Congressional Record: December 7, 2004 (House)
Page H10994-H11029
CONFERENCE REPORT ON S. 2845, INTELLIGENCE REFORM AND TERRORISM
PREVENTION ACT OF 2004
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I
call up House Resolution 870 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 870
Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution it shall be
in order to consider the conference report to accompany the
bill (S. 2845) to reform the intelligence community and the
intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the
United States Government, and for other purposes. All points
of order against the conference report and against its
consideration are waived. The conference report shall be
considered as read.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) is
recognized for 1 hour.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the
customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter),
pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During
consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose
of debate only.
Mr. Speaker, this is a traditional rule for consideration of the
conference report for the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention
Act of 2004. The rule waives all points of order against the conference
report. It also provides that the conference report shall be considered
as read.
I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this rule and approving
the underlying conference committee report on truly historic reform
legislation, S. 2845.
Mr. Speaker, final passage of this legislation today will be viewed
by many as one of the most noteworthy accomplishments of the 108th
Congress. Playing critical roles in getting us to this point in time
have been the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. DeLAY), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) and a
host of others. The American people owe these Members an enormous debt
of gratitude.
A world in which the enemy is easily identifiable has changed. We
face more and more states without solid institutions, national
consciousness and internal cohesion which are providing new threats
such as the transfer of weapons of mass destruction and an increasing
number of nonstate actors such as terrorist networks.
Terrorism has existed for hundreds of years, but the last decade has
seen a rise in terrorist networks and their coordination amongst
themselves. Many terrorists groups actively share hostage-taking
tactics, weapons training, and planning techniques with one another.
More than ever the terrorist networks are finding it easier to blend
into society and are becoming harder for intelligence agencies to
track. Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency James Woolsey
put it best when he said, We have slain a large dragon, the U.S.S.R.,
but we now live in a jungle filled with a bewildering variety of
poisonous snakes. In many ways, the dragon was easier to keep track of.
The job of keeping track of these terrorist networks belongs to the
U.S. Intelligence Community, and we thank the CIA and all the other
members of
[[Page H10995]]
our Intelligence Community who make it a vital contribution to our
Nation's security.
More than ever, timely and accurate intelligence is recognized as a
critical weapon in the global war on terrorism. We have already begun
to rebuild our intelligence capabilities, and law enforcement and
intelligence agencies are now working closer together.
As the 9/11 Commission concluded, we are safer today than we were 3
years ago, but we are not safe enough. As such, great changes and
reform are needed. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act
of 2004 before us today will do much to keep America safe, and it is
important that we act to enact this legislation now. Protecting the
American people is the number one priority of this President and the
United States Congress.
This legislation builds on the steps we have already taken since the
attacks of September 11, 2001, and improves our intelligence-gathering
apparatus. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act is a
broad-based approach that seeks to reform our government agencies and
strengthen our Intelligence Community to make them more effective to
address the global terrorist threat.
Mr. Speaker, this is a traditional rule for conference reports. I
urge support for the rule and for the underlying measure.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
(Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend
her remarks.)
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, could the attacks of September 11 have
been prevented if someone had connected the dots? Could the war in Iraq
have been avoided if intelligence had been better? I honestly do not
know. But what both situations tragically highlight is one fundamental
truth: Our Nation needs intelligence reform.
The September 11 Commission report released over 5 months ago
outlined the gaps and weaknesses in our current intelligence system. It
also made 41 recommendations to Congress that, if implemented, would
make America safer.
Today the House at long last is poised to consider the conference
report to S. 2845, the National Intelligence Reform Act. This measure
seeks to implement the core intelligence reforms recommended by the 9/
11 Commission and makes significant improvements to emergency
preparedness and aviation and border security.
Since July, Governor Kean and Representative Hamilton have tirelessly
worked to ensure their recommendations are not relegated to the
circular file of history. Throughout the summer, they testified before
congressional committee after congressional committee in the hopes of
building momentum before the third anniversary of the attacks. After
reading their fine report and participating in a hearing with them in
the Select Committee on Homeland Security, I, like most, if not all, of
my Democratic colleagues in the House, endorsed all 41 recommendations.
The Commission report attributed structural weaknesses as partially
to blame for the intelligence failures prior to the 9/11 attacks. A
culture of isolation and separation exists between the 15 intelligence
agencies that must be dismantled if we are to transform the environment
and foster information-sharing among government agencies. We need to
have a strong Director of National Intelligence to coordinate all
intelligence efforts.
It is my understanding that last-minute changes were made to the
conference report. We only received it an hour ago. I sincerely hope
that the final version of this report vests the new Director with the
people and the budget authority necessary to assert control over all 15
intelligence-collection agencies.
Mr. Speaker, we all know that the men and women on the front lines in
Iraq and Afghanistan need to be assured that the intelligence they get
is good intelligence. No one in this body would ever agree to reform
our intelligence apparatus in any manner that would undermine our
soldiers.
Today we mark the 63rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Yesterday terrorists opened fire on Americans working in the U.S.
Consulate in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia. Whatever changes we make cannot be
simply cosmetic. Our Armed Forces, Congress, the President, and the
American people need to have confidence in the quality of their
intelligence.
In the post-September 11 world Americans demand a national
Intelligence Community that works together for the benefit of the
national security, and Congress must act decisively to bring about
those structural reforms. The stakes are very high. There is no room
here for egos. There is no room for turf war. There is no room for
bureaucratic haggling.
The report also closes critical gaps in aviation and border security.
With respect to aviation security, it calls for the deployment of new
explosive-detection screening technologies for carry-on bags and blast-
resistant cargo containers. On border security the report calls for
unmanned aerial vehicles to be placed along the 5,500-mile border
between the United States and Canada, especially in areas far from a
legal port of entry. This is an issue I care deeply about as my western
New York district is a major gateway to Canada, the second busiest at
Niagara Falls, New York.
Ever since the 9/11 Commission recommendations were released in July,
there has been a steady drumbeat of support from my district. Like me,
my constituents believe that an overhaul to the Nation's intelligence
apparatus is critical to the future of this great land, and much of
what is being considered here today will accomplish this vital end.
Mr. Speaker, it bears repeating that we could have passed these
reforms months ago, but the leadership did not want to act. Now, today,
they want us to consider the report under martial law, even though
Democrats have been ready to act for months. Moreover, if Democrats had
not insisted on a recorded vote to correct a taxpayer privacy provision
in the omnibus bill, Congress would not have returned to Washington,
and this bill would not have passed before adjournment.
Democrats have worked hard to make the country safer, and we look
forward to working with the new Director of National Intelligence to do
everything we can to make sure this tragedy is never repeated.
Mr. Speaker, I look forward to an active debate on this critical
piece of legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the chairman of the Committee
on Rules.
(Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Atlanta, Georgia
(Mr. Linder) for yielding me time.
I rise in strong support both of this rule and the conference report.
This has been one of the most difficult conferences that we have ever
gone through, and I want to say at the outset that I want to
congratulate my two colleagues who led this, the gentleman from
Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms.
Harman) from the House side, and our Senate colleagues, Senator Collins
and Senator Lieberman who provided leadership there.
We had two bills the likes of which I had never seen such a major
disparity. H.R. 10, which emerged from this House, is one which I was
very proud to support. It included very important national security
provisions, very important provisions as it relates to immigration and
the problems that we saw with the deficiencies that led to what took
place on September 11 of 2001. I believe that the Senate measure
consisted solely of those provisions that emerged from the good work of
the 9/11 Commission.
I happen to believe that H.R. 10 was a much better piece of
legislation than the one that we have ultimately ended up with here
today.
{time} 1645
I will say this. I do believe that we have come a long way towards
taking steps that will ensure that we do not see another September 11
and that we have in place a structure which will ensure that we have
the intelligence capability to deal with conflicts on the
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ground, wherever they exist in the world.
We know from having met with the family members of the victims of
September 11 that this is a very emotional issue. This has been an
emotional issue for all of us because, as we all know, we lost friends
on September 11. A plane went down a few miles from here into the
Pentagon, and we have heard, of course, from our colleagues who
represent New York and Pennsylvania of the loss there. I would like to
point to the fact that, tragically, all of those planes that took off
were headed to my State of California on September 11. So we have all
felt this.
The families appeared at the first meeting we had of this conference,
and we were all moved by the extraordinarily strong statements that
they made to us as we were preparing to meet there, and that is why the
work of this conference has been so important.
I want to congratulate the other House conferees who worked hard on
this. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) is sitting right
here, and while he is going to support the rule, I know that he has
chosen not to support the conference report. I will say, Mr. Speaker,
that the concerns that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner)
has as it relates to the conference report are concerns that I share
right down the line.
A year ago last August, I was asked to join in leading the charge for
an effort to recall the Governor of California and to help Arnold
Schwarzenegger get elected Governor of California. One of the main
issues of that campaign was the fact that driver's licenses were ending
up in the hands of people who are here illegally, and they were used
fraudulently, and that is a real problem, and it is a real problem when
it comes to security.
The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) has been a great
champion, and I have been pleased and proud to stand with him in our
attempt to ensure that we do provide standards as it relates to
driver's licenses because, again, as the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr.
Sensenbrenner) pointed out in our conference this morning, Mohamed Atta
was using a fraudulent driver's license and was simply pulled over for
a traffic violation and told to appear in court. That would have been
after what he did on September 11, when he was one of those flying the
planes into the World Trade Center towers.
It also is, I think, very important for us to do everything we can to
secure our southern border, and my colleague, the gentleman from
California (Mr. Ose), who is going to be presiding over the sine die
adjournment of the 108th Congress later today or this evening, is a
person who offered an amendment to H.R. 10 which was designed to
complete a 3\1/2\ mile gap that exists in the 14-mile fence which was
put in during the Clinton administration with the support of Bill
Clinton, in a bipartisan way, with strong support here in the House and
the Senate, and it has been successful, with the exception of a 3\1/2\
mile gap that extends from the Pacific Ocean to the Tijuana estuary.
I know we are all concerned about environmental quality, and I am
very concerned about the environment, and it has been an environmental
issue that has led to the delay in completion of that fence. The
presence of something known as the Bell's vireo bird nesting on that
fence has prevented completion of it. So, yes, we are all concerned
about the environment, but the real tragedy to me is the fact, and I
just flew over it a few weeks ago, the environment is plundered in this
area because of illegal border crossings. The fact that we are seeing
that area environmentally damaged because of that gap, it seems to me
that we need to look at that. Unfortunately, it is not included in this
measure, but I chose to sign this conference report and am supporting
this conference report today based on the fact that we are, in the
first must-pass piece of legislation we have in the 109th Congress,
going to have the opportunity to include these very important
immigration issues.
The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) has done a great
job. The gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) did a great job. The
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) worked hard on this as well. The
gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), my colleague, has focused on
this very important chain-of-command issue, and I believe that he has
been right in pursuing it.
We are at an extraordinary time in our history. My colleague from
Rochester just mentioned the fact that today is the 63rd anniversary of
the tragic bombing that took place in Pearl Harbor; 2,400 lives were
lost there. We know that 3,000 plus lives were lost on September 11,
2001. Earlier today we saw the inauguration of the first democratically
elected President in the history of Afghanistan, and that could not
have come about, Mr. Speaker, were it not for strong, bold, dynamic
leadership on the part of the United States of America.
