Daniel Lungren

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. I'd be happy to yield to the gentleman.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Absolutely. Let me tell you what happens in a criminal case. Let's say we have a legitimate wiretap on a member of the Mafia, and that person makes calls. We don't know who he is going to call. He calls his mother. He calls his barber. He calls the guy who delivers pizza. Because he talks to that other person who was not the target, the legal target, doesn't mean that we cannot use that information against the legal target. We can't use it against that person if that person is someone we then find is a person of interest, and we would become a target. Then we have to go get a warrant against that person. That's all that we are saying we ought to do with the law and, in fact, that is what you would do with the law that you passed. As a result, we have really put handcuffs in our ability to deal with terrorism far much more than people would argue that we would do in terms of law enforcement.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I found the comments of my friend from Maryland very interesting. I would just remind the Speaker and all who have looked on the vote today about the veto of SCHIP that when we passed the continuing resolution, we passed a continuation of SCHIP. So no children should be affected adversely during these weeks as we work to reach the compromise that the President has said he is working for. Mr. Speaker, I thought this should be called the ``FISA Week,'' Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act Week. But now because of the actions of the majority, we were not able to vote on that particular bill as it was presented to us earlier this week. We already knew we would be prohibited from offering any amendments, as the Rules Committee granted a closed rule. So let us call this the ``FISA Month,'' since we now know there is consideration for bringing the FISA bill back next week and the importance of FISA, foreign intelligence surveillance, cannot be overestimated. Yesterday, the Speaker of the House took the floor in the debate on the rule and, in a diplomatic or parliamentary tour de force, managed to contradict the United States Constitution, every decision made by the United States Supreme Court on this issue, and the decisions made by the appellate court of FISA, the FISA Courts. And that was when she suggested that the Constitution does not grant any inherent authority to the President to involve himself or direct, that is, foreign intelligence. As a matter of fact, every Supreme Court decision since the beginning of the Republic has recognized that. With respect to exclusivity of the law, every Supreme Court decision has recognized that such a law cannot be exclusive, as does the FISA Court, the appellate court under the FISA structure itself. Interestingly, however, when we do look at FISA, the bill that was brought forward to us as a result of a manager's amendment's being incorporated into the bill presented to us, it contains this language: This deals with the situation in which we have, everyone agrees, a constitutionally permitted wiretap or otherwise means of collecting communications between Osama bin Laden, a terrorist target in a foreign country, a foreigner in a foreign country. We have every right to gather that information under the law. There's no disagreement. But here is what happens under the bill presented to us: If the electronic surveillance referred to in that paragraph dealing with what we presume to be foreign-to-foreign communications inadvertently collects a communication in which at least one party to the communication is located inside the United States or is a United States person, the contents of such communication shall be handled in accordance with minimization procedures adopted by the Attorney General, and, now, this is the important language, ``that require that no contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party shall be disclosed, disseminated, or used for any purpose or retained for longer than 7 days unless a court order'' is given, ``or,'' further it says, ``unless the Attorney General,'' and this requires him specifically, ``determines that the information indicates a threat of death or serious bodily harm to any person.'' Now, why is this unfortunate? It is unfortunate because it changes the way we handle minimization in the criminal justice context. If we have a legal wiretap on a mafioso member and he happens to call his sainted mother or a priest or someone else, and that, therefore, is someone who was not under the wiretap, you don't have to go back to a court to get another court order in order to use whatever he said, that is, the mafioso member, against his interest. And here we would say that if in this conversation Osama bin Laden said something that didn't implicate the American but did give us information as to where Osama bin Laden was located or where Osama bin Laden was going to move, we would be prohibited from using that information, disclosing that information, disseminating that information, or keeping it for more than 7 days unless we went to a court for a new court order. That is nonsense. That gives Osama bin Laden more protection than an American citizen in the United States who is being investigated for a criminal offense. That is nuts. Not only is it nuts, it is dangerous to the American people because it creates a situation in which we would be blinded about information which would give us an ability, first of all, to find out what the dots are and then to connect the dots as to what the threat is against the United States. There is no rationalization for it, but it is part and parcel of what we have heard from the other side that we need to give now habeas corpus rights to those people we found on the battlefield around the world who are unlawful enemy combatants. It is part and parcel of a program that puts us at risk. I would ask us to consider it seriously next week.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Today I presented two amendments before the Rules Committee for consideration on this floor. Both were denied. One would have expanded the definition of foreign intelligence individuals or states to include nonstate actors who are involved in proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The reason I did that is al Qaeda is not a state. There are free actors out there who would attempt to work with nation states or with organizations such as al Qaeda; and technically under the definition currently in the FISA law, they are not covered so that we couldn't do these sorts of things you talk about, listening in on their conversations without warrants, even though they may be as much a threat as a small nation state somewhere. But yet we don't even have an opportunity to discuss that on the floor of the House because that amendment and every other amendment was denied.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. I would like to pose this question to the gentlelady. The gentlelady has studied this issue for a long time and was one of the first people to raise certain points of considered alarm, trying to bring a sense of urgency to this House to respond to the threat that is out there. There is another troubling aspect of the bill to be brought to the floor. It has a sunset of December 31, 2009. So that would suggest to anybody looking from the outside that there is an end game or an end date at which the threat no longer exists. Can the gentlelady give us any advice, considered opinion, as to whether or not this threat is long lasting? Or should we limit this law just to the next 2 years?

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Or his sainted mother or his brother, the priest.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. I know we only have about 5 minutes left. This is testimony that Admiral McConnell gave before the Judiciary Committee. He was asked this directly by a Member from the other side of the aisle: How many Americans have been wire tapped without a court order? The direct response by the DNI, none. He went on to say there are no wiretaps against Americans without a court order. None. What we are doing is we target a foreign person in a foreign country. If that foreign person calls in the United States, we have to do something with the call. The process is called minimization. It was the law in 1978. It is the way it is handled. Is that your understanding?

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Unless they go to court and get an order, which requires all of the necessary preparation that Admiral McConnell has told us we cannot do.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Let us return to the protections of Americans. In the criminal justice system for years and years and years, somewhere between 30 and 50 years, we have done minimization, which means that if you have a wiretap on a Mafia member, and as I say, he calls his sainted mother or his priest, and the conversation has nothing to do with Mafia activities, that is minimized. That is, it is taken out of the data field and thrown away, essentially. If he says something in that conversation, while not implicating the other person in the conversation that is of benefit to our investigation, that is, he comments he is going to be going to Nashville and that's an important piece of information for us to know, we can use that. If the receiver of the conversation or communication, by what he or she says, indicates activity of an illegal nature such that that person becomes a target, it is at that point we require a warrant for that person. Similarly, the way the law that we passed in August works is once you have the legal nonwarrant wiretap, or whatever you want to call it, catch of or capture of the communication because the target is a foreigner in a foreign country and you have reason to believe they are involved in some way that is covered under the law, that conversation or communication to someone within the United States is treated in the very same way. If the conversation has nothing to do with terror, it is minimized. It is thrown out. If the conversation contained some information about the legal target that is of benefit, we can use that information against that target. If in fact the response or the statement made by the person in the United States, the American, is of a nature that gives us cause to believe that person is involved in terror, we then go get a warrant because that person becomes a target. Is that the gentlelady's understanding of how we operate?

