Jerrold Nadler

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 891, I call up the bill (H.R. 6172) to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to prohibit the production of certain business records, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I include in the Record this letter from the chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform. House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Reform, Washington, DC, March 10, 2020. Hon. Jerrold Nadler, Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Chairman: I am writing to you concerning H.R. 6172, the ``USA Freedom Reauthorization Act.'' There are certain provisions in the legislation which fall within the Rule X jurisdiction of the Committee on Oversight and Reform. In the interest of permitting your Committee to proceed expeditiously on this bill, I am willing to waive this Committee's right to sequential referral. I do so with the understanding that by waiving consideration of the bill, the Committee on Oversight and Reform does not waive any future jurisdictional claim over the subject matters contained in the bill which fall within its Rule X jurisdiction. I request that you urge the Speaker to name Members of this Committee to any conference committee which is named to consider such provisions. Please place this letter into the Congressional Record during consideration of the measure on the House floor. Thank you for the cooperative spirit in which you have worked regarding this matter and others between our respective Committees. Sincerely, Carolyn B. Maloney, Chairwoman.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Quigley).

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I just want to say that I am in complete agreement with the ranking minority member that this is a very good bill, that we do a lot of things that we ought to do, that we don't do a lot of things, unfortunately, that we should do, but we did what we could. Undoubtedly, the ranking member and I have different ideas. Some of the things which he thinks we did not enough I think we did too much and vice versa, but we did have some of the things he thinks that we shouldn't have done I wish we had done. But we did manage to reach agreement. As I said, I believe it is a very good bill. It is not as protective of civil liberties as I would like to see it, but we got as far as we possibly could, and so I urge everyone to vote for this bill. I know there will be some dissent on our side of the aisle based on civil liberties concerns. I can only say that, with most of those concerns that I have heard voiced, I agree with them, but we just couldn't get them. Before I close, I want to recognize the staff on both sides of the aisle who have worked around the clock for the past few weeks to reach a compromise and bring this bill to the floor. Although there are too many to name here, I should single out the following individuals: Aaron Hiller, Sophia Brill, and Sarah Istel from my staff; Wells Bennett, Nicolas Mitchell, Raffaela Wakeman, and William Wu from the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence majority; Ryan Breitenbach and Bobby Parmiter from the Judiciary Republican side; Stephen Castor and Tyler Grimm from Mr. Jordan's staff; and Laura Casulli, Meghan Green, and Allen Souza for the HPSCI Republicans. The country should be proud of what we have all accomplished here, what they have accomplished here, and I thank each and every one of them. Madam Speaker, in closing, I will simply say that it is our responsibility to work across the aisle and across the branches of the government to bring our national security in line with our values. We have done so here, but that work is an ongoing project. It must not end today, because we have a long way to go yet. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the USA FREEDOM Reauthorization Act, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material into the Record.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, authorizes the government to collect foreign intelligence in the United States under the supervision of a secret court. It is one of the most complicated, technical statutes we handle, but the story of FISA and how Congress reacts to its use is really very simple. Some measure of surveillance is necessary to keep our country safe. Left unchecked, however, the executive branch is all too willing to unleash its considerable surveillance capabilities on the American people. Our job as Members of Congress is to make sure that our intelligence capabilities are robust, but also to provide that critical check, to claw back authorities that go too far, and to press for changes that protect our civil liberties to the maximum extent possible. H.R. 6172, the USA FREEDOM Reauthorization Act, is one step in that ongoing project of protecting our civil liberties. It is by no means a perfect bill. There are many other changes to FISA that I would have liked to have seen here, but this bill includes very important reforms. First and foremost, it ends the NSA's call detail records program, which began as part of a secret and unlawful surveillance project almost 20 years ago. This experiment has run its course, and our responsibility is to bring it to its formal end. It should never have been permitted to start, but now at least we can finally end it. This bill also prohibits the use of section 215 to acquire information that would otherwise require a warrant in the law enforcement context. Our understanding of the Fourth Amendment has come to recognize a privacy interest in our physical location, and this legislation provides new protections accordingly. As the law continues to evolve, the public will see how the government applies these standards in the FISA court. This bill requires the government to disclose all significant opinions of the FISA court within 180 days. The bill also requires a one-time historical review of all significant opinions issued by the court since its inception. The Department of Justice may have good cause to classify the details of any particular case, but there is no reason that important interpretations of the law should be kept secret. There never was, and we finally managed to get rid of it. Now, since we circulated the original draft of this bill, we have heard from a wide range of stakeholders, from the most progressive Members of the Democratic Caucus to the staunchest supporters of President Trump, and they have convinced us to make yet additional changes. To address the concerns of those who seek additional guarantees of privacy, we have added new retention limits, new reports to explain key legal issues, and an explicit prohibition on the use of section 215 to obtain GPS and cell site location information. Other Members asked us to address the deep structural