Motion To Instruct Conferees On H.R. 2892, Department Of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. CARTER. Madam Speaker, this debate goes on, and I hearken back to how did this all start. It started with enemies of the United States killing American citizens on American soil. By the grace of God, they didn't kill the number they were hoping to kill because they were hoping to bring down those towers in New York completely full of people, and potentially hundreds of thousands of people could have died. But because of the braveness of the police force and the fire department and others, we were able to evacuate those buildings and the casualty toll was not in the hundreds of thousands or the tens of thousands. But, still, every single American life lost there we care about.

I think most people thought we're going to war, world war. That's what I thought. That's what the people I was with in Taos, New Mexico, at the time thought. And we wanted to do something about it. The American soldiers in two fields of battle have done something about it. They continue to do something about it today. And through the work of our intelligence people and the American soldier and the American Marine Corps, we have brought many of these terrorists to captivity. They are enemy combatants captured on the battlefield.

We're not talking about people who have rights to Miranda warnings. My Lord, how can you fight a war if you're going to have to have Miranda warnings every time you come in contact with an enemy soldier? It makes no sense. Neither our Founding Fathers nor the Supreme Court, I would say, ever envisioned us giving Miranda warnings on the battlefield.

But I believe and I think Americans believe that these people mean us harm and by their very presence on the sacred soil of the United States they bring harm to this country. Because I would argue, as we all know, the recruiting of radical Islam is going on in our prisons right now. Witness just recently some arrests that were made inside this country and how those American citizens got to be influenced by radical Islam. Much of it comes out of the prison systems. And we are going to put people that are being held properly in Guantanamo, we're going to bring them to our soil, give them the rights of an American defendant and put them in the prison system of this country where they can continue--even if they are in solitary confinement, their very presence can make them a hero of the recruiters inside the prison.

Gangs are bad enough in the prisons without us creating gangs that are part of an international plot to destroy the United States of America. These people have no business being on the sacred soil of the United States. They certainly don't have the rights that are being argued for here. They are in the right place, where they belong. The military justice system is fair and they will get a fair trial, and I would argue that they belong in Guantanamo and they should stay in Guantanamo.

Yes, I agree with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that we have maximum security prisons that we could put them in. There is one that was featured in ``60 Minutes'' awhile back in Colorado where we put the worst of the worst; but did anybody listen to how much it costs us to put the worst of the worst in those maximum security prisons?

We are spending enough money around here without going out and spending that kind of money on prisoners where we already have them in a secure facility, where they are being humanely treated, and where they are able to meet with their lawyers and they are able to prepare for the defense of their case. There is no reason on God's green Earth to bring them over here and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars incarcerating each and every one of them in a Federal maximum security prison. It makes no sense in light of the fact that we are practically bankrupting our country with spending in the last 8 months.

So I think Mr. Rogers has a very good bill here. I think what he is asking in this motion to instruct the conferees is common sense that the American people understand. Now, we get in this political world up here and common sense seems to go out the window. But I think if you stop the average American on the street, they will tell you that these people intend to kill us and as far as we are concerned, we don't care where they stay, but we don't want them in our neighborhood.

I certainly don't want them in Texas, and I would argue that each Member who represents their district in this august body does not want them in their neighborhood. I have a Federal prison that is within 30 miles of my home, and I promise you, my friends and neighbors do not want one of these detainees in that Federal prison because they are evil and they will corrupt those who are already there.

Madam Speaker, we spend most of our time in the courtroom giving people their constitutional rights as criminal defendants. And I have spent, in a criminal case, at least 50 percent of the time spent on every criminal case, my job was to protect those people's rights and make sure that they got every one of them. I did the very best I could. But at some point in time, in a criminal trial, upon the finding of guilt, those rights convert over to the State and to the people to make decisions on punishment.

I would argue these people don't start with those rights, and the American people have in mind what they think should happen to these people that would kill more American citizens on American soil.

Don't we have the courage of our Greater Generation forefathers to stand up to evil when it addresses our country and do something about that evil? Why would we want to coddle people who have a proven track record of being part of the network that attacked the United States of America?

Madam Speaker, I would argue this is an excellent instruction to the conferees, and I believe Mr. Rogers and what he has stated here has expressed the will of the American people.

To address just one of the other issues about photographs, I think that pretty well has been decided.

But, you know, one more thing, as we bring these people here and we put them into the American justice system, which I treasure, the American justice system, but in turn the defense lawyers will be able to use the discovery process to find out about covert operations of the United States intelligence. We have already put our intelligence folks in bad places by our bad behavior around this place many times before. But to put our intelligence people in the courtroom with everybody to see, and out those people, if you will, would be absolutely a travesty of justice.

So this is a good thing to do, and I support Mr. Rogers in his effort, and I would hope that everybody who cares about this country will support this motion.

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