Conference Report on H.R. 3199, USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005
CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 3199, USA PATRIOT IMPROVEMENT AND REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - December 14, 2005)
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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan for the time.
Madam Speaker, I am opposed to the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act. First, I do not believe many of the so-called law enforcement tools will make us any safer.
I am probably one of a few Members of Congress who has been spied on by his own government. During the civil rights movement, an agency in the Mississippi State Government called the State Sovereignty Commission kept files on me and countless other people working for change.
I might add that none of us did anything illegal other than just convene and talk about how we would change our State.
From this experience, I have known that, when government has the authority to spy on its own people, it is almost always and will misuse that power.
Nothing good will come from many of the tools in the PATRIOT Act, and I fear that it will lead to more misuse of power.
It is too broad an authorization to continue to give the government these powers, such as to search the library records or to place roving wiretaps without a warrant that at least should say what phone is being tapped.
I am also opposed to the conference report because it fails to include the provision in the House bill that would allocate more Homeland Security funds based on risk.
The 9/11 Commission explicitly recommended that Homeland Security funds be allocated based on risk. The Ð9/11 Commission members recently said that if the House funding measures were passed, Congress would have received an A grade instead of an F on fulfilling its recommendation.
We must focus our scarce Homeland Security resources on areas that are most at risk of terrorist attack. We cannot yield to politics. We must fulfill the Commission's recommendation by passing the House proposal. Without that measure in this PATRIOT Act reauthorization, I cannot support it.
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