The United States of America is the only Nation on the face of the
Earth, the only Nation, that can effectively deal with the kinds of
challenges that we have. We have not done it unilaterally. It is not
doing it unilaterally today. We have never done it unilaterally. We
have done it with strong and building international coalitions. We will
continue to do that.
Passage of this legislation is simply a first step. It is a first
step, and that is the reason that I have chosen not to turn my back on
it and to get as much as we possibly can as we go down this road
towards doing even more to have a National Intelligence Director, and
make sure that that individual is strong and able to deal with
intelligence issues and to deal with the overall national and border
security questions that we have.
So, Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues again for the time and energy
and effort they have put in these past weeks and now months to come to
this point. I congratulate the gentleman from Illinois (Speaker
Hastert) and the President of the United States for the leadership that
they have shown in getting us to where we are today.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from New York (Mr. Hinchey).
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend and colleague from New
York for yielding me the time to address this very critical and
important issue.
This bill has come about as a result of a very labored process, and
should it pass here today, which I assume it will, we should not
deceive ourselves into believing that we have accomplished the
objective that is necessary to accomplish in order to secure the
security of the people of the United States.
Getting good intelligence and having a good intelligence arrangement
is one thing, but the use of that intelligence, the interpretation of
that intelligence, the honest use of that intelligence is yet another
thing.
The intelligence agency must be an objective analyzer of secret and
complex information, not just a tool of the White House. The
intelligence agency must serve the interests of the Nation as a whole,
not serve the President politically.
It is increasingly obvious how the administration twisted and
tortured and distorted intelligence to support their decision to go to
war in Iraq. This bill does not solve that problem. It is up to the
membership of this House to deal with that issue, and the issue has not
yet been dealt with. We have not exercised the proper oversight to
determine why and in what ways the intelligence was distorted.
We need to secure the people of this country. The 9/11 Commission and
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report tells us that prior to
the attack of September 11, the administration had been warned dozens
of times that Osama bin Laden was determined to attack the United
States, but this administration failed to act on those warnings. Why?
This House has not exercised the appropriate oversight to understand
why the intelligence was not used by the administration the way it
should have been used.
The administration insisted on focusing its attention elsewhere,
including its obsession with Iraq prior to and after the attack of
September 11.
Paul Wolfowitz, for example, the Deputy Defense Secretary, and his
Under Secretary for Policy argued that there was a terrorist alliance
between the Hussein regime in Iraq and al Qaeda, despite the fact that
intelligence reports showed that no such alliance existed. Why was that
the case, and why has this House not exercised
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its oversight responsibilities to determine why we were deceived and
the American people were deceived?
The same is true concerning the missing Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction. We were told over and over and over again by everyone
across the administration, President, Vice President, Secretary of
Defense, National Security Adviser, in fact, the President right here
in this room from the podium behind me talked about weapons of mass
destruction and even gave us the vision of a mushroom cloud, suggesting
very clearly that there were atomic weapons that could be used. Why
have we not exercised our oversight responsibilities to determine why
that information was missing?
So that is the issue that we ought to be confronting not just today,
but as we go into the next Congress, confronting that issue in the way
it needs to be addressed.
Yes, it is fine to reform the intelligence procedures and
administration, restructure them, modernize them, make them perhaps
more compatible than they may have been with present-day needs, improve
the communication between one and another. That is one thing, and maybe
this bill will do that.
But why has the leadership of this House not asked these questions?
Why have hearings not been held? Why have the oversight
responsibilities of the leadership of the House not been exercised
appropriately in the way in which the Constitution requires they be
exercised?
At no time in the history of our country have we gone to war with
another Nation based on information so badly misinterpreted, twisted,
distorted and misrepresented. This House has an obligation to find out
why that was done, why we have lost so many lives of American
servicemen and women on the basis of that twisted, distorted,
misrepresented information.
Even today, when we are told that everything is going fine in Iraq,
we are learning from the intelligence agencies and learning it in ways
that are indirect, even surreptitious, that the situation in Iraq is
deteriorating, that the opposition there is increasing. In spite of the
fact that our servicemen were successful in Fallujah, nevertheless the
insurgency is growing stronger. That is what we are being told by the
intelligence agencies. We are told that indirectly. We do not get it
directly from the administration. They want a different picture to be
painted entirely, and this is what our responsibility is as Members of
the House of Representatives, to find out why this conflict exists and
why we are not getting to the bottom of it.
Why, when we are told things by the administration and later found
out that they are completely untrue, are we just to accept it, gloss
over it, pretend it did not happen? That seems to be the attitude that
has been taken by the majority here. It ought not to be. If we were
living up to our obligations, under the separation of powers, the
obligations in the Constitution, we would be adequately exercising our
oversight obligations and responsibilities on the issue of the way in
which this intelligence was misrepresented, distorted, tortured, and
why we are in the situation we are in today as a result.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to the
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood).
(Mr. LaHOOD asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. LaHOOD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to oppose the 9/11 conference
report being considered.
I have had the privilege of serving on the Permanent Select Committee
on Intelligence thanks to the appointment from the gentleman from
Illinois (Speaker Hastert) for 6 years, and I want to stipulate for the
record that a number of reforms have taken place long before the 9/11
Commission was appointed, long before the 9/11 Commission report was
issued.
Immediately following what took place in New York and Washington and
the loss of 3,000 American lives, President Bush and his team and the
Congress put together a homeland security agency that combined 22
agencies at a cost of $40 billion. We created a TSA agency at all major
airports at a cost of $5.2 billion. Every airport is now secure, and
people do feel safe flying.
{time} 1700
We gave the airline industry $15 billion to secure airplanes and
cockpits, and now airplanes are safe to fly.
We enacted the PATRIOT Act, which now allows law enforcement agencies
all over the country to communicate with one another and has allowed
law enforcement officials to arrest people in this country who are
terrorists in Buffalo, New York, and Portland, Oregon, who were here
for no other purpose than to hurt Americans.
We contributed between $20 billion and $40 billion to the City of New
York to clean up what took place there after the 9/11 bombings and also
to compensate families for the loss of their loved ones. We created the
TTIC agency within the CIA and the FBI, and we created JTTFs, Joint
Terrorism Task Forces, in every major city so that there is
communication. Under Director Mueller, the FBI has been organized and
is doing a marvelous job.
We invaded Afghanistan, brought down al Qaeda at a cost of $18
billion, and a new president has been sworn in as of today. We invaded
Iraq, brought down Saddam Hussein; and the people there, for the first
time, have an opportunity and a chance to vote for their own leadership
in January.
The bottom line is this: the last 3 years, since America has been
attacked, have been years when the country has not been attacked. The
President deserves credit. We deserve credit here in Congress for the
work we have done to create these opportunities to fight terrorism. We
have not neglected our responsibilities, and we have not been sitting
around on our hands waiting for some recommendation from some
commission.
A thousand new FBI agents have been authorized and a thousand new CIA
agents have been authorized, and many of them are being hired. There is
a lot better communication between the CIA and the FBI today and the
executive branch of government.
I believe creating a National Intelligence Directorate is a huge
mistake. It is another bureaucracy. It is another layer of government.
It would not have prevented 9/11, and it will not prevent another 9/11.
We are fooling ourselves by creating this kind of public policy and
trying to lead people to believe that when we pass this bill today
America will be safer or America would have been safe prior to 9/11. It
will not happen.
We are going to create a monster that will not really inhibit the
ability of terrorists. We are going to have another terrorist attack.
This will not prevent it, and I urge my colleagues to read the bill and
look at the bill and think long and hard about the idea of creating
some sort of other bureaucracy on top of everything else, because I
just think it will not work.
We have done good work in the House, in the Senate, and with the
President's leadership have really done a good job in combating
terrorism. This bill is not good public policy. I hope Members will
look at it. I think it is the wrong approach, and that is why I oppose
it.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman
from New York (Mrs. Maloney).
Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me
this time and for her leadership.
Right after 9/11, the Congress had never been more united and
determined to work together in a bipartisan way to keep America safe
from further attacks. We got a great deal done in a short period of
time. It was a proud moment in this body's history. Unfortunately, it
did not last long enough. But today, the last act of this session of
Congress, passing this intelligence reform and anti-terrorism bill,
will be a heartening reminder to the American people that the two
parties can work together and live up to the ideal that was so often
repeated after 9/11: united we stand.
Mr. Speaker, 9/11 made the Cold War politics of containment obsolete.
We all knew we had to change and modernize our intelligence network to
be more agile, more proactive, to connect the dots across the agencies
in order to protect and anticipate attacks. That is the kind of network
that our new intelligence director will be able to lead. This is a true
anti-terrorism bill that will harden our borders, tighten our visa
restrictions, and strengthen our first responders: air, cargo, and
transport security.
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The next Congress still needs to pass key recommendations to
strengthen our security, but this is a big step forward. I want to
thank the President, the minority leader, the Speaker and his Chief of
Staff, Scott Palmer, for their dogged efforts to give this country this
wonderful holiday gift.
I also want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter),
chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, for his willingness to
find a middle ground, and I want to thank my colleagues in the House
and Senate who played critical roles in this passage: the gentleman
from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez), the gentlewoman from California (Ms.
Harman), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), Senator Collins
and Senator Lieberman, and the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).
Ultimately, however, this is not our moment. This moment belongs to
the family members of the 9/11 victims, many of whom are with us
tonight in this Chamber. For more than 3 years they fought to turn
personal tragedy into public service. By sheer force of will they made
today's results inevitable by persevering when it seemed impossible.
They held vigils in the rain, they bowled over bureaucracies, they
courageously channeled their pain. Without them, there would have been
no 9/11 Commission and probably no major intelligence reform bill.
I saw a number of 9/11 families last night alone at a White House
vigil, their loved ones claimed by al Qaeda. As I stood there with my
husband, it drove home the fact that they did not do this for
themselves, but to ensure that all of us will never lose loved ones to
terrorism. I would like to recognize their ultimate act of service and
to thank them, especially Carol Ashley, Kristen Breitweiser, Patty
Casazza, Beverly Ecckert, Mary Fetchet, Monica Gabrielle, Bill Harvey,
Mindy Kleinberg, Carie Lemack, Sally Regenhard, Lori Van Auken and
Robin Wiener. Today, their words are much more important than mine.
Mr. Speaker, I will place in the Record their personal statements, in
their own words, in support of this legislation.
An Open Letter to Members of the 108th Congress on the 9/11 Bill
Conference Report
December 7, 2004.
Dear Members of Congress: You have at last reached
consensus on a bill that will implement the 9/11 Commission's
recommendations. A vote on the Conference Report appears
imminent. We believe this conference report accomplishes our
main goal, which was to fix our nation's broken intelligence
system.
The passage of these reforms marks a critical point in a
long, three-year journey. We started as a diverse group of 12
individuals representing a number of 9/11 family groups who
shared a common loss. Our goals was to make our country
safer. Although at times our resolve was sorely tested, the
12 of us have remained steadfast refusing to ever give up.
