Anthony Weiner

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I do not expect to take the full 5 minutes. First, I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Skeen), chairman, and the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), ranking member, of the subcommittee and their staffs for their commitment to our sound agriculture policy. But this is an opportunity with this amendment to use the matrix between agricultural policies and our human rights policies in how we deal with other countries to have, hopefully, a positive impact on a very important matter. As we speak, and, frankly, since March of 1999, 13 prisoners have been held on charges of spying by the Iranian government. There has been a trial that has consisted mainly of a kangaroo court where the prosecutor was the same person as the judge who was the same person as the appeals court, et cetera. It is expected that this weekend, there will be a verdict coming down in that case. What my amendment does is very simple. It strikes a small amount, $15,510 from this section of the bill from the over $400 million, I believe, section of the bill that is APHIS, that is used to deal with imports and imports only from Iran. What we are saying with this amendment is that Members are watching very closely what happens with those 13 prisoners. What we are saying is that, regardless of how we feel about the policies of Iran, whether we think they are moderating or not, that this case is one that we are watching very closely. We are withholding, albeit temporarily, we are withholding additional benefits for Iranian imports. I would encourage my colleagues to support this amendment. This is an opportunity for us to, frankly, say the right thing and do the right thing in a symbolic way. I want to thank the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen), the subcommittee chair, and his staff for his assistance in preparing this amendment. As I said, I do not anticipate taking my entire 5 minutes. This is an amendment that I have offered. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley) in the interest of preserving time.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I will be brief. I just want to reiterate one element of my colleague's remarks, and that is that wherever we may stand on whether or not we should be liberalizing our import and export policies with regard to Iran, this is an amendment that simply speaks to the timing. And the timing is extraordinarily precarious. Although no one knows for sure, there is some speculation that this weekend, the 4th of July weekend, Independence Day weekend, is when the verdicts for the Shiraz 13 are going to be coming down. I am concerned that the statement of this House should be that we are watching, at the very least. Even if this language is changed in conference, even if we choose to say to the President at a later date to release this money, to broaden our exchange with them because the moderate Iranian government is indeed that, more moderate and more committed to human rights, my concern is that if we do not act in this bill this is our last opportunity to send a message to the Iranian government that we are watching. Regardless of where we may stand, if we think we should be harder than hard line, or we think we should start to moderate a little in response to their new government, these amendments are simply a chance for us as a body to take a symbolic deep breath and wait and see what happens with those verdicts, and to make it clear that this show trial that has been conducted in private has been and is being watched by the United States Congress.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, on this Independence Day, Americans should keep the Shiraz 13 in our thoughts and prayers. Since March of 1999, the government of Iran has held these people simply because of their religion. The trial is over, and it looked more like a kangaroo court. The investigator, the prosecutor, and the judge were the same person, someone who is affectionately known in Iran as the butcher. The verdict will come any day now, and we are all watching. Will this new so-called moderate government of Iran free the Shiraz 13? Until we know, we should not loosen our import restrictions on Iran on rugs, nuts and caviar which have been authorized to be imported here as of the end of 1999. This 4th of July, we should send a strong message about where the U.S. Congress stands. Today in the Agriculture Appropriations bill, the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman) and I will be offering an amendment to cut the funding from the Agriculture import budget that it takes to implement these loosening of these export quotas. Let us send a message this 4th of July.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. The point I was making is that this is not a unique section of law, but where there are times, very rare times that we say, the overall defense of the Nation and national security dictate that sometimes we have this tug of war between our rights.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I want to observe that the grants under the bill have to pass through the States to get to the localities. The great success of the COPS program is that it takes police departments, even the smallest police departments, for example, and targets the assistance directly to them. What the amendment of the gentlewoman would do would allow small localities, and very often the States cherry-pick these things, that is what is going to happen with the DNA funding.