flaws in FISA identified by the inspector general in the report issued late last year. We have done just that. Working with our Republican colleagues, we have mandated additional transparency in FISA applications, created additional scrutiny for cases that involve elected officials, and elevated the consequences for misrepresenting information to the FISA court. I should also address the Members on both sides of the aisle who urged opposition to this bill because it does not contain every reform we might have wanted. Madam Speaker, I agree. It does not contain every reform that I want. I am no fan of the underlying authorities. I represent Lower Manhattan. I was in Congress when the World Trade Center was hit. Then and now, I resented that the government exploited 9/11 to pass the PATRIOT Act, which was much too restrictive of civil liberties, and other measures that I find dangerous and overbroad. For many years, I led the opposition to reauthorization of the business records provision of FISA, which we are finally doing something about today. I am a founding member of what was then called the PATRIOT Act Reform Caucus to reform the PATRIOT Act. I have voted against every FISA bill that did not contain significant reform. But the measure before us today does contain significant reform-- again, not every change we would like to see, certainly not many of the changes I would like to see, but very decisive steps in the direction of protecting our civil rights and our civil liberties. We are taking that step as we should--together, in a bipartisan fashion, and in complete agreement that when it comes to safeguarding our civil liberties, we have done what we could do, and we still have a great deal of work to do. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this measure, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 35) to amend section 249 of title 18, United States Code, to specify lynching as a hate crime act, as amended.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, H.R. 35, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act is long overdue legislation that would criminalize lynching for the first time under Federal law. The term ``lynching'' generally refers to premeditated acts of violence often resulting in death carried out by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor or to strike fear among a targeted group. H.R. 35 is named in honor of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American youth from Chicago, who was lynched in particularly gruesome fashion while visiting an uncle in Mississippi in 1955. His murder and the antilynching movement that followed set the stage for the creation of the civil rights movement that we recognize today. Generally, they could not rely on law enforcement to protect them, because they understood that the lynchings occurring throughout the South were a very deliberate campaign to subjugate our Black population. And this very deliberate campaign was started in the 1870s by the Ku Klux Klan and carried on right up to the present day through terrorism and forced Jim Crow. Because they realized this, African Americans mobilized their own efforts to combat the terror of lynching and the threat of racial violence through grassroots activism and the founding of integrated social justice organizations. During the period between the Civil War and World War II, thousands of African Americans were lynched in the United States, mostly in the South, but not entirely, as a means of racial subordination and enforcing white supremacy. These violent incidents were largely tolerated by State and Federal officials, in fact, often promoted by State and Federal officials. They profoundly impacted race relations and shaped the geographic, political, social, and economic conditions of African American communities in ways that are still evident today. Although the civil rights conspiracy statute does not specify the offense of lynching as a Federal crime, this section has been used by the Department of Justice to prosecute civil rights-era crimes and hate crimes that were described as lynching in public discourse. It remains important, however, to enact Federal antilynching legislation to acknowledge this shameful chapter in American history and to send a clear message that such violations, such violent actions motivated by hatred and bigotry will never again be tolerated in this country. The first Federal antilynching legislation was introduced in 1900, almost 120 years ago, by Congressman George Henry White, the only African American member of Congress at that time. Unfortunately, neither his bill nor any other antilynching bills managed to pass the Congress. Antilynching bills were routinely defeated on this floor. Today, we act to correct this historical injustice that should rest heavily on the conscience of Members of Congress. I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rush) for his leadership on this important issue and for his attention to history. I also thank the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bacon) for his support of this legislation and the many cosponsors of this bill who helped pave the way for its passage today. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rush), the sponsor of this bill.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Bass).

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green).

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished majority leader of the House.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson).

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Danny K. Davis).

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. In his farewell address to Congress, Representative George Henry White lamented the failure of his antilynching bill of 1900 to pass by observing that: ``During the last session of this Congress, I took occasion to address myself in detail to this particular measure, But with all of my efforts, the bill still sweetly sleeps in the room of the committee to which it was referred. The necessity of legislation along this line is daily being demonstrated. The arena of the lyncher no longer is confined to Southern climes, but is stretching its hydra head over all parts of the Union.'' Lynching no longer terrorizes African American communities as it once did, but we owe it to the memory of its thousands of victims to outlaw this racist and gruesome practice once and for all. Madam Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, the gentleman is talking too fast. I can't understand him.

Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman very much. I certainly agree with the distinguished ranking member, and I appreciate his support for this bill. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the distinguished Speaker of the House.