Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

Floor Speech

FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT -- (House of Representatives - October 23, 2007)

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Mr. NADLER. I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me. And I wasn't planning to debate this; I just happened to be walking through the Chamber and I heard what you were saying. People are entitled to their opinions, but they're not entitled to misquote what the bill does, which is what I've been hearing.

First of all, it is quite correct, as the gentlelady from New Mexico said, that the FISA law needed to be updated.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Well, if I could take back my time, if the gentleman would specifically say where we misstated, I would love to respond to that. But the gentleman can get his own time to talk about other things.

Mr. NADLER. I will say two things. Number one, the RESTORE Act, the bill that was pulled from the floor, number one takes care of that technological problem, just as the bill that was passed in August does, by updating and making clear that foreign-to-foreign communications that come through a server in the United States do not need a warrant. So that's not an issue because this bill does it.

Second of all, let me just make the two points. And second of all, I think I heard you say, both of you, somebody here, that if you were tapping some terrorist abroad and he called into the United States and you heard him talk about terrorism with somebody in the United States, that you could not tap that, you could not use that information. That's simply not true.

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Mr. NADLER. Thank you. Two points. One, what was just said about that motion to recommit, the contents of the motion to recommit, that nothing shall be construed as barring, tapping or wiretapping, whatever the language was, bin Laden, Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, et cetera, was completely unobjectionable. Indeed, it was totally superfluous. Had that motion said the motion is to recommit the bill to committee to amend it to include these words, and to report the bill back forthwith so we could have continued the debate, we would have accepted that amendment. We would have said fine. It doesn't change anything. Fine.

But, as you know, the amendment said report back promptly, which would have entailed at least a 2-week delay. That's why the bill was pulled, not because of the subject matter, but because of the word ``promptly.''

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. If I might take my time on that point. Promptly means it goes back to committee. It doesn't say it can't come back for 2 weeks. It goes back to committee.

Now, we have some rules here that require a few days. We also have something called waiver of rules that has happened virtually on every rule that we've had here, presenting a bill to the floor. And let me ask the gentleman, if, in fact, your concern was it would be a delay of a week or two, what are we doing now?

I would yield to the gentleman.

Mr. NADLER. I will answer to the best of my knowledge. I don't know what we're doing now. I'm not part of the leadership. And as I said, I just happened to be walking here. I don't know why the bill isn't back here now. But I know it will be in the next week or so.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. So it's the gentleman's statement that you're willing to accept the motion to recommit, and your side is the leadership.

Mr. NADLER. Yes. The language was unobjectionable.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Well, that's good to hear. Then we will expect to see that language in the bill when it returns.

Mr. NADLER. Had it said forthwith, it would have been, and I shouldn't speak for the leadership but that's what they were saying at the time, we would have accepted it. But because it said promptly, which the Parliamentarians have told us would entail a considerable delay.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. I'm sure glad we're not delaying now. But go ahead.

Mr. NADLER. Well, we found out, by the way we thought the Senate was going to pass the bill the next day. It turns out they haven't got their act together, so we have a little more time.

Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. The Senate was going to pass a bill. Not that bill.

Mr. NADLER. Yes, it was going to pass a different bill. We wanted to pass a bill before they did, so that's why we were in a hurry.

But getting back to the point we said a few minutes ago, I don't have the benefit of the language. I know you have it there from the manager's amendment which I haven't seen, or the context. But I do know the following: The whole point, Admiral McConnell is quite correct when he says, obviously, if you're tapping whoever in a foreign country, you don't know who he's going to call. You're tapping that one point. You're tapping Mohammed in Karachi because you know that he, you suspect he's a terrorist that's involved. If he calls someone else abroad no one thinks you need a warrant or anything else. Under the bill, if he calls someone in the United States, either you hear it, you can't help hearing it. Either that conversation is innocent or it's involved with something that makes you suspicious of terrorism. If it's innocent, you have to engage in minimization procedures so you don't unduly and inadvertently violate the privacy of some American for an innocent conversation. If it's not innocent, then you, with that information, you can continue listening and if necessary you can get a warrant. And that's the general design of the amendment.

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