Congressional Record: June 21, 2005 (House)
Page H4829-H4840                        



 
 PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 2475, INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION 
                        ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006

  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 331 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 331

       Resolved,  That upon the adoption of this resolution it 
     shall be in order without intervention of any point of order 
     to consider in the House the bill (H.R. 2475) to authorize 
     appropriations for fiscal year 2006 for intelligence and 
     intelligence-related activities of the United States 
     Government, the Community Management Account, and the Central 
     Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability System, and for 
     other purposes. The bill shall be considered as read. The 
     amendment in the nature of a substitute recommended by the 
     Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence now printed in the 
     bill, modified by the amendment printed in part A of the 
     report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this 
     resolution, shall be considered as adopted. The previous 
     question shall be considered as ordered on the bill, as 
     amended, and on any further amendment thereto to final 
     passage without intervening motion except: (1) One hour of 
     debate on the bill, as amended, equally divided and 
     controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the 
     Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; (2) the further 
     amendment printed in part B of the report of the Committee on 
     Rules, if offered by Representative Maloney of New York or 
     her designee, which shall be in order without intervention of 
     any point of order or demand for division of the question, 
     shall be considered as read, and shall be separately 
     debatable for 30 minutes equally divided and controlled by 
     the proponent and an opponent; and (3) one motion to recommit 
     with or without instructions.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Putnam) is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the 
customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), 
pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During 
consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose 
of debate only.
  (Mr. PUTNAM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks, and include extraneous material.)
  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 331 is a structured rule that 
provides for consideration of H.R. 2475, authorizing appropriations for 
fiscal year 2006 for intelligence and intelligence-related activities 
of the United States Government, the Community Management Account, and 
the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability System.
  I am pleased to bring this resolution to the floor for its 
consideration. The rule provides for 1 hour of general debate, equally 
divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of 
the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The rule waives all 
points of order against consideration of the bill.
  It provides that the amendment in the nature of a substitute 
recommended by the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence modified 
by the amendment printed in part A of the Committee on Rules report 
accompanying the resolution shall be considered as adopted and shall be 
considered as read.
  It makes in order an amendment offered by the gentlewoman from New 
York (Mrs. Maloney) or her designee which shall be considered as read 
and shall be debatable for 30 minutes equally divided and controlled by 
the proponent and opponent, and all points of order against the 
amendment are waived.
  The rule provides for a motion to recommit with or without 
instructions.
  Mr. Speaker, I am proud to present for consideration the rule for the 
Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 2006. I want to commend 
the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) and his hard-working ranking 
member, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman), for their 
excellent work on this legislation. More than any other committee in 
the Congress, we rely on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence 
to do work that we have confidence in and that is accurate and honest. 
The committee is the eyes and ears of this Congress in the intelligence 
community. We depend on them to be aware of what the rest of the world 
and our own community is up to. We put our faith in them to practice 
oversight and to produce a legislative product that addresses the needs 
of our intelligence community, and therefore our Nation.
  The committee does an outstanding job of working on a bipartisan 
basis to provide for our men and women who are fighting the war on 
terror on a variety of fronts.
  I want to take a moment to salute those men and women who are working 
around the globe in a variety of capacities doing so much in a quiet, 
discreet way for our security and liberty. Linguists, analysts, case 
officers, mathematicians, and engineers, some of the brightest minds 
that our Nation produces, work in the intelligence community taking, in 
many cases, an option that is not as generous as the private sector may 
be if they were to put that intellect and those talents and skills into 
some other capacity in the private sector.
  But they do it as a labor of love, as a part of public service 
identical to that which calls men and women into uniform in the armed 
services and which calls men and women into our firefighter and police 
and other first responding capacities. No differently than those 
uniformed members, the men and women in our intelligence community 
throughout the world are performing a huge public service for which we 
can never show enough gratitude and appreciation.

                              {time}  1300

  The Intelligence Committee has reported out a bill that continues the 
House's commitment to the global war on terrorism and to ensuring that 
intelligence resources are directed in a balanced way toward threats to 
our national security. This legislation authorizes more than last 
year's appropriated amount and more than the President's request to 
continue to fight the war on terror.
  The bill does an effective job of balancing our intelligence 
resources and strengthening human intelligence gathering by increasing 
the number of case officers and training and support infrastructure. A 
long-term counterterrorism program is established to reduce the 
dependence on supplemental appropriations. Additionally, it authorizes 
the full amount of funds expected for heightened operations for 
counterterrorism operations and the war in Iraq.
  H.R. 2475 enhances the analytic workforce by providing additional 
linguists and analysts as well as improved training and tools. 
Furthermore, the bill continues to invest in technical programs, 
funding systems end to end, investing in R&D and increased use of 
signature intelligence, and reflects the results of a comprehensive 
survey to review and rationalize technical collection programs.
  For the first time, the Intelligence Authorization Act funds the new 
Office of the Director of National Intelligence and allows for 
increased positions. The National Counterterrorism Center is enhanced 
through improved information sharing activities and collaboration 
provisions. The bill improves physical and technical infrastructure of 
intelligence agencies with new facilities.
  This authorization bill is a perfect example of how Congress can 
achieve a bipartisan product that meets the needs of our Nation. Again, 
I thank Chairman Hoekstra, Ranking Member Harman, and the members of 
the committee for their admirable work. I urge Members to support the 
rule and the underlying bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I 
may consume. First, let me thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Putnam) for yielding me the time.

[[Page H4830]]

  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule providing for the 
consideration of the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 
2006.
  First, Mr. Speaker, let me remind my colleagues that Members who wish 
to do so can go to the Intelligence Committee office to examine the 
classified schedule of authorizations for the programs and activities 
of the intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the national 
intelligence program. This includes authorizations for the CIA as well 
as the foreign intelligence and counterintelligence programs within, 
among other things, the Department of Defense, the National Security 
Agency, the Departments of State, Treasury and Energy, and the FBI. 
Also included in the classified documents are the authorizations for 
the tactical intelligence and related activities and joint military 
intelligence program of the Department of Defense.
  Today more than ever, we must make the creation of a strong and 
flexible intelligence apparatus one of the highest priorities of this 
body. The terrorist attacks of September 11, combined with the 
continuing threat of further attacks, underscore the importance of this 
legislation, and I am pleased that it has been brought to the floor 
before the July 4 recess.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, while I generally support this bill, it is not 
closed to improvements. As the Democrats noted in our additional views, 
this bill is the first authorization bill to be considered since the 
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 became law 
last December. The reforms undertaken last year, in the aftermath of 
two intelligence failures, created a Director of National Intelligence 
and dramatically reshaped the intelligence community. This 
authorization bill will therefore help define the authorities, 
priorities, and direction of the Director of National Intelligence and 
the entire intelligence community.
  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the committee rejected the President's 
paltry request for counterterrorism funding and, instead, fully funded 
the intelligence community's needs. Fully funding counterterrorism 
represents bipartisanship and good public policy. Of course, this does 
not seem to be the first time that this administration does not heed 
the advice of its own intelligence experts, but I digress.
  Let me speak also briefly about the fact that this bill and the 
report accompanying it are pretty much silent on one of the most 
salient issues of the day, our military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. 
The allegations of severe human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay are at 
best extremely disturbing and at worst unforgivable sins of our Nation, 
which has always led the fight for human rights. I do not work there, 
so I cannot speak to the veracity of every single allegation. But I do 
know that Guantanamo Bay is a stealth prison, an unrecognizable blip on 
the radar screen of domestic and international law. Surrounded by a 
world of laws, treaties, norms and practices, Guantanamo is an 
unrecognizable entity, a small space where the law simply does not 
penetrate.
  The prisoners are in judicial limbo, with limited access to lawyers 
and no legal recourse to profess their guilt or innocence or to protect 
themselves from abuse. In fact, many of them have now been jailed for 
more than 3 years without even having been charged with a crime. It 
sounds a bit Kafkaesque to me. Requests from objective outside 
observers to examine the condition of the prisoners have been rebuffed 
time and again. The Bush administration seems to trust in only itself 
to determine whether the prisoners are deserving of legal protections.
  I am disheartened by the intelligence authorization bill's silence on 
this matter. The Members of this body should be greatly concerned with 
the utter lack of respect for the law or adherence to international 
agreements that characterize Guantanamo Bay. Former Supreme Court 
Justice Louis Brandeis once said, ``If the government becomes a 
lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law.''
  Congress has a responsibility to prevent Guantanamo Bay from becoming 
the personal prison of convenience for the Bush administration to stash 
people it does not want to suffer legal rights to. This body would be 
greatly remiss if we shucked that responsibility in favor of turning a 
blind eye to what very well might be the biggest terrorism recruitment 
tool since the attacks on September 11.
  Mr. Speaker, as I have said, this bill provides authorizations and 
appropriations for some of the most important national security 
programs in this country. With the adoption of the manager's amendment, 
which we will hear about in much greater detail presently, I look 
forward to supporting the bill's ultimate passage.
  Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the 
distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), my colleague 
with whom I serve on the Rules Committee.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule.
  Mr. Speaker, on June 8, the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), 
the ranking member on the Committee on Government Reform, came before 
the Committee on Rules asking that two amendments be made in order. One 
amendment calls for a select committee to be established in Congress to 
investigate abuses of detainees held under U.S. military custody. The 
other amendment establishes an independent commission for the same 
purpose.
  Mr. Speaker, these are matters that merit the attention of this House 
and deserve to be debated and voted upon by the Members of this body. 
But the majority party on the Rules Committee feels otherwise. The 
Republican leadership believes it is better to sweep these matters 
under the rug, hide them, forget about them, but certainly not 
investigate them. It makes no difference whether such an inquiry takes 
place inside the Congress or outside the Congress, any form of 
independent investigation is out of the question.
  But questions about the abuse and torture of detainees simply will 
not go away, whether it is Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib or the countless 
other prisons, jails and detention facilities under U.S. control in 
Afghanistan and Iraq. Every week brings new revelations of abuses.
  Mr. Speaker, I do not blame our soldiers for these abuses. It is 
their leaders who have failed. It is the leaders up and down the chain 
of command whose incompetence and arrogance have led to a systemic 
breakdown of standards and codes of conduct that our military has lived 
by since its creation.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to read a few lines from the June 13 
edition of Newsweek. The article is entitled ``Good Intentions Gone 
Bad.'' In it, Rod Nordland, Newsweek's Baghdad bureau chief, who is 
departing after 2 years in Iraq, shares a few final thoughts. He 
writes:
  ``Two years ago I went to Iraq as an unabashed believer in toppling 
Saddam Hussein. I knew his regime well from previous visits. WMDs or 
no, ridding the world of Saddam would surely be for the best, and 
America's good intentions would carry the day. What went wrong? A lot, 
but the biggest turning point was the Abu Ghraib scandal. Since April 
2004, the liberation of Iraq has become a desperate exercise in damage 
control. The abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib alienated a broad swath 
of the Iraqi public. On top of that, it didn't work. There is no 
evidence that all the mistreatment and humiliation saved a single 
American life or led to the capture of any major terrorist, despite 
claims by the military that the prison produced actionable 
intelligence. The most shocking thing about Abu Ghraib was not the 
behavior of U.S. troops but the incompetence of their leaders.''
  Mr. Speaker, this is why we should be debating the Waxman amendments. 
We cannot run and hide from this abuse. It haunts us, Mr. Speaker. It 
haunts us. If ever a matter needed the light of day, it is this one.
  Oppose this rule. Support debate on the Waxman amendments. Restore 
America's credibility on human rights and military conduct.
  Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record articles from Newsweek and from 
the Baltimore Sun.

                     [From Newsweek, Jun. 13, 2005]

                        Good Intentions Gone Bad

                            (By Rod Norland)

       Two years ago I went to Iraq as an unabashed believer in 
     toppling Saddam Hussein. I knew his regime well from previous 
     visits; WMDs or no, ridding the world of Saddam would surely 
     be for the best, and America's good intentions would carry 
     the day. What went wrong? A lot, but the biggest turning 
     point was the Abu Ghraib scandal.

[[Page H4831]]

     Since April 2004 the liberation of Iraq has become a 
     desperate exercise in damage control. The abuse of prisoners 
     at Abu Ghraib alienated a broad swath of the Iraqi public. On 
     top of that, it didn't work. There is no evidence that all 
     the mistreatment and humiliation saved a single American life 
     or led to the capture of any major terrorist, despite claims 
     by the military that the prison produced ``actionable 
     intelligence.''
       The most shocking thing about Abu Ghraib was not the 
     behavior of U.S. troops, but the incompetence of their 
     leaders. Against the conduct of the Lynndie Englands and the 
     Charles Graners, I'll gladly set the honesty and courage of 
     Specialist Joseph Darby, the young MP who reported the abuse. 
     A few soldiers will always do bad things. that's why you need 
     competent officers, who know what the men and women under 
     their command are capable of--and make sure it doesn't 
     happen.
       Living and working in Iraq, it's hard not to succumb to 
     despair. At last count America has pumped at least $7 billion 
     into reconstruction projects, with little to show for it but 
     the hostility of ordinary Iraqis, who still have an 18 
     percent unemployment rate. Most of the cash goes to U.S. 
     contractors who spend much of it on personal security. Basic 
     services like electricity, water and sewers still aren't up 
     to prewar levels. Electricity is especially vital in a 
     country where summer temperatures commonly reach 125 degrees 
     Fahrenheit. Yet only 15 percent of Iraqis have reliable 
     electrical service. In the capital, where it counts most, 
     it's only 4 percent.
       The most powerful army in human history can't even protect 
     a two-mile stretch of road. The Airport Highway connects both 
     the international airport and Baghdad's main American 
     military base, Camp Victory, to the city center. At night 
     U.S. troops secure the road for the use of dignitaries; they 
     close it to traffic and shoot at any unauthorized vehicles. 
     More troops and more helicopters could help make the whole 
     country safe. Instead the Pentagon has been drawing down the 
     number of helicopters. And America never deployed nearly 
     enough soldiers. They couldn't stop the orgy of looting that 
     followed Saddam's fall. Now their primary mission is self-
     defense at any cost--which only deepens Iraqis' resentment.
       The four-square-mile Green Zone, the one place in Baghdad 
     where foreigners are reasonably safe, could be a showcase of 
     American values and abilities. Instead the American enclave 
     is a trash-strewn wasteland of Mad Max-style fortifications. 
     The traffic lights don't work because no one has bothered to 
     fix them. The garbage rarely gets collected. Some of the 
     worst ambassadors in U.S. history are the GIs at the Green 
     Zone's checkpoints. They've repeatedly punched Iraqi 
     ministers, accidentally shot at visiting dignitaries and 
     behave (even on good days) with all the courtesy of nightclub 
     bouncers--to Americans and Iraqis alike. Not that U.S. 
     soldiers in Iraq have much to smile about. They're 
     overworked, much ignored on the home front and widely 
     despised in Iraq, with little to look forward to but the 
     distant end of their tours--and in most cases, another tour 
     soon to follow. Many are reservists who, when they get home, 
     often face the wreckage of careers and family.
       I can't say how it will end. Iraq now has an elected 
     government, popular at least among Shiites and Kurds, who 
     give it strong approval ratings. There's even some hope that 
     the Sunni minority will join the constitutional process. 
     Iraqi security forces continue to get better trained and 
     equipped. But Iraqis have such along way to go, and there are 
     so many ways for things to get even worse. I'm not one of 
     those who think America should pull out immediately. There's 
     no real choice but to stay, probably for many years to come. 
     The question isn't ``When will America pull out?''; it's 
     ``How bad a mess can we afford to leave behind?'' All I can 
     say is this: last one out, please turn on the lights.
                                  ____


                 [From the Baltimore Sun, June 5, 2005]

                            Close Camp Delta

                          (By Michael Posner)

       For many around the world, the detention facility at the 
     U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has become one of 
     the most prominent, negative symbols of America's departure 
     from the rule of law since 9/11.
       Camp Delta, as the prison on Guantanamo is called, holds 
     more than 520 men from about 40 countries. Many of these 
     people have been detained there for more than three years; 
     none has been given any indication of when, or even if, he 
     will be released. The U.S. government has classified all of 
     the detainees as ``enemy combatants.''
       While the term is not recognized in international human 
     rights or humanitarian law, it has provided the U.S. 
     government with a rationale for denying detainees any rights 
     whatsoever, either under the Geneva Conventions (the laws of 
     war) or U.S. criminal law. This situation has prompted some 
     Bush administration officials to dub Guantanamo ``the legal 
     equivalent of outer space.'' This label would also apply to 
     the dozens of secret U.S. detention sites in Iraq, 
     Afghanistan, Pakistan and Jordan and aboard ships at sea.
       But just as Guantanamo has become a powerful negative 
     symbol, it has the potential to be a positive one if the 
     United States is willing to take steps to recognize the 
     possibility. One step, and it is a bold one, would be to shut 
     down the Guantanamo prison--to close its doors and, in doing 
     so, open a public debate among members of Congress, military 
     officers and intelligence and law enforcement leaders on 
     interrogation and detention practices around the world.
       Shuttering Guantanamo not only would allow the United 
     States to broadcast to the world its commitment to the rule 
     of law--by moving all security detainees into an established 
     legal process--it also would serve America's security 
     interests. Those around the world who use the symbol of 
     Guantanamo to fuel anti-American sentiments would lose one of 
     their most potent rallying cries. And autocratic governments 
     no longer would be able to hide behind American's example, as 
     they do now, in justifying their own practices of indefinite 
     detention and abuse.
       The closing of Guantanamo would, by its very nature, 
     require an evaluation of all the locations where the United 
     States is holding security prisoners because Guantanamo 
     derives much of its infamy from what it has wrought: 
     Guantanamo was the testing ground for coercive interrogation 
     techniques. Torture was exported to other facilities from 
     there.
       In the spring of 2003, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld 
     explicitly approved 24 interrogation techniques for 
     Guantanamo, including ``dietary manipulation,'' 
     ``environmental manipulation,'' ``sleep adjustment'' and 
     ``isolation,'' all of which has been previously prohibited by 
     U.S. law and explicit military policy. He did so despite 
     strenuous objections from senior military lawyers, the FBI 
     and others in the government. This policy is still in place.
       By mid-2003, the military extended the Guantanamo rules to 
     Iraq. In fact, in August 2003, the Pentagon sent the 
     Guantanamo commander, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, to Abu 
     Ghraib prison, reportedly with the instruction to ``Gitmo-
     ize'' the Iraqi prisons. The revelation of pictures from Abu 
     Ghraib last spring tells part of that story.
       But the story is much bigger--and more troubling--than what 
     those photos depict. Consider this: Since December 2002, 108 
     people have died in U.S. custody, according to Pentagon 
     figures. Of these deaths, no less than 28 were criminal 
     homicides, the Defense Department acknowledges. The victims 
     were tortured to death.
       An official investigation into the cases of two young men 
     who were beaten to death at a U.S.-run facility in Bagram, 
     Afghanistan, revealed that more than two dozen soldiers were 
     involved in these deaths. The interrogators, believe that 
     they could deviate from the well-tested rules because, as one 
     said, ``there was the Geneva Conventions for enemy prisoners 
     of war, but nothing for terrorists.''
       Despite its benefits, the prospect of Guantanamo being 
     closed any time soon is unlikely. Last week, Vice President 
     Dick Cheney said of the prison: ``What we're doing down there 
     has, I think, been done perfectly appropriately.'' And yet, 
     the vice president's assertion files in the face of leaked 
     FBI and International Red Cross reports as well as comments 
     by a former U.S. military translator who published his 
     observations of detainee mistreatment and sexual humiliation.
       What can be done when there is such a discrepancy between 
     the facts and the official interpretation of them? In a 
     democracy, the best way to deal with this is openness: 
     Congress should authorize the creation of an independent, 
     bipartisan commission to conduct a thorough investigation of 
     U.S. detention and interrogation policies worldwide. This 
     would allow the United States to assess what went wrong and 
     why and to recommend corrective action.
       Until Congress does this, Guantanamo and the other U.S. 
     detention centers will continue to serve as the symbol of 
     America's tarnished reputation.