Having reached this critical junction, we want to
acknowledge the many individuals who have helped us. We thank
all of the Members of Congress who voted for the
establishment of an independent 9/11 Commission. We thank the
ten 9/11 Commissioners who acted in a truly bipartisan manner
and produced a report whose 41 recommendations became a
roadmap for today's Conference Report.
We would also like to thank the individuals who have made
today's votes possible. In particular, we want to acknowledge
the leadership of President Bush, Speaker Hastert, Leader
Pelosi, Majority Leader Frist and Minority Leader Daschle. We
would also like to acknowledge the efforts of the Conference
Chairman, Pete Hoekstra as well as the other principal
conferees Susan Collins, Jane Harman and Joseph Lieberman.
Finally, we would like to acknowledge the hard work of the 9/
11 Commission Caucus led by Congressman Christopher Shays and
Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney.
While we thank you for your work on this historic
legislation, we must keep in mind that more work needs to be
done. One critical issue is reorganizing Congress so our
intelligence agencies will have the oversight required to
ensure it is doing its job. We look forward to working with
you in the 109th Congress, to help enact the remaining
recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Report, and to make
our country as safe as possible for this generation and
generations to come.
Signed,
Carol Ashley, mother of Janice Ashley, 25; Kristen
Breitweiser, wife of Ronald Breitweiser, 39; Patty
Casazza, wife of John F. Casazza, 38; Beverly Eckert,
wife of Sean Rooney; Mary Fetchet, mother of Bradley
James Fetchet, 24; Monica Gabrielle, wife of Richard
Gabrielle; Bill Harvey, husband of Sara Manley Harvey,
31; Mindy Kleinberg, wife of Alan Kleinberg, 39; Carie
Lemack, daughter of Judy Larocque; Sally Regenhard,
mother of Christian Michael Otto Regenhard, 28; Lorie
Van Auken, wife of Kenneth Van Auken, 47; Robin Wiener,
sister of Jeffrey Wiener, 33.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), chairman of the Committee
on the Judiciary.
Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the
conference report. The House-passed bill not only reformed our
intelligence community, it also secured our borders. Unfortunately, the
conference has left us with an incomplete product that does not secure
our border and, thus, makes us more vulnerable to another terrorist
attack.
At the beginning of this process I said that the object of this
legislation should be to prevent a future attack on the United States,
not to manage the consequences of that attack. This bill does not do
that. And the reason it does not do that is that while we will have
better intelligence, good intelligence is useless without good homeland
security.
The House bill followed the 9/11 Commission's common-sense
recommendation that we have Federal standards for driver's licenses.
The commission said, ``For terrorists, travel documents are as
important as weapons.'' Despite many attempts to keep these weapons
away from terrorists, the bill does not do the job.
In fact, the language in the conference report is worse than the
current law, and it practically invites terrorists to come into our
country and to apply for these critical identification documents. There
is no enforcement or certification at the national level. There is no
expiration of the licenses when the visas expire. There is no data-
sharing between the States. And any State can simply walk away from the
few requirements that are in the bill. That does not sound like
driver's license reform to me. Rather it sounds like a recipe for
disaster, the same kind of disaster that occurred on 9/11.
Remember that the 9/11 hijackers had multiple validly issued State
driver's licenses among them, and that is how they got on the
airplanes. That is what we were trying to stop by changing the
provisions in the conference report, and I regret that we failed. But I
can assure you that this issue is not going to go away.
We have also failed on asylum reform. Many terrorist aliens have
applied for asylum and then have been released from detention to plot
or commit their crimes. That must stop, and the provisions in the House
bill would have done that, but they too were dropped.
Terrorists are getting asylum today for two main reasons. First, our
government cannot even ask foreign governments what evidence they have
about terrorist activities of asylum applicants. Thus, the U.S.
Government must usually oppose asylum requests by arguing that the
applicant is lying. The Ninth Circuit has effectively barred
immigration judges from denying asylum claims on the basis of the
credibility of witness statements. That is crazy, because every jury in
the country judges the credibility of the witnesses in determining the
guilt or innocence of the defendant. The House bill would have stopped
that and removed that bar. The conference report does not.
In addition, the Ninth Circuit has been granting asylum to applicants
because their home government believes they are terrorists. It then
says, therefore they are being persecuted because of the political
beliefs of the relevant terrorist organizations. That is goofy. The
House stopped it, but the Senate would not go along; and the conference
report fails to deal with this issue.
These provisions are not too controversial. They are not irrelevant.
They are vital. And how could we face grieving families in the future
and tell them that while we might have done more, the legislative
hurdles were just too high? I, for one, cannot, and, therefore, oppose
the bill.
I have heard from many citizens from my district and across the
country who understand and want these provisions, and I thank them for
their support. I want to say to them, and to everyone else that is
listening, I will not rest
[[Page H10999]]
until these provisions are enacted into law. I will bring them up
relentlessly until this job is completed. The bill was a chance to
complete the job, and that chance was missed; but it will come again
soon.
Finally, I would like to pay tribute to two of my fellow conferees,
the gentlemen from California (Mr. Hunter) and the gentleman from
California (Mr. Dreier). The chairman of the Committee on Armed
Services, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), I think did
yeoman's work in cleaning up the problems with the chain of command in
order to protect our warfighters in the field and reduce casualties,
and the bill is an improvement over what was passed by the other body
on this. But that only applies to safety of troops overseas. It does
not deal with the issue of safety of Americans at home.
The gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), and the gentleman from
California (Mr. Dreier) in particular, were instrumental in trying to
support the driver's license and asylum reform provisions as well as
plugging the hole in the fence that needs to be plugged to prevent
aliens from streaming across the border. We ought to vote this down and
start over next year.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Harman).
Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this
time and commend her service on the Committee on Rules. I rise to make
clear that I will not object to this rule waiving any points of order
which might lie against the conference report, a report that I strongly
support.
I will be speaking about the content of the bill once we move to
consideration of the conference report, where I will be managing the
time on our side, but I did want to rise to comment on some of the
claims that have been made in the debate so far, especially the claims
just made by the powerful and passionate chairman of the House
Committee on the Judiciary.
I would point out to our colleagues that the conference report, which
was the product of 3 months of intense negotiation, does contain
immigration reforms. All of the conferees, to my knowledge, believe
that immigration reform is necessary; and all of the conferees, and I
hope all of our colleagues, understand that our goal here is to make
certain that our immigration system does not enable terrorists to get
on airplanes or otherwise to harm our citizens. That is why in this
bill many of the suggestions made by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr.
Sensenbrenner) and many of the provisions in the House bill were
accepted.
For example, the bill provides for 10,000 more border guards over 5
years. Ten thousand. It provides 4,000 more border inspectors over 5
years. It provides for 40,000 more detention beds over 5 years. These
are beds that will be used by those who might be deported.
So our point is that we want the immigration laws to work better. We
want to make sure that we know who is coming into our country, not just
at our southern border but also at our northern border. Most of us are
well aware that attempts to harm our country have come to us across our
northern border as well as our southern border. Indeed, one such
attempt was foiled just before the millennium, when a man trying to get
to Washington State from Canada was, fortunately, intercepted by an
adroit Customs agent. He was driving a rental car full of bomb material
intending to bomb LAX, a major international airport surrounded by my
congressional district.
{time} 1715
So, Mr. Speaker, I get this. Our borders are porous, and we need to
make them more secure. This bill does that.
In addition to that, this bill adds to our law enforcement tools,
addressing other issues with which the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr.
Sensenbrenner) was concerned. We toughen the penalties for terrorist
hoaxes. We create a new set of penalties for those who would use
shoulder-fired missiles to shoot down airplanes. We toughen the
penalties for material support of terrorists, and we add a provision
which enables us to punish the ``lone wolf'' terrorist, someone acting
alone, as Timothy McVeigh did, to harm our citizens.
The bottom line here is this carefully structured, bipartisan,
bicameral conference report does deal with these issues, as well as the
chain of command, which many of us felt was adequately protected in
current law, but which we addressed again to make sure everyone
understood we were dealing with it. The point I want to make is we took
these issues on, we came to the best resolution we could. This rule
permits us to vote finally on what I think is the best possible
conference report we could have developed under all of the
circumstances. It deals with the valid concerns of the families who
lost loved ones on 9-11, and it honors those they lost. I urge support
of this rule. I will rise later and urge support of the conference
report.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa
(Mr. King).
(Mr. KING of Iowa asked and was given permission to revise and extend
his remarks.)
Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I think a lot of Members
will thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) for introducing
the legislation that actually identified the National Intelligence
Director well before the 9/11 Commission met to deliberate on this
particular subject matter.
I would like to associate myself with the remarks of the gentleman
from Illinois (Mr. LaHood). The gentleman from Illinois ticked down
through the issues which have been successful in our addressing
terrorists and the fact it has been 3 years since a successful
terrorist attack in the United States, due in large part to the changes
illustrated by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood).
One thing he did not go into in real depth is the Terrorist Threat
Integration Center, TTIC. That really is in its functionality, the
function of the National Intelligence Director and the organization
that puts all 15 agencies under one roof, requires them to work
together, and there has been no discussion about their effectiveness,
but there has certainly been a record of that effectiveness. I think we
have taken steps down that road.
I would point out when we establish a National Intelligence Director,
we are creating a formula for groupthink. It is not the opposite. If
you put someone at the top of an organization and give them hiring and
firing control, pretty soon they start to carve those square pegs into
round holes, and they will toe the mark, or they will find some folks
that will. The people in my office think like I do. The people in other
Members' offices think like they do because it is top-down management.
It produces groupthink, it does not avoid groupthink. Doing something
different and expecting it to be better just because it is different is
not a high standard of logic. It takes more to defend this issue and to
give this National Intelligence Director this control.
The history of success in intelligence in America and throughout all
of history has been nonlinear thinking, creative out-of-the-box people
who broke the mold and got into the minds of the people who they were
up against. They were outside-of-the-box thinkers who flew those planes
into us on September 11, and they are out there scheming today. We need
a creative system to be able to address that.
With regard to border control, I associate myself with the gentleman
from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner), and particularly his
relentless attitude to bring these issues before this country over and
over until we do get it right.
Mr. Speaker, 85 percent of the methamphetamine in the State of Iowa
comes across the Mexican border. How much anthrax does it take to mix
into some methamphetamine to cause a disease all across America and
cause that kind of catastrophe?
To strike out the fence down between San Diego and Tijuana, something
this Congress has addressed several times, why has the Senate and why
has the resistant Members of the conference committee not gone back to
the Senate and said, accept the House changes? These are reasonable
changes that are good for intelligence and good for immigration and
border security. Instead, go back and look at the 19 terrorists that
did attack this country, and I challenge Members to name one of them
that would not be here today if
[[Page H11000]]
we were able to pass this bill that is before us.
Mr. Speaker, I do rise in opposition.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from
Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise
and extend her remarks.)
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, 48 hours ago the departing
Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, gave the
American public a wakeup call by telling them that their food and water
supply is vulnerable to terrorist attacks. It is clear that the 9/11
bill is long overdue because the question is about good human
intelligence and coordination amongst U.S. intelligence agencies.