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, in a nondescript building in Long Island City, in Queens, in New York City, a warehouse, in fact, evidence from crime scenes is collected and stored. It is everything from people who had sold umbrellas and videotapes illegally on the streets to people who had committed more serious crimes. In the back of this warehouse are two giant refrigerated rooms, larger than one would find in any restaurant. In those rooms is a hall of horrors, 16,000 rape kits, evidence that was collected at rape scenes. Each one of those kits represents a crime waiting to be solved. Each one of those kits represents a woman who was victimized who has not found justice. The reason they are stored there is they are awaiting DNA tests. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) spoke eloquently about the need to clear the backlog of those who are convicted offenders who have given their blood to be loaded on to the crime computers for evidence. But every one of those evidence kits is also awaiting analysis, DNA analysis to be matched hopeful to find the criminal who committed those crimes. Unfortunately, the bill that we are considering today does nothing to assure that any dollars, not even a single one would necessarily go to the localities to help them deal with that backlog. They have that backlog in New York City and elsewhere because of money, plain and simple. It is more expensive to test evidence than it is to convict offenders. The present block grant system which provides money to the States could very easily not trickle down at all to localities, because that is the way it is happening now. In fact, the present law that allows the money to be used for convicted offenders does not allow it to be used to test evidence kits. It does not allow localities to get access to the money to test to find out if we can match that crime scene with someone who is already in our prisons who has passed through the system in the past. That is why the amendment of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) is so very valuable. It is just the tip of the iceberg. $10 million is even less than some of the bills that we are marking up in the Committee on the Judiciary. I believe that it is a small incremental step. I must confess that I regret that it has come from the source it is coming from. This entire bill, the levels, it is kind of like taking one tiny level and reducing it to even a tinier level to make one almost invisible level visible. But the fact remains this is a problem that needs to be solved. It is also a problem that we cannot afford to wait on. Virtually every State in the Union has statute of limitation laws governing rape and sexual abuse. The clock is ticking. Every single day in New York, six rape kits, six groups of evidence, six women awaiting justice are not able to get the justice because we do not have the resources to test those kits. Now, some prosecutors have become innovative and have started indicting and pressing charges against John Doe, just filing charges against DNA and nothing else. But this amendment is a small and modest step to allow us to begin to do some of this DNA analysis. I have got to tell my colleagues the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) who just spoke about this being used to exonerate the innocent. But I tell my colleagues what is going to happen when they do these tests of these evidence kits, we are going to find a hit. We just had one in Yonkers, New York where, by happenstance, there was an evidence test done by a locality with money in their local budget, and it was a hit against someone in New York State's prison. If my colleagues think this is only a problem in New York City, I can tell my colleagues rapists are recidivists. They rape again and again and again, and they cross State lines to do it. One of the benefits of the Scott amendment, it would load the data about the DNA onto the NCIC computers so to allow someone in Texas who is investigating a rape to test against convicted offender samples in Dallas and also convicted offender samples in Delaware. What his amendment would allow also, and perhaps even more importantly, is to test some of the evidence that has been gathered at crime scenes. Mr. Chairman, this is not an academic issue to a woman who has been raped 4 years ago and 6 months. Because for her, in 6 months, in the State of New York, the statute of limitations will lapse, and she is going to lose the chance. I urge my colleagues to support the Scott amendment to fund DNA testing on some of this evidence, something that is not funded in the bill presently.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I think that the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell) is exactly right. I believe that there are and may be cases where this causes an uncomfortable sense for us. But this is not a unique thing we do in our Government. We take people's rights away all the time to know exactly where the Government dollars are spent.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend the gentleman, as well, although I disagree with him, for making a point in his remarks that were missed here; and that is the number of cases that we are talking about. There has been some language used today that would give the impression that there is wanton use of this section of the law. In fact, according to the General Council of the FBI, of all of the immigration litigations going on now, about some 300,000-odd cases, only 11 even seek to use any element of secret evidence. And I think that that is a sign that this is not something that is being used frivolously by the agency. This is something that is being used in a somewhat targeted way. I would just remind us all to address the fundamental problem, and my colleague started to and I commend him, that, if we have a terrorist and we have information about them, there is a very good chance that revealing that information would pose harm to people.