Heather Wilson

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. The sad thing in this city is that we have people taking tremendous risks on our behalf under complete orders to do so, that we're certified, we're lawful and everything else, and they are so afraid of the kind of after-the-fact inquiries that this body can levy on them that they have taken out liability insurance so that they are not bankrupted by the actions of this Congress. I yield to my colleague from Oregon.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. I yield to my colleague from Oregon.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. In fact, the Senate bill for privacy protections for Americans are stronger than the Protect America Act and stronger than current law under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act because the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act really focused on technology. It was technology specific and assumed that things that were on a wire were local calls in the United States. Well, we have said that's changed. The bill that we want to bring up and pass in the House has very strict protections for Americans wherever they are and for anyone reasonably believed to be in the United States. Now, there are some folks who think if somebody's not a citizen or if they are here in the country illegally, you should be able to listen to them. This bill doesn't even authorize that. It has very strict protections for Americans in the United States or for Americans wherever they happen to be. Now, we collect intelligence. We spy overseas. When I was an officer stationed overseas, one of my jobs at one post was to negotiate with the Soviets back when the Soviets existed. We knew who the KGB guy was in their delegation. If we happened to intercept his report back to Moscow and it mentioned me, there were already procedures in place to mask or so-called minimize the existence of an American that we may have picked up intelligence overseas. This law actually strengthens that. The bipartisan bill that we'd like to see passed here strengthens it even further so that if I am an American businessperson living in Germany, they'd have to actually get a warrant to listen to me in Germany, which is a stronger protection than we have ever had before. I yield to my colleague from Pennsylvania.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. We are very close to the time being up in the hour that we have had this evening. But I think it is important to summarize some of the things we have talked about here tonight. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was intended to protect the civil liberties of Americans while also allowing our intelligence agencies to collect the intelligence information that can protect us. That is all it was intended to do. But it has become outdated because of changes in technology. We have a bill that has been passed in the Senate by 68 votes. There has been a letter from 20 Democrats to their own leadership saying, please, take up this bill because we want to vote for it. We all know here that if we were allowed to vote on this bill, it would pass overwhelmingly in the House, and the President has already said that he would sign it. Instead, we are here tonight, 10 days after a law expired, that our Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Mike McConnell, has said has already degraded our ability to gather intelligence on the people who are trying to kill Americans. I think that is inexcusable. I think we made a decision as a country on the morning of 9/11. We made a decision that we were going to go on offense. We were going to play away games because the home games cost too much. I want the leaders of al Qaeda hiding in a hole in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan wondering whether they can use their cell phones without being detected by American Special Forces, rather than Americans using their cell phones to call home one last time. That is the difference. As my colleagues from Texas and Pennsylvania said, God forbid, God forbid that we have to have another 9/11 Commission, that we have another terrorist attack. I believe that the greatest accomplishment of the last 6 years has been what has not happened. There has not been another terrorist attack on our soil, and they have tried. Our first line of defense in preventing another terrorist attack is good intelligence. And because this law expired 10 days ago, we are tying the hands of the intelligence agencies who are sworn to protect us. We are making it harder for them. We are making them jump through hoops that in some cases are too high and taking tremendous risks for the American people. Why? Because a minority of Democrats, including their leadership, refuse to allow a bipartisan bill to be brought up on the floor of this House. Shame on them. Shame on them for not putting the security of this country first. If we have that other commission after another terrorist attack, they are going to be saying, why didn't you protect us? What you are seeing tonight is why. You can't connect the dots unless you can collect the dots in the first place. This is about allowing our intelligence agencies to collect the dots that can protect us. I would urge the Democratic leadership, as my colleague from Pennsylvania said, to take ``yes'' for an answer, to fix this problem, to close this gap this week. We have nine suspensions on the floor. We are naming post offices tomorrow. Pull it up tomorrow. And I will stand here shoulder to shoulder with them on the floor of this House, we will overwhelmingly pass it, and we can walk down to the White House tomorrow afternoon so that the President can sign it and protect this country. I yield the balance of our time.