasn't identified as an earmark and we get to the floor and it is an earmark and it is for a significant amount of money and it is for programs that people have taken a look at and said: this is not a necessary program; and as a matter of fact, this is duplicative of other things that are already being done in the community or being done in the Federal Government. It is saying, no, we are not doing these earmarks, especially for those types of redundant and wasteful government spending. It is important that as we focus on the intelligence community, that we spend the dollars where it makes the most sense. As we take a look at some of the earmarks in this bill, it is clear it is not the most effective way to spend taxpayer money in an area that is critical to the safety and the security of the American people. It is why we have put into this motion to instruct to take earmarks out. We are going to go to conference, and we are encouraging that on the House and Senate side both that we bring a bill that is free of earmarks to the House and the Senate floor when this conference report comes out of a conference committee. We think that that sets an important principle and an important precedent for the intelligence bill to have a bill that is free from earmarks. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague from California (Mr. Lungren).

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my colleague from the State of New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson).

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. A month after I originally came to the floor to oppose this bill, I now rise in opposition to this flawed legislation, which, disappointingly, has been made worse ever since we started the process. In August Congress finally acted, after months of prodding from Republicans, to close significant intelligence gaps against potential foreign terrorists in foreign countries that jeopardize America's ability to protect and prevent potential terrorist attacks and to effectively collect intelligence on foreign adversaries. Now we have a simple choice: Do we do what is necessary to provide long-term legal authority for our intelligence community to conduct necessary surveillance, or do we reopen that intelligence gap? It now seems that the majority is determined to move a bill intended to make political statements rather than to give intelligence professionals the tools that they need to protect our country. I urge my colleagues to vote against this bill.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the order of closing.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman on the committee, Mr. Tiahrt of Kansas.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. This morning as we did the rules debate, I asked some questions of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and they said we will cover that during general debate tonight. So the questions I have that I hope will be answered is in the manager's amendment that was presented this morning and was voted on in the self-enacting rule talks about illegal aliens. The questions I have: Would it allow surveillance against possible illegal aliens for law enforcement purposes? Would it allow foreign intelligence surveillance to be conducted against transnational smuggling rings? Would it allow surveillance to determine whether someone is an alien not permitted to be in or remain in the United States? Would the amendment exempt undocumented aliens from the physical search requirements of FISA? Exactly how far does this amendment go? What is it intended to do? These were the questions that I asked this morning that I hope will be answered tonight. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, the new manager's amendment that self- executed with a rule this morning included broad new language that would treat illegal immigrants differently than other threats to the homeland. This was a poorly conceived and ill-advised provision that has created a lot of confusion. Through the day, when we discussed the rule this morning, as we had the debate tonight, I had a series of questions: Would this amendment allow surveillance against possible illegal aliens for law enforcement purposes? Would it allow surveillance to determine whether someone is an alien not permitted to be in or remain in the United States? During the rule, I was told I would get the answers during general debate. During general debate there was nothing but silence. If we take a look at the bill, for a month we have been dealing with a bill that provided protections and legal protections to terrorists. Overseas terrorists having access to the courts, having warrants, and those types of things were moved. Then today, at the last minute, or yesterday at the last minute, we get an amendment, a manager's amendment, that provides or, it appears, rips away any type of protection for another threat. Is the majority saying that the threat to the homeland is greater for aliens, illegal aliens living in the United States, than state sponsors of terrorism? It appears that it does because they have 40 or 50 pages of protections and a paragraph of exceptions that says: ``No rights under the RESTORE Act for undocumented aliens.'' Many on our side may think that that is a good idea. What this manager's amendment says very simply is if there are no rights under the RESTORE Act for undocumented aliens, maybe we should put that same provision in here for state sponsors of terrorism and agents of sponsors of terrorism. It's very clear. We think that if a threat to the homeland, as identified by the other side, are illegal aliens, perhaps it's also time that we recognize that state sponsors of terrorism pose the same type of threat to the United States. Is the majority saying that illegal aliens are a greater threat to the United States than Cuba, than Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria? It appears from the bill that we have before us tonight that is exactly what they are saying, because they have 50 pages of protections and one page of exceptions. Let's make sure that we treat illegal aliens the same way we treat North Korea and Cuba.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry), a member of the committee.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I think we have balanced the time. We chose on our side to go with the 15 minutes of Judiciary time and then 15 minutes of Intelligence time. I believe the people in opposition to this bill now have 10 minutes; the people who are supportive of this bill have 11. That sounds like balance to me. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 2 minutes to my colleague from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg).

