National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005-Continued

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005-CONTINUED

Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, this amendment is an important amendment to this bill. It is passing with bipartisan cosponsorship, both the House and the Senate unanimously. It shows we can get things done in a bipartisan way. In good part that is because of my colleague from Alabama. I salute him for his leadership on this issue. He originally discovered the loophole about contractors who work for DOE, that they could not be prosecuted should they commit crimes abroad. He successfully passed a law last year about this issue.

When we discovered all the problems in the prisons in Iraq, it was clear that not all the contractors were contracted to by DOD. Other agencies contracted them. It made sense to me that we prosecute them as well. I believe it made sense to everybody. So I suggest to my colleague from Alabama that we work together to expand the amendment to include all contractors who work abroad who commit crimes or potential crimes.

As usual, we worked very well together on this. I thank the Senator for his leadership in passing the original bill, now law, and now amending this to broaden it.

The amendment Senator Sessions and I are offering today will close a dangerous loophole in our criminal law that would have allowed civilian contractors who do the crime to escape doing the time. As I mentioned, Senator Sessions closed part of this loophole a few years ago when he passed the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act and showed a great deal of foresight with that legislation.

The problem is that aside from Senator Sessions' bill there are negligently few provisions that give DOJ the power to go after civilian contractors. In short, if they do not contract with DOD, there is too strong a likelihood they will escape prosecution. Nothing in this amendment should be interpreted as undermining ongoing DOJ investigations or providing a basis for argument that DOJ does not have jurisdiction to prosecute contractor crimes in Iraq. Title 18, section 7, of the Criminal Code clearly confers such jurisdiction. This amendment covers contractors and territory for which title 18, section 7, does not confer jurisdiction.

I am proud to have worked with my colleague from Alabama to get this done. By passing this amendment today, this body gains stature because an important amendment is passed in a bipartisan way, and our country gains stature because the world sees when a crime is committed, unlike in so many other places in America, it is prosecuted.

With that, I yield back the remainder of my time.