  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased and privileged to 
yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman), the 
distinguished ranking member of the Permanent Select Committee on 
Intelligence.
  (Ms. HARMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her 
remarks.)
  Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentleman for yielding me this 
time and for his service both on the Rules Committee and on the 
Intelligence Committee, and I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Putnam) as well for his comments earlier in this debate.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous question so 
that we can have a debate on the Waxman amendment. Yesterday, we had an 
open rule for the Defense Appropriations Act which funds the 
intelligence community. I fail to see why we cannot have an open rule 
for the authorization bill for those same intelligence programs. I also 
think it is sad that the leadership scheduled consideration of this 
authorization bill after our vote on the appropriations bill. This 
makes little sense and erodes our ability to establish clear guidance 
for how money will be spent.
  Mr. Speaker, this rule should have made in order all of the 
amendments

[[Page H4832]]

that were offered. Only 10 amendments were submitted to the Rules 
Committee. Of those, nine were offered by Democrats, and of those nine, 
only one was made in order. Each amendment was responsible. Each 
deserves full consideration on the House floor. Members on both sides 
of the aisle should have an opportunity to debate the important issues 
raised by these amendments, but as a result of this unnecessarily 
restrictive rule, neither Republicans nor Democrats will have that 
opportunity.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to highlight one amendment that the Rules 
Committee will not let us debate, the Waxman amendment to establish an 
independent commission on detainee issues. Detentions and 
interrogations are vital tools. We need those tools. But they must take 
place according to our laws and our values. To do anything less puts 
our own troops in harm's way and erodes our moral credibility in the 
world.
  Today, our intelligence professionals operate in what I call a ``fog 
of law,'' a confusing patchwork of laws, treaties, memos and policies. 
The Intelligence Committee's oversight subcommittee is conducting a 
serious bipartisan investigation into the practice of renditions and 
interrogations under the able leadership of the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Thornberry) and the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Cramer). But this 
investigation is largely classified. We also need a public unclassified 
investigation so that the public can have confidence that our 
Constitution and our laws are respected. A public bipartisan 
investigation will help us learn precisely what happened, who should be 
accountable at senior as well as operational levels, and how to fix the 
problems.

                              {time}  1315

  Mr. Speaker, I will enter into the Record an op-ed from the June 7 
Washington Post by civil rights attorney Floyd Abrams, former 
Representative Bob Barr, and Ambassador Tom Pickering, which called for 
the creation of an independent commission. They wrote: ``Only with such 
a commission are we likely to enact the reforms needed to restore our 
credibility among the nations of the world.''
  I agree. Shutting off the lights at Guantanamo will not solve the 
problem. Only Congress can solve the problem by addressing the policies 
underlying Guantanamo. Article I, section 8 of the Constitution states 
that it is Congress's responsibility to make rules concerning captures 
on land and water, and that is why, in addition to calling for this 
independent commission, I believe we need bipartisan legislation. The 
safety of our troops and our moral credibility in the world are on the 
line.
  I urge my colleagues to oppose this restrictive rule and the previous 
question.
  The material previously referred to is as follows:

                [From the Washington Post, June 7, 2005]

                        Justice Before Politics

            (By Floyd Abrams, Bob Barr and Thomas Pickering)

       After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, came widespread shock 
     and horror--and some tough questions. Could the United States 
     have prevented this catastrophe? What corrective action might 
     we take to protect ourselves from other terrorist attacks?
       After political struggles and initial resistance by many 
     political leaders, Congress and the president created the 
     Sept. 11 commission in 2002. This bipartisan group of 10 
     prominent Americans was charged with conducting an 
     independent and complete investigation of the terrorist 
     attacks of Sept. 11 and with providing recommendations for 
     preventing such disasters. In July 2004 the commission 
     released its report, and in December Congress passed 
     legislation to implement many of its recommendations.
       In the spring of 2004, the scandal involving the abuse of 
     prisoners at Abu Ghraib became public. Additional allegations 
     of abuse surfaced in connection with prisoners detained by 
     the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere. 
     Many Americans asked themselves the same painful questions 
     about these allegations: How could such terrible actions have 
     taken place? Who was responsible? What reforms might we 
     implement to prevent such problems? Once again, a year later, 
     these questions remain unanswered.
       We believe that the American public deserves answers. We 
     are members of the bipartisan Liberty and Security Initiative 
     of the Constitution Project, which is based at Georgetown 
     University's Public Policy Institute. We have joined with 
     other members of the initiative--Republicans and Democrats, 
     liberals and conservatives--to call for the establishment of 
     an independent bipartisan commission to investigate the issue 
     of abuse of terrorist suspects. We urge Congress and the 
     president to immediately create such a commission and to use 
     the Sept. 11 commission as a model.
       No investigation completed to date has included 
     recommendations on how mistreatment at detention facilities 
     might be avoided. Even the Pentagon's much-heralded report by 
     Vice Adm. Albert T. Church, completed in March, concluded 
     only that there were ``missed opportunities in the policy 
     development process'' and that these opportunities ``should 
     be considered in the development of future interrogation 
     policies.''
       Establishing an independent, bipartisan commission would 
     also be beneficial for U.S. relationships abroad. The abuse 
     of terrorist suspects in U.S. custody has undermined the 
     United States' position in the world. This is a time when we 
     should be making extra efforts to reach out to Muslims and to 
     ask them to work with us in the war against terrorism. 
     Instead, our failure to undertake a thorough and credible 
     investigation has created severe resentment of the United 
     States.
       An independent bipartisan investigation can generate 
     widespread acceptance and support for its findings. Only with 
     such a commission are we likely to enact the reforms needed 
     to restore our credibility among the nations of the world.
       We must move beyond the partisan battles of our highly 
     charged political climate. To provide a credible 
     investigation and a plan for corrective action, and to show 
     the world that the United States takes seriously its 
     obligations to uphold the rule of law, we urge Congress and 
     the president to establish a commission to investigate abuse 
     of terrorist suspects.

  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the words of the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Harman) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
McGovern) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) as it relates 
to these issues. It reflects a legitimate disagreement over the 
direction that this investigation should take, whether it should be 
based in the legislative branch or based in the executive branch or 
some combination, which has been the history.
  In fact, here in our own Congress, the Senate has had eight hearings 
on detainee abuse, and three on Abu Ghraib specifically. General Myers, 
the chairman of the Joint Chiefs; the Chief of Staff of the Army; the 
Secretary of Defense; and the Acting Secretary of the Army have all 
conducted independent reviews. There are 12 other Department of Defense 
reviews that have occurred, and the House Committee on Armed Services 
in this body has held three hearings and numerous briefings.
  The legislative branch has been diligent in their oversight 
responsibility. And I appreciate that there are differences on this, 
but I particularly appreciate the way that my colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle have handled this. Unlike in the Senate where the 
detainee abuse was equated with the regime of Pol Pot and Hitler and 
Stalin, there is a measured approach to disagreement in this Chamber, 
and I think that that is the responsible approach, unlike the direction 
that the Senate has gone. To equate Guantanamo Bay with regimes that 
murdered millions of people is absurd, and it is dangerous, and it 
gives aid and comfort to the enemy.
  As the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services in this body 
pointed out, detainees in Guantanamo are provided their own prayer 
rugs. If that were done in the public school system, it would be 
against the law. They are called to prayer five times a day. If that 
were done on the average high school intercom system, it would be a 
violation of the law. They are fed three nutritious meals per day at an 
average of $12 per detainee per day. If we multiplied what we spend on 
the school lunch program times three meals, they would be receiving 
less than a detainee in Guantanamo Bay.
  And because of the ongoing judicial review that our government is 
engaged in with those detainees, at the end of that process, 234 
detainees so far have been released from Guantanamo. And to show their 
great gratitude, at least a dozen of them have been identified as 
returning to the fight against American servicemen and -women.
  I think that it is important that we keep those facts in mind, as 
well, as we move through this debate.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I 
may consume.
  Before yielding to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), I 
would

[[Page H4833]]

just say to my friend from Florida that this judicial review that he 
talks about evidently is going to take place forever.
  It is not about food, Mr. Speaker. The detainees are properly fed. 
But they cannot see their relatives. Most of them cannot see a lawyer, 
and most of them have not been told what they are charged with. When I 
say it is Kafka-esque, Franz Kafka wrote the book ``The Trial'' that 
said how horrible it was to be in a situation where one does not know 
their accusers, they do not know what they are charged with, and they 
are convicted of something in sitting there. We cannot do that in this 
country. It is not about food. It is about rights. It is about human 
rights and dignity.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from 
California (Mr. Waxman), ranking member of the Committee on Government 
Reform.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, it has been over a year since we saw the 
horrific photographs of the torture of the prisoners in Abu Ghraib 
prison in Iraq. Yet in Congress, we have ignored our fundamental 
responsibility to investigate this issue. And it is not just Abu 
Ghraib, but other prison camps as well where we are hearing more and 
more reports of instances of disrespect of the Koran and denial of 
human rights to detainees.
  Under our system of checks and balances, the House of Representatives 
has a constitutional duty to ensure proper oversight of the executive 
branch, and for this reason I submitted an amendment to this bill to 
create either a select committee of the House of Representatives to 
examine the matter or an independent commission to conduct such an 
investigation. But the Republican leadership blocked both amendments. 
They do not want an investigation inside the House or outside by an 
independent group. The independent commission, I believe, would have 
filled this huge oversight vacuum. It was denied, and that is why I am 
in opposition to the previous question on the rule and the rule itself.
  The reports of detainee abuse are undermining one of our Nation's 
most valuable assets, our reputation and respect for human rights. And 
they are endangering our Armed Forces and inciting hatred against the 
United States. As Senator Biden said, Guantanamo is the ``greatest 
propaganda tool for the recruitment of terrorists worldwide.''
  Some of the allegations that have been replayed over and over again 
around the world may not be true. President Bush calls them ``absurd.'' 
But we will not know what is true and what is not true unless we 
investigate. And when we refuse to conduct thorough, independent 
investigations, the rest of the world thinks we have something to hide. 
When we ignore our constitutional obligations, we are not doing the 
administration any favor. A lack of oversight leads to a lack of 
accountability, and no accountability breeds arrogance and abuse of 
power.
  Over the past year, more and more instances of detainee abuse from a 
growing number of locations around the world have come to light. In 
just the past few weeks, new evidence emerged of the desecration of the 
Koran at Guantanamo Bay; the involvement of Navy Seals in beating 
detainees in Iraq; and the gruesome, ultimately fatal torture of 
Afghans at the U.S. detention center at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan. 
It is time for this House to put aside political calculations and 
fulfill our constitutional oversight responsibilities.
  Let me just point out to my colleagues that we have not had an 
investigation since Abu Ghraib. The House held only 5 hours of public 
hearings in the Committee on Armed Services to investigate the abuses. 
In contrast, the House spent 140 hours taking witness testimony to 
examine whether President Clinton mishandled his Christmas card list. 
What is more important for the use of oversight and investigative 
powers of the House?
  While the Senate review has been more extensive, it has not involved 
comprehensive public review of all relevant agencies and personnel, nor 
has it produced comprehensive conclusions regarding individual 
accountability and necessary corrective actions.
  We must do our job. We need to examine these allegations and take our 
oversight responsibilities seriously. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule.
  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Unquestionably, Congress's responsibility to properly oversee the 
activities of the entire Federal Government is preeminent, and that is 
why I am proud that, under the leadership of the gentleman from 
California (Chairman Hunter), they have had hearings. In the Senate 
they have had hearings. And today, as we speak, the House Permanent 
Select Committee on Intelligence also has an oversight subcommittee 
devoted to investigating all of these issues.
  Mr. Speaker, to elaborate on that, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), the distinguished chairman of that 
committee.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding me this 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule. And before I move on to 
address some of the discussion that has been on the floor today, let me 
talk about some of the issues in the rule; and I think later on we will 
have an opportunity to talk about what may be unusual in this bill.
  But as my colleagues on the other side today may try to destroy, we 
have developed a bill that will set a direction for the intelligence 
community and we have done it in a bipartisan way. We have checked the 
issues as to whether the bill is sufficient in terms of the resources 
to have an effective intelligence community. We have made important 
decisions as to the relative balance between HUMINT and our technical 
capabilities. We have made important decisions about the direction of 
our technical capabilities, and we have done it on a bipartisan basis.
  This bill came out of committee with a voice vote. It shows the 
continued commitment of the House to support the global war on 
terrorism and our troops deployed abroad. We attempted this year to 
keep ancillary issues out of the bill, to focus the full attention of 
the committee on careful oversight and review of our Nation's 
intelligence programs. Our goal was to properly align the resources of 
those programs to counter the threats facing our Nation. I appreciate 
the efforts of the Committee on Rules to keep floor debate similarly 
focused on the programs that are authorized in the bill and related 
issues.
  Again, we are setting a strategic direction for where we think the 
intelligence community needs to go. There will be some changes that 
were made as a result of the rule that we will vote on in the next few 
minutes, and these again were an attempt to make sure that there was 
not confusion about what direction we wanted to go in, what we wanted 
to get done, and make sure that the underlying direction for the reform 
of the intelligence community was the bill that was signed into law by 
the President last December.
  I will say that I agree with some of my colleagues on the other side. 
My ranking member said it is the responsibility of Congress to do its 
work. Congress will do its work. We have been doing our work. We have 
had a bipartisan, constructive effort, led by the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Thornberry) and the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Cramer), to take a 
look at the allegations that are out there. We have been investigating 
these issues.
  My colleague here says we have not been doing any work. My colleague 
has not done the basics. He maybe could have asked, has the Permanent 
Select Committee on Intelligence on the House side done anything to 
take a look at the alleged allegations or the abuses at Guantanamo, the 
intelligence community's relationships to Abu Ghraib? I think my 
ranking member on the other side has said that we have had a 
constructive, bipartisan effort to take a look at the allegations, to 
take a look at the role of the intelligence community, and to take a 
look at how we move forward on these types of things. But sometimes 
people do not even want to raise the basic questions and get the basic 
information that they need.
  These are serious issues. The information that the folks may have in 
Guantanamo may save American lives. It will make our war on terror more 
effective.
  Should these allegations be investigated? Absolutely. Are they being 
investigated? Absolutely. And members

[[Page H4834]]

on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence know that that work 
has been going on, and it has been going on in a very constructive and 
a very effective method.

                              {time}  1330

  I look forward to passing this bill today. I look forward to this 
committee continuing the work that Congress has asked it to do, and us 
going back and doing it in an effective way, to make sure that we will 
have an effective intelligence community. It is time to stop bashing 
our troops and our intelligence community. These people put their lives 
on the line every day. It is time to show them some support.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, at this time I am pleased to 
yield 2 minutes to my friend and classmate, the gentleman from New York 
(Mr. Nadler).
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose this restrictive rule for 
not making in order the Waxman amendment to provide for an 
investigation by a bipartisan, independent commission of the detainee 
abuses alleged at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and other sites.
  Let me say at the outset that the men and women in our armed services 
ought to be praised for their selfless sacrifices. They deserve not to 
have their names and their good works associated with the torture and 
abuse that has been alleged in newspapers and other reports. That is 
why it is so important to have a complete and full investigation and to 
receive assurances that torture and abuse are not standard operating 
procedure in our armed forces, even if torture was authorized by 
Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General Gonzales. It is not authorized 
by Congress or by the American people who ultimately get to have the 
final say.
  It also bothers me that these detainees do not have any way of 
asserting their innocence. The President says they are all terrorists, 
but what if some of them were cases of mistaken identity? What if some 
of them had nothing to do with terrorism? What if they have a similar 
name or a similar appearance, but are indeed factually innocent of all 
charges?
  It seems to me that if the government is so sure that everyone we are 
holding is a terrorist, there should be no trouble convincing a court, 
a judge, or a military court. That would be preferable to having the 
government assert that all of these people are terrorists, just trust 
us. We cannot allow that type of abuse of power to continue in our 
name.
  This assertion of the right to hold people forever, with no specific 
evidence and no due process, has not been asserted in an English-
speaking country since before Magna Carta, 800 years ago, until this 
President had the nerve to besmirch the good name of the United States 
by making such an assertion. This is not how America became the Shining 
City on a Hill so admired by people the world over.
  No executive should be permitted the power to lock people up forever 
without ever having to prove their guilt. That is a power that I would 
trust to no man, no king, no dictator, and no President.
  Let me say one other thing. Torture and abuse of prisoners is not 
just a shameful violation of human rights, it does not work. People 
under torture will say anything. Intelligence professionals know better 
than to believe or to rely on information extracted under torture. 
Torture and abuse of detainees is wrong for so many reasons. It is a 
horrendous practice, it produces nothing but shame and more enemies for 
the United States, and anger from the rest of the world.
  We need to aggressively investigate these abuses and put safeguards 
and policies into place to prevent them from ever happening again.
  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Perhaps we should remind the gentleman of some of the 545 people who 
are being detained in Guantanamo; 545, by the way, is fewer people than 
are in my county's jail on a Saturday night.
  But of those 545 people who killed innocent women and children, they 
included a detainee named Katani who was stopped before he could board 
one of the planes used to strike the World Trade Center and the 
Pentagon, or taking care of Osama bin Laden's body guards, other 
members of al Qaeda and other terrorist networks and members of the 
Taliban. These are not your average, run-of-the-mill pick-pockets and 
thieves. They are hardened terrorists who have pledged everything to 
destroy American service men and women, to come into our homeland and 
wreak havoc and cause mayhem and cause death and destruction within 
these borders of the United States of America. They are being 
monitored. They are under ongoing judicial review. The eyes of the 
world, as this debate has evidenced, are on Guantanamo.
  These are individuals who represent the very worst in our global 
society who would do anything to bring us harm. Yet we seem to lose all 
of that perspective in this very dramatic, theatrical debate that began 
in the Senate when there was an equation of Guantanamo with the regimes 
of Stalin and Hitler and Pol Pot which resulted in the torture and 
mutilation and death of millions of human beings. And for this similar 
equation to be made on the House floor that we, in our activities in 
Guantanamo, are even remotely close to those regimes is out of bounds.
  There have been numerous Department of Defense investigations into 
detainee abuse, numerous House Committee on Armed Services hearings on 
detainee abuse, Senate committee hearings on detainee abuse, and 
ongoing Intelligence subcommittee reviews of what is going on there.
  It is important that we step back and understand that this is an 
intelligence authorization bill that gives our men and women the tools 
they need to fight people around the world that we would not invite 
over for dinner; people who would do everything in their power to bring 
down our society, our form of government, our cloak of safety. Let us 
keep those things in mind when we go forward with this debate about 
Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I 
may consume.
  Just one thing for my friend from Florida: Charge it and prove it. 
That is all. This is a great Nation. We can charge those folks with a 
crime, and we can prove that they did what the gentleman said.
  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased at this point to yield 3 minutes to the 
distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), the 
ranking member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to 
this rule.
  We have been led to believe that the use of torture in Iraq, 
Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba were isolated incidents; that 
murder, sexual assault, and physical abuse were the work of a few low-
ranking guards who are now being brought to justice.
  The new evidence indicates we have been misled.
  Recent news accounts have detailed the deaths of two detainees in 
2002 at the Bagram Collection Point in Afghanistan during interrogation 
by military intelligence. One man was hung by his arms in his jail cell 
for days and beaten so severely in the legs that he died, even though, 
as the newspapers reported, soldiers involved in the detention believed 
that the man was innocent.
  Despite being ruled homicide by the coroners, the deaths were 
described by a military spokesman as resulting from natural causes. In 
the meantime, the officer was promoted and placed in charge of 
interrogations in Iraq's Abu Ghraib Prison.
  But this story is not about low-ranking soldiers who independently 
ran afoul of the system; it is not a matter of a few bad apples. It is 
one tale in what is emerging to be a pattern of systematic abuse 
carried out with the knowledge and approval of senior military and 
civilian officials.
  How do we know that the Defense Department and senior military 
commanders knew what was going on? Because their own documents say so. 
Their own documents show that the general in charge of our troops in 
Afghanistan knew that unapproved techniques were being used in those 
interrogatories. So what did he do? He made

[[Page H4835]]

a list of these techniques and sent them to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 
who were looking for ways to alter interrogations in Guantanamo Bay.
  In fact, the only time the general in charge of U.S. forces in 
Afghanistan seems to have issued any written policy is when he 
recommended that the Geneva Convention techniques be removed for 
everyone, regardless of whether or not they were tied to al Qaeda or 
the Taliban.
  So let me sum it up. Advanced torture techniques were developed and 
used in Afghanistan and resulted in the deaths of multiple detainees. 
The deaths were covered up and the investigations were stalled. The 
techniques were shared with the interrogators at Guantanamo Bay and 
then spread to Iraq where the same people responsible for the deaths in 
Afghanistan were put in charge of the Abu Ghraib prison.
  From Afghanistan to Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib, torture, lies, and 
coverup. This is not an accident, this is a pattern of abuse.
  I want to enter into the Record an editorial from my hometown paper 
on this.
  That is why I join my colleagues in calling for the creation of an 
independent commission on detainee abuse. The leadership in the House 
and, more specifically, the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services 
have proven both negligent and incapable of dealing with this issue as 
they have looked the other way and led the country to continue to 
believe that this is only a few bad apples, a few malcontents that went 
about it the wrong way when, in fact, the evidence from our own Defense 
Department tells us differently and has irreparably damaged the 
reputation of the United States, and has cast doubt on our foreign 
policy, and it is a new recruitment tool, as so many have commented, 
both in the intelligence community and in the Congress, that raises the 
likelihood that U.S. troops captured by enemy combatants or terrorists 
will be killed or tortured. It gives the radical opponents of the 
United States and the insurgents the fuel to feed the insurgency 
against U.S. soldiers and the new Iraqi Government.
  The failure of this administration, which so often demands 
accountability of others to deal with this issue in an honest and 
forthright fashion, undermines our ability to implement the strategy 
for success in Iraq and Afghanistan and tears down our forces.