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. I just want to make a couple of points. Again, no one has answered the questions that I asked earlier today and that I asked in the debate tonight. The amendment talking about illegal aliens, would it allow for surveillance against possible illegal aliens? Would it allow for foreign intelligence surveillance to be conducted against transnational smuggling gangs? Would the amendment exempt undocumented aliens from the physical search requirements? And then just to reiterate the point that my colleague made in the previous speech, this is all about lawyering up the process, and that's what extends the time. At this point, I yield 1 minute to my colleague, Mr. Kirk of Illinois.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues and thank you for this debate. At this point in time to close our debate I would like to recognize the distinguished minority leader, Mr. Boehner of Ohio.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I thank my colleague for yielding. Mr. Speaker, we have talked about the importance, as we have just heard, we have just heard about clear legal authorities; we have talked about the protection of U.S. persons, the need to study this issue in a very important, judicious manner. It's not what happened over the last 4 weeks. Over the last 4 weeks, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle were trying to figure out exactly how to bring this vote forward to get the votes necessary to pass it. As we went to Rules yesterday, it was about a half hour before we saw the manager's amendment. As I read through the manager's amendment, this is interesting, and as with much else on FISA, I wonder what this really means and how it really works. Does it really provide us with the clear legal authorities? Are the statements that it makes clear? Will it help our intelligence communities? And while there's a lot of problems in the rest of the bill, I just want to focus on one part of the manager's amendment that is self- enacting today, and that is why I rise in opposition to this unnecessary second rule. It places unnecessary, burdensome restrictions on the intelligence community through a self-executing amendment. More importantly, however, I would like to highlight my concern with a provision of the manager's amendment in this rule that appears to give extremely broad and vague authorities to the executive branch to conduct surveillance on undocumented aliens within the United States. Section 18 of the manager's amendment is bluntly titled: ``No Rights Under the RESTORE Act for Undocumented Aliens.'' No rights under the RESTORE Act for undocumented aliens. Then it goes on to say: ``This act and the amendments made by this act,'' and by ``this act,'' it's talking about FISA, not this bill, at least that is how I would interpret it, ``shall not be construed to prohibit surveillance of, or grant any rights to an alien not permitted to be in or remain in the United States.'' This poorly conceived and ill-advised provision appears to provide an extremely broad and completely blank check to the executive branch to conduct wholly unregulated surveillance on an undocumented alien in the United States. The scope of this is unprecedented. We have never before extended such blanket authority to the intelligence community to collect information on any person within the country, legal or illegal. The language is also as vague as it is broad. My counsel says he doesn't know what the effect of an alien not permitted to be in or remain in the United States means, since it doesn't define those terms by reference to other laws. The overall effect of this provision could be breathtaking in its scope. One of the issues that was supposed to be definitively clarified in this bill is whether or not the enhanced authorities of the Protect America Act or this bill would allow physical searches to be conducted of the homes and businesses of innocent Americans. Since that clarification is supposed to be made in the RESTORE Act, it seems that this provision must be read to permit physical searches of the homes and offices of undocumented aliens. I've got a few questions for the other side that I hope they would take the time to answer when time is yielded back to them. I would like to obtain clarification with respect to a number of ambiguities in the manager's amendment. Would you clarify under which specific laws an alien could be ``permitted to be in or remain in the United States'' under this manager's amendment? Since it does not refer to specific laws, would the President denying someone permission to remain in the United States under this executive authority trigger this provision? The amendment also says that it does not prohibit surveillance of undocumented aliens. Would you further clarify what types of surveillance of undocumented aliens are authorized under this provision? The amendment does not define the term ``surveillance.'' Would it allow surveillance against possible illegal aliens for law enforcement purposes? Would it allow foreign intelligence surveillance to be conducted against transnational smuggling rings? Would it allow surveillance to determine whether someone is an alien not permitted to be in or remain in the United States? Would the amendment exempt undocumented aliens from the physical search requirements of FISA? One final clarification. Does the term ``this Act,'' as I said, I believe it refers to all of FISA, or is it just some section? Could you clarify how that is different than ``the amendments made by this Act''? This is unprecedented in its breadth and its scope, potentially unleashing the intelligence community on people in the United States. The practice in the community today is that when someone is in the United States, they are provided the protections of U.S. law. This takes it and shreds it for illegal aliens, or people who may be suspected of being illegal aliens. And talk about protecting rights, this bill shreds the rights of people who are in this country. It is a significant problem, and this is what happens when you go through a process on this type of technical legislation and do not go through a process that allows the minority or hearings to take place.