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I appreciate it, and that was an example of what this amendment seeks to address. What this amendment does not seek to do but may do is allow the freedom for cases like Mohammed Abu Marzook, the leader of the political wing of Hamas, where that secret evidence was used in the INS detention proceedings and exclusion proceedings against him, and it turned out, I think many of us would argue, he did indeed pose a threat. I do not argue the contention for a moment that the process that we use must be perfected. I, however, believe that by doing it in such a Draconian way is not wise.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior), and the sponsors of this legislation, seek to find a solution for one of the delicate balancing acts in a democracy; and that is, how we protect individual rights and liberties and freedom while protecting the Nation as a whole from threats to its national security. I would submit that this amendment is both unnecessary and unwise. We do not have to look very far to think of a hypothetical that this amendment would make a reality. Let us imagine for a moment that the Immigration and Naturalization Service, in cooperation with the other Federal agencies, all of which oppose this amendment, seek to detain someone for exclusion from the country because they have evidence that he is a terrorist. The evidence that he is a terrorist is that he has been photographed and spotted making bombs at secret locations throughout the Middle East or throughout China or throughout Texas or throughout South America. The only way that they could hold him or to detain him would be to show him this information about this terrorist, the photographs that they have, the information that they have of where these cells are located. It is intuitive, Mr. Chairman, that revealing that type of information to a terrorist undermines our ability to stop terrorism. It is unfortunate, it is problematic, but it is a fact of life that we deal with information very often in this Chamber and in the halls of government, that it is a protection that we keep secret. We collect it in secret. We use it in secret. It is an awkward co-existence with our beliefs that people should have a right to every piece of information being used against them. But one also does not need to look at hypotheticals. When Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who was on trial for conspiracy to blow up the United Nations and tunnels and Federal buildings in my hometown of New York City, when information was being considered about his application for asylum, the judge considered that information in private, in secret. This was challenged in court in Ali v. Reno, and it was upheld. The court said at the time that there are some instances where it is absolutely essential that the secret information that is collected by government be used in secret. It is also unnecessary, this amendment, because the Justice Department has recognized that some of the things that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) and some of the things that the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell) have pointed out are problematic and need to be addressed. They are in the process of a very difficult analysis of every single one of these cases to make sure that no suspect is held without justification. Can I say with certitude that, if we pass the amendment or if we do not pass the amendment, that someone who is innocent of any crime might not be detained and might not be inconvenienced and might not feel a violation of his or her rights, I cannot say that. But I can say that by passing this amendment and other efforts to categorically, across the board, deny the use of secret information would do, I believe, irreparable harm to our ability to stop terrorists before they come into this country. We frequently speak with two voices. We here speak eloquently, and I say there are no two men who I respect more in this body than the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior) about our need to defend civil rights and liberties. I take a back seat to no one in that regard. But by the same token, we pass laws around here that send the message to our law enforcement authorities we want them to stop terrorism before it gets a chance to get off the ground and stop it before it comes through this country. When we had an experience in this country where someone successfully brought a bomb into the World Trade Centers and ignited it, there was naturally concerns about whether or not we were doing enough to stop terrorism. This bill would gut the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 and a whole series of other bills. I do not question for a moment the goodwill of the sponsors of this bill, but I do urge them all to think carefully about what information we would be required to be made public. Let me just conclude. I started with a hypothetical; let me end with a hypothetical. Let us assume in that hypothetical they had turned over the information. That was one option. The other option under this legislation, the amendment we are considering today, is they let the person go free, they let the person into the United States, they let the person come in here and, God forbid, do the damage that they sought to do when they came to this country. Neither scenario is a good one. The sponsors are right that the present law and the present method of doing anything needs to be improved, but I do not believe the alternative is better. Mr. Chairman, I gladly yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior).

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior).

