FISA Amendments Act of 2007

Floor Speech

FISA AMENDMENTS ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - January 28, 2008)

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, we are now only a few days away from the expiration of the Protect America Act, days away from a situation in which the intelligence community will be unable to freely monitor new terrorist targets overseas. We are flirting with disaster, and the American people deserve to know how we got in this predicament. So let me review it.

Ten months ago, the Director of National Intelligence asked us to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Our friends on the other side waited until July to take up a bill that agreed with his recommendations. It was not until August that Congress finally answered his pleas by authorizing for 6 months the overseas surveillance of foreign terrorist targets with the Protect America Act.

When our friends on the other side got back from the August break, they vowed to quickly address what they decried as the shortcomings of the Protect America Act.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, under the leadership of Senator Rockefeller and Senator Bond, took up the task. Reforming FISA was complicated and demanding work, but the committee members came together, as they were intended to, along with the executive branch, which, of course, was necessary.

Everyone involved acted with determination, deliberation, and considerable skill. The process lasted 4 months. It involved numerous hearings, briefings, and negotiation sessions. The final product was a model of bipartisanship and accommodation across the Senate aisle and with the White House. The committee vote was not 15 to 0, but around here 13 to 2 is almost as impressive.

But what was perhaps even more impressive is the fact that such a broad coalition of players had come together to meet the minimum standards required of any legislation that replaces the Protect America Act, something that allows the intelligence community to operate without unreasonable and counterproductive restrictions, which protect phone carriers from frivolous lawsuits for helping the Government hunt for terrorists, and which is guaranteed to be signed into law. All of those things are contained in the Bond-Rockefeller, Rockefeller-Bond proposal.

Unfortunately, it was not until just before the Christmas break that our friends decided to even turn back to this vital issue, and even then we had to listen to a filibuster against FISA reform. Then when we began this session, our Democratic colleagues delayed consideration of FISA reform again by moving to the Indian health care bill instead.

So here we are, once again, pushed up against a looming deadline. During last week's consideration of the FISA reauthorization, the majority said it would not consider a 60-vote threshold for votes. It did not offer time agreements, nor did it make any effort to limit the number of amendments.

In short, the Senate faces a legislative logjam that ensures that we will let the February 1 deadline come and go without making a reasonable effort to enact a law.

It should not have turned out this way. The administration negotiated in good faith with the Democratic majority on the committee that has the technical, operational expertise to handle the subject. And in the course of painstaking negotiations, the administration made tough concessions to our Democratic colleagues. It did this in order to arrive at a fair, bipartisan result that would allow it to continue to protect the homeland. Now that work is being brushed aside.

The menu of amendments to the Intelligence Committee bill is little more than an effort to renegotiate this hard-won deal, an effort to deconstruct the bipartisan Intelligence Committee bill, and reconstruct, amendment by amendment, the divisive Judiciary Committee bill that was tabled by a strong bipartisan majority. That bill will not--I repeat, will not--become law.

Reconstructing the Judiciary Committee bill is a pointless exercise. And with only 5 days until the Protect America Act expires, it is an exercise in which we do not have the luxury to engage.

We can get serious and pass the bipartisan Intelligence Committee product or we can waste time on voting for poison pill amendments that weaken the bill and that will prevent it from becoming law.

I urge our colleagues to make the right choice, to vote for cloture so that we can continue to protect the homeland and against cloture on the 30-day extension. We cannot delay this important legislation for another month. Of course, the President will not sign a 30-day extension.

That said, if we cannot complete this bill, Republicans will not allow this critical program to expire and will offer a short-term extension, if necessary.

To be perfectly clear, I urge that there be a ``yes'' vote on cloture on the bill, a ``no'' vote on cloture on the 30-day extension, an amendment to the bill which actually would not achieve a 30-day extension anyway but I think is a place that we do not want to go on record as having supported because the President will not sign that anyway. And in the next few days, we will consider what kind of short-term options might be appropriate to let us get back to this very important legislation so painstakingly put together by the expert leadership of Senator Rockefeller and Senator Bond.

I yield the floor.

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