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I believe that Congress should continue to encourage an open and robust debate about the threat from radical jihadists. I found the following report in the Sunday Times of particular interest. I would like to share it with my colleagues. [From the Sunday Times, Nov. 4, 2007] Saudi Arabia Is Hub of World Terror: The Desert Kingdom Supplies the Cash and the Killers (By Nick Fielding and Sarah Baxter) It was an occasion for tears and celebration as the Knights of Martyrdom proclaimed on video: ``Our brother Turki fell during the rays of dawn, covered in blood after he was hit by the bullets of the infidels, following in the path of his brother.'' The flowery language could not disguise the brutal truth that a Saudi family had lost two sons fighting for Al- Qaeda in Iraq. The elder brother, Khaled, had been a deputy commander of a crack jihadist ``special forces'' unit. After his ``glorious'' death, Turki took his place. ``He was deeply affected by the martyrdom of his brother,'' the Knights said. ``He became more ambitious and more passionate about defending the land of Islam and dying as a martyr, like his brother.'' Turki's fervent wish was granted earlier this year, but another Saudi national who travelled to Iraq had second thoughts. He was a graduate from a respectable family of teachers and professors who was recruited in a Saudi Arabian mosque and sent to Iraq with $1,000 in travel expenses and the telephone number of a smuggler who could get him across the Syrian border. In Iraq he was ordered to blow himself up in a tanker on a bridge in Ramadi, but he panicked before he could press the detonator. He was arrested by Iraqi police. In a second lorry, another foreign fighter followed orders and died. King Abdullah was surprised during his two-day state visit to Britain last week by the barrage of criticism directed at the Saudi kingdom. Officials were in ``considerable shock'', one former British diplomat said. Back home the king is regarded as a modest reformer who has cracked down on home- grown terrorism and loosened a few relatively minor restrictions on his subjects' personal freedom. With oil prices surging, Saudi Arabia is growing in prosperity and embracing some modern trappings. Bibles and crucifixes are still banned, but internet access is spreading and there are plans for ``Mile High Tower'', the world's tallest skyscraper, in Jeddah. As a key ally of the West, the king had every reason to expect a warm welcome. Yet wealthy Saudis remain the chief financiers of worldwide terror networks. ``If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia,'' said Stuart Levey. the U.S. Treasury official in charge of tracking tenor financing. Extremist clerics provide a stream of recruits to some of the world's nastiest trouble spots. An analysis by NBC News suggested that the Saudis make up 55% of foreign fighters in Iraq. They are also among the most uncompromising and militant. Half the foreign fighters held by the U.S. at Camp Cropper near Baghdad are Saudis. They are kept in yellow jumpsuits in a separate, windowless compound after they attempted to impose sharia on the other detainees and preached an extreme form of Wahhabist Islam. In recent months, Saudi religious scholars have caused consternation in Iraq and Iran by issuing fatwas calling for the destruction of the great Shi'ite shrines in Najaf and Karbala in Iraq, some of which have already been bombed. And while prominent members of the ruling al-Saud dynasty regularly express their abhorrence of terrorism, leading figures within the kingdom who advocate extremism are tolerated. Sheikh Saleh al-Luhaidan, the chief justice, who oversees terrorist trials, was recorded on tape in a mosque in 2004, encouraging young men to fight in Iraq. ``Entering Iraq has become risky now,'' he cautioned. ``It requires avoiding those evil satellites and those drone aircraft, which own every corner of the skies over Iraq. If someone knows that he is capable of entering Iraq in order to join the fight, and if his intention is to raise up the word of God, then he is free to do so.'' The Bush administration is split over how to deal with the Saudi threat, with the State Department warning against pressure that might lead the royal family to fall and be replaced by more dangerous extremists. ``The urban legend is that George Bush and Dick Cheney are close to the Saudis because of oil and their past ties with them, but they're pretty disillusioned with them,'' said Stephen Schwartz, of the Centre for Islamic Pluralism in Washington. ``The problem is that the Saudis have been part of American policy for so long that it's not easy to work out a solution.'' According to Levey, not one person identified by America or