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, thank you for the recognition. And I would say that this week ought to be known as ``FISA week.'' The reason I say that is because this week we will make an important vote on determining whether or not we will have the ability to defend our country, both now and in the future. As we have moved on a bipartisan basis since 9/11 to attempt to meet the challenge of the threat internationally that is sometimes called the ``war on terror,'' sometimes called the ``war of Islamo-fascism,'' sometimes called the ``war on radical jihad,'' no matter what the name, the American people know what it is we are speaking of. We have, in this House, in the Senate and in the executive branch adopted an analysis which allows us to respond in the most effective way, and that analysis is a risk-based analysis. And simply put, broken down into its constituent parts, risk equals threat plus vulnerability plus consequence. The interesting thing in this equation is that the knowledge base of the bottom two elements, vulnerability and consequence, are within our grasp. Now, what do I mean by that? What I mean by that is vulnerability is our ability to assess how vulnerable our assets are that might be attacked by the enemy surrounding us. We can make educated judgments with respect to those assets, their value, how they could be attacked or destroyed, and how we can protect them against such attack or attempt of destruction. Similarly, consequence is within our knowledge base. We know, with a successful attack, what the consequence would be. For instance, if the attack were lodged against a dam, a catastrophic event, a collapse of a dam as a result of an attack, we can measure what the consequences would be. How? Well, we know the number of people that would be in the way. We know the number of buildings that would be in the way. We can make a determination as to the overall destructive power of the surging water that would come through a destroyed dam. We can make an educated judgment as to the time by which those assets that would be destroyed, the time it would take to restore such assets, such as highways, byways, such as shopping malls, homes, hospitals, all of those sorts of things. So, within our risk assessment, we are capable, more or less, of determining what our vulnerability is and what the consequences of a successful attack would be. There is a third element, threat, which is not as much in control of our already existing knowledge. Why? Because threat essentially is the intention of the enemy, the targets of the enemy, the timing of the enemy. That's what, in fact, a threat is. So, since that knowledge base is not within our power, essentially, how do we deal with that? How do we calculate what the threat is? We do so by utilizing intelligence. We gather intelligence. We find information from the other side, if you will, of the battle. This is not a novel approach. It is recognized in the Constitution and the interpretations of the Constitution by the Supreme Court and other Federal courts from the beginning of this Republic in that it is recognized that the President of the United States was given Commander- in-Chief powers. Why? Because of the failure of the Continental Congress, because of the failure of the first Confederation of States when they found that you could not have multiple commanders in chief. You had to have a single executive, particularly in the area of war, defense of our country, or relationships with foreign governments. Now, implicit in the ability or the capability of a Commander-in- Chief to exercise military strength on behalf of the Nation to defend itself, that is, to destroy those who would attempt to destroy us, yes, to give the President of the United States the power to exercise lethal action against the enemy, and that means, quite frankly, to wound or kill the enemy, to stop the enemy from destroying us, implicit in that authority is the authority to gather intelligence, the authority to gather foreign intelligence. In other words, one of the ways you find out what the enemy is to do on the battlefield is to find out what he is saying, the conversations that take place on the other side, the plans that they are developing, and the commands that they give to carry out their intended lethal action. That, essentially, is foreign intelligence. And what we are going to vote on this week is something called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA. Now, the reason I bring this to the floor and I spell out these words is to remember what the focus of this bill is. It is on foreign intelligence, not domestic intelligence, not the ability to try and stop the mob from acting in the United States, not the ability to stop certain criminals in the United States from committing a crime or to investigate after they've committed the crime in order to prove up the case against them and to give them their just punishment, but rather, foreign intelligence, intelligence which deals with foreign governments, foreign powers, and associated organizations or people. The FISA Act was passed by the Congress in 1978, intended to establish a statutory procedure authorizing the use of electronic surveillance in the United States against foreign powers or agents of foreign powers. FISA established two new courts. First, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which authorizes such electronic surveillance, and secondly, the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which has jurisdiction to review any denial of an order under FISA. These courts are made up of Federal judges from around the country, and they meet in secret session here in Washington, D.C. I would note that the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence report that accompanied FISA in 1978 clearly expressed Congress' intent to exclude from coverage overseas intelligence activities. In other words, they never intended for the FISA court and procedure to somehow have authority over what is truly overseas intelligence activities dealing with foreign intelligence or intelligence of foreign governments or foreign organizations. The report stated this: ``The Committee has explored the feasibility of broadening this legislation to apply overseas, but has concluded that certain problems and unique characteristics involved in overseas surveillance preclude the simple extension of this bill to overseas intelligence.'' In other words, it was not the focus of the 1978 act, rather, the act focused on domestic surveillance of persons located within the United States. The law was crafted specifically to exclude surveillance operations against targets outside the U.S., including those circumstances where the targets were in communication with Americans, as long as the U.S. side of the communication was not the real target. That's a very important thing to understand. In the ability to be able to record these messages or in some way pick up these communications, you really have the ability to target one side of the communication. And so what we do is we target a foreign person in a foreign country. Contrary to what Congress originally intended, due to the changes in technology and resulting interpretation of the FISA Act, warrants have been recently required in order to conduct surveillance against terrorists located overseas in some circumstances. Why? The technology changed in that, in 1978, most local communication was by wire, most international communication was wireless by satellite. We could take it basically out of the air, for want of a better description, and it was overseas. The 1978 act did not contemplate bringing those conversations, those communications within the ambit of FISA. In the intervening years, we've had a revolution in technology by which most local communication now is by wireless and international communication basically comes by wire. And the fact of the matter is the nodes or the centers or the switching places, whatever you want to call it, not technical terms, happen to be, most of them, in the United States. And so suddenly the interpretation of FISA, now looking at the connection where you would try and somehow be able to capture this conversation that really was of someone overseas and not American, now, because it transited somehow the U.S., an interpretation by the FISA court was that a warrant was now needed. Now, why would this present a problem for our intelligence community? Admiral McConnell, the former head of the National Security Agency, NSA, under President Clinton and now the current Director of National Intelligence, explained this to our Judiciary Committee. It takes about 200 man-hours to prepare a request for a court order in the FISA court for just one telephone number; 200 man-hours. As he explained to the judiciary in the other body, intelligence community agencies were required to make a showing of probable cause in order to target for surveillance the communications of a foreign intelligence target located overseas; then, they need to explain the probable cause finding in documentation and obtain approval of the FISA court to collect against a foreign terrorist located in a foreign country. Frequently, although not always, that person's communications