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, one of the most important laws that is preventing another terrorist attack in this country will expire on Friday. It expires on Friday. My colleague from New York says, well, we just need to take enough time and be deliberative and so on. My colleague from New York didn't vote for the temporary fix that we passed in August. In fact, in an exchange with him that I remember so well, he questioned whether we should extend the constitutional protections of the fourth amendment to people who are foreigners in a foreign country talking to each other. The temporary fix that we made in August needs to be made permanent, and we need to move forward with a permanent law that allows our intelligence agencies to listen to foreigners in foreign countries without a warrant while protecting the civil liberties of Americans. That's what we passed in August. That's what the Rockefeller-Bond bill does from the Senate, and they passed it last night. We passed a 6- month bill in August. We had 6 months to review this. And then when that deadline passed on the 1st of February, they said, well, just give us another 15 days. We gave them another 15 days and they said, well, we really haven't had the time to look at this paper. You've had almost 7 months. The time is now to get serious about our national security and giving our intelligence agencies the tools they need to prevent the next terrorist attack. The Senate passed the Rockefeller-Bond bill last night by a vote of 68-29. It makes permanent the authorities that we passed in August of last year to listen to foreigners in foreign countries without a warrant. We spy on our enemies. We try to find out what their plans are so that we can stop them from killing Americans. That Rockefeller-Bond bill also provides protection from lawsuits for the American companies that stepped up to the plate when this country was in crisis. In good faith, those American companies partnered with the U.S. Government, under instructions from that government, from our own government, to move forward and to help us to prevent another terrorist attack. And, ironically, they cannot defend themselves against lawsuits because the government says to do so would violate state secrets. It would give away secrets to our enemies. So they're stuck in court not even being able to defend themselves. The cooperation that is being protected here in the Rockefeller-Bond bill is long established in criminal law and should certainly extend to the national security realm. Today, I circulated a letter from 21 bipartisan attorneys general supporting these lawsuit protection provisions. Our intelligence agencies and their partners in private industry need certainty, the telecommunications companies whom we depend upon to cooperate need certainty, and our intelligence agents need certainty that we're not going to keep operating our intelligence community on a month-to-month basis. In August we closed an intelligence gap, a vital gap that has been now closed, and the changes that we made have already provided intelligence that the Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Mike McConnell, has said have helped us to disrupt terrorist attacks. Intelligence is the first line of defense in protecting this country against terrorism. I would urge my colleagues to allow a vote today on the Rockefeller-Bond legislation, do not allow this bill to expire, and stand up and protect this country.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. Madam Speaker, on December 12, 2007, Terry Yates, Vice President for Research and Economic Development at the University of New Mexico passed away. He was a remarkable scientist and professor, and UNM has suffered a great loss with his passing. He lived a life full of enthusiasm for science. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Nancy, their sons and his entire family. Terry Yates came to the University of New Mexico in 1978 as an assistant professor of biology, and went on to become a professor of biology and pathology. He helped create the Long Term Ecological Research site outside Socorro, New Mexico, and he was the curator of Genomic Resources for the Museum of Southwestern Biology on the UNM campus. Terry Yates was appointed Vice Provost for Research in 2004, and served as Vice President for Research and Economic Development from 2004 until his death. During this time as Vice Provost and Vice President, Terry increased the total amount of research awards from $247 million to nearly $300 million. UNM's President, David Schmidly, taught Terry as a graduate student at Texas Tech University in the mid-1970s. ``It was his exuberance you remember most about Terry. He was always ready to examine a new idea or take a trip to the field to explore a theory. I think he was happier out in the field than he was behind a desk,'' said Schmidly. Terry was best known for his groundbreaking research on the source of Hantavirus, a serious respiratory disease that is frequently fatal. He began his work in 1993, when many people in the Southwest began dying from an unknown viral disease. In collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Terry examined specimens that he had collected over several years, that were residing in the museum of Southwest Biology. Through his study, he was able to pinpoint a species of deer mice as the carrier of the Sin Nombre virus. The National Science Foundation named this research done by Terry and partner Robert Parmeter as one of its ``Nifty 50'' discoveries--projects funded that have had the biggest impact on American lives. Most recently, Terry published a paper on the relationship between weather and deer mice populations. He and his co-authors were able to predict increased health risks posed by deer mice to humans in specific parts of the Four Corners area. This research also provided the New Mexico Department of Public Health with the necessary scientific evidence required to give advanced warning to people living in specific parts of the state that they face increased risk of exposure to Hantavirus. He has published a total of 126 research papers. Terry was an honorary member of the Board of Life Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences, as well as an honorary member of the Society of Mammalogists. This is the highest honor that the Society bestows upon an individual. While his professional enthusiasm was for research and pushing back the frontiers of knowledge, Terry loved people and had friends from all walks of life. Every year, on Kentucky Derby Day, Terry had a party at his house complete with mint juleps. But he insisted on never sending out invitations. Everyone was welcome and no one was excluded. Terry Yates was a great mind and a vibrant leader. He fought for life to the very end with humor and grace. Of his final illness, he told people, ``I expect to get some patents out of this!'' He challenged us and inspired us and will deeply be missed.