                          Suspicious Treatment

       First, there were the sickening photos smuggled out of Abu 
     Ghraib prison a year ago that shocked the world and fueled 
     anti-American sentiment throughout the Middle East. Then, 
     there were allegations from prisoners recently freed from 
     Guantanamo Bay that U.S. military guards had beaten false 
     confessions out of them and desecrated the Quran. Then. 
     earlier this month, the New York Times reported that military 
     interrogators at a U.S. prison in Afghanistan had killed 
     detainees during questioning, then tried to cover up the 
     cause of death. The interrogators didn't believe one of the 
     men was involved in terrorism, but had beaten him to death--
     allegedly by accident--anyway.
       Now, Amnesty International U.S.A. has released a scathing 
     report calling the U.S. Navy Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 
     ``the gulag of our times.'' The report's authors accuse 
     Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto 
     Gonzales and other top U.S. officials of being ``architects 
     of torture.''
       The human rights watchdog organization called on foreign 
     governments to use international law to investigate U.S. 
     officials for their abuse of detainees accused of having 
     terrorist ties.
       Meanwhile, the Associated Press has obtained 1,000 pages of 
     U.S. government tribunal transcripts under a Freedom of 
     Information Act lawsuit that offers chilling, firsthand 
     accounts of alleged prisoner abuse. In one case, a Guantanamo 
     Bay prisoner told a military panel that American soldiers had 
     beaten him so badly, he now wets his pants.
       Vice President Dick Cheney insists that the prisoners are 
     ``peddling lies'' and that the Guantanamo detainees have been 
     ``well-treated, treated humanely and decently.'' President 
     Bush blasted the Amnesty report Tuesday, calling it 
     ``absurd.''
       Yet, It is quite unsettling that prisoners in Guantanamo, 
     Afghanistan and Iraq have told strikingly similar stories.
       Bush administration officials' unapolog- etic defense of 
     military conduct at Guantanamo and other U.S. military 
     prisons--in the face of mounting evidence of serious 
     problems--is symptomatic of its increasingly familiar refusal 
     to acknowledge mistakes and take responsibility. This 
     arrogant stonewalling must not be allowed, especially when so 
     much is at stake.
       The well-publicized mistreatment of Muslim detainees at 
     U.S.-run military prisons has severely damaged the United 
     States' reputation abroad. It is the height of hypocrisy to 
     talk of spreading democracy while our government tramples all 
     over individual civil liberties. In the United States, a 
     person is innocent until proven guilty, yet Muslim detainees 
     are essentially guilty until proven innocent. Nearly 600 
     people have been held without charges. Up until a year ago, 
     they could not even challenge their detentions in U.S. 
     courts. The U.S. government had argued that as foreigners on 
     foreign soil, they had no legal recourse, which is absurd as 
     well as un-American.
       It is high time that President Bush and Congress appoint a 
     bipartisan panel to investigate the allegations of abuse of 
     terrorist suspects. People on both sides of the ideological 
     spectrum have called for such a commission, ranging from 
     conservative former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., to the Center 
     for American Progress on the left.
       If, as Rumsfeld claims, released detainees are a bunch of 
     liars, the administration has nothing to hide.

  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Perhaps the gentleman, out of his concern for torture, would read 
into the Record the similar treatments, the abuse, the torture, the 
behavior shown Jessica Lynch. Perhaps the gentleman would also read 
into the Record the actions of the gentlemen who boarded American 
airplanes and crashed them into the World Trade Center and the 
Pentagon. Perhaps, out of his sense of concern about torture, he would 
enter into the Record transcripts and videos of the beheadings that 
have been taking place in Iraq. Perhaps the gentleman, out of his sense 
of concern about torture, would cover those bad apples, those bad 
actors, and the actions that are being taken against them.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Mica).
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  I rise in opposition to any further investigation of either what is 
taking place at Guantanamo Bay with our detainees or further 
investigation of Abu Ghraib.
  I want to speak about Guantanamo first, because I heard some of the 
reports when we first brought detainees there, and I went down and 
visited. I walked among the prisoners, I saw the housing, I saw how 
they were treated. I was asked what I thought when I saw the whole 
thing, and I want to use my quote here on the floor. I said, ``I 
thought it was too good for the bastards.''
  I stand here today appalled at my colleagues who, in fact, are 
concerned about the rights of mass murderers. And that is exactly what 
we have here. We have international mass murderers, enemy combatants. 
They had no consideration, in support of a regime, the al Qaeda regime 
and Osama bin Laden, who slaughtered thousands of people on our soil, 
and many of whom were both Americans and internationals.
  What right did they respect of Barbara Olson, who worked for our 
Committee on Government Reform, whose plane crashed into the Pentagon 
that morning? And I remember Barbara. What right did they respect of 
Neal Levin, who I met with at the World Trade Centers, who was trapped, 
along with everyone who helped me and our Subcommittee on Aviation, who 
were all murdered on the morning of September 11 when they were in the 
Windows on the World restaurant? What right did they defend of those 
people?
  How quickly we forget September 11. I am reading the book ``102 
Minutes.'' I wish everyone would read it, about the thousands of people 
who were left trapped in the World Trade Center. What rights did these 
people who supported that activity exercise?
  Abu Ghraib, if I hear one more thing about that and the actions of 
our military folks; someone described ``horrific torture.'' I saw worse 
things at fraternity houses in college than what our troops were 
involved in. And to continue the harassment.
  The gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) brought into the 
Committee on International Relations two prisoners; one, I recall, was 
from Abu Ghraib. I did not see anyone from the other side there, I did 
not see anyone from the press there when they described their treatment 
under Saddam Hussein. Do my colleagues know how he dealt with 
overcrowding? He took them out and slaughtered them. I did not see 
anyone from the other side concerned about the rights of those 
prisoners.

[[Page H4836]]

  One gentleman told us how he was taken from Abu Ghraib Prison; well, 
he described not only the beheadings, but the limb amputations, the 
pulling out of tongues, the electrical shocks. How dare anyone from the 
House or the other body compare the treatment our troops afforded this 
scum of the earth?
  What about an investigation of the 300,000 mass graves that our 
troops have uncovered and the treatment that those people received.
  Finally, again, that one prisoner, and no one here bothered on the 
other side to even attend the meeting with the prisoners to hear how 
Saddam Hussein treated them. He described how he was taken out, he and 
others, and they were all shot, and the bulldozer pushed over dirt on 
them; he was shot five times, and only managed to crawl away and 
somehow survive to tell how the other side truly tortures.

                              {time}  1345

  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. I am convinced of some things: some of my 
colleagues just do not get it when it comes to human rights.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my good friend, the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen).
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding me 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose the rule with a very simple question: 
What is the House Republican leadership afraid of? We say we want to 
promote democracy around the world. We say we want to set a good 
example to others, and yet the House leadership seeks to block a vote 
today. That is what this argument is about, a vote today on the Waxman 
amendment, which would simply create an independent, bipartisan 
commission to investigate abuses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and 
other places around the world.
  Unfortunately, the only example we seem to be setting these days is 
the example of the ostrich, to bury our heads in the sand, to ignore 
the facts, to ignore the truth.
  The Bush administration and my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle say that the reports of human rights abuses at these facilities 
have been greatly exaggerated. Then what are they afraid of? The 
chairman of the Intelligence Committee just says these are serious 
issues. They are serious issues.
  We do not want quarter-truths; we do not want half-truths. Let us get 
at the full truth, the good, the bad and the ugly. People around the 
world look to the United States, not just for the statements we make, 
but for the actions we take. And Americans have been shocked at the 
reports of abuses because they know these actions do not reflect our 
values, and that is what this is about, our values.
  And they do not represent us as a people. The United States 
throughout its history has been a great beacon of human rights. And 
very sadly, that beacon has been dimmed by the abuses that have been 
taking place. And the best way to reclaim our credibility on this issue 
is to squarely face the facts and those abuses.
  We must lead by our example. We must show we will not run from the 
truth even when it is unpleasant. Only by confronting the truth can we 
learn from our mistakes. Only by examining our own conduct can we 
credibly talk about the misconduct of others. Let us show the world 
that a strong, competent Nation does not run from or hide from the 
truth. Let us once again lead by example.
  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield such time as he may 
consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Thornberry), the seeker of 
that truth, the chairman of the oversight subcommittee tasked with 
looking into alleged abuse.
  Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for 
yielding and commend him on the handling of this rule, but also in 
helping us put this whole issue into greater context.
  Because, Mr. Speaker, I think it is important for us to remind 
ourselves that this bill contains a number of things which try to help 
defend the country, try to help keep us all safer, try to prevent gross 
inhumane acts of slaughter by the terrorists, which we know they are 
intent upon committing.
  And so I think it is important as we focus down on some of these 
specific issues, and we should talk about them, to keep the larger 
context in mind. The gentleman from Florida has helped to do that. In a 
little bit, I want to talk in greater length about the oversight 
subcommittee, because I think it is important to say that the chairman 
of the Intelligence Committee and the ranking member of the 
Intelligence Committee, at the beginning of this Congress, decided to 
create a special oversight subcommittee of the House Intelligence 
Committee.
  And our charge is to focus at greater depth and with greater 
persistency on some of the key intelligence issues which we face. And 
we take that job very seriously. And I think we can do the job very 
seriously, in part because we usually do not do our job in front of the 
cameras. We do not do our job for partisanship.
  We do not come out on the floor, in press conferences or in other 
places, and try to bash the administration or to protect the 
administration. We try to be tough, but fair. And that is the way that 
real oversight, particularly in the area of national security, ought to 
be done, rather than posturing and other things that we have seen from 
time to time. The problem is the work you do in the Intelligence 
Committee cannot be talked about openly. And so there is very little 
one can say about the specifics.
  But just because we cannot come and detail all of our activities and 
some of what we found and what more we have to do, one should never 
take that to mean that there is not serious oversight and investigation 
ongoing, because there is.
  And, in fact, Mr. Speaker, I believe that worldwide terrorism 
presents a number of challenges to us. It is absolutely true, as many 
of the speakers have said, that we must maintain our American values, 
and at the same time try to prevent acts of terrorism.
  Our problem is, when we just focus on one part of that equation, when 
we forget that the purpose here is to prevent acts of terrorism, then I 
think we become unbalanced, our rhetoric becomes more sensational, and 
unfortunately I think the American people do not benefit from such 
talk.
  I can only say that with my partner, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. 
Cramer), and other members of the subcommittee, with our bipartisan 
staff, we take our job very seriously. And we will pursue that 
investigation very seriously. And we will try to make sure that 
American values are maintained, and at the same time our troops, our 
homeland security folks, our policemen and others, have the information 
they need to keep us safe. We will keep both goals in mind.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 2 
minutes to my good friend, the distinguished gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Lee).
  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for his 
leadership and for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise to engage today in a colloquy with the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman), our ranking member of the 
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. And let me first thank the 
gentlewoman for her consistent leadership on so many national security 
issues.
  Let me just say briefly that I appreciate this opportunity to discuss 
an issue very briefly that is of critical importance, that is, making 
sure that the United States Government is not involved in violating the 
will of any people anywhere in the world which duly elects a government 
through democratic means.
  In 1982, Congress passed the Boland amendment, which prohibited the 
Federal Government from using taxpayer dollars for the purpose of 
overthrowing the Government of Nicaragua. I offered an amendment to 
this intelligence authorization bill that broadens this concept to 
ensure that our Federal intelligence dollars are not used to support 
groups or individuals engaged in efforts to overthrow democratically 
elected governments. Unfortunately it was not made in order.
  In an ideal world, we would not specifically stipulate this, but 
events in Haiti and more recently in Venezuela have led me to wonder 
whether we need to codify this straightforward, nonpartisan position. 
So I think that we must do all we can not only to support

[[Page H4837]]

the spirit of democracy throughout the world, but also to ensure that 
it is allowed to flourish and to grow.
  I would like to ask the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) if 
she has any thought about how we need to move forward, basically 
because I believe again, as I said earlier, that such actions fly in 
the face of our own democratic principles.
  Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. LEE. I yield to the gentlewoman from California.
  Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
  I thank the gentlewoman for raising this issue. I want to assure her 
that I understand and support the general principle she has raised, and 
I believe that we should be mindful of that issue.
  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman for her 
comments and her attention to this issue. I look forward to working 
with her.
  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Daniel E. Lungren.)
  Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, one of the previous 
speakers said we just do not get it. To him I would say, and to others, 
yes, we do get it.
  I came back to this body after 9/11 precisely because of the attack 
on Americans and the loss of three people that I knew personally. I 
came back here with the idea that we needed to fight for America and 
defend ourselves and not tear up the Constitution in the process.
  The suggestion made by some that we are engaged in wide-scale 
torture, that we are somehow morally equivalent with others is 
absolutely absurd. The proper way for us to respond to allegations is 
to do what the Congress is supposed to do, and what the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Thornberry) said we are about, which is the proper 
congressional oversight, not mock hearings like we had last week, not 
setting up independent commissions, not politicizing this, but doing it 
in the way the Constitution requires us to do it.
  If there is any problem, it is with the Congress not doing proper 
oversight. We have the commitment from the committees and the 
subcommittees to do it. Let us rise above partisanship. Let us do the 
right thing, and let us get rid of this nonsense of a moral equivalency 
between the United States and some of those terrible regimes around the 
world. It is not worthy of this body.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield such 
time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. 
Schakowsky).
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to 
this restrictive rule.
  The gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) offered a reasonable 
amendment, which was rejected by the Rules Committee, that would have 
put the House on record in support of a bipartisan, independent 
investigation into detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the 
facility at Guantanamo Bay.
  Because there are known cases of abuse, and there are more questions 
than answers about the extent of abuse on people held by or for the 
United States, we need to shine a very bright light on detainee 
treatment. Only when we know the full scale of the problem will we be 
able to stop, prevent, and correct any wrongs that have been done in 
our country's name.
  And if it is true, as Vice President Cheney says, that the prisoners 
are peddling lies, then let us investigate prisoner treatment so that 
we have evidence and not just assertions. The United States should be 
the standard bearer of democracy, freedom and human rights throughout 
the world. However, it has been over a year since the story broke about 
prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, and we have yet to conduct a through 
independent investigation.
  Opening the door to an independent investigation would be a major 
step toward returning our country's standing as a moral leader. And to 
those who would try to justify what we do by saying, well, it is not as 
bad as those unspeakable beheadings or other things, well, I should 
certainly hope not, because we are not like them. We are better than 
them. We are the United States of America.
  And now, those who call on our country to uphold the rule of law and 
who reject becoming debased ourselves by conducting torture, they 
become the object of relentless criticism. Those patriots who want to 
stand up to our values and our belief in the rule of law, we are a 
proud and a great Nation blessed with immense freedom and with military 
personnel who proudly defend us. We should not fear the truth; we 
should demand it with an independent investigation.
  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman is absolutely right when she 
says we are better than them. She is absolutely right when she says we 
are not equal to them. I hope she shares that thought with the senior 
Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. 
Hayworth).
  (Mr. HAYWORTH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I have listened to this debate with 
interest. And I rise in support of the rule and in support of a 
realistic foreign policy that some in this Chamber apparently 
misunderstand.
  The actions of September 11, 2001, were not criminal acts; they were 
acts of war against this Nation.

                              {time}  1400

  One of the fundamental problems when you separate all the venom and 
vitriol that we have heard in this debate and certainly from someone in 
the other body who compared American fighting men and women to the 
Soviets with their gulags and the Third Reich and Pol Pot's regime in 
Cambodia, one of the fundamental problems seems to be the willingness 
of many to equate this with some sort of law enforcement problem. It is 
not.
  And to those who are expending such efforts and such rhetoric on 
behalf of the alleged rights of enemies of this country, let me remind 
you that the Constitution's first three words are ``We the people,'' 
not ``they the terrorists,'' or ``they the insurgents,'' or ``they the 
accused.''
  In wartime the Constitution is a mechanism for the survival of the 
Republic. And as Mr. Justice Jackson pointed out years ago, the 
Constitution is not a suicide pact. This need not be a partisan 
controversy. One look only so far as the History Channel as columnist 
Thomas Sowell pointed out 2 weeks ago. Do you know what happened at 
World War II to unfortunate combatants; that is, those without 
representing a nation state or wearing the uniform or insignia of a 
military nation or state during World War II?
  When those unlawful combatants were apprehended, they were lined up 
and shot. The Commander in Chief at that time was Franklin Delano 
Roosevelt. That was in adherence with the Geneva Convention.
  We are in a war where people behead Americans. It would be nice to 
see one-tenth of the passion on behalf of American citizens that we see 
for the terrorists and their alleged rights. Vote in favor of the rule.
  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Flake). The gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Putnam) has 2 minutes remaining. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Hastings) has 1\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my 
time.
  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Norwood).
  Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I want to take a second to speak to my 
friend from Florida (Mr. Hastings), and he is my friend, but I think he 
is wrong when he says human rights issues are something that we just do 
not get.
  Well, that is wrong. I think we do get it. I think it is fairly clear 
to the Members of this body, it is fairly clear to the people of this 
country, that many of you Democrats are very interested in human rights 
of the prisoners down in Guantanamo Bay, people who would kill your 
children, who would kill your families and destroy your homes. And we 
are interested in getting information in a reasonable manner from 
prisoners or terrorists in order to save the lives of American people, 
to save the lives of our military.
  So it is a simple matter. It comes down to whose side are you really 
on?

[[Page H4838]]

Are you on the side of the terrorists so you can be against President 
Bush, or are you on the side of the American people and the American 
families?
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of 
my time.
  Mr. Speaker, I answer the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood), I am 
on the side of the American people and I am on the side of the rights 
that I believe are principles inherent in our United States 
Constitution and throughout the United States Constitution.
  I do not have time to yield to the gentleman, otherwise I would.
  Make no mistake about it, most of us feel as strongly as most of you 
do, and I do not think that anybody here ought question our patriotism.
  This Nation is the greatest Nation on this Earth, and we do not have 
to have anything to fear. We do not have to have any worry about trying 
people who harm this Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, I will be asking Members to oppose the previous 
question. If the previous question is defeated, I will modify this rule 
so we can consider the amendment by the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Waxman) that was rejected in the Committee on Rules last night.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of this 
amendment immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Florida?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the Waxman amendment has been 
explained. It would establish an independent commission, similar to the 
9/11 Commission, to conduct an extensive, bipartisan, and thorough 
investigation into the multiple accounts of prisoner abuse that have 
occurred in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo.
  Mr. Speaker, it has been well over a year since the shocking and 
humiliating photographs of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib first became 
public. I doubt there is any Member of this Chamber who was not 
appalled at that disgraceful act. Yet, in spite of these events, the 
House has done very little of substance.
  Mr. Speaker, if you allow me to conclude by saying, a ``no'' vote 
will allow Members to vote on the Waxman amendment, so we can take 
immediate steps to fully investigate these very disturbing incidents of 
prisoner mistreatment.
  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, this has been a vibrant, robust debate and a good solid 
beginning of the undeniable debate that will follow on the underlying 
bill.
  In case you missed it from the debate over the rule, there is a lot 
more to this rule than just Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. This is an 
important rule that allows us to consider the intelligence 
authorization bill that gives our men and women around the world the 
tools and skill and support they need to win the war against terrorism 
on our behalf, important new assets in terms of technical capabilities, 
and a tremendous investment in the most important piece that we have in 
intelligence, which is those hardworking men and women who were called 
to public service.
  This is a fair rule. It allows for a great deal more consideration of 
these issues that we have already begun to discuss in terms of 
detainees and the role of American intelligence in our society and the 
tools that they need around the world. I encourage everyone to support 
it and to support the underlying bill.
  The material previously referred to by Mr. Hastings of Florida is as 
follows:

   Previous Question on H. Res. 331--Rule for H.R. 2475 Intelligence 
                 Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006

       ``In the resolution strike ``and (3)'' and insert the 
     following:
       ``(3) the amendment printed in Section 2 of this resolution 
     if offered by Representative Waxman of California or a 
     designee, which shall be in order without intervention of any 
     point of order or demand for division of the question, shall 
     not be subject to amendment, shall be considered as read, and 
     shall be separately debatable for 60 minutes equally divided 
     and controlled by the proponent and an opponent; and (4)
       Sec. 2. The amendment by Representative Waxman referred to 
     in Section 1 is as follows:

Amendment to H.R. 2475, As Reported Offered by Mr. Waxman of California

       At the end, add the following new title:

    TITLE V--ESTABLISHMENT OF INDEPENDENT COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE 
                            DETAINEE ABUSES

     SEC. 501. ESTABLISHMENT OF COMMISSION.

       There is established in the legislative branch the 
     Independent Commission on the Investigation of Detainee 
     Abuses (in this title referred to as the ``Commission'').

     SEC. 502. DUTIES.