the United Nations as a terrorist financier has been prosecuted by Saudi authorities. A fortnight ago exasperated U.S. Treasury officials named three Saudi citizens as terrorist financiers. ``In order to deter other would-be donors, it is important to hold these terrorists publicly accountable.'' Levey said. All three had worked in the Philippines, where they are alleged to have helped to finance the Abu Sayyaf group, an Al-Qaeda affiliate. One, Muham-mad Sughayr, was said to be the main link between Abu Sayyaf and wealthy Gulf donors. Sughayr was arrested in the Philippines in 2005 and swiftly deported to Saudi Arabia after pressure from the Saudi embassy in Manila. There is no evidence that he was prosecuted on his return home. This year the Saudis arrested 10 people thought to be terrorist financiers, but the excitement faded when their defense lawyers claimed that they were political dissidents and human rights groups took up their cause. Matthew Levitt, a former intelligence analyst at the US Treasury and counter-terrorism expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, believes the Saudis could do more. He said: ``It is important for the Saudis to hold people publicly accountable. Key financiers have built up considerable personal wealth and are loath to put that at risk. There is some evidence that individuals who have been outed have curtailed their financial activities.'' In the past the Saudis openly supported Islamic militants. Osama Bin Laden was originally treated as a favourite son of the regime and feted as a hero for fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. Huge charitable organisations such as the International Islamic Relief Organisation and the al-Haramain Foundation--accused in American court documents of having links to extremist groups--flourished, sometimes with patronage from senior Saudi royals. The 1991 Gulf war was a wake-up call for the Saudis. Bin Laden began making vitriolic attacks on the Saudi royal family for cooperating with the U.S. and demanded the expulsion of foreign troops from Arabia. His citizenship was revoked in 1994. The 1996 attack on the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, which killed 19 U.S. servicemen and one Saudi, was a warning that he could strike within the kingdom. As long as foreigners were the principal targets, the Saudis turned a blind eye to terror. Even the September 11 attacks of 2001, in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, could not shake their complacency. Despite promises to crack down on radical imams, Saudi mosques continued to preach hatred of America. The mood began to change in 2003 and 2004, when Al-Qaeda mounted a series of terrorist attacks within the kingdom that threatened to become an insurgency. ``They finally acknowledged at the highest levels that they had a problem and it was coming for them,'' said Rachel Bronson, the author of Thicker than Oil: America's Uneasy Partnership with Saudi Arabia. Assassination attempts against security officials caused some of the royals to fear for their own safety. In May 2004 Islamic terrorists struck two oil industry installations and a foreigners' housing compound in Khobar, taking 50 hostages and killing 22 of them. The Saudi authorities began to cooperate more with the FBI, clamp down on extremist charities. monitor mosques and keep a watchful eye on fighters returning from Iraq. Only last month Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz al-Sheikh, the kingdom's leading cleric, criticised gullible Saudis for becoming ``convenient knights for whoever wants to exploit their zeal, even to the point of turning them into walking bombs''. And last week in London, King Abdullah warned young British Muslims not to become involved with extremists. Yet the Saudis' ambivalence towards terrorism has not gone away. Money for foreign fighters and terror groups still pours out of the kingdom, but it now tends to be carried in cash by couriers rather than sent through the wires, where it can be stopped and identified more easily. A National Commission for Relief and Charity Work Abroad, a nongovernmental organisation that was intended to regulate private aid abroad to guard against terrorist financing, has still not been created three years after it was trumpeted by the Saudi embassy in Washington. Hundreds of Islamic militants have been arrested but many have been released after undergoing reeducation programmes led by Muslim clerics. According to the daily Alwa-tan, the interior ministry has given 115m riyals (14.7m) to detainees and their families to help them to repay debts, to assist families with health care and housing, to pay for weddings and to buy a car on their release. The most needy prisoners' families receive 2,000-3,000 riyals (286 to 384) a month. Ali Sa'd AI-Mussa, a lecturer at King Khaled University in Abha, protested: ``I'm afraid that holding [extremist] views leads to earning a prize or, worse, a steady income.'' Former detainees from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba are also benefiting. To celebrate the Muslim holiday of Eid, 55 prisoners were temporarily released last month and given the equivalent of 1,300 each to spend with their families. School textbooks still teach the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. A notorious antiSemitic forgery, and preach hatred towards Christians, Jews and other religions, including Shi'ite Muslims, who are considered heretics. Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Washington-based Institute for Gulf Affairs, said: ``The Saudi education system has over 5m children using these books. If only one in 1,000 take these teachings to heart and seek to act on them violently, there will be 5,000 terrorists.'' In frustration, Arlen Specter. the Republican senator for Pennsylvania, introduced the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act 10 days ago, calling for strong encouragement of the Saudi government to ``end its support for institutions that fund, train, incite, encourage or in any other way aid and abet terrorism''. The act, however, is expected to die when it reaches the Senate foreign relations committee: the Bush administration is counting on Saudi Arabia to help stabilise Iraq, curtail Iran's nuclear and regional ambitions and give a push to the Israeli and Palestinian peace process at a conference due to be held this month in Annapolis, Maryland. ``Do we really want to take on the Saudis at the moment?'' asks Bronson. ``We've got enough problems as it is.''

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. And this is not a partisan issue. The vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, talking about the objectives of al Qaeda: keep in mind there isn't any doubt here about the intentions of the terrorists. They've made it very clear. They want to get hold of a nuclear weapon. So this is not an idle threat. It's a very serious one. Lee Hamilton, a distinguished Member of this body, former Member of this body, vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission and a Democrat who did a wonderful job in leading the effort of that 9/11 Commission. One of our colleagues here in the House talked about, again, their intentions and talked a little bit about what his reaction was to September 11. His quote is: It did answer the one question we didn't know about September 11: how far would they go. What September 11 said is they will go as far as they want to, that there's no red line, that there's no sense of decency, no innocence, that our world has changed in a very real way. Those are the words of our colleague from Connecticut, Chris Shays. And then if we go back to Lee Hamilton: There is one threat because of the consequences that just rises above all others and that is the possibility of a terrorist getting hold of a nuclear weapon. They've made it very clear that they want to get a hold of a nuclear weapon. It's not an idle threat. It's a serious one. It's our responsibility not as Republicans, not as Democrats. This is an American issue. It's got to be an American priority. It is about preventing a nuclear terrorist attack. And I yield to my colleague.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Reclaiming my time, and I think that's exactly right, that we take a look at the past but most importantly that we set the right objective, the right milestone looking forward; and I think as a Congress we ought to commit to the principle of prevention. We need to commit to diplomacy and international cooperation, commit to homeland security. That includes our ports, our borders, not just our skies. Let's commit to a nonpartisan approach that applies the knowledge and wisdom of all of our elected officials. Let's learn from 9/11 the goal and the objective of making sure that we will prevent the next 9/11 from occurring. I'll yield.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But before we talk about this very important piece of legislation which the Congress extended in the waning hours before we went on our August recess, I think it is important that we put this in context. As Members of Congress and as my colleague here, Mrs. Wilson from New Mexico joins me, we serve on the Intelligence Committee. We recognize that the American people have laid upon us the responsibility to do everything in our power to assist and give the intelligence community the tools that it needs to prevent another terrorist attack against the United States. And make no doubt about it, when you take a look at what bin Laden and others in al Qaeda have said, their intent is to attack us and to attack us again and again. In 1998, bin Laden, in a series of interviews, was asked about his intentions. One of his quotes was: ``To kill the Americans and their allies, civilians and military, is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all of the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.'' That was February 28, 1998. He was asked about the possibility of acquiring chemical or nuclear weapons. His response to those questions, again in 1998, was: ``Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so.'' He goes on in another quote, December 1998, to say: ``If I seek to acquire such weapons, this is a religious duty. How we use them is up to us.'' So we have known of the intentions of bin Laden, al Qaeda and the radical jihadists for a long period of time. We experienced many of their attacks during the 1990s, whether it was the first attack on the World Trade Center, the attacks against the USS Cole, the attacks against our compounds in Saudi Arabia, or our embassies in Africa. Of course, it all culminated on 9/11 with the attacks in New York, Washington, and the crash in Pennsylvania. It is exactly these kinds of activities, these attacks against our homeland or against our interests in other parts of the world that we seek to prevent. We want to make sure that the intelligence community works with other intelligence communities around the world, because