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Rhode Island talked about the importance of upholding the Constitution, and there is something in the manager's amendment to this bill that was inserted without any hearing in the committee that I don't understand, that makes no sense to me. It is a provision that says, very plainly: This act and the amendments made by this act 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. Now, I think there are probably a lot of people on this side of the aisle who don't have a problem with that provision. What I don't understand is why you all are proposing it. Here is the irony here. This bill will extend rights under our Constitution to foreigners in foreign countries, while denying the protections of the Constitution to some 12 million people who are not legally in the United States, when the case law is clear that they do have rights. Whether we think they should have rights or not, the case law is absolutely clear. So we will deny those rights to people in the United States while extending them to people in foreign countries? I think we should be clear with the American people why we insisted on fixing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and did so successfully in August. We had soldiers who were kidnapped in Iraq by insurgents. And because of changes in technology and the demands of the court, the American military had to go to lawyers in the United States to get a warrant to try to intercept the communications of the terrorists trying to kill them. That took time, too much time. And the law had to be fixed. Soldiers should not need an army of lawyers in Washington to listen to the communications of the enemy that's trying to kill them. This needed to be fixed, and we fixed it the first week of August. We all remember where we were on the morning of 9/11. We remember who we were with, what we were wearing, what we ate for breakfast. But people don't remember where they were the day that the British Government arrested 16 people who were within 48 hours of walking on to airliners and blowing them up simultaneously over the Atlantic. We don't remember it because it didn't happen. And the reason it didn't happen is because of exceptional intelligence and the cooperation of the British, Pakistani and American Governments.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 1093 and 1094 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on both votes.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, as the sponsor of H. Res. 744, I rise in strong support of this resolution and urge its passage. I want to thank Representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin who is an original cosponsor of this resolution and who is a strong advocate for our veterans. I also want to thank Chairman Bob Filner, who cosponsored the resolution and Ranking Member Steve Buyer for his commitment to all veterans. Earlier this year I met with some Native American veterans in my State. They expressed many concerns to me and were worried that all Native American Veterans had not been recognized for their service to their country. On October 15, 2007, Congresswoman Herseth Sandlin and I introduced H. Res. 744, a resolution that recognizes the contributions of Native American veterans and calls upon the President of the United States to issue a proclamation urging the United States to observe a day in honor of Native American veterans. Native Americans were participants in the War of 1812, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. During World War I, 12,000 Native Americans served in the United States military and in World War II, more than 44,000 Native Americans served their country in both the European and Pacific fronts of the war. Native Americans also fought in the Korean conflict and the Vietnam war. In Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, Native Americans have made significant contributions. Native American veterans should be recognized for their service in uniform. This resolution gives all Native American veterans the formal recognition they deserve for their sacrifices and contributions. I have also introduced H.R. 4012, the Native American Language Assistance Act of 2007, a bill to assist VA hospitals and clinics that treat a large number of Native American patients. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this legislation that will ensure that Native American veterans have access, delivery and follow-up of services at the VA. The bill would require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to carry out a program to make competitive grants to any VA medical facility that treats a high number of Native American veterans. The grants, up to $100,000 each, would provide interpreters or other language resources to improve access to, delivery of, and follow-up for medical services provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs. I am concerned that Indian veterans are. not receiving adequate assistance and support for their care at our VA hospitals. This bill will provide help to those hospitals that treat high numbers of Indians. By providing our VA hospitals with funding for language programs and outreach, we can better communicate to these