       (a) Investigation.--The Commission shall conduct a full and 
     complete investigation of the abuses of detainees in 
     connection with intelligence and intelligence-related 
     activities of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring 
     Freedom, or any operation within the Global War on Terrorism, 
     including but not limited to the following:
       (1) The extent of the abuses.
       (2) Why the abuses occurred.
       (3) Who is responsible for the abuses.
       (4) Whether any particular Department of Defense, 
     Department of State, Department of Justice, Central 
     Intelligence Agency, National Security Council, or White 
     House policies, procedures, or decisions facilitated the 
     detainee abuses.
       (5) What policies, procedures, or mechanisms failed to 
     prevent the abuses.
       (6) What legislative or executive actions should be taken 
     to prevent such abuses from occurring in the future.
       (7) The extent, if any, to which Guantanamo Detention 
     Center policies influenced policies at the Abu Ghraib prison 
     and other detention centers in and outside Iraq.
       (b) Assessment, Analysis, and Evaluation.--During the 
     course of its investigation under subsection (a), the 
     Commission shall assess, analyze, and evaluate relevant 
     persons, policies, procedures, reports, and events, including 
     but not limited to the following:
       (1) The Military Chain of Command.
       (2) The National Security Council.
       (3) The Department of Justice.
       (4) The Department of State.
       (5) The Office of the White House Counsel.
       (6) The Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central 
     Intelligence Agency.
       (7) The approval process for interrogation techniques used 
     at detention facilities in Iraq, Cuba, and Afghanistan.
       (8) The integration of military police and military 
     intelligence operations to coordinate detainee interrogation.
       (9) The roles and actions of private civilian contractors 
     in the abuses and whether they violated the Military 
     Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act or any other United States 
     statutes and international treaties.
       (10) The role of nongovernmental organizations' warnings to 
     United States officials about the abuses.
       (11) The role of Congress and whether it was fully informed 
     throughout the process that uncovered these abuses.
       (12) The extent to which the United States complied with 
     the applicable provisions of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, 
     and the extent to which the United States may have violated 
     international law by restricting the access of the 
     International Committee of the Red Cross to detainees.

     SEC. 503. COMPOSITION OF COMMISSION.

       (a) Members.--The Commission shall be composed of 10 
     members, of whom--
       (1) 1 member shall be appointed by the President, who shall 
     serve as chairman of the Commission;
       (2) 1 member shall be jointly appointed by the minority 
     leader of the Senate and the minority leader of the House of 
     Representatives, who shall serve as vice chairman of the 
     Commission;
       (3) 2 members shall be appointed by the majority leader of 
     the Senate;
       (4) 2 members shall be appointed by the Speaker of the 
     House of Representatives;
       (5) 2 members shall be appointed by the minority leader of 
     the Senate; and
       (6) 2 members shall be appointed by the minority leader of 
     the House of Representatives.
       (b) Qualifications; Initial Meeting.--
       (1) Nongovernmental appointees.--An individual appointed to 
     the Commission may not be an officer or employee of the 
     Federal Government or any State or local government.
       (2) Other qualifications.--Individuals that shall be 
     appointed to the Commission should be prominent United States 
     citizens, with national recognition and significant depth of 
     experience in such professions as governmental service, law 
     enforcement, the armed services, law, public administration, 
     intelligence gathering, human rights policy, and foreign 
     affairs.
       (3) Deadline for appointment.--All members of the 
     Commission shall be appointed within 45 days following the 
     enactment of this Act.
       (4) Meetings.--The Commission shall meet and begin the 
     operations of the Commission as soon as practicable. After 
     its initial meeting, the Commission shall meet upon the call 
     of the chairman or a majority of its members.
       (c) Quorum; Vacancies.--Six members of the Commission shall 
     constitute a quorum. Any vacancy in the Commission shall not 
     affect its powers, but shall be filled in the same manner in 
     which the original appointment was made.
       (d) Conflicts of Interest.--Each member appointed to the 
     Commission shall submit a

[[Page H4839]]

     financial disclosure report pursuant to the Ethics in 
     Government Act of 1978, notwithstanding the minimum required 
     rate of compensation or time period employed.

     SEC. 504. POWERS OF COMMISSION.

       (a) In General.--
       (1) Hearings and evidence.--The Commission or, on the 
     authority of the Commission, any subcommittee or member 
     thereof, may, for the purpose of carrying out this title--
       (A) hold such hearings and sit and act at such times and 
     places, take such testimony, receive such evidence, 
     administer such oaths; and
       (B) subject to paragraph (2)(A), require, by subpoena or 
     otherwise, the attendance and testimony of such witnesses and 
     the production of such books, records, correspondence, 
     memoranda, papers, and documents,

     as the Commission or such designated subcommittee or 
     designated member may determine advisable.
       (2) Subpoenas.--
       (A) Issuance.--
       (i) In general.--A subpoena may be issued under this 
     subsection only--

       (I) by the agreement of the chairman and the vice chairman; 
     or
       (II) by the affirmative vote of 6 members of the 
     Commission.

       (ii) Signature.--Subject to clause (i), subpoenas issued 
     under this subsection may be issued under the signature of 
     the chairman or any member designated by a majority of the 
     Commission, and may be served by any person designated by the 
     chairman or by a member designated by a majority of the 
     Commission.
       (B) Enforcement.--
       (i) In general.--In the case of contumacy or failure to 
     obey a subpoena issued under this subsection, the United 
     States district court for the judicial district in which the 
     subpoenaed person resides, is served, or may be found, or 
     where the subpoena is returnable, may issue an order 
     requiring such person to appear at any designated place to 
     testify or to produce documentary or other evidence. Any 
     failure to obey the order of the court may be punished by the 
     court as a contempt of that court.
       (ii) Additional enforcement.--In the case of any failure of 
     any witness to comply with any subpoena or to testify when 
     summoned under authority of this subsection, the Commission 
     may, by majority vote, certify a statement of fact 
     constituting such failure to the appropriate United States 
     attorney, who may bring the matter before the grand jury for 
     its action, under the same statutory authority and procedures 
     as if the United States attorney had received a certification 
     under sections 102 through 104 of the Revised Statutes of the 
     United States (2 U.S.C. 192 through 194).
       (3) Scope.--In carrying out its duties under this Act, the 
     Commission may examine the actions and representations of the 
     current Administration as well as prior Administrations.
       (b) Contracting.--The Commission may, to such extent and in 
     such amounts as are provided in appropriation Acts, enter 
     into contracts to enable the Commission to discharge its 
     duties of this Act.
       (c) Information From Federal Agencies.--
       (1) In general.--The Commission may secure directly from 
     any executive department, bureau, agency, board, commission, 
     office, independent establishment, or instrumentality of the 
     Federal Government, information, suggestions, estimates, and 
     statistics for the purposes of this Act. Each department, 
     bureau, agency, board, commission, office, independent 
     establishment, or instrumentality shall, to the extent 
     authorized by law, furnish such information, suggestions, 
     estimates, and statistics directly to the Commission, upon 
     request made by the chairman, the chairman of any 
     subcommittee created by a majority of the Commission, or any 
     member designated by a majority of the Commission.
       (2) Receipt, handling, storage, and dissemination.--
     Information shall only be received, handled, stored, and 
     disseminated by members of the Commission and its staff 
     consistent with all applicable statutes, regulations, and 
     Executive Orders.
       (d) Assistance From Federal Agencies.--
       (1) General services administration.--The Administrator of 
     General Services shall provide to the Commission on a 
     reimbursable basis administrative support and other services 
     for the performance of the Commission's functions.
       (2) Other departments and agencies.--In addition to the 
     assistance prescribed in paragraph (1), departments and 
     agencies of the United States may provide to the Commission 
     such services, funds, facilities, staff, and other support 
     services as they may determine advisable and as may be 
     authorized by law.
       (e) Gifts.--The Commission may accept, use, and dispose of 
     gifts or donations of services or property.
       (f) Postal Services.--The Commission may use the United 
     States mails in the same manner and under the same conditions 
     as departments and agencies of the United States.

     SEC. 505. NONAPPLICABILITY OF FEDERAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE ACT.

       (a) In General.--The Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 
     U.S.C. App.) shall not apply to the Commission.
       (b) Public Meetings and Release of Public Versions of 
     Reports.--The Commission shall--
       (1) hold public hearings and meetings to the extent 
     appropriate; and
       (2) release public versions of the reports required under 
     section 509.
       (c) Public Hearings.--Any public hearings of the Commission 
     shall be conducted in a manner consistent with the protection 
     of information provided to or developed for or by the 
     Commission as required by any applicable statute, regulation, 
     or Executive order.

     SEC. 506. STAFF OF COMMISSION.

       (a) In General.--
       (1) Appointment and compensation.--The chairman, in 
     consultation with vice chairman, in accordance with rules 
     agreed upon by the Commission, may appoint and fix the 
     compensation of a staff director and such other personnel as 
     may be necessary to enable the Commission to carry out its 
     functions, without regard to the provisions of title 5, 
     United States Code, governing appointments in the competitive 
     service, and without regard to the provisions of chapter 51 
     and subchapter III of chapter 53 of such title relating to 
     classification and General Schedule pay rates, except that no 
     rate of pay fixed under this subsection may exceed the 
     equivalent of that payable for a position at level V of the 
     Executive Schedule under section 5316 of title 5, United 
     States Code.
       (2) Personnel as federal employees.--
       (A) In general.--The staff director and any personnel of 
     the Commission who are employees shall be employees under 
     section 2105 of title 5, United States Code, for purposes of 
     chapters 63, 81, 83, 84, 85, 87, 89, and 90 of that title.
       (B) Members of commission.--Subparagraph (A) shall not be 
     construed to apply to members of the Commission.
       (b) Detailees.--Any Federal Government employee may be 
     detailed to the Commission without reimbursement from the 
     Commission, and such detailee shall retain the rights, 
     status, and privileges of his or her regular employment 
     without interruption.
       (c) Consultant Services.--The Commission is authorized to 
     procure the services of experts and consultants in accordance 
     with section 3109 of title 5, United States Code, but at 
     rates not to exceed the daily rate paid a person occupying a 
     position at level IV of the Executive Schedule under section 
     5315 of title 5, United States Code.

     SEC. 507. COMPENSATION AND TRAVEL EXPENSES.

       (a) Compensation.--Each member of the Commission may be 
     compensated at a rate not to exceed the daily equivalent of 
     the annual rate of basic pay in effect for a position at 
     level IV of the Executive Schedule under section 5315 of 
     title 5, United States Code, for each day during which that 
     member is engaged in the actual performance of the duties of 
     the Commission.
       (b) Travel Expenses.--While away from their homes or 
     regular places of business in the performance of services for 
     the Commission, members of the Commission shall be allowed 
     travel expenses, including per diem in lieu of subsistence, 
     in the same manner as persons employed intermittently in the 
     Government service are allowed expenses under section 5703(b) 
     of title 5, United States Code.

     SEC. 508. SECURITY CLEARANCES FOR COMMISSION MEMBERS AND 
                   STAFF.

       (a) In General.--Subject to subsection (b), the appropriate 
     Federal agencies or departments shall cooperate with the 
     Commission in expeditiously providing to the Commission 
     members and staff appropriate security clearances to the 
     extent possible pursuant to existing procedures and 
     requirements.
       (b) Exception.--No person shall be provided with access to 
     classified information under this title without the 
     appropriate required security clearance access.

     SEC. 509. REPORTS OF COMMISSION; TERMINATION.

       (a) Interim Reports.--The Commission may submit to Congress 
     and the President interim reports containing such findings, 
     conclusions, and recommendations for corrective measures as 
     have been agreed to by a majority of Commission members.
       (b) Final Report.--Not later than 18 months after the date 
     of the enactment of this Act, the Commission shall submit to 
     Congress and the President a final report containing such 
     findings, conclusions, and recommendations for corrective 
     measures as have been agreed to by a majority of Commission 
     members.
       (c) Form of Report.--Each report prepared under this 
     section shall be submitted in unclassified form, but may 
     contain a classified annex.
       (d) Recommendation to Make Public Certain Classified 
     Information.--If the Commission determines that it is in the 
     public interest that some or all of the information contained 
     in a classified annex of a report under this section be made 
     available to the public, the Commission shall make a 
     recommendation to the congressional intelligence committees 
     to make such information public, and the congressional 
     intelligence committees shall consider the recommendation 
     pursuant to the procedures under subsection (e).
       (e) Procedure for Declassifying Information.--
       (1) The procedures referred to in subsection (d) are the 
     procedures described in--
       (A) with respect to the Permanent Select Committee on 
     Intelligence of the House of Representatives, clause 11(g) of 
     Rule X of the Rules of the House of Representatives, One 
     Hundred Ninth Congress; and
       (B) with respect to the Select Committee on Intelligence of 
     the Senate, section 8 of

[[Page H4840]]

     Senate Resolution 400, Ninety-Fourth Congress.
       (2) In this section, the term ``congressional intelligence 
     committees'' means--
       (A) the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the 
     House of Representatives; and
       (B) the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate.

     SEC. 510. TERMINATION.

       (a) In General.--The Commission, and all the authorities of 
     this Act, shall terminate 60 days after the date on which the 
     final report is submitted under section 509(b).
       (b) Administrative Activities Before Termination.--The 
     Commission may use the 60-day period referred to in paragraph 
     (1) for the purpose of concluding its activities, including 
     providing testimony to committees of Congress concerning its 
     reports and disseminating the final report.

     SEC. 511. FUNDING.

       (a) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized 
     to be appropriated funds not to exceed $5,000,000 for 
     purposes of the activities of the Commission under this Act.
       (b) Duration of Availability.--Amounts made available to 
     the Commission under subsection (a) shall remain available 
     until the termination of the Commission.

  Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I 
move the previous question on the resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous 
question.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the 
ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a 
quorum is not present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
  Pursuant to clause 9 of rule XX, the Chair will reduce to 5 minutes 
the minimum time for electronic voting, if ordered, on the question of 
adoption of the resolution.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 224, 
nays 201, not voting 8, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 288]

                               YEAS--224

     Aderholt
     Akin
     Alexander
     Bachus
     Baker
     Barrett (SC)
     Bartlett (MD)
     Barton (TX)
     Bass
     Beauprez
     Biggert
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonner
     Bono
     Boozman
     Boustany
     Bradley (NH)
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (SC)
     Brown-Waite, Ginny
     Burgess
     Burton (IN)
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Capito
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chocola
     Coble
     Cole (OK)
     Conaway
     Cox
     Crenshaw
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Cunningham
     Davis (KY)
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     Deal (GA)
     DeLay
     Dent
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Doolittle
     Drake
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Ehlers
     Emerson
     English (PA)
     Everett
     Feeney
     Ferguson
     Fitzpatrick (PA)
     Flake
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Fossella
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Garrett (NJ)
     Gerlach
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gingrey
     Gohmert
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Granger
     Graves
     Green (WI)
     Gutknecht
     Hall
     Harris
     Hart
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Hostettler
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hyde
     Inglis (SC)
     Issa
     Istook
     Jenkins
     Jindal
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Keller
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MN)
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Kline
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kuhl (NY)
     LaHood
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     LoBiondo
     Lucas
     Lungren, Daniel E.
     Mack
     Manzullo
     Marchant
     McCaul (TX)
     McCotter
     McCrery
     McHenry
     McHugh
     McKeon
     McMorris
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Moran (KS)
     Musgrave
     Myrick
     Neugebauer
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nunes
     Nussle
     Osborne
     Otter
     Oxley
     Paul
     Pearce
     Pence
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Poe
     Pombo
     Porter
     Price (GA)
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Reichert
     Renzi
     Reynolds
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Saxton
     Schwarz (MI)
     Sensenbrenner
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simmons
     Simpson
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Sodrel
     Souder
     Stearns
     Sullivan
     Sweeney
     Tancredo
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Turner
     Upton
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Westmoreland
     Wicker
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Young (AK)

                               NAYS--201

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baird
     Baldwin
     Barrow
     Bean
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Boren
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brady (PA)
     Brown (OH)
     Brown, Corrine
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Cardoza
     Carnahan
     Carson
     Case
     Chandler
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costa
     Costello
     Cramer
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     Davis (TN)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Emanuel
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Higgins
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hooley
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick (MI)
     Kind
     Kucinich
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee
     Levin
     Lipinski
     Lofgren, Zoe
     Lowey
     Lynch
     Maloney
     Markey
     Marshall
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy
     McCollum (MN)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Melancon
     Menendez
     Michaud
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, George
     Mollohan
     Moore (KS)
     Moore (WI)
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal (MA)
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Ross
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sabo
     Salazar
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sanders
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schwartz (PA)
     Scott (GA)
     Scott (VA)
     Serrano
     Sherman
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Solis
     Spratt
     Stark
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor (MS)
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Towns
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Watson
     Watt
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Wexler
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn

                             NOT VOTING--8

     Carter
     Herseth
     Lewis (GA)
     Murphy
     Sessions
     Walden (OR)
     Whitfield
     Young (FL)

                              {time}  1431

  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas changed his vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Mr. GILLMOR and Mr. ISTOOK changed their vote from ``nay'' to 
``yea.''
  So the previous question was ordered.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hayes). The question is on the 
resolution.
  The resolution was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________


Congressional Record: June 21, 2005 (House)
Page H4840-H4858                        



 
          INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006

  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 331, I call 
up the bill (H.R. 2475) to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 
2006 for intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the United 
States Government,

[[Page H4841]]

the Community Management Account, and the Central Intelligence Agency 
Retirement and Disability System, and for other purposes and ask for 
its immediate consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 331, the bill 
is considered read for amendment.
  The text of H.R. 2475 is as follows:

                               H. R. 2475

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Intelligence Authorization 
     Act for Fiscal Year 2006''.

                    TITLE I--INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES

     SEC. 101. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

       Funds are hereby authorized to be appropriated for fiscal 
     year 2006 for the conduct of the intelligence and 
     intelligence-related activities of the following elements of 
     the United States Government:
       (1) The Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
       (2) The Central Intelligence Agency.
       (3) The Department of Defense.
       (4) The Defense Intelligence Agency.
       (5) The National Security Agency.
       (6) The Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, 
     and the Department of the Air Force.
       (7) The Department of State.
       (8) The Department of the Treasury.
       (9) The Department of Energy.
       (10) The Department of Justice.
       (11) The Federal Bureau of Investigation.
       (12) The National Reconnaissance Office.
       (13) The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
       (14) The Coast Guard.
       (15) The Department of Homeland Security.

     SEC. 102. CLASSIFIED SCHEDULE OF AUTHORIZATIONS.

       (a) Specifications of Amounts and Personnel Ceilings.--The 
     amounts authorized to be appropriated under section 101, and 
     the authorized personnel ceilings as of September 30, 2006, 
     for the conduct of the intelligence and intelligence-related 
     activities of the elements listed in such section, are those 
     specified in the classified Schedule of Authorizations 
     prepared to accompany the bill H.R. ____ of the One Hundred 
     Ninth Congress.
       (b) Availability of Classified Schedule of 
     Authorizations.--The Schedule of Authorizations shall be made 
     available to the Committees on Appropriations of the Senate 
     and House of Representatives and to the President. The 
     President shall provide for suitable distribution of the 
     Schedule, or of appropriate portions of the Schedule, within 
     the executive branch.

     SEC. 103. PERSONNEL CEILING ADJUSTMENTS.

       (a) Authority for Adjustments.--With the approval of the 
     Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Director 
     of National Intelligence may authorize employment of civilian 
     personnel in excess of the number authorized for fiscal year 
     2006 under section 102 when the Director of National 
     Intelligence determines that such action is necessary to the 
     performance of important intelligence functions.
       (b) Notice to Intelligence Committees.--The Director of 
     National Intelligence shall notify promptly the Select 
     Committee on Intelligence of the Senate and the Permanent 
     Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of 
     Representatives whenever the Director exercises the authority 
     granted by this section.

     SEC. 104. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT ACCOUNT.

       (a) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized 
     to be appropriated for the Intelligence Community Management 
     Account of the Director of National Intelligence for fiscal 
     year 2006 the sum of $_____. Within such amount, funds 
     identified in the classified Schedule of Authorizations 
     referred to in section 102(a) for advanced research and 
     development shall remain available until September 30, 2007.
       (b) Authorized Personnel Levels.--The elements within the 
     Intelligence Community Management Account of the Director of 
     National Intelligence are authorized __ full-time personnel 
     as of September 30, 2006. Personnel serving in such elements 
     may be permanent employees of the Intelligence Community 
     Management Account or personnel detailed from other elements 
     of the United States Government.
       (c) Classified Authorizations.--
       (1) Authorization of appropriations.--In addition to 
     amounts authorized to be appropriated for the Intelligence 
     Community Management Account by subsection (a), there are 
     also authorized to be appropriated for the Intelligence 
     Community Management Account for fiscal year 2006 such 
     additional amounts as are specified in the classified 
     Schedule of Authorizations referred to in section 102(a). 
     Such additional amounts for advanced research and development 
     shall remain available until September 30, 2007.
       (2) Authorization of personnel.--In addition to the 
     personnel authorized by subsection (b) for elements of the 
     Intelligence Community Management Account as of September 30, 
     2006, there are also authorized such additional personnel for 
     such elements as of that date as are specified in the 
     classified Schedule of Authorizations.
       (d) Reimbursement.--Except as provided in section 113 of 
     the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 404h), during 
     fiscal year 2006 any officer or employee of the United States 
     or a member of the Armed Forces who is detailed to the staff 
     of the Intelligence Community Management Account from another 
     element of the United States Government shall be detailed on 
     a reimbursable basis, except that any such officer, employee, 
     or member may be detailed on a nonreimbursable basis for a 
     period of less than one year for the performance of temporary 
     functions as required by the Director of National 
     Intelligence.