were with another foreign person located overseas. In such cases, prior to the Protect America Act, that's the act that we passed before we left in August, which I might add is not going to be allowed to be considered on the floor, at least the Rules Committee told us earlier today they would allow no amendments, the FISA's requirement to obtain a court order based on a showing of probable cause slowed, and in some cases, prevented altogether the government's ability to collect foreign intelligence information out serving any substantial privacy or civil liberties interests. Again, as the legislative history of the 1978 FISA Act made clear, it was never the intention of the act to cover surveillance of non-U.S. persons overseas so long as the U.S. person located in the United States was not the real target of the surveillance. Yet prior to the enactment of the bill that we passed in August, which has a sunset in February of next year, that's the reason we have to consider it this week, our intelligence community was saddled with the requirement that they devote substantial resources for the preparation of applications required to be submitted to the FISA court. As an economist might say, this substantial diversion of resources imposed opportunity costs measured in terms of the intelligence analysis which was not done because of the need to complete paperwork in order to surveil foreign intelligence assets outside the U.S. who were never intended to be covered by the old law. In other words, you had to take the analysts off the job of looking at current communications that might protect us against attacks in the United States or elsewhere by those who want to kill Americans, who have said, by the way, that they would be justified in killing 4 million Americans, 2 million of whom would be women and children. We take them off that pursuit and instead put them on this job of doing the intellectual work that would allow for the paperwork to be presented to the FISA Court. Furthermore, in response to a question I posed to him, Admiral McConnell affirmed that prior to the Protect America Act, again, the act we passed just before we left in August, the intelligence community attempted to work under the laws interpreted by the court but found that as a result of working under those restrictions, his agency was prohibited from successfully targeting foreign conversations that otherwise would have been targeted for possible terrorist activity. Think of that: those kinds of conversations that we always were able to pick up before, before we ever had a FISA, after we had the 1978 FISA Act, we were not able to pick up anymore. In fact, he said that prior to the enactment of the Protect America Act this past August, we were not collecting somewhere between one-half and two-thirds of the foreign intelligence information which would have been collected were it not for the recent legal interpretations of FISA requiring the government to obtain FISA warrants for overseas surveillance. To put it in graphic terms, we have put blinders on one of our two eyes as to the ability for us to look at those dots and connect those dots that the 9/11 Commission said we weren't finding and weren't connecting before 9/11. The consequences of this for our Nation's security are very real. As Admiral McConnell explained to our committee: ``In the debate over the summer and since, I heard from individuals from both inside and outside the government assert that threats to our Nation do not justify this authority. Indeed, I have been accused of exaggerating the threats that face our Nation,'' said Admiral McConnell. He continued: ``Allow me to attempt to dispel this notion. The threats that we face are real and they are indeed serious. In July of this year, we released a National Intelligence Estimate, commonly referred to as an NIE, on the terrorist threat to the homeland. In short, these assessments conclude the following: the United States will face a persistent and evolving terrorist threat over the next 3 years.'' Why 3 years? That is the total time of the NIE. They are not saying it will only just be 3 years, but in the time frame that they were supposed to assess, this threat will continue. They say that the main threat comes from Islamic terrorist groups and cells, especially al Qaeda. Al Qaeda continues to coordinate with regional terrorist groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq, across North Africa and other regions. Al Qaeda will likely continue to focus on prominent political, economic, and infrastructure targets with a goal of producing mass casualties. Mass casualties. That means thousands, if not millions, of Americans if they were successful. Visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershock and fear among the U.S. population. These terrorists are weapons proficient. They are innovative and they are persistent. Al Qaeda will continue to seek to acquire chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear material for attack; and they will use them given the opportunity. This is the threat we face today and one that our intelligence community is challenged to counter. So says Admiral McConnell. This is the real issue, the 800-pound gorilla in the room, if you will, which remains the central question before us: How do we best protect America and the American people from another cataclysmic event? I do not believe it is good enough for us to say we are preparing to respond to an attack. I believe what we need to do is to prepare to prevent such an attack. As I have suggested before, when you assess the risk which allows us a proper assessment to be able to determine how we best array our resources against such an attack, we need to have threat, plus vulnerability, plus consequence. And the only way you can assess threat is by having proper intelligence. As the National Security Estimate makes clear, those who seek to kill us continue in their resolve to, once again, inflict mass casualties upon our Nation. The threat is still there. Although we have been successful in thwarting another attack since 9/11, there are no guarantees in this business. In fact, if you would look at the polls that I've seen most recently, you will find that something like 70 percent of the American people, in fact I believe it is 73 percent of the American people in the latest poll I saw, believe that we, that the U.S. Government, has been effective in forestalling a terrorist attack on our shores. However, 57 percent believe that we are less safe. So you put those two things together, you try and figure out what the American people are saying. I think what we are saying is they believe that many of the things that we have done in government with the support of the American people and the funding of the American people have been successful in forestalling a terrorist attack on American shores, but they know that al Qaeda and their affiliates and associates have not been deterred to the extent that they are still trying to do us harm. So they see a continuing problem, and they expect us to see the continuing problem and bring us the efforts necessary to protect against a successful attack as seen from the other side. Independent sources such as Brian Jenkins in the RAND Corporation have stressed that intelligence capability is a key element in our effort to protect our homeland. He states this: ``In the terror attacks since 9/11, we have seen combinations of local conspiracies inspired by, assisted by, and guided by al Qaeda's central leadership. It is essential that while protecting the basic rights of American citizens, we find ways to facilitate the collection and exchange of intelligence across national and bureaucratic borders.'' In this regard, Admiral McConnell came before us last August asking for changes in the 1978 FISA Act. When you think about it, a definition of ``electronic surveillance'' constructed almost 28 years ago certainly could not have kept pace with changes in technology. Ironically, as I said, when FISA was first enacted, almost all international communications were wireless. The cell phone did not even exist. Although the revolution in telecommunications technology has improved the quality of all of our lives, it has taken a quantum leap beyond the law. When FISA was passed in 1978, almost all local calls were on a wire and almost all international calls were wireless. However, now the situation is upside down. International communications which would have been wireless 29 years ago are now transmitted by wire. While wireless radio and satellite communications were excluded from FISA's coverage in 1978, certain wire or fiber optic transmissions fell under the definition of electronic surveillance. Thus, changes in technology have brought communications within the scope of FISA which Congress never intended to cover in 1978. Similarly, the rise of a global telecommunications network rendered irrelevant the premium placed on geographic location by the 1978 act. As Admiral McConnell explained to our committee, it is the Judiciary Committee, in the old days location was much easier. Today, with mobile communications, it is much more difficult. So a target can move around. So the evolution of communications over time has made it much