veterans about what services and benefits are available to them and make sure they are getting the care and support they need. Nationally, there are 195,871 Native American veterans. There are 11,929 Native American Veterans in New Mexico--3.1 percent of the entire American Indian veteran population. I am grateful to all who serve their Nation and we as a Congress have a responsibility to ensure they receive the best possible care. In this war on terrorism, the greatest burdens have fallen on the shoulders of a relatively small number of Americans who have volunteered to take great risks on our behalf. Events over the last few years have made a new generation of Americans realize just how precious our freedoms really are. We owe our freedom fighters--past, present, and future--a debt of gratitude for their selflessness and sacrifice. I will continue to fight to ensure that our veterans get the benefits they were promised, the health care they deserve, and the recognition that our Nation owes them. I support passage of this resolution.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. Madam Speaker, there are over two million people incarcerated in the United States, and nearly 6 percent of the adult population is under some form of correctional supervision. Over the past 25 years, prison populations have grown 377 percent and prison budgets have grown 600 percent. The burden currently borne by the American taxpayer exceeds $162 billion annually. The U.S. Department of Justice reports that the average criminal recidivism rate in the United States is 65 percent, and nearly two thirds of United States money is spent dealing with recidivism. Recidivism costs taxpayers over $35 billion a year in enforcement costs, and over $17 billion for additional court costs. Over 80 percent of the crimes in the United States are committed by recidivists. The only continuous factor for the past 25 years linked to recidivism is drug addiction, two-thirds of the prison population recidivate, two-thirds of the prison population is addicted and approximately 90 percent of the incarcerated addicted recidivate. The Second Chance Program is a secure long-term residential rehabilitation program treating substance abusers in the criminal justice system providing the judiciary an alternative to traditional incarceration. The purpose of the Second Chance Program is to provide secure, long term rehabilitation and then transition individuals back into society so they can lead a stable life free of crime and drugs. The Second Chance Program protocol is a non-medical social detoxification model of treatment based on nutrition, exercise and education. The Second Chance Program has shown in three independent university studies to have a 90 percent success rate, and has been operational and achieving rehabilitation results in New Mexico for 1 year. Congratulations to the Second Chance Program for successfully completing its first year of servicing the courts of New Mexico.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. I thank the majority leader. I would also ask, we have had 55 Members who weren't here for the vote that we just had. This issue we're about to debate and vote on is one that's important to people on both sides of the aisle. This is an important vote and important debate, and I think people should have an opportunity to participate in that. All of us have had circumstances where there are disasters in our district and there are times when the leadership determines that the votes that are scheduled are of such sufficient gravity and importance that it makes sense to delay that. As the gentleman from Maryland knows, I supported the SCHIP bill. I think we need to reauthorize the SCHIP program, but I am reluctant to do that with so many Members gone and also with our Californians dealing with critical problems in their district. I would echo my colleague from Texas' sentiments and ask that the leadership consider delaying this vote and this debate until early next week.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. Will the gentleman yield?

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. I know we are coming to the end of this hour, but I think there is something important for Americans to understand. We all remember where we were the morning of 9/11. We remember what we were wearing, what we had for breakfast, whom we were with, and that is seared into our memories. Very few Americans remember where they were when the British Government arrested 16 people who were within 48 hours of walking onto airliners at Heathrow and blowing them up simultaneously over the Atlantic. We don't remember it because it didn't happen. And it didn't happen because American, British, and Pakistani intelligence were working together to disrupt the plot and prevent the terrorist attack. That is what matters here. We want to stop those memories from being created before the event happens.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. I want to make sure I understand something here, because I think you said something that's important. If the United States Government inadvertently collects a phone call that involves an American, if Osama bin Laden himself calls into the United States on a new phone line, and we had no idea, we didn't expect him to call in to America, and he has got a new phone number, he has got one of those disposable phones, he calls in and we get lucky and we pick it up, and that phone call says to one of his cells in the United States, ``Tomorrow is the day. Blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago,'' is it my understanding that under this bill they have put forward the intelligence agents couldn't even tell law enforcement about that? They would be prohibited from that?

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. So we get the intelligence tip of a lifetime to be able to prevent the next terrorist attack, and this bill, the RESTORE Act, would prevent us from protecting American citizens?