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, at the outset I would like to commend the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) for their acknowledgment in this bill of the success of the COPS program and the allocation of $595 million for that program similar to last year's levels. My amendment brings the funding levels up to the budget request of the President to fully fund the COPS program. First, I think that it is an important threshold that we have reached in this body that both sides of the aisle now embrace the COPS program, a program that once was extraordinarily controversial; and there are still Members who are grudging in their support of this program. It is a program that has funded police officers at the local level throughout this country, police departments big and small. It has been an unqualified success. But this amount still underfunds one of our most important law enforcement programs. I am curious why, Mr. Chairman, the majority has decided to slash by more than half the amount requested by the President for COPS. Late last year the Justice Department released statistics showing that serious crime declined for the seventh year in a row. Today the crime rate is at a 26-year low, the murder rate is at a 31-year low. The rising tide of crime in the 1980s has clearly turned, and the COPS program deserves at least some of the credit. Five years into the life of the COPS program, over 100,000 officers have been funded. Over 60,000 new officers are on the streets today. Within the next 3 years when the hiring, training and deploying cycle which has been slowed, frankly, by the economy that all local police departments must go through is completed, over 100,000 officers will be patrolling our streets. But the bill we are considering today does not contain the funds necessary to continue this success. The bill eliminates funding for community prosecutors, cuts funding for critical technology like DNA analysis as we spoke about earlier and backlog reduction that would reduce crime and provides no increase for funds to expand community- based crime prevention. The chairman of the subcommittee earlier characterized this bill as sloshing with money. That is exactly how it is being allocated, in giant splashes as we throw large sums of money at States; and we hope and we pray and we wish and we grimace and we say maybe some of it will go to DNA testing, maybe some of it will go to community courts. This amendment makes sure that the COPS program is fully funded. I would hope that the chairman would withdraw his point of order. The amendment I am offering today along with the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Stabenow) would fully fund the President's request for COPS. Our amendment provides funds to add up to 7,000 additional officers and includes $350 million for crime fighting technology as well as $200 million for community prosecutors. We set some of these targets so that local government can better address gun violence hot spots. Today's bill includes no increase in funds to expand community-based crime prevention. Our amendment changes this. We put $135 million in for prevention activities like school safety programs, police integrity and hate crimes training and gun destruction grants. Full funding of these programs requested by the President is critical if the Nation is going to continue to see drops in crime. This administration has seen perhaps the most dramatic reductions in crime, the most dramatic increase in prosecutions at all levels of government of any administration in recent memory. I would note, Mr. Chairman, that one of the majority's objections to fully funding COPS is that language to authorize these programs has not been introduced. That is not true. The gentlewoman from Michigan and I introduced H.R. 3144, a bill that would authorize all of the programs funded in our amendment. H.R. 3144 has 166 cosponsors. We look forward to its consideration in the Committee on the Judiciary. Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would point out that I approached the Committee on Rules and asked that this be made in order. It is subject to a point of order. I would ask the chairman not to insist upon that point of order.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. WEINER. I understand. I thank the Chair. I just wanted to make sure I was not losing my place, and I apologize, with all due deference, to the senior Member.

