Intelligence Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2010

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SMITH of Washington. I certainly think there are a lot of very good things in this bill. Our intelligence community is a critical piece of fighting terrorism. Their counterterrorism efforts are absolutely at the top of the list of what the Intel Committee does.

We are supporting all of our agents in the CIA and throughout the intelligence community, and we thank them for their brave efforts. We are aware that they are putting their lives on the line to prosecute this war every single day. This bill supports them across the board. It has the resources and support they need to do their job.

I could say a lot more about that, but I really want to take issue with some of the things that the minority has said, in particular with these alleged massive changes to our approach to counterterrorism. We have heard about Miranda all day long and what the Justice Department does.

It would surprise people listening to the debate to know this administration has not changed the policy on when or when not to give Miranda to people in the field. Under the Bush administration, the Justice Department went through the same set of issues. If you are looking at a domestic U.S. prosecution of that individual, then you give Miranda. If not, you don't.

There is no blanket order across the Justice Department right now telling the FBI to give Miranda to everybody it has captured throughout the world. It does not exist. It did not happen, despite what the minority has said. You have to make that decision.

In addition, we continue, under the Obama administration, to hold people right now, without Miranda, without trial, without those rights, terrorists from foreign places that we can't do anything else with but we understand they are a threat. That policy has not changed.

What we have attempted to do is clarify those policies for the members of the intelligence community in the field so they know what they are supposed to do and, yes, also to prevent things like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, which every single member of the Armed Forces and the intelligence community has told us was a crushing blow to our effort in the counterterrorism effort. To do that, to make those changes is necessary.

But to listen to the minority, you would think that we have given up prosecuting terrorists outside of civilian court.

We haven't. You would think that we would read Miranda to absolutely everybody. We don't. We are trying to make intelligent decisions.

The CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.

Mr. REYES. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. We need to do a better job of intelligence. We need to better coordinate that intelligence. That's what I think we learned from the Christmas Day attack. There is stuff in this bill to try to do this.

We need to do oversight better. We need to have a better idea from the intelligence community to do what they are going to tell us and when, and to make sure there is a record of it, which is in this bill, so that no one can later dispute what they were or were not told.

The minority has a critical role to play in making that happen. Instead they make these baseless charges that somehow we have given up in the fight on terror and we are not supporting the intelligence community. That is absolutely untrue. Majority and minority strongly support our intelligence community, and we are absolutely committed to prosecuting this war to the fullest extent possible.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source