 TITLE II--CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY RETIREMENT AND DISABILITY SYSTEM

     SEC. 201. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

       There is authorized to be appropriated for the Central 
     Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability Fund for fiscal 
     year 2006 the sum of $_____.

                     TITLE III--GENERAL PROVISIONS

     SEC. 301. INCREASE IN EMPLOYEE COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS 
                   AUTHORIZED BY LAW.

       Appropriations authorized by this Act for salary, pay, 
     retirement, and other benefits for Federal employees may be 
     increased by such additional or supplemental amounts as may 
     be necessary for increases in such compensation or benefits 
     authorized by law.

     SEC. 302. RESTRICTION ON CONDUCT OF INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES.

       The authorization of appropriations by this Act shall not 
     be deemed to constitute authority for the conduct of any 
     intelligence activity which is not otherwise authorized by 
     the Constitution or the laws of the United States.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The committee amendment in the nature of a 
substitute printed in the bill, modified by the amendment printed in 
Part A of House Report 109-141, is adopted.
  The text of the committee amendment in the nature of a substitute, as 
modified, is as follows:

                               H. R. 2475

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.

       (a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the 
     ``Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006''.
       (b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents of this Act 
     is as follows:

       Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.

                    TITLE I--INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES

       Sec. 101. Authorization of appropriations.
       Sec. 102. Classified Schedule of Authorizations.
       Sec. 103. Personnel ceiling adjustments.
       Sec. 104. Intelligence Community Management Account.

 TITLE II--CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY RETIREMENT AND DISABILITY SYSTEM

       Sec. 201. Authorization of appropriations.

                     TITLE III--GENERAL PROVISIONS

       Sec. 301. Increase in employee compensation and benefits 
           authorized by law.
       Sec. 302. Restriction on conduct of intelligence 
           activities.
       Sec. 303. Authority of the Director of National 
           Intelligence to assign individuals to United States 
           missions in foreign countries to coordinate and direct 
           intelligence and intelligence-related activities 
           conducted in that country.
       Sec. 304. Clarification of delegation of transfer or 
           reprogramming authority.
       Sec. 305. Approval of personnel transfer for new national 
           intelligence centers.
       Sec. 306. Additional duties for the Director of Science and 
           Technology.
       Sec. 307. Comprehensive inventory of special access 
           programs.
       Sec. 308. Sense of Congress on budget execution authority 
           procedures.
       Sec. 309. Sense of Congress with respect to multi-level 
           security clearances.

                 TITLE IV--CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

       Sec. 401. Clarification of role of the Director of Central 
           Intelligence Agency as head of human intelligence 
           collection.

                    TITLE I--INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES

     SEC. 101. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

       Funds are hereby authorized to be appropriated for fiscal 
     year 2006 for the conduct of the intelligence and 
     intelligence-related activities of the following elements of 
     the United States Government:
       (1) The Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
       (2) The Central Intelligence Agency.
       (3) The Department of Defense.
       (4) The Defense Intelligence Agency.
       (5) The National Security Agency.
       (6) The Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, 
     and the Department of the Air Force.
       (7) The Department of State.
       (8) The Department of the Treasury.
       (9) The Department of Energy.
       (10) The Department of Justice.
       (11) The Federal Bureau of Investigation.
       (12) The National Reconnaissance Office.
       (13) The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
       (14) The Coast Guard.
       (15) The Department of Homeland Security.

     SEC. 102. CLASSIFIED SCHEDULE OF AUTHORIZATIONS.

       (a) Specifications of Amounts and Personnel Ceilings.--The 
     amounts authorized to

[[Page H4842]]

     be appropriated under section 101, and the authorized 
     personnel ceilings as of September 30, 2006, for the conduct 
     of the intelligence and intelligence-related activities of 
     the elements listed in such section, are those specified in 
     the classified Schedule of Authorizations prepared to 
     accompany the bill H.R. 2475 of the One Hundred Ninth 
     Congress.
       (b) Availability of Classified Schedule of 
     Authorizations.--The Schedule of Authorizations shall be made 
     available to the Committees on Appropriations of the Senate 
     and House of Representatives and to the President. The 
     President shall provide for suitable distribution of the 
     Schedule, or of appropriate portions of the Schedule, within 
     the executive branch.

     SEC. 103. PERSONNEL CEILING ADJUSTMENTS.

       (a) Authority for Adjustments.--With the approval of the 
     Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Director 
     of National Intelligence may authorize employment of civilian 
     personnel in excess of the number authorized for fiscal year 
     2006 under section 102 when the Director of National 
     Intelligence determines that such action is necessary to the 
     performance of important intelligence functions.
       (b) Notice to Intelligence Committees.--The Director of 
     National Intelligence shall notify promptly the Select 
     Committee on Intelligence of the Senate and the Permanent 
     Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of 
     Representatives whenever the Director exercises the authority 
     granted by this section.

     SEC. 104. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT ACCOUNT.

       (a) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized 
     to be appropriated for the Intelligence Community Management 
     Account of the Director of National Intelligence for fiscal 
     year 2006 the sum of $446,144,000. Within such amount, funds 
     identified in the classified Schedule of Authorizations 
     referred to in section 102(a) for advanced research and 
     development shall remain available until September 30, 2007.
       (b) Authorized Personnel Levels.--The elements within the 
     Intelligence Community Management Account of the Director of 
     National Intelligence are authorized 817 full-time personnel 
     as of September 30, 2006. Personnel serving in such elements 
     may be permanent employees of the Intelligence Community 
     Management Account or personnel detailed from other elements 
     of the United States Government.
       (c) Classified Authorizations.--
       (1) Authorization of appropriations.--In addition to 
     amounts authorized to be appropriated for the Intelligence 
     Community Management Account by subsection (a), there are 
     also authorized to be appropriated for the Intelligence 
     Community Management Account for fiscal year 2006 such 
     additional amounts as are specified in the classified 
     Schedule of Authorizations referred to in section 102(a). 
     Such additional amounts for advanced research and development 
     shall remain available until September 30, 2007.
       (2) Authorization of personnel.--In addition to the 
     personnel authorized by subsection (b) for elements of the 
     Intelligence Community Management Account as of September 30, 
     2006, there are also authorized such additional personnel for 
     such elements as of that date as are specified in the 
     classified Schedule of Authorizations.
       (d) Reimbursement.--Except as provided in section 113 of 
     the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 404h), during 
     fiscal year 2006 any officer or employee of the United States 
     or a member of the Armed Forces who is detailed to the staff 
     of the Intelligence Community Management Account from another 
     element of the United States Government shall be detailed on 
     a reimbursable basis, except that any such officer, employee, 
     or member may be detailed on a nonreimbursable basis for a 
     period of less than one year for the performance of temporary 
     functions as required by the Director of National 
     Intelligence.

 TITLE II--CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY RETIREMENT AND DISABILITY SYSTEM

     SEC. 201. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

       There is authorized to be appropriated for the Central 
     Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability Fund for fiscal 
     year 2006 the sum of $244,600,000.

                     TITLE III--GENERAL PROVISIONS

     SEC. 301. INCREASE IN EMPLOYEE COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS 
                   AUTHORIZED BY LAW.

       Appropriations authorized by this Act for salary, pay, 
     retirement, and other benefits for Federal employees may be 
     increased by such additional or supplemental amounts as may 
     be necessary for increases in such compensation or benefits 
     authorized by law.

     SEC. 302. RESTRICTION ON CONDUCT OF INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES.

       The authorization of appropriations by this Act shall not 
     be deemed to constitute authority for the conduct of any 
     intelligence activity which is not otherwise authorized by 
     the Constitution or the laws of the United States.

     SEC. 304. CLARIFICATION OF DELEGATION OF TRANSFER OR 
                   REPROGRAMMING AUTHORITY.

       Paragraph (5)(B) of section 102A(d) of the National 
     Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 403-1(d)), as added by 
     section 1011(a) of the National Security Intelligence Reform 
     Act of 2004 (title I of Public Law 108-458; 118 Stat. 3643), 
     is amended by striking ``or agency involved'' in the second 
     sentence and inserting ``involved or the Director of the 
     Central Intelligence Agency (in the case of the Central 
     Intelligence Agency)''.

     SEC. 306. ADDITIONAL DUTIES FOR THE DIRECTOR OF SCIENCE AND 
                   TECHNOLOGY.

       (a) Coordination and Prioritization of Research Conducted 
     by Elements of the Intelligence Community.--Subsection (d) of 
     section 103E of the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 
     403-3e), as added by section 1011(a) of the National Security 
     Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 (title I of Public Law 108-
     458; 118 Stat. 3643), is amended--
       (1) by inserting ``and prioritize'' after ``coordinate'' in 
     paragraph (3)(A); and
       (2) by adding at the end the following new paragraph:
       ``(4) In carrying out paragraph (3)(A), the Committee shall 
     identify basic, advanced, and applied research programs to be 
     carried out by elements of the intelligence community.''.
       (b) Development of Technology Goals.--Section 103E of such 
     Act (50 U.S.C. 403-3e), as so added, is amended--
       (1) in subsection (c)--
       (A) by striking ``and'' at the end of paragraph (4);
       (B) by redesignating paragraph (5) as paragraph (6); and
       (C) by inserting after paragraph (4) the following new 
     paragraph:
       ``(5) assist the Director in establishing goals for the 
     elements of the intelligence community to meet the technology 
     needs of the community; and''; and
       (2) by adding at the end the following new subsection:
       ``(e) Goals for Technology Needs of the Intelligence 
     Community.--In carrying out subsection (c)(5), the Director 
     of Science and Technology shall--
       ``(1) perform systematic identification and assessment of 
     the most significant intelligence challenges that require 
     technical solutions; and
       ``(2) examine options to enhance the responsiveness of 
     research and design programs to meet the requirements of the 
     intelligence community for timely support.''.
       (c) Report.--Not later than June 30, 2006, the Director of 
     National Intelligence shall submit to Congress a report 
     containing a strategy for the development and use of 
     technology in the intelligence community through 2021. Such 
     report may be submitted in classified form and shall 
     include--
       (1) an assessment of the highest priority intelligence gaps 
     across the intelligence community that may be resolved by the 
     use of technology;
       (2) goals for advanced research and development and a 
     strategy to achieve such goals;
       (3) an explanation of how each advanced research and 
     development project funded under the National Intelligence 
     Program addresses an identified intelligence gap;
       (4) a list of all current and projected research and 
     development projects by research type (basic, advanced, or 
     applied) with estimated funding levels, estimated initiation 
     dates, and estimated completion dates; and
       (5) a plan to incorporate technology from research and 
     development projects into National Intelligence Program 
     acquisition programs.

     SEC. 307. COMPREHENSIVE INVENTORY OF SPECIAL ACCESS PROGRAMS.

       Not later than January 15, 2006, the Director of National 
     Intelligence shall submit to the congressional intelligence 
     committees (as defined in section 3(7) of the National 
     Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 401a(7))) a classified report 
     providing a comprehensive inventory of all special access 
     programs under the National Intelligence Program (as defined 
     in section 3(6) of the National Security Act of 1947 (50 
     U.S.C. 401a(6))).

     SEC. 308. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON BUDGET EXECUTION AUTHORITY 
                   PROCEDURES.

       It is the sense of Congress that the Director of National 
     Intelligence should expeditiously establish the necessary 
     budgetary processes and procedures with the heads of the 
     departments containing agencies or organizations within the 
     intelligence community, and the heads of such agencies and 
     organizations, in order to--
       (1) implement the budget execution authorities provided 
     under, and submit the reports to Congress required by, 
     subsection (c) of section 102A of the National Security Act 
     of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 403-1), as amended by section 1011(a) of 
     the National Security Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 (title 
     I of Public Law 108-458; 118 Stat. 3643); and
       (2) carry out the duties and authorities of the Director of 
     National Intelligence with respect to the transfer and 
     reprogramming of funds under the National Intelligence 
     Program under subsection (d) of such section, as so amended.

     SEC. 309. SENSE OF CONGRESS WITH RESPECT TO MULTI-LEVEL 
                   SECURITY CLEARANCES.

       It is the sense of Congress that the Director of National 
     Intelligence should promptly establish and oversee the 
     implementation of a multi-level security clearance system 
     across the intelligence community to leverage the cultural 
     and linguistic skills of subject matter experts and 
     individuals proficient in foreign languages critical to 
     national security.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. After 1 hour of debate on the bill, as 
amended, it shall be in order to consider the further amendment printed 
in the report, if offered by the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. 
Maloney), or her designee, which shall be considered read, and shall be 
debatable for 30 minutes, equally divided and controlled by the 
proponent and an opponent.
  The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) and the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Harman) each will control 30 minutes of debate on the 
bill.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra).
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2475, the Intelligence 
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006. This is a very good bill, a 
bill we can be very

[[Page H4843]]

proud of, and a bill that every Member of the House can and should 
support.
  Before I talk about some of the details in the bill, I would like to 
recognize the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman). We have worked 
hard on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to keep this 
committee focused on the job that needs to be done and to do so on a 
bipartisan basis, and I thank the gentlewoman for working with us in 
that process and being able to maintain that spirit as we bring this 
bill to the floor on a bipartisan basis. I also thank her staff and our 
staff for helping us through this process in bringing this bill here 
today.
  Mr. Speaker, 3 years ago when he was chairman of the Permanent Select 
Committee on Intelligence, Porter Goss, now director of the Central 
Intelligence Agency, asked me to take a strategic look at the technical 
capabilities within the United States intelligence community. He wanted 
me to see how the technical intelligence collection systems all work 
together, evaluate their individual contributions to national security, 
and see if there were redundancies to understand the affordability of 
the many systems and, most importantly, understand the impacts on the 
rest of the intelligence community.
  What Mr. Goss really asked us to do was to go back, and we have 
expanded that in the committee over the past 8 or 9 months, to take a 
look at the strategic framework that we face in the world today and how 
we should respond to the threats. So we spent a considerable amount of 
time looking at the threats that America faces: What is the threat 
environment that is out there today; what do we expect it to be in 3, 5 
and 7 years, so we can shape the proper intelligence community to give 
our policymakers and our military the right information to make good 
decisions and keep our soldiers safe?
  We have then taken that to take a look at the feedback we have gotten 
from the 9/11 Commission, the feedback we have gotten from the WMD 
Commission as to the particular strengths within the intelligence 
community and also some of the particular weaknesses.
  So as we put this bill together, we really focused on making sure 
that we had a good balance between our human capabilities, the 
investment we were making in our human capabilities for the long term, 
and the investment we were making in our technical capabilities. This 
bill does that by investing more in our human capabilities.
  On the technical capabilities, it takes a very, very hard look at the 
different programs that we have in place there. It makes sure that what 
we do is put in place programs that will complement each other, give us 
the information that we need, and hopefully put us on a framework and 
on a pathway to balancing human capabilities with our technical 
capabilities.
  Also in that area, this bill moves forward and holds some of our 
contractors accountable for their performance. This is an area where 
tactically we may disagree on some of the points on how to make that 
happen, but we are very much in sync on a bipartisan basis that we need 
a strategic plan and we need to have our contractors perform. It will 
also lay the framework for a discussion we will have throughout this 
year about how to make sure that in a time where we have limited 
budgets and limited programs underway, that we maintain the industrial 
base here in the United States.
  So there are a lot of things that we do in this bill to make sure 
that we have got the balance and are moving in the right direction on 
our technical capabilities.
  Another key element of this bill is we have heard consistently from 
our field personnel and others within the intelligence community, 
especially those involved in the counterterrorism effort, that we 
cannot fund counterterrorism on an ad hoc basis. So what we did in this 
bill is we have authorized the majority of the dollars that we believe 
will be needed to build our intelligence capability and to fund the war 
on terrorism.
  We think it is important to send to the intelligence community a 
clear signal of how much money they are going to have so they can do 
the appropriate planning and the ramping up of resources in the waging 
of this global war on terrorism.
  As I said at the beginning of my statement, we have done this on a 
bipartisan basis. We have taken a strategic look at what the 
intelligence community, where it needs to be and where it needs to go. 
We are going to continue working in that effort. I think as Members see 
through the debate, we have made a lot of progress and there is more 
work to do.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2475, the strongest 
intelligence authorization bill to emerge from the Permanent Select 
Committee on Intelligence in recent memory. Without the funding 
authorized in this bill, the brave men and women of the intelligence 
community would not be able to do their jobs which are so vital to the 
defense of our country. I and many other members of the committee have 
visited these intelligence professionals in some of the most austere 
places of the world, and they deserve our gratitude and support.
  I appreciate the comments of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Hoekstra) and thank him and all of the members and staff of our 
hardworking committee for their bipartisanship and patriotism. As one 
of our members, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Ruppersberger) often 
says, we put America first.
  Our members have made a difference. In April 2004, all nine Democrats 
on the Intelligence Committee introduced legislation that became the 
basis for the
9/11 Commission's Report and the intelligence reform legislation passed 
by Congress last fall. That reform dramatically reshaped our 
intelligence community, unifying 15 agencies under the leadership of a 
director of National Intelligence.
  This year's intelligence authorization bill authorizes funds for that 
new office. The DNI must succeed in his job and he deserves our 
support. He is responsible for ensuring that intelligence is timely, 
accurate and actionable. To do this, he needs authority to build and 
execute budgets and move personnel. So I am pleased that we removed a 
provision in this bill that would have severely eroded the DNI's 
authority to move personnel around the intelligence community.
  Mr. Speaker, in the fight against terrorists, intelligence is the tip 
of the spear. Some see this fight as a traditional war, requiring 
wartime emergency budgets and wartime authorities for the President. 
That may have been the right approach immediately after 9/11. We fought 
a war in Afghanistan and achieved an impressive victory.
  But the terrorist threat has changed. Today we no longer face a 
centralized top-down terrorist organization operating out of one 
country. We face a network of loosely affiliated terrorist groups which 
operate as franchises around the world, and that is why I believe we 
are living in an era of terror.
  This legislation does some good things to help us achieve victory in 
an era of terror.
  First, it ends our reliance on emergency supplemental budgets for 
counterterrorism. The budget the President sent to Congress this year 
funded less than 40 percent of the intelligence community 
counterterrorism requirements, leaving the rest for emergency 
supplementals. This bill changes that on a bipartisan basis, and we 
fund 100 percent of CT requirements.
  Second, this legislation incorporates a resolution introduced by all 
nine Democrats, urging the new DNI to establish a multi-tiered security 
clearance system to allow patriotic Americans with relatives in foreign 
countries to obtain security clearances and serve our Nation. It is 
high time we do this. This will help with field officers who can speak 
the languages and blend in with terrorist groups, penetrate 
proliferation networks, and recruit spies against the toughest targets.