It is important to tell the truth to the American people that the 9/
11 terrorists did not get drivers' licenses illegally, they were legal
immigrants, they had legal documents. Not having a drivers' license
would not have stopped 9/11. They came in with legal immigration
documents.
The real reason for this bill is to get a Director of National
Intelligence to be able to give to the American people and all of those
who provide for homeland security the human intelligence to have us
thwart terrorists and protect ourselves against attacks by terrorists.
I would argue that this bill is long overdue, and I thank the 9/11
families. We owe them our greatest debt of gratitude. Tonight we will
pass this bill. I thank them so very much. I thank the gentlewoman from
New York (Mrs. Maloney) and the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays)
for standing steadfast. I thank members of the Select Committee on
Homeland Security for understanding the difference for fighting for
real, comprehensive immigration reform, which we need to do and will do
in a fair and balanced manner. But what we need to do now is to say to
you your loss will never be forgotten, we will always be reminded of
your sacrifices, and tomorrow we will have a bill that will instill and
install a Director of National Intelligence whose ears will be
listening. And as they listen, they will be able to find out who is
coming across the southern and northern borders, who is tampering with
our water supply, and who is tampering with our food supply.
The question now is that of getting this bill passed even in the
lateness of the hour. I am gratified that we did resolve the issue of
military chain of command, but I knew that was going to be taken care
of because it was already in the bill, and as to drivers' licenses, we
do have standards for drivers' licenses because that language is in the
bill, even so that is a State issue that we can address later. Also we
cannot address immigration reform piecemeal as was attempted. We must
do it in a comprehensive manner. So this bill is ready for a vote.
I ask my colleagues to support this rule, and I ask my colleagues to
support this bill. My hat is off to those families and my greatest
sympathy goes to those families who lost loved ones on 9/11, and those
who lost their lives. Again I say we are sorry, we are sorry. This bill
must be passed today for the good of America.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Georgia (Mr. Deal).
Mr. DEAL of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, we are here today because on
September 11, 2001, 19 men, all of whom either entered our country
illegally, overstayed their visas or obtained fraudulent visas, boarded
four airplanes and used them as bombs to kill thousands of our
citizens. The primary identification document that allowed them to
board those airplanes were State drivers' licenses. Nothing in this
bill would prevent those hijackers from using those same drivers'
licenses to board those same airplanes and to repeat the events of 9/
11.
If we do everything else to tighten our security and do not close
this loophole, we have intentionally ignored the event that brings us
to this day.
Some will say let us deal with it next year. I ask, Why not now? Why
not simply be honest with the American people and tell them we just do
not have the political will to take those drivers' licenses out of the
hands of would-be terrorists?
Do we think terrorists are going to play fair? Do we think terrorists
do not know they will continue to be able to obtain drivers' licenses
without proving lawful entry into this country?
Instead of getting tough on terrorists, this bill actually has some
built-in rewards. Yes, if you illegally enter this country, we cannot
deport you based on the same evidence that would have denied your entry
into this country if you asked us for permission to come in. What is
the reverse logic of that? It is like telling a burglar we are not
going to open our door and let you in our house, but if you break in,
we are going to give you free room and board.
Some say this is a bill that is tough on terrorists, even though the
death penalty has been removed as a punishment, even if they use an
atomic weapon or release the smallpox virus. Maybe the logic of that is
that terrorists do not really fear death, so why subject them to the
death penalty for their acts. And, if they happen to have qualified for
Federal benefits, they can still draw their Social Security while they
are serving their Federal prison term.
Mr. Speaker, the next time Members are standing in a line with other
American citizens at the airport as they are going through a body
search or somebody rifling through their baggage, just hope they do not
ask you if the associates of Osama bin Laden could still get on an
airplane using those same fraudulent drivers' licenses, because the
answer is yes. Do Members really feel more secure?
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Maryland (Mr. Wynn).
(Mr. WYNN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. WYNN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this
time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule for the 9/11 Commission
bill. Let me begin by thanking the leadership on both sides of the
aisle for their hard work. I want to thank the members of the 9/11
Commission for their work on a bipartisan basis, and of course I want
to thank the families from the 9/11 incident for their work as the
driving force behind this bill.
On September 11, 30 of my constituents were killed in attacks; 4 died
on American Airlines Flight Number 77, and 26 died in the Pentagon. The
term ``national security'' is not an amorphous one for my constituents.
In Prince George's County and Montgomery County, the Fourth
Congressional District, we live and work in the Nation's Capital, a
prime target for terrorists. This is why I have strongly urged my
colleagues to pass the 9/11 Commission recommendations since their
release in July.
Let me be clear. This conference report is not a panacea, and, yes,
additional work needs to be done. But the status quo in our
intelligence infrastructure is unacceptable. I heard one of my
colleagues say we should not vote for this bill because it would create
groupthink. Groupthink is what we have had. This bill is designed to
address that concern and change it.
The report makes clear that had the United States intelligence
agencies communicated with each other, they could have connected the
dots and disrupted the 9/11 attacks. In response, this bill addresses
the recommendations of the Commission to prevent another attack and
rightly creates a National Intelligence Director. The position would
have budget authority to end the power struggle between the 15
disparate Federal agencies that are now engaged.
Currently, 80 percent of the intelligence budget falls under the
Department of Defense, not the Central Intelligence Agency or the other
13 agencies. As a result, we do not have the level of coordination that
we should. The National Intelligence Director with authority over
budget will address this.
Additionally, this bill bolsters transportation security by directing
the Department of Homeland Security to develop a national strategy for
transportation security. The bill adds 10,000 Border Patrol agents and
400 Customs agents over the next 5 years, as well as testing pilotless
surveillance planes to safeguard our borders.
The bill is not a panacea, but let me emphasize, we should not make
the perfect the enemy of the good. This bill is a good start. I urge
its passage.
[[Page H11001]]
Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Simpson). The Chair would ask Members to
kindly observe the time allotted and the gavel.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New
Jersey (Mr. Ferguson).
Mr. FERGUSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise in favor of the rule and in favor
of the intelligence reform legislation that the House will consider in
a few moments.
Real reform of the Intelligence Community has been sorely needed, and
building upon the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and through a
thorough negotiation within Congress, we have a piece of legislation
that I believe will go a long way toward making the people of our
Nation safer. But I stand supporting this legislation knowing that more
can be done to protect people in high-density, high-threat areas, like
those in my home State of New Jersey.
Mr. Speaker, the people of New Jersey deeply know the threat of
terrorism. We have suffered through terrorist attacks and live daily
with the possibility of future attacks. New Jersey is the most densely
populated State in the Nation, and at least a dozen sites within our
State have been placed on the FBI's National Critical Infrastructure
List.
The security of New York City and New Jersey is inextricably
intertwined. Each year, 212 million vehicles traverse our States'
tunnels, bridges and ferries, which must be protected by both New
Jersey and New York.
Of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's three airports,
the busiest by far is Newark International Airport.
Nearly 60 percent of all containerized maritime cargo processed by
all North Atlantic ports goes through the Port of New York and New
Jersey, and the vast majority of the cargo flows through New Jersey's
docks onto our rails, through our tunnels and onto our roads.
{time} 1730
Overall, 450,000 people commute from New Jersey to Lower Manhattan
every day. And New Jersey and New York's first responders, our fire and
EMT and police, have had a mutual-aid pact since the 1993 World Trade
Center bombing, sharing experience and helping in times of need to
protect our entire metropolitan area.
States like New Jersey are on the front lines of the fight for
homeland security. It distresses me to hear that language that would
have given States like New Jersey a more accurate allocation of
funding, based on population and threat, was taken out by the bill's
conferees in the conference committee.
I am looking forward to working in the next Congress with the
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen), who has led the fight
for increased funding for high-threat, high-population areas by
creating the Urban Area Security Initiative, and the over 170 Members
that have voted in support of the UASI program earlier this year to
push for a logical approach to allocating security dollars based on
threat and population.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
New Jersey (Mr. Menendez).
(Mr. MENENDEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. MENENDEZ. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the conference report that the rule
looks at and I want to focus on what I believe are some misconceptions,
particularly in the context of immigration provisions. Even though this
bill is about intelligence and reforming our intelligence process,
nothing stops the Congress from considering any other provision of law
necessary to protect the American people. If we want to use it as a
process to unravel what is trying to be done in intelligence reform,
that is another issue. The fact of the matter is that this report
actually has an enormous amount of immigration-related provisions. It
has over 100 pages of the bill with 43 sections of immigration-related
provisions in the conference report. If enacted into law, these 43
sections, 100-plus pages of provisions, would implement all of the 9/11
Commission's formal immigration-related recommendations.
On the driver's license issue that is often referred to, all of the
19 hijackers had documents to enter the country legally in the first
place. Therefore, stopping them from entering legally is a critical
issue, and that has been part of previous reforms that have taken
place. Plus, the conference report establishes tough new Federal
standards on the issues of State driver's licenses without creating a
national driver's license and gives States the powers to continue to
enforce, including insisting on in-person identification to receive a
driver's license.
Lastly, on the question of asylum, the comments that are constantly
made about gaming the asylum system were before the reforms that took
place. In 1996, an expedited removal system was established that has
required aliens arriving at a U.S. port of entry without proper
documentation to be detained and demonstrate a credible fear of
persecution before they could bring even their asylum claim before an
immigration judge. As I have said before, if we know a terrorist is in
our possession, I do not want to deport them and let them try to do
harm again to the United States. I want to arrest them, I want to
imprison them, I want to send them to jail; but I do not want to send
them back to go ahead and have another shot at us.
And at the same time, I want those people who truly come to the
United States because we have given asylum to people who are oppressed
from religious and other entities to have their shot. So it is the
immigration provisions that were reformed in 1996 and thereafter that
ensure that people cannot game the asylum provisions in order to do
harm to the United States.
Finally, as the Catholic bishops say, if you look at the 100-plus
pages and the 40 different sections, this is a major, significant
rewrite of the immigration law as it is in an intelligence bill.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham).
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I hear in the Chamber about the 9/11
families. Our hearts go out to them. But our hearts also go out to the
men and women we lose every day overseas in the military. Those losses
are also felt. We owe the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) our
gratitude for making this bill and those people safer.
I disagree with my colleague that just spoke. The bill without the
immigration provisions puts this country at great risk. Unfortunately,
if we do not vote for this bill that has other good provisions, by
voting against this bill you put this country at great risk. We have a
pledge from the Speaker, and his word is gold to both sides of the
aisle, that we will address these issues in January. And for the other
body, they better be ready for us to camp out at their front door,
because we are coming. And unless they bring this up, you are going to
have a mass of people fighting for these immigration issues. It is
wrong.
We had in the House a 4-mile section of fence that stops illegals
from coming across the border. Because of environmental concerns, the
chairman on the Senate side took that out. The illegals come through
there like a venturi tube. Go there and look. It is all beaten down. It
is terrible for the environment. But yet it is an issue for them. And
the chairman in the other body disregarded that because of environment
and disregarded the security of this country. That person should have
never been chairman on the other body to start with and let alone deny
the gentleman from Virginia in the military on that conference.
We will put these immigration provisions in, and they will be
addressed in the next Congress.
Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Simpson). The Chair would remind Members
not to make improper references to Senators.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
California (Mr. Schiff).
Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, the bill before us has some very important
reforms of our intelligence agencies, and I support it. Chief among
them, the establishment of the national intelligence directorate as
well as the national counterterrorism centers. But while these changes
have attracted most of our attention, these changes
[[Page H11002]]
within our institutions, as tough as they have been for this Congress,
are the relatively easy part.
Among the most important recommendations of the 9/11 Commission was
to strengthen our efforts at nonproliferation, to try to deal with the
problem of nuclear material, in particular, arriving in the wrong
hands. As the 9/11 Commission pointed out, al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden
have made it a top priority to obtain nuclear material, and some of the
strongest and most important recommendations of the 9/11 Commission are
to deal with that very real danger. In fact, as the President and
Senator Kerry both stated during the first Presidential debate, the
threat of nuclear terrorism is the number one national security threat
facing the country.
In addition to the organizational changes that we have all been
debating, there are provisions in this legislation that call for the
establishment of a national counterproliferation center that can attack
this problem of the proliferation of nuclear material as well as
chemical and biological material. It will help oversee operational
efforts to interdict this material and also recommended changes in the
international legal structure that will better help us deal with the
A.Q. Khans of the world, to deal with Iran, to deal with North Korea
and attack this very real danger to our country. My own language
applying RICO in this area as well as strengthening the dirty bomb
statutes has also been incorporated into the bill.
These steps are just a beginning. Many more far-reaching steps also
have to be taken if we are to deal with this risk of nuclear terrorism.
The NPT, as we have seen, has served us well for 40 years, but is now
showing its age. I think Iran is demonstrating that the purest and
simplest path to the bomb now runs through the NPT, not around it. We
would do well to pay attention to those recommendations of the 9/11
Commission that are the tougher steps to deal with the proliferation of
nuclear material; but this is a good first step, and I support it.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the
gentleman from California (Mr. Royce).
Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this
conference report because I strongly believe that all of the 9/11
Commission recommendations should be in it. The commission itself has
said that all of its recommendations should be adopted in their
entirety to ensure success in deterring terrorism. The law that we
passed establishing the 9/11 Commission directed them to investigate
all of the failures that led to 9/11, which included significant lapses
and loopholes in our immigration and border control system. The
commission made recommendations to fix our immigration and border
system. We put them in the House bill. It was passed out of this House
with 68 percent of this body voting in favor. They have now been
stripped out in the conference report.
Why are we not adopting all of the commission's recommendations to
strengthen America's ability to intercept individuals who pose
catastrophic threats? How quickly we forget that the 9/11 Commission
found that as many as 15 of the 19 hijackers were, in their words,
potentially vulnerable to interception by border authorities. So why
does this bill not address the 9/11 Commission's recommendation for a
secure identification system? The 19 9/11 hijackers had 63 validly
issued U.S. driver's licenses between them. What were they using that
many for? They were moving around the country undetected and plotting
and planning. In fact, as many as eight of them were even registered to
vote. They then used those bogus licenses to board U.S. planes.
Why are we not addressing the commission's recommendations to crack
down on asylum fraud? The 9/11 Commission cited the Blind Sheik, Omar
Abdel Rahman, who led a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. He used
an asylum application to avoid deportation. How about Ramzi Yousef who
masterminded the first World Trade Center attack while free after
applying for asylum? It is a fact that terrorists have and continue to
abuse our asylum laws to stay in this country.
Mr. Speaker, the removal of these immigration and border security
provisions that were recommended by the 9/11 Commission was a grave
mistake. They are central to any legislation designed to prevent future
terrorist attacks. I urge my colleagues to do the right thing and vote
this bill down so we can include all of the 9/11 Commission
recommendations in it and not just the politically convenient ones.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to
the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin).
(Mr. LANGEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. LANGEVIN. I want to thank my colleague for yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, before I begin I just wanted to take a minute to
congratulate the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), the
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman), Senator Collins and Senator
Lieberman for their extraordinary effort in getting us to this point.
This Nation truly owes all of them a debt of gratitude for the diligent
effort they have put into reaching this bipartisan compromise.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that we will implement intelligence reform
before the close of the 108th Congress, and I rise in support of the
underlying bill. After 9/11, we clearly approached fighting the global
war on terrorism as we had the Cold War. But it became clear that we
needed to adapt our intelligence community, law enforcement agencies,
and military to fight the new global threats. The 9/11 Commission gave
us a blueprint for that mission, and this legislation will help us to
implement their vision. Cooperation among agencies and Departments will
be critical, and this measure shifts the mentality of our intelligence
community from ``need to know'' to ``need to share.'' It also makes
significant improvements to homeland security while avoiding some of
the controversial provisions included in earlier drafts.
As a member of the Committee on Armed Services, I am pleased that
this bill strikes a careful balance between creating a strong national
intelligence director and preserving the ability of our men and women
in uniform to gain access to the intelligence needed to be successful
on the battlefield.
Mr. Speaker, I thank all of my colleagues for working in a bipartisan
fashion to craft a landmark measure that will truly make America safer.
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this rule and the
underlying bill. The underlying bill is not a solution to our problems,
but is a huge first step. Much more needs to be done. I would also like
to commend the Members of the House on both sides of the aisle who
worked so hard to put forth a really good bill and then fought to keep
most of it in the final draft. I urge them to come back in January with
an open mind and finish the work we have started.
Ms. WATSON. Mr. Speaker, the success of the 9/11 bill (S. 2845) is a
great victory for America. It will make America safer by establishing a
single individual who will be responsible for coordinating our
intelligence and who will be accountable to Congress and the American
people. The bill's success also demonstrates that our democratic
process works and that Americans can come together in a bipartisan way
to overcome the narrow interests of a few and meet the greatest
challenge of our age head-on.
It is fitting that the 9/11 bill is being considered by the House
today on the 63rd anniversary of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor,a
day on which 2,400 Americans died. The parallels between 9/11 and Pearl
Harbor are striking. In each instance there were warning signs before
the attack, and in each instance our government failed to connect the
dots.
Whether at Pearl Harbor or the World Trade Center, surprise is
everything involved in a government's failure to anticipate
effectively. The events of 9/11 defined a generation and laid bare our
nation's lack of preparation and a national strategy to deal with the
new threat of terrorism.
Passage of the 9/11 bill cannot by itself defeat the terrorist
threat. A vote in Congress will not capture Osama bin Laden or stop the
spread of weapons of mass destruction. But today we have given the U.S.
Government new tools to deal with a new enemy who, as enemies of old,
threatens our liberty and way of life.
Finally, the 9/11 bill was resuscitated on more than one occasion and
kept alive by the
[[Page H11003]]
sacrifice and perseverance of the 9/11 families. It will ensure that
their loved ones did not die in vain.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the
previous question on the resolution.
{time} 1745
The previous question was ordered.
The resolution was agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 870, I call
up the conference report on the Senate bill (S. 2845) to reform the
intelligence community and the intelligence and intelligence-related
activities of the United States Government, and for other purposes.
The Clerk read the title of the Senate bill.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Simpson). Pursuant to House Resolution
870, the conference report is considered read.
(For conference report and statement, see proceedings of the House of
earlier today.)
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra)
and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) each will control 30
minutes.
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I would ask if the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Harman) is opposed to the bill?
Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am supportive of the bill.
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair understands that both the
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. HOEKSTRA) and the gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Harman) are in support of the conference report.
Therefore, pursuant to clause 8(d) of rule XXII, the Chair will
recognize the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), the gentlewoman
from California (Ms. Harman) and the gentleman from Colorado (Mr.
Tancredo) for 20 minutes each.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra).
General Leave
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their
remarks and include extraneous material on S. 2845.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Michigan?
There was no objection.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the conference report
accompanying S. 2845, the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004.
This conference report is the product of what may go down in the annals
of this institution as one of the most difficult and certainly one of
the most involved conferences ever.
Just over 7 weeks ago, we began to negotiate a compromise solution of
two very different bills that were both acting on the recommendations
of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States,
more widely known as the 9/11 Commission. The negotiations have been
tough, long and sometimes extremely contentious. Now we have nearly
crossed the finish line. We have a conference report that conferees
have agreed to, and one that I believe should be enthusiastically
supported by the Members of the House.
It has been nearly 55 years since we have made such truly substantive
improvement to the overall management structure of the Nation's
Intelligence Community. This bill creates a Director of National
Intelligence, a Director who has dramatically improved authorities and
capabilities to manage and coordinate the disparate efforts of the
various intelligence components of the United States Government.
The bill also creates a National Counterterrorism Center that will
coordinate terrorism-related intelligence efforts and provide for
strategic operational planning of counterterrorism operations.
Mr. Speaker, the various law enforcement and border security
provisions in this bill will unquestionably improve domestic security
against terrorism. The same is also true for the restructuring of the
Intelligence Community. But I need to caution that these reforms will
take time to implement and, moreover, for the intended results to be
seen.
I am not under the false impression that by themselves, these
structural changes and enhanced authorities vested in the new Director
of National Intelligence will ensure perfect knowledge about our
enemies in the future. Those that would do America harm are clever,
they are secretive, and the asymmetrical threats that they can both
imagine and effect require us to be manyfold better at defense than
they need be on offense.
Mr. Speaker, before I yield the balance of my time, I want to thank
the distinguished ranking member of the Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman). She has
been a very good partner in working through this process. We have not
always been on the same side of the issues on the work on this bill,
but we have been steadfast in support of reforming the Intelligence
Community and making America safer.
The same can also be said for my colleagues from the Senate, Senators
Collins and Lieberman. They have been driving factors in getting this
legislation to a vote. Without them, I do not think we could have done
this. My whole-hearted congratulations and thanks to them, and also to
my colleagues on the House Republican Conference.
It has been a difficult time. As I have said earlier, we did not get
everything we wanted. I stand with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr.
Sensenbrenner) on many issues he brought forward on driver's licenses
and immigration and look forward to working with him to move those
issues in the next Congress. They are needed to more fully round out
this package of what we need to secure America's safety.
But that should not stop us from taking the steps that we have today.
These are important steps in restructuring the Intelligence Community,
in law enforcement, in transportation security and in international
affairs. We need to move these forward today and then move forward on
the rest of the issues when we get back here in 2005.
The staff has worked incredibly hard to make this possible over the
last 7 weeks. They have worked long hours every day to get this bill to
where we are today. Without them, this simply could not have been
possible.
Mr. Speaker, the conference report on S. 2845 is a good piece of
legislation. It is necessary. We need to support it, and we need our
colleagues to vote yes.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to thank the new chairman of the House Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr.
Hoekstra), for his nice comments and for his enormous efforts at
restoring bipartisanship to our committee. He, Senators Collins and
Lieberman, House conferees on our side, the gentleman from New Jersey
(Mr. Menendez) and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), have
contributed a great deal, an enormous amount, to the legislation we are
debating today. It is a good product, it is the right product, and I
urge all of our colleagues on a bipartisan basis to support it.
Mr. Speaker, this day, December 7, is a date which will live in
infamy. So was September 11, 2001. Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were the two
most tragic hours since America became a Nation.