more difficult. So what we were attempting to do is get us back to 1978 so we could do our business and legitimately target foreign targets and keep track of threats and respect the privacy rights of Americans. Because a cell phone, he continued, for example, with a foreign number, GSM system, theoretically could come into the United States and you wouldn't appreciate it had changed. So you would have to now work that problem, and if you did then determine that it was in the United States and you had a legitimate foreign intelligence interest, at that point, you have to get a warrant. It was with this backdrop that we enacted the Protect America Act this past August. According to Admiral McConnell, this act has provided us with the tools to close our gaps in our foreign intelligence collection. Think of that. That is what the 9/11 Commission asked us to do, close those gaps. He found those gaps that were at least as wide and even wider following the decision by the FISA Court earlier this year. He said, and says, that the bill we passed in August has closed those gaps. He described five pillars in the important new law. First, it clarified the definition of electronic surveillance under FISA that it would not be interpreted to include surveillance directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside the U.S. Under the law, it is not required for our intelligence community to obtain a FISA warrant when the subject of the surveillance is a foreign intelligence target located outside the U.S. This important element of the law is entirely consistent with the legislative history of the 1978 act. As I previously mentioned, it was not intended to reach foreign intelligence outside the U.S. The second pillar of the act we passed in August establishes a role for the FISA Court in determining that the procedures used by the intelligence community are reasonable in terms of their capacity to determine that surveillance target is outside the U.S. The third pillar of the act provides the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence with the authority to direct communications providers to provide information, facilities and assistance necessary to obtain other information when targeting foreign intelligence targets outside the U.S. The corollary of this obligation to provide intelligence information is the fourth pillar which establishes liability protection for private parties who assist the intelligence community when complying with a lawful direction under the law. Finally, the law continues the requirement that the intelligence community must obtain a court order to conduct electronic surveillance or a physical search when the targeted person is located in the U.S. Admiral McConnell defined the concept of the gap to be closed to mean foreign intelligence information that we should have been collecting. I am sure that most Americans would agree with the admiral that in a world with weapons of mass destruction there is no room for gaps in our intelligence capacity. Let me repeat: this is the considered judgment of a career officer in the U.S. Navy who headed the National Security Agency under President Clinton for 4 years and who now serves as the Director of National Intelligence. It is his considered judgment that the changes we made in the law in August were necessary. Although it was scheduled to sunset 180 days after enactment on February 5, the ink was hardly dry before the left-wing blogosphere was going bananas. Now, don't get my wrong. I defend the right of any American to scrutinize and seek a different course concerning our national security policy. However, based on Admiral McConnell's service to his country to Democrat and Republican administrations, I would suggest that those who seek substantive changes in what he has told us to be necessary should face a heavy burden of proof. In fact, in his appearance before the Judiciary Committee while reserving the right to see the fine print, he indicated he himself was open to discussions concerning changes in the end. I would also make the observation that it is time for all of us to agree that this is not about President Bush. Whether you hate him or love him or don't have any feelings about him at all, that is not the issue here. We are talking about the security of our Nation, the safety of our people, the men, women, children, grandchildren we encounter in our districts at Little League games, Girl Scout meetings, and our town halls. Those who send us here to represent them are depending on us to protect their lives and the lives of their children. This is the context within which we must consider this ultimate matter of our responsibility. While the law we passed in August, the Protect America Act, represents a major step forward in protecting the American people, there remain elements of the larger package unveiled by Admiral McConnell and General Hayden which should receive our prompt attention. First and foremost, it is imperative for this body to extend liability protection to companies who responded to the entreaties of their government since the 9/11 attacks. That is why I am so disappointed when I appeared before the Rules Committee earlier today and we were told, as we walked in, as anybody walked in with an amendment, We will listen to you, but we have already decided it is going to be a closed rule. One of the amendments offered would have given this liability protection. At a time when our country was in peril, these companies responded to the call for help. In an earlier era, maybe in a simpler time, this might have been described as patriotism. But now, instead of kudos, what do they get? They receive a summons and a complaint. They were met by costly litigation because of their willingness to respond to our country in a time of need. When we brought the issue up in our Judiciary Committee, one of the members on the other side of the aisle said, Well, these companies have millions dollars' worth of lawyers so they can defend themselves. Boy, that is the way we ought to do things. We are going to fight the war on terror with summonses and warrants. We are going to sue them out of existence. Oh, I'm sorry. We are not suing the terrorists; we are suing the companies who helped us respond to the terrorists. Figure that one out. Mr. Speaker, I would go so far as to suggest that regardless of what you think of the war in Iraq, regardless of what you may think of the war on terror, this violates all notions of fundamental fairness. It sends the worst possible message, not only to companies, but to the American public itself, that those who would come to the aid of their country are fools, and it is those on such an ideological crusade seeking to protect this Nation through lawsuits that are somehow the true American heroes. Rosy the Riveter of World War II fame has been replaced by lawyers in three-piece suits. Some of you may be old enough to remember the standard text used in our typing classes. We would practice over and over again. Boy, I recall this, typing out the following sentence: Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. Of course it would have been better stated that: Now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of their country. This was an ethos which went unchallenged. Believe me, in typing classes it wasn't a Republican idea, it wasn't a Democratic idea, it was an American idea, so noncontroversial, that it was standard text: Now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of their country. Mr. Speaker, we must not send a message to our companies and the American people that if you respond to your government when our fellow citizens are threatened by a cataclysmic attack that the very government which sought your help will not be there for you when the ideologues come after you with lawsuits. Even if you hate this President so much you can't see him to succeed in anything, at least consider the possibility that there will be a war down the line that you may support. Furthermore, those who drive around with 1/20/09 bumper stickers need to consider the fact that maybe, possibly there could be a new occupant in the White House more to their liking. He or she is going to need all the help that he or she can get. Mr. Speaker, the war on terror is not going to end with the term of the current President. The new administration is going to need to call on the help of all Americans, including companies like those whose only offense was to respond to the tragedy of 9/11. By what? Serving their government. Consider the additional downside of using litigation as an ideological weapon. As anyone who picks up the daily newspaper knows, there is always a story concerning the latest lawsuits. The litigation system can produce leaks of the most sensitive information. It is not the dissemination of information to the public which is even our principal concern. Rather, potential leaks of sensitive information to terrorists will better equip them with the ability to maneuver in the plan which they are committed to doing, killing innocent Americans. Unfortunately, H.R. 3773, to be considered on this floor, the so- called RESTORE Act that we passed out of Judiciary Committee last week and passed out of the Intelligence Committee, and which is scheduled for floor action as early as tomorrow, fails to address this issue. It does nothing, zero, provides no protection for the companies who came to the aid of our Nation after 9/11. As a matter of fact, if you listen to what happened in the Rules Committee, if you heard the debate in the Judiciary Committee, I presume if you heard the debate in the Intelligence Committee, you would not consider these companies to be something valuable in the defense of our Nation. They are suspect. They are questioned. They are, in essence, patsies, if you really look at this. Mr. Speaker, the Protect America Act does not contain retroactive liability protection; not because we didn't believe in it, but because Admiral McConnell agreed to delay discussion on the agreement in order to reach an agreement on the law we passed in August to enable us to close the critical gaps in our Nation's intelligence-gathering ability prior to the August break. Since by its own terms that law was to expire February 5, this was an issue to be resolved at this time. Unfortunately, the RESTORE Act resolves it by ignoring it. It is, therefore, essential for this body to take the necessary action to ensure that those who responded to the call for help after 9/11 will not be fed to the litigators. Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to yield to my friend from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson), a member of the Intelligence Committee, a former member of our military forces, and someone who has been probably the most articulate in explaining the need for the changes in the law that we passed in August and for making that permanent as we go forward.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I have referred to that section, that first section where they say you don't need it if it is foreign-to-foreign as the ``furtive fig leaf'' section of the bill, which appears to give Admiral McConnell what he needs, but because of the actual practicality of it, denies him the opportunity to do it, because essentially that was sort of the state of the law prior to the time we passed the law in August, and he told us it doesn't work.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. If the gentlewoman would allow me to reclaim my time for a moment, evidently some on the other side of the aisle have listened to a little bit of our complaint here, so in the manager's amendment they have included what they consider to be the saving piece of that first section, which says if the electronic surveillance referred to in paragraph 1 inadvertently collects a communication in which at least one party to the communication is located inside the U.S. or is a United States person, the contents of such communication shall be handled in accordance with minimization procedures adopted by the Attorney General. If that is all they did, that would be fine with me. But they then go on to say this, that require that no contents of any communication to which the United States person is a party shall be disclosed, disseminated or used for any purpose or retained for longer than 7 days, unless you get a court order or unless the Attorney General determines specifically in this case that the information indicates a threat of death or serious bodily harm to any person. Now, Admiral McConnell has suggested to us that time frame, they say you can't keep it longer than 7 days, may not be practical within the contours of how we actually get that information, number one; and, secondly, you can't use that information. You can't give it to anybody. You can't disclose it to the FBI, even though the information doesn't make the person in the United States a target, the information contained in that conversation is all about Osama bin Laden calling into the United States and something he says that is important for our purposes. That is the extraordinary thing here, because it says no contents of any communication to which the United States person is a party shall be disclosed, disseminated or used. It is exactly contrary to what Admiral McConnell said, which is the law should be directed at the identity of the individual we are targeting. So in this case, because you now capture a conversation that has taken place with the foreign person in a foreign land into the United States, even though it doesn't give rise to anything that would make a target of that person in the United States, you can't use any of that conversation with respect to the target for which you don't need a warrant, even though that person could be Osama bin Laden or one of his top people. That is nuts. With all due respect, I use the word ``nuts,'' but I think that is probably proper.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. The gentlelady is exactly correct, and let me suggest, to get down to basics, that when surveillance is directed overseas, legitimate concerns relating to purely domestic surveillance are not implicated. We should all be concerned about the protections of civil liberties, as the 9/11 Commission put it. The choice between security and liberty is a false choice as nothing is more likely to endanger America's liberties than the success of a terrorist attack at home. And I thank the gentlelady for her comments.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. We should recall the words of the United States Supreme Court in the Keith case which is the case that dealt with wiretaps in the United States. They said that while there was no warrant exception in domestic surveillance cases, it was not addressing the question of activities related to foreign powers and their agents. And in that unanimous opinion, the court noted that were the government to fail ``to preserve the security of its people, society itself could become so disordered that all rights and liberties would be endangered.'' Justice White, a John Kennedy appointment to the Court who personified the definition of a moderate, said this in his concurring opinion in the Katz v. U.S. case: ``We should not require the warrant procedure in a magistrate's judgment if the President of the United States or his chief legal officer, the Attorney General, has considered the requirements of national security and authorized electronic surveillance as reasonable.'' In other words, the court when it dealt with this issue those years ago recognized the difference between a criminal justice system and a system of intelligence and counterterrorism to protect our country from attack by those who would basically destroy everything, including our Constitution and our constitutional foundation.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Madam Speaker, today I rise to bring your attention to Monticello Dam which is located at the very western border of California's Third Congressional District. This month marks the 50th anniversary of Monticello Dam, a part of the Federal Solano Project. The Solano Project is owned by the United States Bureau of Reclamation and is operated and maintained locally by the Solano County Water Agency. It serves a growing population of about 350,000 people and irrigated farm land of about 80,000 acres. The beautiful Lake Berryessa was formed by Monticello Dam. Lake Berryessa is enjoyed year round for its recreational opportunities. Lower Putah Creek downstream of the dam provides a valuable fish and wildlife area and the Lower Putah Creek Coordinating Committee, made up of Yolo and Solano representatives, is involved in creek restoration projects to enhance the natural setting. Monticello Dam is an integral part of the Federal Solano Project and is an example of how the Bureau of Reclamation was able to achieve environmental protection, restore and protect wildlife habitat, and at the same time provide much needed water for the people of this part of the state of California. It exemplifies how we can work responsibly to utilize the benefits of nature on behalf of all the people.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for the time. Madam Speaker, we've heard a lot of comments from our friends on the other side of the aisle about what the President meant by his veto. Well, let's talk for a moment what we mean by the action we're going to take. We're going to postpone action on the veto override. We're going to postpone for 2 weeks a significant decision which will allow us to begin, on a bipartisan basis, to answer this question. I'm not sure I have seen a more cynical move in the House in my 13 years here. Maybe there has been one, but none comes to mind here. But we have such a priority to name post offices after eminent people this week, but we don't have the time to stay here to work on this issue. No, we're going to postpone our override of the President's veto because somehow we, in some silly way, say we need a time-out. We don't need a time-out. We need a time-in. We need to work. There are many things the American people are concerned about. One is health care for those poor children. That's why this program was established some 10 years ago. But the American people are also concerned about budgets that are out of control, and one of the reasons you have a budget out of control is because we take worthy programs that were designed for a specific purpose and we expand them and distort them beyond all recognition and have a program that is sold as for the children, that in some States has more adults on it than children, has more adults before you've registered the children, has gone beyond focusing on the poor children, is a program that is going to bankrupt this country because you see that repeated again and again and again. Cynicism, cynicism is postponing the action on this floor. Last time I checked, we're not going to be here tomorrow. Last time I checked, we're going to be out of here by 7 o'clock tonight, but we don't have time to deal with this veto override so we can get about the business of truly dealing with a bipartisan approach to dealing with children's health. That's the message here, not defining what the President's veto is, but by our actions defining who and what we are.