                              {time}  1445

  Victory in an era of terror will not be achieved by military might 
alone, Mr. Speaker. Victory will require America to win the argument 
for the hearts and minds of the next generation in the Arab and Muslim 
world. I fear that we are presently losing that argument.
  The ongoing revelations about abuses at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere 
undermine our ability to maintain the moral high ground and be seen as 
a beacon of democracy and human

[[Page H4844]]

rights. I am encouraged that our committee's new oversight subcommittee 
is investigating abuses that have occurred in our interrogation and 
detention programs within the intelligence community. This is a serious 
bipartisan investigation. But I also support a broader public 
bipartisan inquiry into detention policies across the government so 
that our efforts to fight the terrorists do not become a moral black 
eye for America that undermines our security.
  One area where this legislation can be improved, Mr. Speaker, is in 
its approach to technical systems. The details of these systems are 
classified and cannot be discussed openly. But I am concerned that we 
have made sudden, drastic cuts to certain programs that may lead to a 
gap in our intelligence capabilities and erode the industrial base 
needed to develop critical capabilities in the future. I am pleased 
that the chairman is committed to addressing this problem with me as 
the bill moves to conference.
  Overall, Mr. Speaker, this is strong legislation that puts us on the 
right track to achieve victory in an era of terror. There is more, much 
more, we must do and we will. The brave men and women of the 
intelligence community deserve nothing less.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Arizona (Mr. Renzi), a member of the committee.
  Mr. RENZI. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2475. As a member 
of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from Arizona, 
securing our borders has become one of our top priorities. Intelligence 
and border security go hand in hand as America strengthens and secures 
its borders, particularly in the Southwest. This bill funds activities 
necessary to keep America safe and, under the gentleman from Michigan's 
leadership, for the first time this bill helps to provide our Nation 
with actionable intelligence when it comes to border security.
  This legislation addresses the critical need for enhanced 
counternarcotics and counterterrorism collection and analysis 
throughout Mexico and Central and South America. It provides full 
funding to the director of National Intelligence to develop and 
implement a comprehensive intelligence collection strategy to help stem 
the illegal flow of drugs, contraband and special interest aliens. In 
addition, this bill authorizes the necessary funds to provide the 
intelligence community the resources required to fulfill the 
intelligence operations in Iraq and other pressing intelligence 
missions around the globe. The bill increases the funding over last 
year that provides additional personnel billets for linguists, analysts 
and human collection, invests in new facilities and training 
opportunities, and develops innovative technical tools.
  In line with the President's priorities, this legislation 
significantly enhances our global human intelligence collection 
capabilities. Human intelligence requires boots on the ground across 
the globe and those boots need linguistic skills, in-depth cultural and 
tradecraft training, technical tools and a dedicated support staff to 
be successful. H.R. 2475 provides both the people and the 
infrastructure to expand and improve U.S. human intelligence collection 
in regions around the world.
  Experts estimate that almost 100 foreign entities, including both 
state and nonstate actors, actively engage in espionage against the 
United States. H.R. 2475 significantly reduces these threats and 
improves our counterintelligence activities. Intelligence is our first 
line of defense. Actionable intelligence saves lives and determines 
battlefield victory. I ask my colleagues to support this bipartisan 
bill and help reduce the threat and make America more secure.
  Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Boswell) who is ranking member of the 
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Human Intelligence, Analysis and 
Counterintelligence, a mouthful that we call HACI.
  (Mr. BOSWELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. BOSWELL. Mr. Speaker, I do rise in support of H.R. 2475. It may 
not be a perfect bill, but there are many, many good things in it. I am 
very pleased that the bill before us today no longer includes a 
provision that would have undermined the authorities of Ambassador 
Negroponte, the newly appointed director of National Intelligence. My 
colleagues and I put a lot of effort into passing an intelligence 
reform bill last year as was just discussed. We worked hard on giving 
the director of National Intelligence all the authorities he needed to 
make the intelligence community function as a community, including the 
authority to transfer people to new intelligence centers if and as 
needed. To tie Ambassador Negroponte's hands before his organization 
has been stood up, it did not seem like a smart thing to do. I would 
not have supported this bill had the provision limiting the DNI's 
personnel transfer authorities not been taken out of the bill.
  I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) and the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) for their efforts to remove 
this provision and I thank 9/11 Commission chairmen, Governor Tom Kean 
and Congressman Lee Hamilton, for clearly stating their opposition to 
it. I look forward to us addressing the other recommendations by the 
Commission. It is also my belief that the DNI has to control the money 
to be able to fulfill his charge of responsibility.
  I am pleased that this year's authorization bill also fixes the 
number one issue my colleagues and I raised last year, full funding for 
counterterrorism operations. H.R. 2475 authorizes full funding for the 
intelligence community's counterterrorism operations this year. That 
should remove impediments to the intelligence community's ability to 
plan their operations. Maybe this will be the year we are able to hunt 
down Osama bin Laden. I certainly hope so, and I know we all feel that 
way. The world will be better off once he is taken care of.
  Again, I thank the gentleman from Michigan and the gentlewoman from 
California for leading the Intelligence Committee in a bipartisan 
fashion. National security must be a bipartisan issue and that is the 
direction the committee is returning to.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson), the chairwoman of the Subcommittee on 
Technical and Tactical Intelligence.
  Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
bringing forward this bill and I want to thank the ranking member as 
well for making this a bipartisan bill and working together. I think a 
lot of credit also goes to our very capable staff who have worked very 
hard and very professionally to pull together a very good piece of 
work.
  The technical and tactical subcommittee has been very active over the 
last 5 months looking at our intelligence systems as they relate to the 
military and also the high-cost technical collection programs that our 
Nation relies on. The members of that committee have given their 
personal time and traveled in many instances across the country, and I 
wanted to thank the members of the subcommittee and particularly the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo) for working very hard in this 
area. We have tried to understand what works, what is not working, do a 
detailed review of some of these very expensive programs, looking at 
what complements each other, where the gaps are, where the overlaps 
are, so that we can improve our intelligence capability and make sure 
that we are using every dollar wisely.
  This bill makes several very important changes in direction in our 
intelligence community. We have found that research and development is 
underfunded pretty much across the entire intelligence community and it 
is poorly coordinated, both in pathfinding research and in incremental 
research in our current capabilities.
  There are several large programs that are significantly off track 
which causes a draining of funds away from other intelligence 
priorities. We will not give contractors blank checks to cover cost, 
schedule, and performance problems that they have failed to manage. We 
have to control this budget because cost overruns compromise other 
intelligence programs and put us as Members of Congress in the 
difficult position of managing different risks.
  This bill strengthens human intelligence. It strengthens our 
analytical

[[Page H4845]]

capability. It strengthens translation and language capability. And we 
insist that systems have to include plans to task sensors, exploit the 
bits and bytes that come out of sensors, and disseminate information to 
people who need it. If you do not have that, what you really have is a 
science experiment, not an intelligence capability. In short, we have 
come forward with an integrated strategic approach to the purchase of 
high-cost technologies.
  We have much work yet to do to win the war on terrorism. When we win 
it, it will be because of two things: the bravery of our soldiers and 
the superiority of American intelligence. I thank the gentleman for 
bringing this bill forward. I look forward to voting for it.
  Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, the new news on our committee is that we 
have stood up an oversight subcommittee. Much discussion has been made 
about this already today.
  It is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama 
(Mr. Cramer) who is ranking member of the intelligence oversight 
subcommittee.
  Mr. CRAMER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member, I thank the 
chairman, I thank the staff of both sides of the aisle. I stand in 
enthusiastic and strong support of H.R. 2475. This bill addresses 
several issues of great concern to the members of the committee and, in 
fact, to all Americans. These issues were first raised or detailed by 
several blue ribbon commissions that reviewed the performance of the 
intelligence community after 9/11 and by the Congress in the 
intelligence reform bill that was passed last year.
  This bill invests in an analytical initiative that draws on expertise 
resident at three centers: the Missile and Space Intelligence Center in 
Huntsville, Alabama; the National Air and Space Intelligence Center in 
Dayton, Ohio; and at the National Ground Intelligence Center in 
Charlottesville, Virginia. These centers will collaboratively assess 
the vulnerabilities of aircraft to foreign missiles and other airborne 
threats and will develop countermeasures to protect commercial aircraft 
at home and protect military aircraft for our troops in Iraq and 
Afghanistan. The bill provides for much needed upgrades to information 
networks in these centers, allowing them to eliminate possible 
information gaps and to integrate stovepiped information. As 
recommended by the WMD Commission, this will ensure that analysts and 
operators have the information they need when they need it.
  Last year's intelligence legislation significantly reformed the 
intelligence community. Real reform, however, requires accountability 
and oversight. I want to thank the chairman and the ranking member. 
This year, we have set up, and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Thornberry) is here and I assume is going to speak in a few minutes as 
well, this oversight subcommittee. This oversight subcommittee has been 
working just as it should work. I am encouraged by our efforts to date 
to provide meaningful congressional oversight of the entire 
intelligence community. We have initiated in-depth reviews of 
intelligence community interrogation and detention operations, and we 
are actively pursuing answers to tough questions. We are also 
monitoring the standup of the new DNI, ensuring that the intelligence 
community implements the changes specified in the legislation.
  Again, I thank the chairman, I thank the ranking member. We are off 
to a fine start and this is an excellent bill. The Members should 
support it.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Thornberry), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight 
who has been working very effectively with the gentleman from Alabama 
(Mr. Cramer) to do the work that an oversight subcommittee is expected 
to do.
  Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me 
this time, and I rise in support of this bill. I also rise in 
appreciation for the work that the chairman and the ranking member have 
done in this bill and in fulfilling Congress' role vis-a-vis the 
intelligence agencies in general. Further, I appreciate my partner on 
the oversight subcommittee, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Cramer), 
and all that he means to this joint effort.
  Mr. Speaker, the members of this committee are serious, hardworking, 
knowledgeable, committed members. So much of what we do on the 
Intelligence Committee is done behind closed doors. That can be an 
advantage and a disadvantage. It is an advantage, in a sense, not to do 
work in front of the television cameras and without press releases and 
without all the partisanship that sometimes attends some of what we do 
in Congress. It can be a disadvantage because we cannot talk with our 
constituents or even many of our colleagues about what we do. The only 
reason to be on this committee is to contribute to the national 
security of the country, and I believe that all members on both sides 
of the aisle in fact do that.
  At the beginning of this Congress, the chairman and the ranking 
member decided to create an oversight subcommittee. It became clear 
from the report of the 9/11 Commission, from the Rob Silverman 
Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction, in fact, a host of other 
studies and reports, some even before the attacks of September 11, 
2001, that Congress has to do its job.

                              {time}  1500

  It is not enough just to say that the executive branch needs to 
change the way it does its work in the post-Cold War world. We have to 
do our job as well, and we should expect more of ourselves.
  One of the things we have done differently is to create this 
oversight subcommittee to, as I mentioned a few moments ago, have 
greater depth but also greater persistence in our oversight of key 
intelligence issues. The rules of the full Permanent Select Committee 
on Intelligence give us our mandate this year, which include oversight 
of the intelligence reform bill that Congress passed last fall. It 
gives specific emphasis on items for oversight that include community-
wide information-sharing, leaks of classified information, analysis and 
information-assuring technologies, as well as audits and investigation 
and tracking congressionally directed actions.
  That is our mandate and it is a full plate, but members on both sides 
of the aisle are going about that agenda working in not just a 
bipartisan but really nonpartisan way.
  And, in addition, I think Members on both sides agree with the Robb-
Silberman panel when they suggest that we should have these oversight 
subcommittees, but we should not just hop around following newspaper 
articles and doing our efforts, that we ought to have strategic 
oversight. In fact, they say on page 338 of their commission report: 
``We suggest that . . . the oversight committees limit their activities 
to 'strategic oversight,' meaning they would set an agenda at the start 
of the year or session of Congress, based on top priorities, such as 
information sharing, and stick to that agenda.''
  That is exactly what the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Cramer) and I 
are attempting to do: to be tough but fair, to not be apologists for 
the administration but not to be bashers of the administration, to try 
to pursue the national security interests of the country as it relates 
to intelligence oversight. That is the way serious oversight is done, 
and I look forward to continuing to work from that perspective.
  Ms. HARMAN. Madam Speaker, my home State of California produces many 
of the platforms and systems that give us the technical edge in 
intelligence, and I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Eshoo), my California friend, ranking member of the 
Technical and Tactical Intelligence Subcommittee of the Permanent 
Select Committee on Intelligence.
  Ms. ESHOO. Madam Speaker, first I would like to thank the gentlewoman 
from California (Ms. Harman), our distinguished ranking member, for her 
exceptional leadership on the committee; certainly to the gentleman 
from Michigan (Chairman Hoekstra) for the tone that he has brought to 
the committee. I think it is much improved, and I think it is a result 
of the bipartisanship that we have enjoyed since the chairman has 
arrived that we see it in this piece of legislation which I am proud to 
support.
  I am especially pleased to see the multilevel security clearance 
legislation introduced in March by committee Democrats, my colleagues 
that I am so

[[Page H4846]]

proud of, that is in this bill. This provision will help the 
intelligence community leverage the cultural and linguistic skills of a 
broader candidate pool, which is so important to our intelligence 
community.
  During the markup of this bill, I offered an amendment requiring 
inspectors general at the Defense and State Departments, the CIA, and 
the DNI inspector general to establish telephone hotlines for 
intelligence professionals to report complaints if they believe 
policymakers are attempting to unduly or improperly influence them. I 
think that it is an important effort because there is a question mark 
in the mind of the American people on this very subject.
  As a result, the chairman agreed to include language in this bill 
about the need to ensure ombudsmen in these agencies to fulfill their 
role to protect analysts and other professionals within the 
intelligence community. The committee made a commitment to perform 
effective oversight in this matter; so I withdraw my amendment, and I 
thank the chairman for that effort.
  As the ranking member of the Technical and Tactical Intelligence 
Subcommittee, I am concerned that this bill reduces or eliminates 
funding for several key programs in the administration's request 
without full justification. Missing is an in-depth consideration of the 
effect that funding reductions will have on the overall intelligence 
architecture, the viability of our industrial base, which is essential. 
Once that disassembles, we cannot put Humpty Dumpty back together 
again, as well as overarching national security requirements. I hope 
the DNI and the Secretary of Defense will conduct a comprehensive 
review and explain the strategic linkages between collection 
requirements, capabilities, and developing programs. This review would 
better support future funding deliberations and decisions by the 
committee. It is very important that that be done.
  In closing, I want to express one of my deep concerns, and I know 
that it is the concern that many of my colleagues share, and that is 
the continuing reports of torture and other abuses of detainees. From 
Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo Bay, the mounting revelations have become more 
than an embarrassment to our country. They are a liability to our 
deployed servicemembers. If, in fact, the Congress and its committees 
of jurisdiction fail to fully investigate, I support a special 
commission to do so. We have to have a full accounting for the American 
people and have the determination to seek that.
  So, in closing, I want to thank my colleagues, the chairman, 
certainly our ranking member, all of my colleagues on the committee, 
and most especially a superb and dedicated staff. I salute them. I 
respect them for the work that they have done certainly on both sides 
of the aisle.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
New York (Mr. McHugh), a new member of the committee, a very valuable 
member, and also a member of the House Committee on Armed Services.
  Mr. McHUGH. Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me this 
time.
  Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of this legislation, H.R. 
2475. As the distinguished chairman so graciously recognized, I am one 
of the newer members of this committee; and I must say in that respect, 
I am enormously impressed by the bipartisan attitude that all the 
members bring to this very important issue, that of national security 
and its interface with our intelligence communities. That is a tribute 
to all of the members, Democrat and Republican alike, but I think it is 
a particular tribute to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan 
(Chairman Hoekstra) and also the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Harman), ranking member, who have worked so well together and provided 
that leadership of bipartisanship.
  The chairman noted, Madam Speaker, that I am a member of the House 
Committee on Armed Services, and in that capacity I have the honor of 
serving as chairman of the Military Personnel Subcommittee; and as 
such, I have been particularly interested in programs that aid the 
warfighter, those brave men and women who are putting their lives on 
the line each and every day for our freedoms and for our interests. And 
I am pleased to report that this legislation contains very important 
increases in funding for military intelligence programs.
  In particular, H.R. 2475 includes significant increases in funding 
for operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, for the global war on terrorism, 
and thereby decreases the reliance on supplemental budgeting. Budgeting 
by supplemental, at least in my opinion, Madam Speaker, is inefficient; 
and it hinders the effective planning of our intelligence operations. 
And this bill very importantly takes a major step away from reliance on 
those supplementals and seeks to provide full funding to fight 
terrorism and for intelligence operations in Iraq.
  There is also increased funding for critical initiatives such as 
foreign language training for our troops in the field and for greater 
numbers of defense intelligence analysts. This intelligence 
authorization bill builds upon actions already taken by the House 
Committee on Armed Services dictating a career path for military 
linguists, and we should be very proud of this initiative in these 
regards.
  The net result, Madam Speaker, is that our intelligence personnel and 
our military will be better trained and equipped to perform their 
invaluable missions. These are important steps, and they have been 
taken with the necessary consultation with the Committee on Armed 
Services. And I am happy to report that the Permanent Select Committee 
on Intelligence has worked very closely with the gentleman from 
California (Chairman Hunter), with the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. 
Skelton), distinguished ranking member, with respect to our 
authorizations. And I would certainly argue that they complement one 
another very closely. To the extent that there are differences, and I 
think differences are and will continue to be inevitable, I know all of 
us on both sides of the aisle and in both committees will work to 
constructively breach those differences and bring about agreements on 
remaining issues as the authorization process continues.
  So I urge unanimous support of this very fine piece of legislation.
  Ms. HARMAN. Madam Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), ranking member on the Intelligence Policy 
Subcommittee.
  Mr. HOLT. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California for 
yielding me this time, and I also thank the chairman and the staff for 
putting together in a congenial atmosphere a good bill.
  There are some good features to the bill, and I am pleased that it 
gives the new Director of National Intelligence the authority and 
resources necessary for him to succeed, and I am also satisfied that 
the bill gives the intelligence community 100 percent of the funds that 
it needs for counterterrorism programs. I am encouraged by the bill's 
emphasis on human intelligence and the recommendation to create a 
multilevel security clearance system that will allow the intelligence 
community to harness the power of America's diversity.
  More must be done, however, to encourage the use of open source, or 
public, information. Last year we gave the intelligence community an 
urging to increase its collection, analysis, and use of open-source 
information. And I look forward to working with the DNI to move these 
efforts forward.
  I am also pleased that the bill advances our foreign language 
training efforts within the intelligence community, and I will continue 
to work with my colleagues to strengthen our language capabilities 
throughout the Federal Government.
  I do want to express serious concern about a couple of matters. 
First, the administration's recommendations to close or realign 
military bases has the potential to disrupt vital intelligence 
expertise. Bases like Fort Monmouth, in my home State of New Jersey, 
play critical intelligence roles that have not been taken fully into 
account in the process. I would like to thank the chairman and ranking 
member for urging the Director of National Intelligence to evaluate the 
effect of base realignment on our Nation's intelligence capabilities, 
and I will include their letter at this point in the Record.


[[Page H4847]]


         House of Representatives, Permanent Select Committee on 
           Intelligence,
                                     Washington, DC, May 26, 2005.
     Ambassador John Negroponte,
     Director of National Intelligence, New Executive Office 
         Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Ambassador Negroponte: During the markup of the Fiscal 
     Year 2006 Intelligence Authorization bill, Members of the 
     Committee raised questions about the potential impacts that 
     the Defense Department's Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) 
     Commission recommendations could have on the nation's 
     intelligence capabilities. The Members believe strongly that 
     such impacts should be factored into the final decision 
     process.
       Many intelligence programs, for example, are dependent on 
     subject matter experts made up of military personnel, 
     government civilians, and contractors. These people form the 
     analytic depth and breadth of the Intelligence Community, as 
     well as much of the core of its engineering, scientific and 
     technical expertise. Based on past BRAC experiences, we can 
     logically assume that many of the intelligence personnel that 
     would be affected by the latest recommendations could refuse 
     to uproot their families and relocate. The Intelligence 
     Community depends on this intellectual capital, and we should 
     well understand how the resulting loss of these people would 
     affect intelligence activities and, thereby, the nation's 
     security.
       The BRAC recommendations could affect the nation's 
     intelligence capabilities in many other ways. Accordingly, we 
     want to ensure that these intelligence-related impacts be 
     considered in the deliberations that result in the final BRAC 
     decisions. We believe that your position as the Director of 
     National Intelligence puts you in a unique position to best 
     understand and, accordingly, respond to these potential 
     impacts.
       Therefore, we ask you to evaluate the affects of base 
     realignment and closure on the nation's intelligence 
     capabilities. We further ask that you provide the Committee 
     with the results of your review no later than the date that 
     the President provides his final approval and certification 
     of the BRAC report to the Congress.
           Sincerely,
     Peter Hoekstra,
       Chairman.
     Jane Harman,
       Ranking Member.

  Madam Speaker, I also express my deep disappointment with the 
decision of the Committee on Rules to disallow a moderate and 
reasonable amendment by the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) that 
would have mandated the creation of a 9/11-style commission to 
investigate how the executive branch has handled detainees. We need 
that investigation, and we can do some of it within the committee; but 
we do need a public 9/11-style commission.
  Madam Speaker, I support this bill, and I urge my colleagues to 
support it as well.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. HARMAN. Madam Speaker, I served for 6 years on the Committee on 
Armed Services and came to admire greatly our next speaker.
  Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. 
Skelton), ranking member.
  Mr. SKELTON. Madam Speaker, I certainly thank the gentlewoman for 
yielding me this time. She is doing such a superb job on the Permanent 
Select Committee on Intelligence. We thank her for her efforts, along 
with the chairman as well.
  Let me say I rise in support of this intelligence authorization bill. 
In doing so, I want to make a few observations about the state of our 
national intelligence capabilities, as well as some comments about the 
bill.
  Within the span of 2 years, the United States had two very obvious 
and public examples of intelligence failures: the September 11, 2001, 
terrorist attacks; and the completely incorrect conclusions reached 
about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. These and other 
failures have been recognized by both the 9/11 Commission and the Robb-
Silberman Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction.
  Last year's intelligence reform bill was an important first step in 
rectifying deficiencies in our intelligence capabilities. I believe 
intelligence is the tip of the spear. It is the tip of the spear in 
helping our warfighters. The new Director of National Intelligence 
represents an important benchmark in the creation of a Goldwater-
Nichols-like structure for our intelligence community.
  The Goldwater-Nichols law, as we all know, altered command 
relationships among our military services in such a way that has 
fostered joint operations and enabled our military to become the very 
best in the world.