President Roosevelt launched a clear-eyed investigation of the
intelligence lapses leading to Pearl Harbor, and since 9/11 we have
worked hard to understand why critical intelligence about the plans,
capabilities and whereabouts of the 9/11 hijackers fell through the
cracks.
Our intelligence system is broken. We have 15 intelligence agencies
with different rules, cultures and databases. Our Intelligence
Community operates on a 1947 business model designed to defeat the
Soviet Union, which was defeated in 1989. Fifteen years later, the
enemy is digital, but our organizational structure remains analog.
This long-overdue legislation will modernize our capabilities,
integrate our intelligence collection and analysis efforts, unify our
counterterrorist efforts and promote intelligence sharing. It will
promote the same jointness in
[[Page H11004]]
intelligence that has been the hallmark of our military's success since
the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986.
Mr. Speaker, there is not much time, so I will forego describing the
bill. But in addition to thanking our conferees and the so-called ``big
four,'' I want to thank others who made this possible. They are the 9/
11 families who were the moral force beneath our wings. I want to say
to the families that your loved ones are holding a special spot in
heaven for you and for all that you did for the safety of our country.
I also want to thank another group of people who are not here. They
are the men and women who serve in our intelligence agencies and who
wear the uniform, many of whom are on the front lines at this hour
risking their lives for our freedom. This legislation is designed to
give them the capabilities they deserve and need to win the war on
terrorism. They have our praise, our admiration and our full support.
Good people need better tools. We are going to provide those tools
today.
Mr. Speaker, December 7 will always remind us of the vulnerability of
our homeland, but once we pass this bill, it will also stand for
something else. It will stand for our resolve to make our Nation safer.
And, I might add, it is a fitting birthday tribute to Senator Susan
Collins, who worked so hard to make this effort possible.
Mr. Speaker, I also want to clarify two issues that are not stated
explicitly in this legislation but that were very much on the minds of
its drafters.
The first issue deals with the consolidation of power within the DNI
to protect intelligence sources and methods. Members of the public have
expressed concern that the increased authority of the Director of
National Intelligence could be abused to constrict the free flow of
information that is critical to our duties in the Congress and that the
authorities under this bill might be used, or abused, to unduly limit
the flow of information to the State and local governments and to the
public.
The sources of this concern are past uses of government secrecy--not
to protect classified information--but to limit, and occasionally to
intimidate, current and even former government employees from speaking
out. These measures have included over-classification and requirements
that government employees take polygraphs and sign unduly and overly
broad secrecy and non-disclosure agreements as a condition of access to
information.
The purpose of this bill is to facilitate the dissemination of
information within government. There is no intention on the part of the
Congress to impair the appropriate and desirable flow of information.
This bill does not contain any authority for the DNI or the President
to establish a regime of undue government secrecy. The bill vests the
DNI with the authority to protect intelligence sources and methods,
just as the Director of Central Intelligence has exercised that
authority. There is no new authority to criminalize or suppress the
lawful and appropriate sharing of information within the government or
to alter or waive any existing protections of government employees who
wish to disclose information to Congress or through other lawful
channels.
Further, it should be Congress's duty to assure through oversight
that this information sharing environment is appropriate and complete.
Congress will track the implementation of the various responsibilities
assigned under this bill. The creation of the Information Sharing
Environment and the establishment of the National Intelligence Center
and the Information Sharing Council provide some of the many
opportunities for congressional oversight.
A second issue deals with the creation of national standards for
driver's licenses. This legislation creates strong minimum Federal
standards for the issuance of State driver's licenses. We delegate to
the Department of Homeland Security the task of devising these
standards, but we make clear that these standards must at least require
that licenses contain a person's full name, date of birth, gender,
driver's license number, digital photograph, address, and signature. We
also stipulate that the regulations shall include procedures to protect
the privacy rights of individuals who apply for and hold driver's
licenses. I want to make clear that we also intended to ensure that
these regulations protect the civil and due process rights of those
individuals as well.
This legislation requires that driver's license standards be
established with a negotiated rulemaking. This rulemaking shall include
State officials who issue driver's licenses, State elected officials,
DHS, and interested parties. The words ``interested parties'' are not
defined, but it is our intent that such parties should include
organizations with technological and operational expertise in document
security and organizations that represent the interests of applicants
for such licenses or identification cards.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
announcement by the speaker pro tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would remind Members that it is
not in order to bring the attention of the House to visitors in the
gallery or to make improper references to Senators, whether positive or
negative.
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I have a great amount of admiration for the people who
have worked as hard as they have worked on this bill, for the chairman,
for the leadership in the House, that has, I know, spent many, many
hours in discussions with the other body.
I wish that I could stand on this floor tonight and support this
bill. I remember during an earlier debate on H.R. 10, the House version
of the response to the 9/11 Commission report, I was proud as I have
ever been to be a Member of this body and to see the members of my
party, especially the Speaker of the House, the whip and the majority
leader, come to the floor and speak articulately and very, very
forcefully in support of certain provisions of the bill that the other
side of the aisle were trying to take out. These provisions dealt
specifically with trying to increase our border security.
It is intriguing in a way, it is ironic in a way, one thing: We
established a 9/11 Commission, it did its work, it talked to us about
what we needed to do.
We all recognize what happened on that day, on 9/11 2001. When people
came into this country from other countries, many of them did so
fraudulently, by providing false documentation, by inaccurately filling
out their visas, or by coming into the country and after they were here
overstaying those visas. They were in violation of our immigration
laws. They were able to take advantage of their position because we did
not do much, and we still do very little in terms of enforcing those
laws.
They were also able to take advantage of another thing in this
system. They were able to take advantage of the fact that we were
handing out driver's licenses to people like prizes in a Cracker Jack
box. The 19 hijackers had accumulated a total of 63 driver's licenses,
many from Virginia. They used them with great ability to, of course,
get onto planes, to make life easy for them while they were here.
This is one thing we know that happened that helped create the
problem, helped create the event of 9/11. We know that. So we create a
bill in response to the 9/11 catastrophe, and it is almost
inconceivable that any bill could then come to this floor without a
reference to, without an ability, without any desire to actually do
something about the actual problem that created 9/11. But that is the
case today.
To quote the gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner), the
chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, who also recognized the
flaw, the fatal flaw of this bill, and that is the only way I can
really describe it, it is a fatal flaw, this is the quote from Chairman
Sensenbrenner: ``Americans deserve a complete bill so that we can
prevent another 9/11 from occurring. Border security and immigration
reform are vital components of our national security efforts, so why
are they not included in this legislation? The time to address these
issues is now, not next month, not next year. Hollow promises of future
considerations are just that, hollow promises. Terrorists have
exploited vulnerabilities in our asylum system and in the issuance of
driver's licenses.
``This bill fails to include the strong provisions in the House bill
because my Senate colleagues,'' and I am quoting him here, ``found them
to be too controversial. That is unfortunate, because their refusal to
consider these security provisions on their merits will keep Americans
unnecessarily at risk.''
Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree with his observations, and I would ask
my colleagues to look carefully at what they are doing here.
The fact is that this bill has such a gaping loophole and it has such
a huge, huge flaw that it is better not to pass this bill at all than
to pass it and create the illusion of security. I do not doubt, as I
have said, that there are many good parts of the bill. That is not
[[Page H11005]]
the issue. But there is something so vital, something so intrinsic to
our national security, the issuance of driver's licenses and trying to
maintain some degree of control over that process, because we know that
a driver's license in this country is, of course, as close to a
national I.D. card as we have.
{time} 1800
But when we refuse to address this because of our concern about the
politics, because it is too controversial to talk about, how can we
come to this floor, how can anybody come to this floor or in fact stand
in front of any television or any constituency and say, we are doing
everything possible to defend the people of this country. How can we
say this when we know that that is absolutely untrue; when the one
thing we should be doing in this bill, we are not.
So because it does not have that provision, I certainly would request
that my colleagues turn this bill down and ask that it come back in a
different form, in a more complete form.
Sensenbrenner Statement on 9/11 Bill
Washington, DC.--House Judiciary Committee Chairman F.
James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI) issued the following
statement regarding legislation responding to the 9/11
Commission recommendations:
``I am pleased that the chain-of-command issues Chairman
Duncan Hunter has raised have been resolved so that our war-
fighters will not be put at risk. Unfortunately, even with
these improvements, the current bill is woefully incomplete
and one I cannot support.
``Americans deserve a complete bill so that we can prevent
another 9/11 from occurring. Border security and immigration
reform are vital components of our homeland security efforts,
so why are they not included in this legislation? The time to
address these issues is now, not next month, not next year.
Hollow promises of future consideration are just that--hollow
promises.
``Terrorists have exploited vulnerabilities in our asylum
system and in the issuance of drivers' licenses. This bill
fails to include the strong provisions in the House bill
because my Senate colleagues found them `too controversial.'
That's unfortunate, because their refusal to consider these
security provisions on their merits will keep Americans
unnecessarily at risk.
I said two weeks ago that the Senate was hell-bent on
ensuring that illegal aliens can receive drivers' licenses,
regardless of the security concerns. This Sept. 10th
mentality in a post-Sept. 11th world is unwise and among
those I intend to rectify next year.''
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from
California (Mr. Hunter), a conferee on the bill.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for his hard
work.
Mr. Speaker, for the House, walking through this conference report
has been largely a defensive action, if you will, a holding action; and
I want to compliment all of the great Members of the House who managed
to hold off what initially was a political stampede that would have
passed a piece of legislation that would have accrued to the detriment
of the people who wear the uniform of the United States and, I think,
to our intelligence apparatus.
We had to walk back things like opening up the top line, the
classified top line to the world, letting our adversaries know how much
we spend on intelligence. We had to walk back this idea that somehow we
were going to send the money for the combat support agencies around the
Department of Defense, not allow the Department of Defense to have a
normal working relationship with its own combat support agencies. In
fact, it took a letter from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General
Myers, to the conferees to say the House position is the right
position, to back off some of those who were stampeding in the wrong
direction. Ultimately, we had to address this most important issue:
chain of command.
Now, interestingly, before this bill was brought up on the other side
of the Hill, on the Senate side, the President sent a strong message
saying we must have chain-of-command language to make sure that there
is no confusion about lines of execution. The authors of the bill on
the other side did not put that language in. My counterpart, Senator
John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, then
saying that he was afraid that this bill did violate and intrude on the
chain of command, offered an amendment to establish what the
administration wanted, to establish strong chain-of-command language
that would ensure that a battlefield commander would have all the
assets in his area of operation for his combatant commands. Senator
Warner's language was rejected by the leadership of this bill on the
Senate side.
As we got into the conference, the administration sent another
message. They said, you know, you forgot something. You forgot the
chain-of-command language. Once again, it was not included. When it
finally was included, it was accompanied by weasel words which
basically invalidated the entire section. On several occasions the
conferees on the other side changed the weasel words, but they still
had a provision which basically violated the entire section, or
invalidated the entire section, and left us with nothing.
So, in the end, 17 days ago when we were asked in the Republican
conference what we thought about this bill, I and many other people had
to speak up and point out that this very important chain of command was
not protected in the conference report and needed to be protected.
In the end, on Saturday night, we sent to Senator Collins' staff a
chain-of-command provision to respect and not abrogate the chain of
command, citing the statutes that are relevant, to Senator Collins
through her chief of staff. He said she would get back Monday morning.
