Walberg Weekly Wrap-Up: "Protecting Our National Security, Annual Report Available Online"

Press Release

The primary responsibility of Congress is to defend and protect the American people. Unfortunately, this week Congress showed it is more concerned about steroids in baseball, Bill Belichick's practice tapes, Insecticides, Fungicides and Rodenticides than the safety of our great nation.

House leadership refused to schedule a vote on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Modernization Bill. This bi-partisan bill passed the Senate, in a 68-29 vote, earlier this week, but the House wasted time investigating baseball player Roger Clemens and voting on things like the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and never voted on the Senate's bi-partisan FISA bill to protect our nation.

The FISA Modernization Bill would give the American intelligence community tools and flexibility needed to quickly respond to terrorist threats. Instead of passing this legislation, Democratic leadership in the House elected to let the FISA updates expire.

Glenn Sulmasy, a Harvard University National Security Expert, said this legislation "has allowed the United States to close a significant intelligence gap by enabling intelligence professionals to collect, without a court order, foreign intelligence on targets located overseas - known as ‘foreign-to-foreign contacts' - regardless of how the information is moved."

Our military and intelligence officials need the tools to protect American citizens from terrorist threats. We must allow American military and intelligence officials to monitor, without delay, calls of suspected and known foreign terrorists in foreign countries.

Critics of this legislation claim that a FISA bill will involve surveillance of American citizens, and some Democrats have erroneously claimed this bill is a violation of civil liberties. While I believe we must always protect the Constitutional rights of Americans, the Democratic argument is simply not true. If our intelligence experts want to perform surveillance on an American citizen, they must first receive an individualized court order.

The actions this week of House leadership were shameful and have allowed the current FISA law to expire on February 27. We must not prevent our intelligence community from being able to monitor Osama Bin Laden's phone calls.

I believe Americans want the bi-partisan legislation approved in the Senate passed so America's intelligence community can monitor Al Qaeda and other terrorist networks without having to go to court to get permission to listen to foreign terrorists plotting on foreign lands. I will continue to push House leadership to pass this bi-partisan bill and protect our national security.

Annual Report Available Online

On my official website, http://walberg.house.gov, I posted my 2007 Annual Report.

It is a tremendous honor to serve the good people of south-central Michigan, and I want to be as accessible and accountable as possible to the residents of the Seventh District. By issuing an annual report, I hope to enable my constituents to better evaluate my performance in 2007, stay informed and contact me with suggestions and opinions for 2008.

The report includes information on key votes, issue updates, bill sponsorships and ideas on creating more good-paying jobs in Michigan. It also contains details about legislation I am working on, my work in House committees and constituent services I offer.

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