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, today in the Judiciary Committee we were supposed to mark up H.R. 2826. I was informed that the Judiciary Committee has postponed this to a time uncertain. This was also to be the day that that bill or a similar bill was to be marked up in the Armed Services Committee. That was postponed as well. The bill, H.R. 2826, was to deal with an issue that is unprecedented and, I would say, unnecessary. And while I am pleased that there was a postponement of consideration of the bill today, I would hope that those on the other side of the aisle who control the schedule both on this floor and in committees would reconsider this bill or any similar bill because this bill is an effort to extend habeas corpus rights to alien enemy combatants. It is a dramatic departure not only from the language of the Detainee Treatment Act, which was passed by this House and the Senate and signed by the President, but from longstanding principles in our Anglo-American legal tradition. As the United States Supreme Court recognized in the Johnson v. Eisentrager case, there is ``no instance where a court in this or any other country where the writ is known issued it on behalf of an alien enemy.'' What possible reason could we give to the American people and to our troops currently involved in combat for giving al Qaeda and Taliban detainees rights that have never been given to alien enemy combatants in the history of armed conflict? Never. I underscore ``never.'' Was the Greatest Generation wrong for its failure to accord habeas rights to the more than 425,000 enemy combatants held inside the United States during World War II? We held well over a million, I believe it was over 2 million POWs around the world. But we held 425,000 of them in the United States. Imagine if we had granted them the right to habeas corpus access to our Federal courts. Not only would it have cluttered all of the Federal courts in this land, but it would have had judges making decisions on combat issues rather than the Commander in Chief and our military as we have always recognized since the founding of this Republic. In responding to the argument that the writ extends to alien enemy combatants, Justice Jackson of the Supreme Court said, ``No decision of this court supports such a view. None of the learned commentators on our Constitution has ever hinted at it. The practice of every modern government is opposed to it.'' So I want people to understand, Mr. Speaker, that when we are to consider this in the Judiciary Committee and the Armed Services Committee, we are doing something so fundamentally drastic, so different from anything that has ever been done in the history of this Nation. We are opening the gates to the full panoply of rights under the Federal habeas corpus statute. Complex evidentiary hearings, the rules of civil procedure, rules of evidentiary custody are understandable in relation to the protection of the constitutional rights of Americans where evidence and witnesses are more accessible. But are we willing to force our men and women in uniform to cross- examination, to depositions or to interrogatories as outlined in the Federal habeas statute? The availability of the habeas corpus remedy may serve the interest of justice with respect to U.S. prisoners; however, it is a blunt instrument. As Justice Frankfurter observed in McCleskey v. Zant, ``The writ has potentialities for evil as well as for good. Abuse of the writ may undermine the orderly administration of justice.'' It has no relevance here and presents the prospect of abuse. It is for that reason that from time immemorial, habeas relief has not been extended to alien enemy combatants captured outside the realm of the sovereign. We must reject the notion that we can fight the war on terrorism with platoons of lawyers. It was stunning to learn that prior to the Detainee Treatment Act, some detainee attorneys sought the wholesale disruption of interrogations. In a telling revelation, one detainee lawyer boasted in public that ``the litigation is brutal. It's huge. We have over 100 lawyers now from big and small firms working to represent the detainees. Every time an attorney goes down there, it makes it that much harder to do what they're doing. You can't run an interrogation with attorneys. What are they going to do now that we're getting court orders to get more lawyers down there?'' That is why we changed the law and to have two committees in this House now to say we should change it back is irresponsible. We should not do this.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, in my own district, I have an outstanding example of the best of American business. One of the stores of my district, Lowe's, a store in Citrus Heights, is one of the best in the country. I think they serve the community well. But I would like to talk about an experience my wife and I had this last Saturday here at the Lowe's store in Northern Virginia, in Alexandria. We were going there to buy an appliance that we needed. While we waited for it to be taken out of inventory, I went outside in the parking lot where I saw two large vans that were identified as DeWalt vans. That is the name of the company that provides the power tools that are sold at Lowe's. And I have purchased at least one in the past and thought I might be interested in purchasing another. So, I went out to the big display they had where they had roped off a part of the parking lot to see what they had, to see what I might want to purchase. I was given a flier. I have a blowup of that flier here. When I was handed the flier, I noticed that it was in Spanish. I asked if I could have an English translation or English flier. I was told they didn't have any. But I was told that I could look at the pictures to see what they had on display. I commented that I thought I was in the United States. I was born here. I was taught English in the schools. At that point in time, whoever was doing a bit of the program got on the mike and started speaking to those who were assembled. He spoke in Spanish. I then went inside. As we were making the purchase, I asked to see the manager of the Lowe's store there on Jefferson Highway in Alexandria, Virginia at about 1:30 in the afternoon. The manager came up to me and asked what my complaint was. I suggested that I thought it might be a good idea that they also have English available to those of us who might want to purchase their product. He first told me that wasn't his problem, it was DeWalt's. Of course, DeWalt, as far as I could tell, you only could purchase at Lowe's. Then he looked at me with some chagrin in his face and some upset that I would bring it up and said, ``Well, if you want me to apologize because it is in Spanish, okay, I apologize.'' There was no attempt made to try and service a customer who wanted to buy a product, who wanted to have something explained to him in English rather than looking at the pictures. Now, I understand if I am in another country where English is not the predominant language, I would not be offended if somebody handed me a sheet and said, ``I am sorry we don't have something in English, but you can look at the pictures and see what we have.'' But to be made to feel like a foreigner in your own country within just 30 miles of our Nation's Capitol seems passing strange. I don't object to the celebration of other cultures. We have half Irish and half Swedish in my background. I understand that many of us in America enjoy the celebration of St. Patrick's Day. Many in America and the State in which I was born, California, celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Individuals who come from other backgrounds, whose ancestors have come from other countries, we rejoice in the diversity of America. We rejoice in the fact that we are a country of immigrants. But when we attempt to deal with the difficult questions of immigration, both legal and illegal, and I have been involved in trying to create laws in that for the last 27 years, and when we talk about the issue of multiculturalism in this society, how do we, somehow, create a society that is made even better by the tremendous contributions of people from around the world, different cultures, ethnicities, languages and backgrounds? We still have to understand. We have to have some unifying elements in this society precisely because we have so many backgrounds. One of those unifying elements, in my humble opinion, is a common language, that common language being English. I think when things like this occur, I wasn't identified as a congressman, I was just a plain old customer, as was my wife, this is the kind of thing I think that irritates so many Americans who believe we have just given up on attempting to bring us together with a common American culture brought together by a number of different things, one of which, importantly, is our language. I would hope that not only in this body would we reflect on that, but I would hope some of our commercial enterprises, such as Lowe's, would reflect on that, as well.