She did get back and approved that section. And we said that when I saw
that in writing in an amendment to the conference report, I would then
support the conference. We have gotten that today, and I have signed
the conference report.
This bill, now, with these changes, including classifying the top
line, walking back this wild attempt to remove the Department of
Defense from its own budget flow to its combat support agencies and,
finally, this attempt to keep the chain of command in a position where
it was questionable; having walked back all of those attempts to change
this bill in a manner that would accrue to the detriment of the men and
women who wear the uniform of the United States and moving instead to a
situation in which they are protected, with a solid insulation in the
chain of command so a combat commander in Afghanistan or Iraq can now
count on being able to use all of his assets in that theater to protect
his troops and perform his mission; having done that, this bill, in my
estimation, is now acceptable, and I am supporting this bill. I am
going to vote for this bill.
I agree fully with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner)
and others who think that the driver's license issue is of great
importance. It is of great importance. We need to get that issue up and
through as soon as possible.
Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, I welcome the support for this bill from the
gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), and I would like our colleagues
to know as one conferee, we all support the chain of command.
Mr. Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), a conferee, and the ranking
member on the House Committee on Armed Services, a wonderful committee
on which I served for 6 years.
Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me
this time. I rise in strong support of this Intelligence Reform Act.
Mr. Speaker, we are making history today. This conference report
represents the most profound government reform to date for meeting the
unique and daunting security challenges existing in this era of terror.
This bill fundamentally overhauls the structure of our Nation's
intelligence community. It represents an important step in the
improvement of our government's intelligence capabilities while, at the
same time, preserving our ability to ensure that our own military
personnel have the intelligence information they need to succeed on the
battlefield. More broadly, Mr. Speaker, this bill promises to advance
our abilities in the global fight against terrorism.
From my vantage point as the ranking member of the Committee on Armed
Services, this conference includes two important legislative
achievements. First, it creates and empowers a new Director of National
Intelligence to set the vision, direction, and priorities for the
entire intelligence community. Second, it maintains the sanctity of the
military's
[[Page H11006]]
chain of command, so that the Secretary of Defense will have the
necessary authorities to effectively manage intelligence assets and
resources, particularly technical assets on the battlefield.
The 9/11 Commission pointed out that our Nation's intelligence
community has suffered from a failure of imagination, failure to focus,
and failure at organization. This bill addresses these failures with a
new organization, new authorities, and management flexibility. In
addition to the new director, the bill authorizes a National Counter
Terrorism Center to improve analytic vision and operational planning
across Departments and at the highest levels of government. Another
important change is the information-sharing requirements across
traditional bureaucratic barriers, or what we call stovepipes. Such
innovation has been suggested for years, and these provisions are long
overdue.
Mr. Speaker, opportunities in this body to effect fundamental and
indeed historical changes are rare. We have such an opportunity today.
I commend the leaders of this conference, and I strongly support the
bill before us. It is significant, necessary, and unprecedented; and it
offers much promise to make our Nation more secure, and I strongly urge
its adoption.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California for her work.
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman
from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth).
(Mr. HAYWORTH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I rise in reluctant, but vociferous,
opposition to this legislation, fully named the National Intelligence
Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act.
Mr. Speaker, I reluctantly, but adamantly, oppose this measure
because it fails to deal effectively with the second heading in the
legislative title. It is beyond titles and slogans and, instead,
policies where we must concentrate ourselves. Mr. Speaker, much has
been made, and I have heard previous speakers speak of the families who
suffered such great loss on 9/11, speak of what this Nation confronted
on that fateful day. Yet, perhaps in a triumph of legislative policy
and the incrementalism so often a part of the system, we are ignoring
the single best provision to prevent future acts of terror,
understanding that border security and national security are one and
the same.
Good people on both sides of the aisle, well-intentioned people
rightfully say we need to restructure our national intelligence-
gathering capabilities. I concur. But what we see now, Mr. Speaker, is
laying a new foundation, building a new wall, but forgetting both a
front door and a back door and a roof. We are leaving our doors wide
open.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased and proud to be an Arizonan. I was in
Nogales at our border crossing not too long ago visiting with our
friends from the Border Patrol. They told me of an interesting
apprehension the day before. The gentleman they said was a native of
Iraq who had claimed to come to the United States in 1978 with a green
card. It was interesting, though, to hear the Border Patrol personnel
speak of their detainee, because curiously, the Iraqi who said he had
come to the United States in 1978 with a green card was much more
fluent in Spanish than he was in English. We read in accounts of the
free press that there are those who come from the Middle East, adopt
Hispanic surnames, and seek to infiltrate. There are some adherents to
the politically correct who would ignore or diffuse or understate the
nature of this threat.
Mr. Speaker, I will not allow the national security of the United
States to be jeopardized and undermined and placed on the funeral
parlor of the politically correct. To those who say that it is
incremental, it is a step in the right direction: well and good. But
incrementalism in wartime when our national survival may be at stake is
unacceptable. Either do it right, or do not do it.
It is sad, but necessary, to reject this bill because it fails to
deal with preventing terrorist attacks by understanding that border
security and national security are one and the same.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from
California (Mr. Cox), my colleague, the chairman of the Select
Committee on Homeland Security.
Mr. COX. Mr. Speaker, I would like at this point to engage my friend,
the chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in a
brief colloquy to clarify the intention of section 1016 of this bill
which concerns information-sharing and would create a new Information
Sharing Environment, or ISE.
Section 1016(b)requires that the President create an ISE and that he
``ensure that the ISE provides and facilitates the means for sharing
terrorism information among all appropriate Federal, State, local, and
tribal entities, and the private sector, through the use of policy
guidelines and technologies.'' That is a quotation from section
1016(b)(2) at page 66, lines 21 through 25.
I understand, Mr. Speaker, this section to mean that the Information
Sharing Environment referred to will serve as a new, interconnected
environment by which Federal agencies can exchange information with
each other and with State, local, and private sector officials as their
statutory mandates may require. Because the Homeland Security Act of
2002 assigned to the Department of Homeland Security significant
responsibilities for sharing terrorism-related information with State,
local, and private sector officials; for example, section 201(d) and
section 892, I want to make sure that my understanding of the purpose
of section 1016 is accurate.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. COX. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I am glad to confirm that the
understanding that the gentleman has is correct. The information-
sharing environment will serve as a means by which individual agencies,
including DHS, can meet their statutory information-sharing mandates.
It will enable and assist agencies in meeting their information-sharing
responsibilities.
In particular, I can confirm that the ISE does not supplant or in any
way diminish the information-sharing responsibilities of DHS.
{time} 1815
Indeed, DHS will be an interconnected component of the ISE, which
will facilitate the Department's execution of its statutory mission as
the primary Federal agency responsible for sharing terrorism-related
information with State, local and private sector officials and the
public.
Mr. COX. I thank the chairman. I would also like to engage my
colleague, the chairman, in a colloquy on section 1021 which would add
a new section 119 to the National Security Act of 1947, establishing
the National Counterterrorism Center, or NCTC.
Section 119(d)(1) lists among the primary missions of the NCTC: ``To
serve as the primary organization in the United States Government for
analyzing and integrating all intelligence possessed or acquired by the
United States Government pertaining to terrorism and counterterrorism,
excepting intelligence pertaining exclusively to domestic terrorists
and domestic counterterrorism.''
That occurs at page 87, lines 10 through 16.
Section 119(e)(1) of the National Security Act, as amended, would
state that the new National Counterterrorist Center, NCTC, ``may,
consistent with applicable law, at the direction of the President, and
the guidelines referred to in section 102A(b), receive intelligence
pertaining exclusively to domestic counterterrorism from any Federal,
State or local government or other source necessary to fulfill its
responsibilities and retain and disseminate such intelligence.''
That occurs at page 88, lines 17 through 24.
Section 201(d)(1) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 requires the
Department of Homeland Security ``To assess, receive, and analyze law
enforcement information, intelligence information, and other
information from agencies of the Federal Government, State and local
government agencies (including law enforcement agencies), and private
sector entities, and to integrate such information in order to (A)
identify and assess the nature and scope of terrorist threats to the
homeland; (B) detect and identify threats against the
[[Page H11007]]
United States; and (C) understand such threats in light of the actual
and potential vulnerabilities of the homeland.''
And section 201(d)(9) of the Homeland Security Act requires the
Department of Homeland Security ``To disseminate, as appropriate,
information analyzed by the Department within the Department, to other
agencies of the Federal Government with responsibilities relating to
homeland security, and to agencies of State and local governments with
private sector entities with such responsibilities in order to assist
in the deterrence, prevention, preemption of, or response to, terrorist
attacks against the United States.''
So, first, I would like to make sure I am correct in understanding
that it is not the intention of section 119(d) and (e) to have the NCTC
exercise any aspect of the role that has been assigned to DHS in the
Homeland Security Act, including specifically DHS's primary
responsibility for the sharing of terrorism-related information with
State, local and private sector officials and the public.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. I can confirm the chairman's understanding. Neither the
responsibilities of NCTC for comprehensive counterterrorism analysis,
nor its responsibility for dissemination of information within the
Federal Government, will in any way diminish the responsibilities of
DHS under the Homeland Security Act, or any other legal mandate.
Mr. COX. I thank my friend, the chairman of the Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence. Could he also confirm my understanding of
119(e)?
Mr. HOEKSTRA. I can confirm that his understanding of 119(e) is also
accurate.
Mr. COX. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the conference report on
the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.
The House Select Committee on Homeland Security, which I chair, was
deeply involved in the efforts to put this bill together. The bill
unfortunately does not contain all of the provisions that I believe it
should contain--in particular, the Faster and Smarter Funding for First
Responders Act, which was a major part of the House-passed 9/11 bill.
But the bill as it is now before us meets the most important test: It
will make America safer.
The reform of our intelligence system is an historic and vitally
necessary step forward. This bill will also ensure that U.S. officials
on the border have access to the information they need to identify
suspect and fraudulent identity documents. It will give consular
offices the technology and training they need to recognize terrorist
travel patterns and practices--as called for by the 9/11 Commission.
We also know that a major problem along our borders today is the lack
of detention space to hold illegal aliens who are awaiting deportation.
The indefensible policy of ``catch and release'' that this necessitates
is threatening our national security. The select committee worked with
my good friend Mr. Bonilla of Texas, and the Judiciary Committee to
insert into this bill a large increase in the number of detention beds
to address this problem.
The bill will also greatly enhance our efforts to improve the
interoperability of first responder communications. It directs DHS to
provide technical assistance to our highest-risk areas in order to
rapidly deploy interoperable communications systems. And it establishes
a comprehensive program to develop baseline capabilities and standards
for interoperability nationwide.
The bill before us also gives the Secretary of Homeland Security the
flexibility to make multi-year funding commitments for interoperable
communications projects. This change will encourage the long-term
planning and local investment that is necessary to get such systems
into place at the State and local level. I want to thank Mr. Fossella
and Mr. Stupak for working with the Homeland Security Committee on this
important reform.
Finally, this bill will promote mutual aid at the State, local and
regional levels--another key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission.