Mr. WEINER. I believe mine is line 11. I am not sure.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, may I ask the gentlewoman to yield for a moment. I believe that my amendment is on a line ahead of hers; and I would ask, just so we do not go out of order, if she would withdraw.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, today the world awaits the result of the show trial of 13 Jewish hostages in Iran. They have been held for over a year simply because they are Jewish. Without evidence, without a chance to confront their accusers, without lawyers of their own choosing, these 13 hostages have been subjected to a kangaroo court. But Iran's new so-called moderate government is also on trial here. If Iran does not free these hostages, and soon, it should be a clear sign that that country has not changed its stripes. Our response? Well, we should offer no more favorable trade agreements, such as the ones we did for rugs and pistachios recently. We should offer no more IMF or World Bank loans. The fate of these 13 Iranian Jewish hostages should be our litmus test of Iran's new-found moderation. The world, Mr. Speaker, is watching.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I first want to thank my colleagues, the chairman of the subcommittee and the ranking member, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) and my coach, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo), for their great leadership on this issue. No two people work harder on aviation concerns than they do. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to address what is a policy that is included in the FAA that is contrary not only to common sense, but is contrary to congressional mandate, it is contrary to environmental policies, and it is contrary to sane and safe aviation policy. Right now the Federal Aviation Administration is attempting to erect a 130-foot Doppler radar tower that would help to detect wind shear at Kennedy and LaGuardia Airports, something that I support. They are proposing to do it in the heart of a national park, of Gateway National Recreation Area in my district in Brooklyn that borders on Queens. This is a policy that is contrary, first, to congressional mandate. In 1976 when this park became the possession of the National Park Service and it was turned over, Congress wanted to make sure that this type of installation was not put there, so language was put in the bill that said, ``Nothing in this section shall authorize the expansion of air facilities at Floyd Bennett Field,'' exactly where this radar tower is going. It is also contrary to congressional mandate in terms of our national parks. That is where it also runs afoul of our environmental policies. I would ask my colleagues to think about any other National Park facility that has an FAA radar tower on it. Members can think as long as they want, because there is not a single one. We would shudder to think of putting a radar tower in Grand Tetons Park or in Grand Canyon Park or in Redwood Forest. We would never think to do it. But because this National Park is one that is a little different, it, we do not see it on flyers for the National Park, though it is someplace where hundreds of thousands of visitors from an urban area that covers frankly a very big footprint in three States come to visit. It is not the most beautiful, the most sensational, but it is a National Park that people come to commune with nature. It is contrary to environmental policies, according to the Department of the Interior, to put such facilities in a National Park. Finally, and this is the point that I think will be most salient to members of the committee considering this bill, it is contrary to aviation safety. Members do not have to ask me, they do not have to trust me. We have to read the EIS produced by the FAA when they were pushing this plan. They say that it has big blind spots that prevent this radar from seeing Kennedy and LaGuardia Airports. Why? It is at the very southern tip, far from where they had suggested this thing be placed. It says there are blind spots because of the topography and geography of Queens, so they cannot see the busiest part of the busiest airport in LaGuardia. It also says in the same EIS that they are not crazy about this site, but Congress said they could not do their first choice. In fact, it is not even as good as the suggestion that the Members from New York have suggested, which is to put it on an island, a Potters Field off the water of the airport that would have a clear vision. It is not even as good as that site. ``We want to do this site, well, because we are in a hurry. We want to hurry up and move along with it.'' Frankly, we hear testimony all the time in the Committee on Science and in the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure that shortly this technology that they are going to be erecting is going to be outdated and obsolete. Do Members know how many more of these radar towers there are on God's Earth? None. Why? They are not being built. The technology has passed it by. There will shortly be technology available to put right in the nose of planes that will obviate the need for this. Finally, Mr. Chairman, this has been a debate that has been clouded by a certain amount of hyperbole. The supporters of this initiative in the FAA said, if we do not hurry up, God forbid, there will be a crash, a disaster, and planes are going to fall from the sky. So we have put aside all of the evidence to the contrary. We have put aside a more thoughtful process. We have allowed ourselves to be scared into installing a Doppler radar tower that is contrary to congressional mandate, contrary to environmental policy, and contrary to aviation safety. There are places to put this radar tower that I support and the community supports. This is not it. This is against the law to do this. I believe the courts will rule that way if this Congress does not. It simply is contrary to common sense. I thank my colleagues for giving me the opportunity to bring this issue, but let me remind them, this is not the only National Park. This is not the only time the FAA is going to want to encroach on our National Parks, but this should be an opportunity for us to say, let us stop it here. It is bad policy, and my amendment would make sure that no FAA funds go to supporting that policy. (Mr. WOLF asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and let me just say I have a great deal of respect for the chairman, but if this becomes law, I will tell my colleagues what would happen, they would build it at a place that was smarter, they would build it at a place that is consistent with environmental policy, and they would build it much quicker, because the lawsuit that is going on is not going to stop simply because we like it to. This is contrary to government policy. However, in the interest of the opposition of the chairman of whom I respect, I move to withdraw the amendment at this time with every intention to pursue this in the future. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.