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, yesterday in the House Judiciary Committee we heard from Admiral McConnell, who is the Director of National Intelligence, over the need for us to reenact that bill which we passed just 1\1/2\ months ago which reformed FISA, which of course is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Mr. Speaker, probably in the 3 years that I have been here, in my second tour of duty as a Member of Congress, no more important bill did I vote on than voting the passage of a reform of FISA. The admiral indicated that two-thirds of our foreign terrorist targets were blinded from our review as a result of a FISA court decision under the old FISA. That is why we needed to pass the reform. We put a 6-month leash on it, that is, it will go out of existence in 6 months. There is no more important thing for this body to do than to pass a reform of FISA that makes permanent the changes that we adopted just 1\1/2\ months ago. Our Nation depends on it. Our children and our grandchildren's future depends on it. Let's make sure we act responsibly.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Madam Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to share with my colleagues a noteworthy article about the fine work of Mr. Tredway Childress, a senior restoration specialist and finisher at the House of Representatives, office of the Chief Administrative Officer. Mr. Childress recently led the restoration of the century-old mahogany rostrum in Room 311 of the Cannon House Office Building, home to the House Ways and Means Committee from 1908-1933 and the current home of the Committee on Homeland Security. This magnificent rostrum was originally the centerpiece for debates and deliberations that surrounded the 16th Amendment and the authorization of income taxes in 1913. As a Member of the Committee on Homeland Security, I know firsthand that Tredway's handiwork in Room 311 has added dignity and a sense of history to our Committee deliberations. In addition, Mr. Childress has refinished numerous chairs and other furniture in the Capitol, including an original Cannon table 1907 vintage that I use in my Rayburn office. Tredway was recently profiled by Don Williams, his colleague and mentor at the Smithsonian's Museum Conservation Institute, in Woodshop News, an industry trade magazine. The article pays an important tribute to Mr. Childress. Mr. Williams notes that the restoration of the Cannon building rostrum to its previous grandeur could have only been accomplished by ``someone with Tredway's remarkable combination of talent, education, craft skill and commitment to preserving past treasures.'' Madam Speaker, I commend Mr. Childress for his outstanding service to the House of Representatives over the past 7 years and thank him for his dedication to make the furniture in my office, and many others', look more capturing than its original state. His commitment to preserving important symbols of our Nation's history will be greatly appreciated for many years. [From Woodshop News, August 2007] Giving the Nation's Capitol a Winning Finish Tredway Childress attributes his skills to the National Institute of Wood Finishing (By Jennifer Hicks) Tredway Childress is the iconic example of a woodworker meeting his maximum potential. Currently employed by the U.S. Congress, he is a senior restoration specialist and finisher for the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. He is part of a team that oversees all finishing and is the caretaker to over 2,000 historic items associated with Congress and past leaders, and is also regarded as a collaborator with the Smithsonian Institution at the U.S. Capitol. A woodworker and furniture maker in earlier years, Childress, 62, said he reached a point where he wanted to perfect his restoration skills, particularly wood finishing. ``I have always worked with furniture; built, sold and finished it. The finishing part was always the hardest--the more I did it the more I didn't understand it,'' said Childress. In 1998 he moved to the Midwest for the sole purpose of attending the National Institute of Wood Finishing at Dakota County Technical College in Rosemount, Minn. To this day Childress credits instructor Mitchell Kohanek, a wood finisher of nearly 30 years, for giving him the knowledge he needed to become a professional finisher. He is now confident he is capable of getting any job he wants in the field. Kohanek offers short-term workshops, but his nine-month diploma program is the only certified wood finishing education program in the United States. It teaches students about wood technology; selection and application of finishes; application of dyes, stains, glazes and toners; color matching; spray finishing; basic and advanced finishing; spot repair of wood, leather, and vinyl, and last but not least, refinishing and restoration. Childress raves about how the program taught him the gamut of problem-solving techniques, such as how to deal with ``orange peel'' results and to prevent them from happening in the first place. A year after Childress graduated in 1998, Kohanek informed him that the Capitol was looking for a finisher to hire onto their crew of tradesmen. After a year's background screening, Childress was hired and has been there ever since. Recently, he was the lead wood finisher during the restoration of a historic Cannon Building flame mahogany rostrum, which housed the Ways and Means Committee as early as 1907. The original drafts for the Constitution's 16th Amendment and laws enacting the income tax were almost certainly drafted at this rostrum. It doesn't get much more historic than that. This project allowed Childress to collaborate with Don Williams, senior furniture conservator of the Smithsonian's Museum Conservation Institute and another of his mentors. The two first met during one of Williams' frequent visits to Dakota where Williams teaches chemistry-intense courses in restoration and finishing with longtime friend and colleague Kohanek. Childress returns to Dakota almost every summer for additional advance course work, and for years he and Williams had been looking for just the right in-depth project to blend their skills and experiences. ``The reclamation of the Cannon 311 rostrum's previous grandeur could have only been accomplished by someone with Tredway's remarkable combination of talent, education, craft skill and commitment to preserving past treasures,'' Williams said. ``There aren't many of us around who can carefully remove a disfiguring top coat and leave behind the beautiful old shellac finish underneath, then blend it all back in with a French polish that almost literally glows in the dark without looking cheesy. But Tredway did it.'' His work on Capitol Hill also includes refinishing all chairs on the floor of the House of Representatives. On this project, Childress and his crew took off the existing coating and brought it back to its original shellac. They also decided to replace the gold painted molding with gilded molding, as had been done originally. ``Going through Mitch's school, I really had the knowledge and know how to do what needed to be done instead of just looking at it and saying, `Let's put another coat on it,' '' Childress said. ``By studying and knowing the chemistry behind what needed to be done and understanding what you could and could not do, and making the chemistry work in our favor instead of stripping it . . . you just don't get out of a weekend class. Childress is one of Kohanek's many students who went into restoration and conservation. Other graduates have found ways to make a living from finishing new wood or by becoming furniture service technicians who repair wood on location. ``There are so many opportunities for custom wood finishers because wood finishing is still to this day considered a mystic trade when it really is a blend of art and science,'' said Kohanek. ``Once one understands how those two facets work together, you can use inexpensive wood and create an expensive look, or make expensive wood look even more beautiful. You also know how to repair and restore it.'' Kohanek emphasizes that his certification program makes graduates valued wood finishing employees off the bat, and enables them to go immediately into their own business if they choose that direction. Like Childress, the best graduates of the NIWF are setting the standards of what should be expected of a wood finisher as they apply to any wood finishing facility, he concluded.