Protect America Act of 2007 Extension

Floor Speech

PROTECT AMERICA ACT OF 2007 EXTENSION -- (House of Representatives - January 29, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HOYER. I thank the distinguished chairman for yielding.

I rise in support of this particular extension. I do not rise and did not rise in support of the underlying bill that we are extending. And I think the gentleman from Ohio raised some valid points, as the chairman thinks he raised valid points as well.

But the issue here is really one of allowing this body an opportunity to pass a bill that speaks to the constitutional issues that have been raised, as well as the substantive issues raised by Mr. Issa in what we all want to do: protect America and Americans.

Today the House is voting on a 15-day extension, nothing more, nothing less. Before we do that, I want to remind my colleagues that this body has already passed legislation to reauthorize FISA.

On November 15, 2 1/2 months ago, this body passed the RESTORE Act, a bill that modernizes the technologically outdated Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, gives the intelligence community the authority to intercept critical foreign communications, and protects our fundamental constitutional rights.

The bill was skillfully assembled by two of our best chairmen, John Conyers and Silvestre Reyes. Those chairmen join me today in support of this short-term extension for several reasons. First, despite the body's efforts over 2 1/2 months ago, the Senate has yet to complete its work on its own FISA legislation. This week they failed to get cloture on either alternative. We are going to await its bill and look forward to an undoubtedly challenging, but productive, conference. This will take some time.

Second, on the question of immunity, which the President has so highly touted, our committees have been asking for 8 months to see the legal documents pertaining to the President's terrorist surveillance program. And we have received 8 straight months of denials. The White House only offered this access last Friday. It is reasonable to conclude that for the committees to carry out its own responsibilities and constitutional duties, it needs some time to do that.

This afternoon, our Judiciary members will be read-in to the program, and only next week will they begin to digest the hefty stack of documents that, in turn, will help them make a judgment on what, if any, immunity is merited. My position has been that in order to give immunity, we need to know what we are giving immunity for and what the justification for the actions were. Again, we need time for this important review. This extension gives us that time.

Finally, let me say to my colleagues that even if we were unable to do this extension, and this is very important, even if we were unable to do this extension, February 1 were to come and go without any new legislation, no one should fall victim to those fear-mongers who suggest that our intelligence community could ``go dark.'' It would not. That is simply not the case.

The authorizations issued under the Protect America Act are in effect for up to one full year. So any requests that have been made and authorized up to this point in time from August on would be in effect at least through next July even if they had been authorized in August. The authorization issued under the Protect America Act will help protect us to that extent.

This means that all of the surveillance in effect today will remain in effect for least 6 more months. Even the administration's own Assistant Attorney General for National Security, Kenneth Wainstein, acknowledged this, saying that if the PAA were allowed to expire, intelligence officials would still be able to continue eavesdropping on already approved targets for another year.

In fact, out of an abundance of caution, last Thursday, when I announced the schedule for this week, I urged the administration, if it had any authorizations, it needed to proceed on that for fear that we might not extend this act. I think we'll do that today, so that fear will not be realized.

For those new threats that develop after February 1, let us not forget that the underlying statute still gives the administration 3 days' worth of emergency authority to immediately begin surveillance without going to the Court, no lesser court. The Court, by the way, now has no backlog.

I encourage my colleagues to support this legislation. It is simply much like a CR, which is not a judgment on the merits of a particular appropriation bill one way or the other. It is simply a judgment that the congressional will ought to be done, that we ought to make our judgment based upon a conference report, with the Senate having passed a bill, which it has been unable yet to do.

So I urge my colleagues to support this bill, not because you support the underlying bill, but because you share with me and with Mr. Conyers and Mr. Kucinich and Mr. Issa and all the others who have dealt with this bill a concern about protecting our country and protecting our Constitution.

Source