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. I thank the gentleman for clarifying that, because I think it's an important provision, and I think it is being added into what is being called the RESTORE Act very late in the game before it was pulled from the House floor last week. It is a provision that is deadly dangerous to the security of this country. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was set up to protect the civil liberties of Americans, and it has done that effectively. But because of changes in technology over the last decade in particular, there are more and more conversations that are foreign conversations, international conversations that happen to transit the United States. Under the old law, before we fixed this in early August, you needed a warrant to touch a wire inside the United States even if the person you are targeting is overseas. Earlier this year, because of some court decisions, this became completely unmanageable, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court became almost completely nonfunctional, with backlogs, with requests for warrants, people who couldn't develop probable cause, because, you think about this, you have got some guy on the Horn of Africa that you suspect of being affiliated with al Qaeda. It's not as if the FBI can go and talk to their neighbors and develop probable cause for a warrant in order to touch a wire in the United States, and yet our intelligence capability is much enhanced if we can touch that wire in the United States. So you have an odd situation where we're having intelligence agents take tremendous risks to try to collect intelligence overseas, while we're tying our own hands here in the United States. The law that we passed in early August addresses this problem. The act that was pulled from the floor, so-called RESTORE Act, last week would only have restored the ability of terrorists to plot to kill Americans. It would be suicide for the United States to intentionally, intentionally cut off our ability to try to listen to the communications of the terrorists who are trying to kill Americans or anybody else. I would be happy to yield to my colleague from New York.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. If the gentleman would yield, the issue of foreign-to-foreign communications is in the bill. But here's the problem. We can put in law that you don't need a warrant to listen to foreign-to-foreign communications, but you're never targeting a communication between two points. You're always looking at one target. And if I am targeting you in Afghanistan, I don't know who you're going to pick up the phone and call next. If it is a felony to listen to a conversation between a foreigner and a U.S. person without a warrant, as soon as that foreigner picks up the phone and dials an American number, you've created a situation where an intelligence agent is a felon. As a result, if you have that provision in the bill, they must get warrants on every foreigner. And that is the situation we were in earlier this year that completely crippled our intelligence collection.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. One of the things my colleague from New York said was, well, there are these minimization procedures, and that's true. There are minimization procedures under current law, which means that if you gather information that involves innocent people, you mask their identity, you don't disseminate things that don't matter, and you protect people's privacy. If it only went that far, that would be fine. The problem is the rest of the paragraph that my colleague from California mentioned, which actually prohibits dissemination of information that could be critical to this country. It is astounding to me that we might actually intercept a conversation involving Osama bin Laden himself that reveals where he is going to be tomorrow and we would prohibit our intelligence agencies from telling the military where he is so they could target him.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. Absolute prohibition. And I think we need to get back to some basics here, which is, number one, the current law requires that you need a warrant to wiretap a U.S. person for the purposes of collection of foreign intelligence. That's what the whole Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was about. But it also makes clear under the law that we passed in the first week of August that you do not need a warrant to listen to foreigners reasonably believed to be in a foreign country. America spies. We try to discover the secrets of people who are not our friends, some of whom are trying to kill large numbers of Americans. We do everything we can to find out what their plans and capabilities and intentions are so we can prevent another terrorist attack. That is what our intelligence community does. And to somehow tie this up in red tape with a bunch of lawyers and judges makes no sense to me at all when we are trying to find out the secrets they are desperately trying to protect from us. I have to say, there is a question, how many lawyers should it take to be allowed to listen to Osama bin Laden? The answer should be zero. That's what the answer should be. We shouldn't involve lawyers and judges in trying to intercept his communications, even if he is talking to an American.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. Ten years ago, the Children's Health Insurance Program passed with a Republican Congress and a Democratic President. Now we are trying to reauthorize it with a Democratic Congress and a Republican President. We should be able to do this, and we should be able to do it in a bipartisan way. The Children's Health Insurance Program has reduced the number of uninsured children in this country and has given them access to primary care. They live healthier lives because of it. This is not a great bill, but it is a good bill; and I have supported this bill, and I encourage my colleagues to support it again today. In particular, it phases out the participation of adults in this program. This program is for kids, for low-income kids, not for adults. And successive administrations have been approving the admission of adults to the program, and that was not its intent. New Mexico in particular will benefit from this program because it allows lower income kids to be participants in the program. Because of an anomaly of the original law, New Mexico's lowest income kids are not eligible for this program. I would urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the bill today.