Damon Paul Nelson and Matthew Young Pollard Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Years and 2020

Floor Speech

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Ms. OMAR. Madam Chairwoman, my amendment mandates reporting on the foreign governments with whom we share access to the Terrorist Screening Database. The database is shared with more than 60 foreign governments, including countries with appalling human rights records, such as Saudi Arabia and China.

An FBI official has acknowledged in sworn testimony that it has never stopped sharing watch-list information with a foreign government because of that government's human rights abuses. Many of the people who are included in the database have never been charged with a crime, and, yet, we share sensitive information about them with the same government that murdered Jamal Khashoggi.

I have also received credible reports that there have been Uighurs added to the database at the request of the Chinese Government. I ask the Chair to think about that.

There is universal outrage in Washington about the treatment of the Uighur population in China. What are we talking about?

Let's be clear. These are the precursors to genocide. And while it is happening, while Members of both sides of the aisle and the Secretary of State are condemning what is happening, we are allowing the Chinese Government to add Uighurs to the Terrorist Screening Database. We are allowing them to track Uighurs in the United States.

This is probably the most appalling aspect of our sharing this information with governments that violate human rights, but it is not the only appalling aspect. One thing we know for sure in almost two decades that we have been fighting the war on terror, is that dictators have been more than happy to call whoever opposes them a terrorist.

The Saudis, whose family has direct, proven, and clear financial links to al-Qaida, are given access to this database. The Saudis, who have rounded up human rights activists, tortured them, mass executed them, and claiming they are terrorists, get to add people on this list. It is entirely possible that they get to add American citizens to this list.

This isn't compatible with a free society. It isn't compatible with our essential concepts of civil liberties. It is important to note that the evidentiary standard for being placed in the database is very low. The government only needs reasonable suspicion that someone is involved in terrorism, which is not even enough to charge someone with a crime.

It is also significant that individuals added to this database are not informed of their placements and have suffered preventable harms as a result.

So my amendment asks some basic questions, questions that we as Members of Congress have not only a right to, but a responsibility to ask.

I ask my colleagues to support this amendment. If they are concerned about civil liberties, they should be concerned about this. If they are concerned about human rights abroad, they should be concerned about this. And no matter how they feel about the database itself, this amendment asks that we need answers in order to make informed decisions about our national security policy.

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff), the chairman.

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Ms. OMAR. Madam Chair, I am thankful to the chairman and ranking member for their support, and with that, I yield back the balance of my time

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