                              {time}  1515

  I am optimistic that the new director of Intelligence will be able to 
unify the group of disparate intelligence organizations that comprise 
the intelligence community to produce better capability, communication, 
and inoperability than has been the case in the past. I am also pleased 
that the gentleman from California (Chairman Hunter) and the gentleman 
from Michigan (Chairman Hoekstra) have been able to resolve their 
differences over the transfer of personnel who perform intelligence 
functions.
  While the establishment of the director of National Intelligence is 
an important step, I believe much more remains to be done if we are to 
really improve our intelligence capability. First, I think Congress 
needs to do a better job of overseeing our intelligence operations than 
it has in the past. My own view is that some of our intelligence 
failures could have been avoided with vigorous congressional oversight.
  Second, we need to aggressively follow up on the 9/11 Commission's 
recommendations.
  We need to expand our efforts to secure international stores of 
nuclear materials, particularly in the nations ofthe former Soviet 
Union. Governor Kean, co-chair of the 9/11 Commission, recently said 
there is no greater danger to our country than a terrorist group 
acquiring these materials. I want to echo his concern that we must be 
sensitive to the fact that intelligence activities can sometimes 
intrude upon the lives of Americans. In a free society, we must have 
checks and balances. I think we need to appoint a Federal civil 
liberties board to prevent and redress constitutional abuses by 
intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Although last year's law 
created a civil liberties board, the administration has yet to name any 
members to the board, something that is long overdue.
  Madam Speaker, this is a good bill I believe members should support. 
I commend the gentleman from Michigan, Chairman Hoekstra, and the 
gentlewoman from California, Ranking Member Harman, for a job well 
done.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Hunter), the chairman of the House Committee on Armed 
Services, and our partner in making sure that we have a solid and 
strong intelligence community as well as the best fighting forces, the 
best military in the world.
  Mr. HUNTER. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the chairman for his kind 
words. It is appropriate that I follow the ranking member of the 
Committee on Armed Services, the distinguished gentleman from Missouri 
and his remarks, because he talked about Goldwater-Nichols, and 
Goldwater-Nichols did drive jointness in the military.
  Another thing that Goldwater-Nichols did, and it was primarily as a 
result of the debacle in Lebanon with the marines, is to drive what was 
known as the chain of command rule, meaning that when you had a 
combatant commander, formerly known as a CINC, that combatant commander 
was in charge of everything in that warfighting theater, whether it was 
a rivet joint aircraft or a soldier or a marine, special operator, or a 
tactical intelligence gatherer in that area. That was a major issue 
that we had to work on, and we had to build a seam and a protection for 
the chain of command and, at the same time, afford to the national 
intelligence gatherers the resources and the opportunity to carry out 
their mission.
  I think that the bill, the 9/11 bill did a pretty good job of that, 
and I want to commend the gentleman from Michigan (Chairman Hoekstra) 
and the gentlewoman from California (Ranking Member Harman) for their 
participation in working that. My good colleague, the gentleman from 
Missouri (Mr. Skelton) and I really look forward to Mr. Negroponte 
getting off to the right start. He is a guy with a lot of good 
judgment, great experience in very difficult and inconvenient and 
dangerous missions, in my estimation, and I think that is probably a 
requisite for this job.
  I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) also, 
because there were a couple of provisions in this bill that we thought 
had a chain of command problem, and he looked at those and worked on 
them and took them out in the rule, and I want to let

[[Page H4848]]

him know I appreciate that. That was important to us. We are working 
together, and we both want to see this new apparatus, this intelligence 
apparatus that has to work so well with the defense apparatus moving 
off to a good new start in this war against terror.
  So my thanks to the chairman and thanks to the ranking member. We 
have a lot of work to do, but we have a good bill here, and I hope 
every Member supports it.
  Ms. HARMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to say to the 
last speaker that I applaud his comments about the need for this new 
legislation to succeed. It is critical, in my view, to move from a 1947 
business model, which is the one we were operating under, to this one.
  I also would point out to our colleagues, as the last speaker knows, 
that battlefield intelligence is not included in the DNI construct that 
we built.
  Madam Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Ruppersberger), a recent addition to our 
committee, who is a very active member of our new Subcommittee on 
Oversight.
  Mr. RUPPERSBERGER. Madam Speaker, as my colleagues have pointed out, 
a lot of good, hard, work has been put into this bill, which places our 
committee and the intelligence community on the path of success for 
achieving the goals set forth in the recommendations of the 9/11 
Commission and the WMD Commissions. The turf battles are ending and we 
now have a director of National Intelligence to oversee and coordinate 
efforts, but we all must work together in order to make sure that the 
DNI can succeed.
  I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Chairman Hoekstra) and the 
gentlewoman from California (Ranking Member Harman) for leading by 
example and promoting bipartisan efforts in our oversight role. I also 
want to thank our staff for their hard work.
  Our newly established Subcommittee on Oversight has already taken the 
reins of leadership and is investigating the abuses that have occurred 
in our interrogation and detention programs. These abuses only serve to 
embolden terrorist actions against us and it increases risk to our 
military forces and American citizens abroad. These abuses also hurt 
our reputation abroad and allow the insurgents to recruit people to 
attack us.
  I also look forward to continuing work with my colleagues on 
solutions to the security clearance challenges faced by the 
intelligence community and State and local governments who need to 
access information to protect our homeland. This bill's endorsement of 
a multilevel security clearance system will enhance flexibility in 
hiring practices and access to information. Current clearance wait 
times sometimes exceed a year. Terrorists will not wait a year, and 
neither can we.
  Let me close by praising the excellent work of the Armed Forces 
Medical Intelligence Center and the National Security Agency, NSA, 
based in my district. Our committee recognizes their challenges, and we 
fully support their efforts in the global war on terrorism and in Iraq 
and Afghanistan. I urge my Democratic colleagues to join me in 
supporting this bill.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.
  Madam Speaker, as we take a look at the technical programs and we 
take a look at the structure of the intelligence community, at the end 
of the day it is about the people in the intelligence community. As we 
have conducted our oversight responsibilities in developing this bill, 
we have had the opportunity to meet and work with many of the 
intelligence professionals throughout the community and around the 
world. I believe I can speak for the rest of my colleagues when I say 
that we hold in the highest regard the work accomplished by these 
dedicated U.S. intelligence community personnel.
  At great sacrifice, often under extreme and intense conditions, and 
at great personal risk, the men and women of the intelligence community 
continue to perform their missions with great energy, professionalism, 
and devotion to the national security mission. I commend these patriots 
for their heroism, their integrity, and their perseverance. These 
honorable people form the first line of defense for our Nation. Our 
freedoms and the very security of our country rely on their successes. 
Those successes are things we cannot and do not often have the 
opportunity to talk about.
  Unfortunately, and quite wrongly, it is the rare but overlooked 
publicized failures that they are credited with. I stand here today and 
say thank you to these tremendous people. They deserve our support, and 
that is what we are doing with this legislation today.
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. HARMAN. Madam Speaker, I associate myself totally with the 
comments that our chairman just made.
  Madam Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 2\1/4\ minutes to the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney), our rookie on our side.
  Mr. TIERNEY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me 
this time.
  I rise to discuss H.R. 2475. It is a bill that, as people have said, 
takes a number of steps to strengthen our intelligence capabilities 
and, for those reasons, is supportable. Nevertheless, like most bills, 
it has parts that need to be moved on and worked on still.
  As was mentioned, I am new to this committee, so first I want to 
recognize the efforts of all of my colleagues on the committee and the 
staff who did incredible work on this. I also want to acknowledge the 
fact that my minority colleagues have been outspoken during the past 
couple of years on a number of issues, and I want to thank them and my 
majority colleagues for incorporating those issues in this bill and, of 
course, the majority adding their own approval.
  On the plus side, as has been mentioned, 100 percent funding for 
counterterrorism in the base budget is a huge step forward. We need to 
make sure we build on that. The White House proposal to fund 60 percent 
of that in a supplemental budget would have undermined our plans and 
operations, so 100 percent is a big step in the right direction. The 
bipartisan willingness to keenly scrutinize architectural programs for 
the quality, for the program management, for the budget responsibility, 
for cost is also important. It is helpful to allow for investments in 
human intelligence, and it can bring more public confidence to the work 
we do in this area.
  I think it would be well-placed to put that kind of scrutiny on the 
whole budget at large, and I think we should consider making more of 
the Select Committee on Intelligence budget process public, to the 
extent possible, including at least the aggregate amount of money being 
spent so that the public will be able to focus on that and have more 
confidence.
  The best intelligence oversight begins with looking at the 9/11 
Commission's recommendations for reform of Congress's intelligence 
committees. We still need to do a considerable amount of work there 
concerning how those committees will be formulated and what budgetary 
appropriation aspect will be within what body. We need renewed 
oversight, and the Subcommittee on Oversight that has been formed and 
mentioned earlier is an improvement. Its time would be well spent if we 
ensure that the DNI and the DNI office is set up largely in line with 
Commission recommendations. We do not need another sprawling 
bureaucracy. It will be well-served to have a streamlined executive 
staff that utilizes existing agencies and moves forward on that basis. 
And it has to have the authority to ensure that the network agencies 
are reformed, coordinated, and effective. It also needs the authority 
to make sure that we have the appropriate budgetary and personnel 
powers within the DNI to work.
  The DNI should follow the recommendation of the blue ribbon 
commission to establish a Civil Liberties Board and ensure that it 
effectively protects the civil liberties, even as we make sure 
aggressive intelligence measures are pursued. This too is essential to 
maintain public trust. It is as important as it is to require that we 
use taxpayer money wisely, and it is every bit as essential that our 
intelligence operate within the law.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.
  Madam Speaker, I would like to get to some of the specifics of the 
legislation. I want to make an observation about the overall position 
we have

[[Page H4849]]

taken. It is my belief, and we have seen it today, that we may be 
harshly criticized by some for being too bold or aggressive with some 
of our actions. Indeed, we have already been told that we were not 
incremental enough. I want to take head-on those who take such 
positions.
  There is no question that what is being proposed today is bold and 
sweeping in some areas. Without getting into the classified specifics, 
based on our strategic review, we are cutting back dramatically in some 
cases, on some technical programs that have had poor performance or 
could be modified for better utility for the Nation's intelligence 
efforts.
  We are terminating some programs that we do not believe fit in the 
overall architecture for the intelligence community. We have analyzed 
these programs extensively, asked the tough questions, and focused on 
the resulting intelligence output. To paraphrase from a Hollywood movie 
line, these programs have been weighed, they have been measured, and 
they have been found wanting.
  We are then taking the resulting savings and applying that to 
historically underfunded areas in the human intelligence and human 
capital areas. Specifically, we are focusing needed emphasis on adding 
human intelligence specialists, improving the training of analysts, 
improving the training of case officers, and making more robust the 
infrastructure necessary to gain their expertise, and then better 
employ that expertise.
  We have quite simply in the past paid too much lip service to those 
basic needs, while continuing to fund expensive technical programs 
that, although important, do not make up for the lack of analysts, lack 
of worldwide coverage, lack of training, and lack of basic 
infrastructure. In sum, we are doing the heavy lifting that should have 
been done long ago. We are acting boldly and positively on the task our 
former chairman gave us.
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. HARMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to comment on the 
remarks the chairman just made.
  Madam Speaker, it is not a zero-sum game, it is not a trade-off 
between what we call HUMINT, that is, human intelligence, which is 
primarily the use of spies to tell us the plans and intention of the 
bad guys, and technology. It is a positive-sum game, or we hope it is a 
positive-sum game, that balances correctly our investments in HUMINT 
and our investments in technology.
  I said earlier that my home State of California makes many of the 
technical platforms that we use effectively to gather intelligence. I 
agree with our chairman that we should take a clear-eyed look at what 
works and what does not work and what capabilities we need to defeat 
present and future threats. But some of us, I would say a majority on 
the minority side, believe that the weighing, measuring, and finding 
wanting that has gone on in this bill needs further review, that the 
balance can be better struck.
  I look forward to working with the chairman on a better balance as 
this bill comes to conference, keeping in mind that we want a positive-
sum outcome.
  Madam Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 1 minute to the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley), a very serious Member of this 
body, not on our committee.
  Mr. CROWLEY. Madam Speaker, I thank my gentle friend and colleague 
from California for yielding me this time.
  I rise in strong support of the national intelligence bill. I want to 
thank the committee for its great work. I especially want to focus my 
praise on the gentlewoman from California (Ranking Member Harman) for 
her great work in leading on this issue. It was Democrats, led by the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) and the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Hastings), that pushed the 9/11 Commission to be started last 
year, as the Republicans and the White House blocked their work and 
opposed their mission. I believe the Republicans fear the truth that 
may come from that Commission.
  Later, when the 9/11 Commission issued its recommendations and the 
Speaker said he would not implement any legislative changes without a 
majority of the majority, it was again Democrats and the gentlewoman 
from California (Ms. Harman) who led the fight for a real intelligence 
shakeup and for the creation of a director of National Intelligence.

                              {time}  1530

  Democrats fixed those problems and fought back changes this year to 
bring us back to the bad old days of intelligence turf wars.
  This bill reflects the new world we live in, a dangerous world that 
has gotten more dangerous since September 11; and we need to be 
involved, and more heavily involved, to protect all Americans, no 
matter where they are on this planet and the bill does that.
  Representing one of the most diverse congressional districts in the 
U.S., I interact with a number of immigrants and their families who are 
from every corner of the globe. And the one thing that unifies them all 
is their love of this great country. And they can and will be helpful 
in helping this country infiltrate terror networks that threaten our 
country.
  This bill will help them do that.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague, the 
gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).
  Mr. SHAYS. Madam Speaker, I want to just first compliment the 
chairman and ranking member for their excellent work on this 
legislation, their excellent work in general, and frankly the work that 
they have done in helping to create such a strong structure for 
intelligence.
  The Cold War is over. The world is a more dangerous place. We need to 
be able to not contain and react to an event; we need to be able to 
detect and prevent it. It means that we need very good intelligence, 
both intelligence directed with technology and intelligence that occurs 
from very good human capital.
  I think the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) and our incredible 
ranking member, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman), have done 
an excellent job in drafting this legislation. My compliments to both 
of them. They give credit to the full Congress and the work that they 
have done.
  Ms. HARMAN. Madam Speaker, I thank the last speaker for his generous 
words and ask how much time remains on each side.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Miller of Michigan). The gentlewoman 
from California (Ms. Harman) has 8 minutes remaining. The gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) has 8\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Ms. HARMAN. Madam Speaker, we at the moment have no other speakers on 
the floor. And I reserve the right to close for our side.
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, we have no additional speakers at this 
time either, so I believe I have the right to close. The gentlewoman 
will close on her side, and we will have no additional speakers. I will 
close on our side.
  Ms. HARMAN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of our time.
  Madam Speaker, the last 4 years have witnessed two of the worst 
intelligence failures in our Nation's history. Congress passed 
intelligence reform and created the DNI position to give the brave 
women and men of the intelligence community the tools they need to 
collect and analyze accurate and timely intelligence.
  We cannot have any more catastrophic failures where we fail to 
connect the dots or believe too fervently in the claims of bogus 
sources. This legislation, the authorization bill we are considering 
today, is the first funding bill under our new intelligence 
organization.
  It is a strong bill that deserves our support. As we said earlier, 
for the first time we fully funded counterterrorism in the base budget 
so we can plan CT operations against our enemies. For the first time we 
have urged the DNI to create multitier security clearances so we can 
field a diverse group of intelligence officers who speak the languages 
and understand the cultures of our adversaries.
  I am proud to say these were two ideas offered by the committee 
Democrats that gained bipartisan support in our committee. As I have 
said, there are ways this bill can be improved further. And I look 
forward to working on

[[Page H4850]]

this as we move to conference. But this is a bipartisan product that 
deserves bipartisan support.
  And before I close, I do want to thank again the hard-working members 
on both sides of the committee who put so much effort into it day after 
day, and moreover the hard-working staff on a bipartisan basis.
  And let me just identify those on the minority side who are sitting 
on the floor with me today: David Buckley, staff director; Chuck Gault, 
deputy staff director; Jeremy Bash, general counsel; Mike DeLaney; 
Larry Hanauer; John Keefe; Pam Moore; Wyndee Parker, special counsel; 
and Christine York. They make us look good, and I urge passage of this 
legislation before us.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  (Mr. HOEKSTRA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks, and include extraneous material.)
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Madam Speaker, today before closing general debate, I would like to 
briefly offer congratulations and recognition to Mr. Charles G. Allen, 
as many of us know him, Charlie, as he completes his tour of duty as 
the assistant director of the Central Intelligence Agency for 
collection.
  He has served the intelligence community with great distinction, and 
I will later seek consent in the House to submit a more lengthy tribute 
into the Record.
  But just briefly, he is a native of North Carolina. Mr. Allen has 
served the Central Intelligence Agency and the Nation with distinction 
since 1958, holding a variety of positions of increasing 
responsibility, both in analytical and managerial capacity. He served 
overseas in an intelligence liaison capacity from 1974 to 1977, and 
from 1977 to 1980 he held management positions of increasing 
responsibility and importance in the Directorate of Intelligence.
  I think that all of the Members in the House, and all of the Members 
and the staff on the committee who have gotten to know Mr. Allen over 
the last number of years, number one, we are glad that he is still 
working on special assignment with Mr. Goss; but we really want to 
extend our congratulations to him for almost slightly over 45 years of 
service to this country within the intelligence community, a real 
national asset in the intelligence business.
  Madam Speaker, I include for the Record a statement on Assistant 
Director Allen.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I rise today to offer congratulations 
and recognition to Mr. Charles E. Allen as he completes his tour of 
duty as the Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Collection. 
Since its creation by the Congress 7 years ago, he has served in this 
position with distinction.
  Mr. Allen was appointed as the first Assistant Director of Central 
Intelligence for Collection. As such, he was responsible for 
Intelligence Community collection management, and specifications for 
our next generation of collection systems. During these past 7 years he 
has come to personify the position, personalize the management of this 
nation's scarce intelligence collection assets, confound his early 
critics, and overall achieve positive results beyond even the 
expectations of his supporters, who are legion. His service has been a 
great asset, and Congress has regularly drawn upon his experience and 
judgment.
  A native of North Carolina, Mr. Allen has served the Central 
Intelligence Agency and the Nation with distinction since 1958, holding 
a variety of positions of increasing responsibility both in analytic 
and managerial capacities. He served overseas in an intelligence 
liaison capacity from 1974 to 1977, and from 1977 to 1980 he held 
management positions of increasing responsibility and importance in the 
Directorate of Intelligence.
  Mr. Allen served as program manager of a major classified project, 
from 1980 to 1982 in the Office of the Director of Central 
Intelligence, and was subsequently detailed to the Office of the 
Secretary of Defense where he held a senior position in strategic 
mobilization planning.
  In 1985 the Director of Central Intelligence requested Mr. Allen's 
return from the Secretary of Defense's office to serve as the National 
Intelligence Officer for Counterterrorism, and later as Chief of 
Intelligence in the CIA's newly established Counterterrorist Center. 
Many of Mr. Allen's successes have and shall continue to remain secret, 
but two that have become more publicly known illustrate his 
contributions; he played a key role in apprehending the hijackers who 
killed an American citizen on the cruise ship Achille Lauro, and he 
correctly brought to the DCI's attention certain matters which served 
to stimulate the Iran-Contra investigation.
  Mr. Allen served as the National Intelligence Officer for Warning 
from 1988 to 1994 and chaired the Intelligence Community's Warning 
Committee. From these positions he issued timely warnings of events of 
momentous importance, confounding most intelligence officers who did 
not share his prescience.
  Mr. Allen was awarded the National Intelligence Medal for Achievement 
in 1983 by DCI Casey and the President's Award for Distinguished 
Federal Civilian Service in 1986 by President Reagan. In 1991, he was 
presented the CIA Commendation Medal for provision of warning 
intelligence in Desert Shield/Desert Storm.
  He and his wife, Kay, reside in Herndon, Virginia, where they raised 
four children.
  Madam Speaker, Mr. Allen has already enjoyed a long and luminous 
career in intelligence, and as he steps down from his current position 
I hope all my colleagues will recognize the extraordinary contributions 
Mr. Charles E. Allen has made to our National Security as a lifelong 
professional intelligence officer. I hope my colleagues will honor him 
as a great American and pioneer in the management of intelligence 
collection inter alia.
  Finally, Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in expressing 
our confidence in his continued ability and willingness to serve the 
Nation as she shall call upon him.
  Ms. HARMAN. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. I yield to the gentlewoman from California.
  Ms. HARMAN. I thank the chairman for yielding to me. Charlie Allen is 
as close as you can come to a legend in the intelligence community. 
Before the intelligence reform bill passed last year, he was one of the 
few senior intelligence officers who could get 15 disparate agencies to 
function as a community. He did that mainly through sheer force of 
personality.
  Our Nation collects intelligence through a variety of means, from 
spies on the ground to satellites overhead, and everything in between. 
In his capacity as the assistant director for collection, Charlie got 
the collectors to understand that they were most effective when they 
worked together as a team against the hardest targets.
  He got them to understand that integrated collection strategies 
yielded the best outcomes. Under Charlie's leadership, the collectors 
in the intelligence community have scored some truly impressive 
victories, and it is unfortunate that these cannot be recounted in 
public.
  I will just tell you that Charlie's service to the Nation was made 
clear to me the day he told the committee that he had been with the CIA 
for nearly 50 years. That is an astounding record, and it is certainly 
appropriate as we close debate on what I think is one of the best 
authorization bills ever, that we recognize Charlie's service to our 
Nation.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, in closing, again I would like to thank 
my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, the staff on both sides 
of the aisle who have worked to put together a very, very good bill, my 
colleagues on my side of the aisle.
  We have put together, I think, a very, very strong bill. I think it 
deserves broad bipartisan support. It sets us in the right direction. 
As my colleague has indicated, there is more work to do. We do need to 
take a look at the technical programs. These are critical to the long-
term success of our intelligence community, to make sure that public 
policymakers have the information that we need to make the right 
decisions.
  I appreciate the gentlewoman from California's (Ms. Harman) support 
as we have gone through this process and recognizing that there are 
issues and concerns about the performance of some of these programs and 
so that we have the agreement on that.
  Where we are disagreeing and having some discussions right now is 
what is the most effective way to respond to those problems and issues. 
We want accountability. We want performance. We want to spend the 
taxpayer dollars wisely. And I am sure that as we continue to go 
through this process, work with our colleagues on the other side of 
this building, and work with the administration, we will come to a 
conclusion, hopefully, that we can all agree to.
  I applaud the committee and our work in taking some of these steps

[[Page H4851]]

that I think we all recognize needed to be taken and that we are 
committed to addressing those problems.
  With that, Madam Speaker, I would encourage my colleagues to support 
this bill.
  Ms. PELOSI. Madam Speaker, the preamble to the Constitution tells us 
that one of the first responsibilities of the Federal government is to 
``provide for the common defense.''
  My 10 years on the House Intelligence Committee have given me an 
appreciation for the vital role the men and women in our intelligence 
agencies play in doing just that.
  Many of them take extraordinary risks on a daily basis in an effort 
to gather the information policy makers and military commanders need to 
make sound decisions. They are deeply dedicated to preserving our 
country's security, and each of us is grateful for their hard work and 
sacrifice.
  They need an intelligence system that is as strong, smart, and 
competent as they are, and this bill takes several strong steps towards 
making sure we have that system.
  I want to commend Chairman Hoekstra and Ranking Member Harman for 
their leadership and hard work in making sure that this legislation 
addresses not only the immediate needs of the intelligence community, 
but helps plan for the future as well.
  However, it would be a mistake for us to pass this bill and declare 
that our work is done and that we have fulfilled our responsibility to 
the intelligence community and the American people.
  It has now been more than 1,700 days since the September 11th 
terrorist attacks changed our Nation, and laid bare the holes in our 
intelligence gathering system.
  It has been 11 months since the independent 9/11 Commission issued 
its findings and made its recommendations about how to close those 
gaps.
  It has been nearly a year since the Senate Intelligence Committee 
concluded that our intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction 
capabilities was fundamentally flawed--a conclusion that was recently 
confirmed by the Presidential Commission on the Intelligence 
Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass 
Destruction.
  In part, this bill provides the resources the intelligence community 
needs to prepare for the future by learning from mistakes made in the 
past. However, these recent reports--notably those of the 9/11 
Commission and the Robb-Silberman Commission--point to the need to do 
far more than simply fund the intelligence community.
  These two commissions made many recommendations for significant 
change in the way the intelligence agencies operate and are overseen by 
Congress, the way the intelligence community is managed, and in other 
matters associated with better protecting the American people from the 
threats posed by terrorists, particularly terrorists armed with weapons 
of mass destruction.