I am disappointed that important reforms that were passed by the
House are not included in this final bill, including standards for
identification to board airplanes and buy weapons; the creation of an
Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity within DHS; and first responder
funding reform to replace pork barrel funding with threat-based
funding. That legislation will have to be our first order of business
in the 109th Congress But we owe it to the American people to pass this
bill now.
I want to thank Chairman Hoekstra, who chaired this conference under
challenging circumstances, and his staff for their cooperation and
assistance. And I want to thank Speaker Hastert and President Rush for
their personal efforts to ensure passage today of these important
intelligence and homeland security reforms.
Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains on each side?
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Simpson). The gentlewoman from
California (Ms. Harman) has 14\1/2\ minutes remaining. The gentleman
from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) has 7 minutes remaining. The gentleman
from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) has 11\1/2\ minutes remaining.
Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New
Jersey (Mr. Menendez), who heads our Democratic Caucus, a wonderful and
valued colleague on this issue, and a third of our Democratic
conferees.
(Mr. MENENDEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Speaker, the question we have before us today is
not whether this conference report will pass. As Governor Kean, the
chairman of the 9/11 Commission, said recently, ``The question is
whether it will pass now or after a second attack.'' Because we know
the enemy seeks to attack again. We just do not know when and where it
will occur.
That is why we as a Congress pledge to do everything possible to make
sure the tragic events of 9/11 were never repeated. That is why the
Commission was created to investigate what went wrong. Nothing is more
important than that mission. In fact, the work on this bill and
conference report is the most important of the entire 108th Congress.
This conference report that we have before us today secures America
against terrorists by making sweeping changes to our homeland security
and intelligence operations. It addresses the key intelligence failures
that allowed the 9/11 attacks to succeed. This will be the first
comprehensive overhaul of our intelligence apparatus since 1947,
updating it from the Cold War to the war on terror.
The bill will establish a Director of National Intelligence in charge
of all of the government's intelligence gathering, analysis and
counterterrorism operations. It would streamline and unify our
intelligence-gathering capabilities, foster greater intelligence
sharing, and end the senseless turf battles that plague the current
system and that so failed our country on that fateful day.
It will improve the overall qualities of our intelligence, and, yes,
it contains numerous and significant immigration-, visa security-, and
border security-related provisions; over 43 sections, 100 pages, adding
thousands of additional Border Patrol agents, immigration and Customs
investigators; new technologies across the border; criminalizing the
smuggling of immigrants; and establishing tough Federal minimum
standards for birth certificates and driver's licenses just as the 9/11
Commission report recommended.
It is time to honor the memories of all of those who perished on
September 11, including the 122 of my fellow citizens from my
congressional district. It is time to secure America. It is time to put
the turf battles aside. It is time to try to stop using other issues
for the purposes of derailing the ultimate goal here, which is
intelligence reform, and it is time to make America secure by voting
yes on this conference report.
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I would say that the only turf that at
least I am interested in protecting here is the turf of the United
States of America and the people that live on it.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr.
Rohrabacher).
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to S. 2845.
This is first and foremost, and everyone in the country knows that,
this is a pro-illegal immigration bill in that the situation with
illegal immigration will be worse if we pass this bill than it is
today.
It is also not a reform bill. It is an illusion. It is a piece of
illusion legislation. It is designed to make people feel better because
they perceive something is being done.
And I would like to thank the largest organization of 9/11 families
who are opposed to this legislation, the 9/11 Families for American
Security, who visited Members of Congress to oppose this legislation.
What this bill does is change the flowchart, trying to make people
think
[[Page H11008]]
that is doing something. It adds a level of bureaucracy, a new level of
bureaucracy, and, yes, creates an intelligence czar. Boy, that is going
to make everybody feel really good that we have an intelligence czar.
We had an energy czar. That did us a lot of good. And thank goodness
America had a drug czar that was appointed years ago; otherwise we
would be plagued with drug use in America today.
No, this whole bill is designed to make people feel good rather than
to do something to hold people accountable for the decisions that they
made that led up to 9/11. The intelligence czar and the huge staff
required to support the new intelligence czar is duplicative and will
be an impediment to getting things done in the Intelligence Community.
The National Security Council, I worked at the White House for 7
years, was set up to do exactly this. And had the National Security
Council during the Clinton administration, and, yes, during the
beginning of this administration, had been doing their jobs, there
would not have been a 9/11. So we already have people to do this job of
the new intelligence czar and his huge bureaucracy.
9/11 was not due to blocks in the flowchart. 9/11 was the results of
bad policies in dealing with the Taliban, which I complained about for
years on the floor of this House, and bad policies in terms of what we
were doing against al Qaeda during the Clinton years, and, yes, even
bad policies exemplified by Jamie Gorelick, who signed a Justice
Department order during the Clinton years that restricted cooperation
between the FBI and CIA in dealing with terrorist threats. No, that was
bad policy.
We do not need to change the flowchart to make people feel good in
order to hold people accountable for those bad policies.
Finally, this bill should be defeated because it has gutted the
provisions in this bill that passed the House that were aimed at
controlling this massive invasion we have of illegal immigrants into
our country, and we are not going to have a secure America when we have
millions and millions of illegal aliens coming here, many of whom can
be terrorists; and in this bill we no longer have the provisions to
make sure that we will not be giving ID cards so these illegals can get
on airplanes and crash them into buildings.
Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, clearly many in this House feel strongly. I
hope most of us will vote for this bill.
Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Reyes), a senior member of the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence.
Mr. REYES. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman and our chairman for
the hard work they have done along with the other conferees.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this conference report,
though not without some reservations. I am encouraged by the bill's
reforms to our Nation's Intelligence Community, reforms that would not
be before us today without the hard work of the 9/11 Commission and the
unwavering commitment of the 9/11 families.
Also, as a member of both the Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence and the Committee on Armed Services, I recognize that
timely and accurate intelligence is essential for both the President
and our military forces in the fields. So I am pleased that this
important issue has been addressed. However, I do have a strong word of
caution for my colleagues about some of the provisions that we are
enacting today in the name of homeland security.
These provisions establishing new investigatory, surveillance, and
information-sharing authorities carry tremendous potential for abuse. I
am concerned that these provisions may only be the beginning, and that
we could be headed down a dangerous path without ensuring the
appropriate checks and balances.
Prior to coming to Congress, I served for 26\1/2\ years in the United
States Border Patrol, from agent to chief, so I know firsthand about
our efforts to protect our borders and keep America secure. While I
strongly believe in giving our government and law enforcement the tools
they need to keep America safe, I also know it is imperative that we
have an effective system of checks and balances to protect our rights
as Americans.
Mr. Speaker, I will vote for this bill because I believe that reforms
to our Intelligence Community are much needed and long overdue.
However, as we move forward, I urge my colleagues to be vigilant in
ensuring that we do not undermine the very liberties we are trying to
protect from terrorists, because it is these liberties that make
America the great Nation that it is.
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from
Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite).
Ms. GINNY BROWN-WAITE of Florida. Mr. Speaker, protecting our Nation
is one of the most important duties that we have as Members of
Congress. If we fail this, nothing else really matters.
The conference report does contain some useful provisions, but it is
incomplete, making it inadequate and therefore unacceptable. The
agreement with the Senate gave away so much, and it includes some major
steps backwards from the House-passed version of the bill and from the
strides that we have made since 9/11.
{time} 1830
Specifically, the report ignores important suggestions made by the 9/
11 Commission and by many Members of this Chamber regarding immigration
and the use of illegal identification cards.
We need to have closed borders with open doors for those who follow
the law. Our offices are flooded with people asking for assistance
because they are trying to come here legally.
The version this House passed prohibited convicted terrorists from
receiving Federal benefits, and yet the agreement before us here today
fails to prevent this injustice. Remember, the taxpayers out there are
going to be paying taxes and some terrorists are going to be getting
some Federal benefits. That is just unacceptable.
It has been 3\1/4\ years since the terrorists used illegal
identification to cross our borders and to attack Americans at home,
and yet Congress still ignores meaningful immigration reform. We
authorize some detention beds in here; but guess what, we did not fund
them.
There have been so many immigration bills introduced since 9/11 that
have died and had to be reintroduced again, only to die again. We are
told that, oh, they will be taken care of next year. I sincerely hope
that that is the case because this bill is a feel-good bill,
absolutely. It is like buying a state-of-the-art alarm system,
installing it in your house, never actually activating it and then you
do not even bother locking your doors. Your home is not secure. Our
Nation will not be any more secure under this. We need to secure our
borders. That is a very important component that is simply missing from
this bill.
I cannot support the bill in its current form and because it is so
inadequate, because it does not address the very important immigration
issue.
The problem with the conference report was that it ignored so many of
the good immigration reform provisions that we had in the House bill.
This bill is only part of what the 9/11 Commission recommended. I was a
State senator. As my colleagues know, many of the terrorists came from
Florida. We said the length of their driver's license expires when
their visa expires. Guess what. This bill does not mandate it. So the
10 States that do not even have that provision, they are the States
that the terrorists are going to go to. That is just plain wrong.
We do need to have uniformity in driver's licenses. We do need to
make sure that the person applying for the driver's license, who has a
visa, that the visa expiration date is the expiration date of the
identification or the driver's license.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
California (Mr. Cunningham), a member from the committee.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the gentlewoman
from California (Ms. Harman) and the chairman for working on this bill
and on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The gentleman
from Texas (Mr. Reyes), even though he is an Irish kid, is like a
brother, and we work very well together. Disagree, but work together.
Do any of my colleagues have any idea what it is like to watch
friends die? The 9/11 families do. I do not know
[[Page H11009]]
how many of my colleagues saw Private Ryan. I lost a lot of good
friends in combat. Anger, rage, disappointment, knowing that many of
them did not have to.
The gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) fixed that in this bill.
It is going to save a lot of lives. To say that this bill is a shadow,
I do not believe is correct in my opinion. If we look at COSCO, many
wanted the China Ocean Shipping Company to take over the Long Beach
shipyard. The gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) and I stopped
that, even though we knew there were spies with the China organization
taking over Long Beach shipyard, and we were able to work that in a
bipartisan issue.
The homeland security, our ports, one of the biggest threats that we
have is our ports, and that is addressed in this bill.
Where my dilemma is, is the 9/11 Recommendation No. 16 that was
denied and stripped out of the bill by the other body. To me that is
irresponsible, and I would ask the gentleman from Michigan (Mr.
Hoekstra), the chairman, in a colloquy, is it the gentleman's
understanding from our leadership that the immigration issues will be
addressed in the 109th Congress?
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, he was in the conference today. I think we
got a very strong commitment from the leadership that they intend to
address these issues. I think that will represent the will of the
members of this conference.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. And that the President will help us in these efforts?
Mr. HOEKSTRA. If the gentleman will continue to yield, that is
absolutely correct.
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman; I thank the
Members on both sides of the aisle.
If my colleagues vote against this bill, they put this Nation at
risk. Without the immigration issues, this Nation is at risk.
Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 1 minute to
the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the Democratic leader, my
predecessor as ranking member on the Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence and someone who knows these issues extremely well.
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time
and commend her for her tremendous leadership, outstanding leadership
as our ranking member on the Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence, and I commend the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra)
for h