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from California. I very much appreciate his hosting this Special Order this evening. Mr. Speaker, before the August break we fixed a problem. It was a problem that grew worse over the course of this year in that we were increasingly hampered in our ability to prevent another terrorist attack on this country because of the change in telecommunications and a law that was woefully outdated. It's called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It was put in place in 1978 to protect the civil liberties of Americans. Think about it. 1978 was the year that I graduated from high school. The telephone hung on the wall in the kitchen. Cell phones had not been invented. The word ``Internet'' did not even exist. Technology has changed since 1978, and the law had not kept pace. In 1978, almost all long-haul communications went over the air. Almost all international communications went over the air, and they were explicitly exempted from the provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Our intelligence community folks would go ahead and collect those communications if they had foreign intelligence value. They minimized or suppressed any involvement of Americans who were innocent and just happened to be referred to in a conversation or something. But there were no restrictions on foreign intelligence collection. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, technology has now changed, and what used to be over the air is now almost all on a wire. The courts have found that under the old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, before we changed it in August of this year, that if you touched a wire in the United States, even if you were targeting a foreign terrorist talking to another foreign terrorist who had no connection to the United States at all, then you needed a warrant. This began very rapidly to cripple our intelligence capability with respect to terrorism in particular. The Director for National Intelligence, Admiral McConnell, has testified in open session that without the changes, without keeping the changes, making them permanent, that we put in place in August, we will lose between one-half and two-thirds of our intelligence collection on terrorism. Think about this for a second. Now we all remember where we were on the morning of September 11, remember who we were with, what we were wearing, what we had for breakfast. Most Americans don't remember where they were when the British Government arrested 16 people who were within 48 hours of walking onto airliners at Heathrow Airport and blowing them up simultaneously over the Atlantic. They don't remember it because it didn't happen. The American people want us to prevent the next terrorist attack. They don't want to have to remember where they were when a preventable disaster happened. That is what intelligence gives us, and that is why the Protect America Act is so important and why we have to make it permanent. Sadly, the Democratic majority is going to bring a bill to the House this week which will gut the progress that we made in early August. They say things in this bill that, on its face, initially you think, well, that makes sense. One of them is you would not need a warrant for any foreign-to-foreign communication. Well, doesn't that solve the problem? Wait a second. If Mr. Lungren, my colleague from California, was a foreign terrorist, just for the purposes of discussion, how do I know who he is going to call next? I don't. And if the law says that it is a felony to listen to the conversation of someone who is a foreigner calling into the United States, that means as soon as I collect that conversation, as soon as that terrorist makes a phone call into the United States, I become a felon. As a result, you have to have warrants on everyone. It doesn't relieve the system of this huge legal bureaucracy. It means they have to get warrants on every foreigner in foreign countries, even if they are only talking to foreigners, because they might some day pick up the phone and call an American. And, oh, by the way, that is the conversation we want to be listening to. If we have a terrorist affiliated with al Qaeda calling into the United States, you bet we should be on that conversation. We should be all over that like white on rice. We shouldn't be waiting to get a warrant from a judge in Washington, D.C. But it gets worse than that. They also put in this bill some things called blanket warrants.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. If the gentleman would yield further, that is exactly right. There is already a provision in the law and was in 1978 that if it was foreign-to-foreign communication, you didn't need a warrant. There are some circumstances where you are tapping into a line that is between a command headquarters of the former Soviet Army and one of their missile silos where it is a dedicated line. But modern telecommunications don't operate that way, and the terrorists who are trying to kill us are using modern commercial telecommunications. They are not using dedicated lines between headquarters. They don't even have headquarters.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. That is my understanding, and he has testified to that in the Intelligence Committee as well. That is what gets lost here. People seem to think that somehow this impacts the civil liberties of Americans. No, this bill that the Democrats are bringing to the floor this week will extend civil liberties protections to foreigners trying to kill Americans. It will make it harder for our soldiers and our law enforcement folks and our intelligence community to find out when the next attack is coming in order to prevent it. I don't understand why they are going in this direction. Sometimes I don't think they really understand what they are doing here. Sometimes I think it is not entirely intentional on the part of some of these folks, that they really do not understand how this works and how badly they are crippling American intelligence if they pass this law.

Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. Let's just think of an example here. Let's say Osama bin Laden or one of his chief lieutenants did call into the United States to a completely innocent person, a completely innocent person under this law which the Democrats are going to try to pass this week, and what he says in that conversation is ``Don't go to the Sears Tower tomorrow. Stay away from the Sears Tower tomorrow.'' Whoever in the intelligence community gets that communication is barred by law from giving it to anyone who can take any action to prevent a terrorist attack on this country.