National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCAUL. I thank the gentleman from California, my fellow chairman.

I rise in opposition to this amendment. As the terrorist attacks in Benghazi and Boston demonstrate, our fight against those who mean us harm and those they inspire is far from over.

This amendment is of questionable constitutional standing as it seeks to deprive any President of lawful options that he needs to protect America; it hinders our ability to gather information; and it actually provides an incentive for terrorists to come here to attack us. It prohibits the President from ever detaining anyone in the United States, including a foreign terrorist, under the authority of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force.

This amendment requires that foreign terrorists could only be prosecuted in civilian courts. But what if they could not be successfully prosecuted? Currently, there are detainees in Guantanamo who are too dangerous to release but who are not prosecutable. Under this amendment, if similarly situated terrorists were captured here at home, they would have to be released. Our experience in trying to deport illegal aliens whose native lands refuse to accept their return demonstrates the untenable position this amendment would leave us in.

If we can't use the AUMF to hold detainees and if we can't successfully prosecute them in a civilian court, then what can we do? The amendment ignores the reality of the threats that we face every day.

Consistent with the laws of war, we have long recognized the authority to detain enemy combatants for the duration of hostilities. In the 2004 Hamdi decision, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the authority to detain a U.S. citizen captured fighting with the Taliban and who was later detained in the United States, and that such detainees have the right to challenge their detentions. Then the 2012 NDAA reaffirmed the detention authority provided by the 2001 AUMF as well as the right to habeas corpus determinations.

The amendment overturns established legal precedent as well as undermines the statutory support for the AUMF. It does not make us safer, and it increases our peril. I urge my colleagues to vote against it.

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