we recognize that it's not only the United States and our homeland that is vulnerable; but we recognize with the attacks in London, the attacks in Spain, the killing of van Gogh in The Netherlands, the plots that were recently disrupted in Germany, in Denmark, the airline plot that was disrupted a year ago, we recognize that the statements that bin Laden made in 1998 are still the way that they think and what they want to do in 2007. If you go back, if you go to his most recent statement, or one of his recent statements around the anniversary of 9/11, again here's what bin Laden says: However, there are two solutions for stopping it. The first is from our side, and there he's talking about the radical jihadists, and it is to continue to escalate, to continue to escalate the killing and fighting against you. This is our duty and our brothers are carrying it out, and I ask Allah to grant them resolve in victory. The second solution is from your side, meaning our side. It has now become clear to you and the entire world the impotence of the democratic system and how it plays with the interest of the peoples and their blood, by sacrificing soldiers and populations to achieve the interests of the major corporations. He wants to attack and sees it as his religious duty for radical jihadists to attack the West, to attack the United States and to escalate, and as I said earlier, his quote from 1998, he seeks access to chemical and nuclear weapons. He seeks access so that they can determine how to use it. It's our responsibility, again, to give the intelligence community and give the military the tools necessary to prevent bin Laden, to prevent radical jihadists, to prevent al Qaeda from successfully attacking the United States. I yield to my colleague from New Mexico to talk a little bit about FISA and perhaps also put some context in why this is so important and why the intelligence community is so important as we try to intercept the communications of foreign terrorists like al Qaeda, like bin Laden, like radical jihadists to prevent these kinds of terrorist attacks from occurring again in the future. I yield to my colleague.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Reclaiming my time for just a minute. When we take a look at the threat that we face today, it is a fight against radical jihadists. As my colleague pointed out, this is a fight that is very different than what we fought in the cold war. But even in the cold war we had a very specific strategy laid out and a very specific objective. Now, we need to transform our intelligence community to make sure that it is as good and as quick. Actually, it has to be better and it has to be quicker, than radical jihadists. These people who have perverted their Islamic faith to achieve what they hope will be ultimately a world in which their view of Islam dominates everyone, and you either bend to their will or you are killed. Remember, their objectives are very simple: They want to take down the government in Iraq; they then want to destabilize the region; eliminate the State of Israel; establish their caliphate, Northern Africa, Southern Europe, the Middle East, reaching down into Asia, and they want to put it under sharia law; and, at the same time, they want to continue on in the West. Remember, that for radical jihadists, as they look at the rest of the world they say, you have three options: you have the option to convert to Islam; you have the option to pay the tax, the hadid, or you will be attacked and you will be killed. And that is how they view the rest of the world. And that is why, when you take a look at the statements of bin Laden, al Qaeda, and other radical jihadist groups, it is why they are so focused and why bin Laden, in one of his latest messages, said that they need to escalate their efforts against the West. They need to escalate the killing. And why, if by the grace of God he is given a nuclear weapon, he will decide whether they will use it or how they will use it. It is why we need to use every tool at our disposal, tools that we refined and that we learned how to use during the cold war. We developed a great capability against the former Soviet Union, against other enemies during the cold war, and we ought to now take our knowledge of how these tools worked, how we put them in practice, to make sure that we got the information that kept us safe, that prevented the Soviet Union from ever being able to attack us and attack us successfully. How did we develop those tools to make sure that we got the information that we needed at the same time that we protected American civil liberties, privacy and American rights and the American way of life? We had a good balance. We got the intelligence that we needed. We kept America safe. We had a period of 50 years where we developed these tools. We developed them at their various intelligence organizations where we refined the practices in such a way that they are now positioned as we target them at different threats, and perhaps a more serious threat than what we have ever seen before, radical jihadists. These are the tools that will enable us to meet our commitment of saying we will do everything we can to prevent a successful attack against the homeland. I will yield to my colleague.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Reclaiming my time. We steal secrets. Correct?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Let me reclaim my time, Mr. Speaker, and yield to my colleague from Connecticut.