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, after listening to my friend from Texas, with whom I serve on two committees, I just must say that I'm sure she misspoke when she said that we passed a bill on the floor yesterday that would have done all those things. If the gentlelady will recall, it failed on the floor because it was under suspension, and that recollection is about as accurate as the description of the bill before us that I've heard from the other side. I am disappointed to hear the rhetoric on this floor that scares the American people into believing that somehow we're tearing up the Constitution. The fact of the matter is in 1978, when we passed the original version of FISA, we exempted from its consideration our capture of foreign conversations involving someone in a foreign country. The technology that was used at that time is different than the technology now, and what we are doing with this bill is making the law compatible with current technology. What is that section of the bill that we've heard our colleagues on the other side get so upset about? It is this section, section 105(a): Nothing in the definition of electronic surveillance under section 101(f) shall be construed to encompass surveillance directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States. And what the Director of National Intelligence has told us is the interpretation of current law forbids him to do that to a large extent. Now, we can spend hours on the floor explaining why, but that's the fact. He was not here trying to scare us. I am amazed that some of my friends on the other side would suggest that Admiral McConnell, with his distinguished career of service, 40 years as mentioned by the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, serving under Presidents Democrat and Republican, would be involved in scare tactics. He came to us and told us we need this because America is blinded in a significant degree by current law. If, in the capture of this information, we do come into contact with communication that involves someone in the United States, an American citizen, we go through a process called minimization, which means we get it out of there if it has nothing to do with the evil actor. We get rid of it, as we've done for 50 years in the criminal justice system, 28 years under FISA. But if, in fact, that individual is someone who is involved in terrorism, a reasonable suspicion that that is the case, then we get a warrant. Not only do we do that and maintain that in this bill, we beef up the minimization process, and we beef up the oversight, and we allow the FISA court to look at it and to approve it and to audit it, and in addition, we require reports to the committees of the House and the Senate. How that is tearing up the Constitution I do not know unless you haven't read the Constitution, unless you haven't read the history of FISA, unless you haven't read the means by which we have extracted communications around the world. All this does is bring the law up to present-day technology. It does nothing to tear up the Constitution. And please, talk about fear- mongering, to stand on this floor and say that this allows the Attorney General or anybody else in the Federal Government to listen in to any conversation you have is absolutely untrue. No one should believe that. It hasn't been done in the past. It's not being done now. This law does nothing but bring us up to present-day technology. If you will look at the original FISA law, you will see that it specifically exempts from the definition of electronic communications these kinds of communications, but they used to be carried in a different way, and we captured them in a different way. We just want to capture them now under the technology that is currently used in the world. That's all we're doing; nothing more, nothing less. Let's not involve ourselves in fear tactics, scare tactics on the floor and suggest to the American people something which is occurring which has not, is not, and will not and cannot be done under this bill.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I do not have the privilege to serve on the Intelligence Committee now, but in the 1980s I did. Then, following that, in the 1990s when I served in California as the attorney general, I recall getting security briefings from the intelligence community from Washington, DC. It was during the Clinton administration that Admiral McConnell was the head of the NSA. I do not recall any partisan or bipartisan dispute about his qualifications, his professionalism or his judgment. He is the man that the President has brought out of retirement to be the Director of National Intelligence. He is the one that has presented to us in open and in closed testimony why we need this. I think it is fair for us to ask, if we are getting a draft that he has rejected, why it is the draft that is going to be presented to us under the suspension calendar. Unless we have changed the rules of the House in the 16 years I was gone, the whole concept of a suspension bill is that you suspend all the rules for noncontroversial bills. Noncontroversial bills. If the head of our intelligence services believes that this is so controversial we ought to reject this, then why is it being brought up under this kind of a suspension? Now, I have tried to work and have worked with the gentlewoman from California on many occasions getting bipartisan legislation through this floor. But this is the single most important bill that I have seen brought up in the 3 years that I have been back, and maybe in the 10 years I was here before. This goes to the question of whether we take our blinders off with respect to intelligence, with respect to what kind of chatter that is going on around the world. And, yes, they say we all agree that foreign-to-foreign communications ought to be not under the purview of the Court, because we understand that has never been protected under the Constitution. We have been informed that the draft that we are talking about would not allow us to do that in the way it is necessary to protect this Nation. That is why it is so important; not that it is partisan, not that somebody came here under one rule or another, but because the head of intelligence for the United States has said we can't accept this draft. If he says that, we ought to listen to him. We ought to try and get something that will work. So let's forget about this nonsense of partisanship. Let's not get up here, shake something out here in the hand and say, well, you have had it long enough. I don't know how long it took the Constitution to be written from beginning to end. It wasn't how long it took. It is the words they put there. It is what they actually produced. That is what we are going to be judged by; not by how many hours we were here, but whether we got it right. The Director of National Intelligence has told us we have gotten it wrong now. All our people back home are in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy because it is wrong, because we are not doing it right. He has asked us to fix it. It is the most solemn obligation we have under our oath of the Constitution to do it right. And to say that we are going to do it under some suspension and don't worry about what it says violates that oath.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Speaker, I am dismayed to hear some suggest that Admiral McConnell would somehow yield to political pressure. This is the gentleman who was the NSA Director under President Clinton. I never heard that argument on that side of the aisle or this side of the aisle. Many of us relied on the intelligence that came through his activity at that point in time. I see nothing in his record, I see nothing in his performance that would suggest that he would yield to politics. He has come before us and said, We have tried to work under what is the legal construct that you are repeating in this bill, and it doesn't work. He has said it has denied him the opportunity to do that kind of foreign-to-foreign intelligence gathering because of the way the law is applied and because of the way the judge has interpreted it. And he even told us the judge said, Go to the Congress to change it. You don't have to be against civil liberties to suggest that we listen to what he has to say. When he talks about the minimization procedure, it is a time-honored procedure we have used for 28 years in this context and for over 50 years in the criminal justice context. If people will recall, when FISA was first written, it was specifically written to exclude international signals, intelligence activities, and electronic surveillance conducted outside the United States. What we used to grasp technologically then was never under FISA, he has said, because we take it technologically now in a different way. We shouldn't change it, because if we do that, it does not allow us to respond. And why are we here? He has said openly, and it has appeared in print, because the chatter has increased to levels that are so serious, we need to act now. Please, please don't deny what he has suggested to us. Let us pass a proper bill that can be effective.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, are there any parliamentary impediments to this bill being reported back on the next legislative day after being promptly reported to the committee of jurisdiction?