  It was an intelligence authorization bill that established the 9/11 
Commission, and it is therefore appropriate that in the context of the 
debate on this authorization measure, and with the first anniversary of 
the release of the Commission's report and recommendations fast 
approaching, we reflect on the recommendations that have been 
implemented, and on those that have not.
  The Commission concluded that more centralized management of the 
intelligence community was needed, and that the manager had to have 
considerable power over people and money. The first Director of 
National Intelligence, Ambassador Negroponte is now in office. He faces 
a daunting task. We all hope he is successful in it.
  That is why it was so surprising and regrettable that the 
Intelligence Committee, over the objections of Congresswoman Harman and 
the other Democratic Members, chose to welcome him with an effort to 
restrict his power. What a terribly negative message that provision 
sent about the commitment of the majority to intelligence reform. This 
bill is much improved with that provision removed, as the rule has 
done.
  The impetus for this ill-advised action reportedly came from 
officials in the Department of Defense. We created the position of DNI 
to help address the interagency squabbling that leads to intelligence 
failures. This is simply no place for power grabs or bureaucratic self-
protection and preservation on the part of the Pentagon.
  Just as it was an intelligence authorization bill that created the 9/
11 commission, I had hoped that this intelligence authorization would 
include Mr. Waxman's proposal to create a commission to investigate the 
prisoner abuses in Afghanistan, at Abu Ghraib, and at Guantanamo.
  That will not occur as a result of actions taken by the Republican 
majority on the Rules Committee. For our international standing, our 
sense of fairness and decency, and to establish more effective means of 
intelligence gathering, these abuses must be examined.
  As former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, attorney Floyd Abrams, and our 
former colleague Bob Barr wrote in The Washington Post on June 7: 
``This is a time when we should be making extra efforts to reach out to 
Muslims and to ask them to work with us in the war against terrorism. 
Instead, our failure to undertake a thorough and credible investigation 
has caused severe resentment of the United States.''
  Some of those who opposed most strongly an independent investigation 
of the 9/11 attacks also oppose an independent investigation of the 
prisoner abuse scandal. That is unacceptable.
  But just as the American people would not accept the initial refusal 
to establish a 9/11 Commission, so too will demands continue for an 
independent commission to investigate the prisoner abuses in Iraq, 
Guantanamo Bay, and elsewhere.
  Our country's standing in the eyes of the world depends on getting to 
the bottom of the prisoner abuse matter--a fact that will ultimately 
force the majority of this House to stop placing obstacles in the path 
of a full and independent inquiry.
  Unfortunately this is not the only initiative this Congress has 
failed to act on. Despite the unanimity with which they were adopted 
and the near universal acclaim they have produced, some critical 
recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission have gone unfulfilled. For 
example, Chairman Kean pointed earlier this month to the failure to 
allocate more of the broadcast spectrum to first responder 
communications as ``almost a scandal.'' Congresswoman Harman has been a 
leader in trying to resolve this problem and I congratulate her for her 
efforts.
  Chairman Kean also emphasized what has long been known to Members of 
the Intelligence Committee: the greatest danger facing the United 
States is a terrorist attack involving weapons of mass destruction, and 
the best way to address that is to safeguard or destroy WMD components, 
especially nuclear material, at its source.
  Intelligence plays a huge role in efforts to combat proliferation of 
nuclear material and technology, but money is needed to better protect 
or acquire these materials in the countries where they were developed. 
We are simply not providing enough resources to this effort.
  Finally, the 9/11 Commissioners have been clear in their assessment 
that, unless Congress overhauls the procedures by which it oversees the 
work of the intelligence agencies, intelligence reform will not be 
successful.
  The House has not undertaken the kind of comprehensive review of the 
oversight process that the Commission believes to be necessary. I have 
let the Speaker know, repeatedly, that Democrats are prepared to work 
cooperatively on this review. It is imperative that we begin this task 
soon--we have already waited far too long.
  This bill enjoys broad bipartisan support from members of the 
Committee, and I intend to support it. In doing so, however, I urge 
that the House dedicate itself to finishing the job begun last fall 
with the adoption of the 9/11 intelligence reform bill and address 
completely all of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
  Mr. EVERETT. Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 
2475, the Intelligence Authorization Bill for fiscal year 2006.
  As one of several ``cross-over'' members who serve on both the 
Intelligence and Armed Services Committees, this legislation strikes a 
reasonable balance between our national intelligence needs, and the 
needs of our warfighters. As we know from our work on the Intelligence 
Reform Act last fall, this is not an easy task.
  Madam Speaker, it would be disingenuous to state that all is well 
within the Intelligence Community. For a number of years, the Select 
Committee on Intelligence has been systematically identifying major 
shortfalls in providing for our foreign intelligence needs. These 
include: funding shortfalls, major limitations in human intelligence, 
limited capabilities in foreign language specialists, aging information 
technology systems, and the lack of strategic planning with regard to 
the Intelligence Community's overhead intelligence collection programs.
  Madam Speaker, this bill represents a major step forward in 
correcting many of these problems by funding programs, operations, and 
personnel that are vital to the security of the United States. The 
policies and programs in this bill will enable us to strengthen our 
intelligence capabilities to ensure that we are providing the best 
foreign intelligence efforts possible.
  In particular, this bill begins to balance the resources applied to 
technical collection programs with those applied to human source 
collection. In years past, funding cuts greatly reduced the 
Intelligence Community's ability to provide global collection and 
analytic coverage. The global war on terrorism has led to increased 
funding, but there is still only limited capability to focus on other 
issues around the

[[Page H4852]]

world. This bill reinvigorates capabilities that have long been 
ignored.
  I have a personal concern about the Intelligence Community's 
capabilities against foreign missile systems. Therefore, at my 
direction the bill includes specific funding increases to allow for 
expanded modeling and simulation of foreign systems, exploitation of 
foreign missile systems, and all-source missile event analysis.
  Madam Speaker, this bill puts a great deal of emphasis on getting the 
Intelligence Community ``back to the basics.'' In short, this bill 
continues to correct the systemic problems that left us underprepared 
for warning against terrorist attacks on America, and begins the 
process of returning human intelligence collection to a worldwide 
endeavor.
  I feel that this is a good bill that balances the increased 
investment against critical priorities with procedures for effectively 
monitoring the wise investment of the taxpayers' money. Madam Speaker, 
I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2475.
  Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2475, ``The 
Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006''. I thank my 
friend and colleague from Michigan for yielding me this time.
  For almost 4 years, the U.S. Intelligence Community has been at the 
forefront of the Global War on Terror. Working long hours, under often 
primitive conditions, the men and women of the Intelligence Community 
have performed spectacularly under the most stressing of operational 
tempos. The legislation before us today authorizes the funding 
necessary to support the men and women of the Intelligence Community 
and to keep our country safe. However, a sufficient balance must be 
maintained between fighting terror and maintaining global awareness of 
emerging threats. Therefore, the legislation before us lays the 
budgetary and programmatic groundwork that will ensure that the U.S. 
Intelligence Community is prepared and able to face the challenges and 
national security threats of the future.
  First and foremost, this legislation provides the appropriate balance 
between technical, human and open source collection.
  This bill provides sufficient funds to ensure that the U.S. retains 
its technical collection edge for the next 20 years. It also increases 
the resources necessary to provide a strong, global human and open 
source intelligence collection capability. Achieving this balance 
required some hard choices on several highly regarded technical 
collection systems, however, the Committee was able to reach bipartisan 
consensus on the need to eliminate some redundant or outdated systems.
  Second, this legislation strengthens innovation across the 
Intelligence Community.
  The legislation includes a significant increase in the resources 
devoted to advanced research and technology development including 
increased funding for new sensors and platforms, data mining and 
information assurance technologies. To ensure that these resources are 
used wisely, this legislation also strengthens the authorities and 
responsibilities of the Intelligence Community's Chief Scientist.
  Third, this legislation revitalizes our intelligence analysis and 
production capabilities.
  Our intelligence community analysts are frequently asked to turn 
fragmentary and seemingly random puzzle pieces into a coherent picture. 
To help bring the picture into focus, this legislation provides for 
improved training opportunities (particularly for languages), new 
analytic tools, increased personnel and better tools to enable 
information sharing.
  Fourth and finally, this legislation continues the efforts begun in 
the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 to 
strengthen and define the authorities and responsibilities of the 
Director of National Intelligence.
  The Intelligence Community is our first-line of defense against an 
elusive and unstructured threat that has shown willingness to harm 
America. It is vital that this community has the resources and 
authorities necessary to effectively target both the terrorist threats 
of today as well as new threats of tomorrow. H.R. 2475 provides those 
resources.
  I strongly urge my colleagues to support this legislation in the 
bipartisan manner that our national security efforts demand.
  Mrs. JO ANN DAVIS of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong 
support of H.R. 2475, the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2006. I 
congratulate Chairman Hoekstra for presenting a strong bill that 
addresses our major intelligence requirements.
  Madam Speaker, as chair of the Intelligence Policy Subcommittee, I 
have been tasked to look at the vast range of threats faced by the 
United States, and work to ensure that the intelligence services devote 
the necessary resources to respond to those threats.
  As we consider this bill, we are in the midst of a war with a vicious 
enemy--a war on terrorism that must be won. Our troops are also engaged 
in a bloody effort to stabilize Iraq.
  Our war-fighters must have timely, accurate information about the 
enemy, and this bill makes every effort to guarantee that intelligence 
is provided. Thus, there is an essential force protection component to 
this authorization.
  But we cannot focus solely on the collection of near-term, tactical 
battlefield intelligence. We must also ensure that our political 
leaders have good information about big picture threats to U.S. 
interests globally.
  The Intelligence Community must focus its resources on the nuclear 
programs in Iran, North Korea, and other major proliferators of weapons 
of mass destruction.
  We must fully understand the ongoing military modernization of China, 
and know how Beijing intends to use its emerging capabilities. Russia 
remains a nuclear superpower with thousands of nuclear warheads, and 
prudence dictates we have good intelligence regarding Russia's 
intentions.
  The behavior of these important nations can have a deep impact on our 
national security, and the United States must not become the victim of 
a ``strategic surprise''.
  To protect our people and inform our political leaders, we must have 
the capability to collect good, accurate information. It is 
increasingly difficult to predict where the next crisis may erupt, but 
our leaders must have the ability to anticipate significant events.
  H.R. 2475 places much needed emphasis on our collection and analysis 
capabilities. I am pleased that this bill increases the investment in 
human intelligence and the capabilities they provide for us.
  It provides additional resources for professional training and 
language education for intelligence officers being deployed overseas.
  The legislation also authorizes powerful new tools that will assist 
our intelligence analysts to sort through and properly understand the 
information that has been gathered.
  At a time when the threats to u.s. national security are so great, 
H.R. 2475 supports the effort to provide our leaders with focused, 
timely intelligence. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation 
and once again, I congratulate my chairman on his outstanding effort.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate on the bill has expired.


                   Amendment Offered by Mrs. Maloney

  Mrs. MALONEY. Madam Speaker, I offer an amendment.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
  The text of the amendment is as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mrs. Maloney:
       At the end of title III (page 14, after line 23) insert the 
     following:

     SEC. 310. REPORTS ON FAILURE TO TIMELY IMPLEMENT THE NATIONAL 
                   COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER.

       (a) Initial Report on Failure to Meet Deadlines Imposed 
     Under Law.--Not later than 30 days after the date of the 
     enactment of this Act, the President shall provide written 
     notice to Congress explaining the failure of the executive 
     branch to implement the National Counterterrorism Center, as 
     established under section 119 of the National Security Act of 
     1947, as added by section 1021 of the National Security 
     Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 (title I of the Intelligence 
     Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004; Public Law 108-
     458), by the deadlines imposed under section 1097(a) of such 
     Act for the implementation of such Center, including the 
     failure by the President to nominate an individual to serve 
     as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
       (b) Subsequent Monthly Updates.--The President shall 
     provide to Congress monthly updates to the initial notice to 
     Congress under subsection (a) until the National 
     Counterterrorism Center is fully implemented and operational.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 331, the 
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) and a Member opposed each will 
control 15 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).
  Mrs. MALONEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Our amendment requires the President to keep the Congress and the 
American people updated monthly on the progress of the implementation 
and operation of the National Counterterrorism Center until it is fully 
implemented and operational.
  The Congress and the President recognize the National 
Counterterrorism Center as a critical office for the safety of our 
country. The Congress and the President agreed that it had to be up and 
running, fully operational and fully staffed, by June 17, 2005, or last 
Friday.
  While director Admiral John Redd was nominated on June 10, he has yet 
to be confirmed by the Senate, and he

[[Page H4853]]

has many challenges before him, chief among which is to get this center 
fully staffed and operational.
  The Bush administration manages by goals and reports. A fully 
operational and staffed NCTC is a goal that must be attained as quickly 
as possible.
  The National Counterterrorism Center was a core element of the 
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. The center 
must be the central organization for analyzing and integrating all 
foreign and domestic intelligence on terrorism.
  It also is to conduct strategic operational planning for 
counterterrorism operations at home and abroad, integrating all 
elements of national power. In short, the NCTC was created to bring all 
of the pieces together to prevent a future attack. The Congress and the 
President established June 17, last Friday, as the deadline for the 
NCTC.
  Unfortunately, we cannot stand here today and say that it is fully 
operational and fully implemented. This is not the only deadline in 
this important bill to be missed. I have a chart that I requested from 
the Congressional Research Service. It is an 8-page chart of deadlines.
  And what CRS found is no fewer than 22 deadlines have been missed in 
the first 6 months of this bill becoming law. And many other important 
deadlines are looming. Some of the deadlines we have missed include: 
developing a national transportation strategy, a number of port 
security strategic plans, and streamlining the security clearance 
process.
  We must keep the implementation of this bill on track; hence the need 
for this amendment. This is not to say that there has not been 
substantial progress. Prior to the NCTC being created in law, President 
Bush created the NCTC last August by executive order.
  This center has operated for months under the direction of an interim 
director. A positive step towards the goal of implementation took place 
on June 10 when Retired Vice Admiral John Redd was nominated to be the 
permanent director of the NCTC.

                              {time}  1545

  I would like to note that when we originally submitted this amendment 
to the Committee on Rules on June 2, no NCTC director had been 
nominated. Upon confirmation, the new director and Ambassador 
Negroponte will be faced with a number of issues before full 
implementation. Chief among these issues is working out the 
inconsistencies between the statute and the executive order. The 
existing inconsistencies which have been identified by CRS hold much 
danger of creating confusion which could undermine the maximum 
functioning of the NCTC.
  Another example of these inconsistencies relates to the danger that 
the tactic supplied to foreign intelligence collection may be applied 
against U.S. citizens. Thus, the importance of a robust Civil Liberties 
Board, the beginnings of which were included in the enacted statute.
  This amendment will motivate all of the participants to get the job 
done to protect the American people. I am confident that the Permanent 
Select Committee on Intelligence, under the leadership of the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) and the ranking member, the gentlewoman 
from California (Ms. Harman), will relentlessly monitor the 
implementation of these important deadlines. It is too important to the 
safety of the American people.
  Just as the Goldwater-Nichols bill unified the Army, Navy, and Air 
Force into a single effective fighting force, so too does the 
intelligence reform legislation draw together the isolated elements of 
the intelligence community into a unified shield to protect the 
American people.
  The basic function of the NCTC is to prevent another 9/11. As someone 
who represents a city that was attacked on 9/11, we owe it to the 
victims and to all Americans to put this central defense mechanism 
against future attacks in place. We must fulfill the promise of this 
functional restructuring of the intelligence community for the safety 
of the American people.
  For me, the intelligence bill was the most important bill we passed 
since I have been in this Congress, and I am deeply grateful to the 
families of the victims who fought so hard for the enactment of this 
bill along with the President and my colleagues in this Congress.
  Our amendment is a step towards implementing this important bill.
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I rise to claim the time in opposition 
to the amendment, but I do not object to the amendment.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Miller of Michigan). Is there objection 
to the gentleman from Michigan controlling the time in opposition?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Madam Speaker, I will not oppose this amendment. I believe the author 
will have a perfecting amendment.
  Mrs. MALONEY. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. I yield to the gentlewoman from New York.
  Mrs. MALONEY. Madam Speaker, I appreciate very much the gentleman 
from Michigan (Chairman Hoekstra) not opposing my amendment and all the 
hard work that he and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) did 
on the intelligence bill.
  I would like to note the concern that the gentleman reported to me or 
gave to me about the reporting requirement.


           Modification to Amendment Offered by Mrs. Maloney

  Mrs. MALONEY. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the 
amendment be modified to accept changing the reporting requirement in 
the amendment from the President to the Director of National 
Intelligence, Ambassador Negroponte.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the modification.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment as modified, offered by Mrs. Maloney:
       At the end of title III (page 14, after line 23) insert the 
     following:

     SEC. 310. REPORTS ON FAILURE TO TIMELY IMPLEMENT THE NATIONAL 
                   COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER.

       (a) Initial Report on Failure to Meet Deadlines Imposed 
     Under Law.--Not later than 30 days after the date of the 
     enactment of this Act, the Director of National Intelligence 
     shall provide written notice to Congress explaining the 
     failure of the executive branch to implement the National 
     Counterterrorism Center, as established under section 119 of 
     the National Security Act of 1947, as added by section 1021 
     of the National Security Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 
     (title I of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention 
     Act of 2004; Public Law 108-458), by the deadlines imposed 
     under section 1097(a) of such Act for the implementation of 
     such Center, including the failure by the President to 
     nominate an individual to serve as Director of the National 
     Counterterrorism Center.
       (b) Subsequent Monthly Updates.--The Director of National 
     Intelligence shall provide to Congress monthly updates to the 
     initial notice to Congress under subsection (a) until the 
     National Counterterrorism Center is fully implemented and 
     operational.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the amendment is 
modified.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Reclaiming my time, I thank my colleague, the 
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) for that change.
  I think the reason we are accepting the amendment is in the spirit 
that it was offered by my colleague from New York and, I believe, my 
colleague from Connecticut. We on the committee, the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Harman) and myself have laid down as one of the 
parameters and one of the things that we expect from the oversight 
subcommittee is to vigorously and aggressively track the implementation 
of the intelligence reform bill.
  I agree in the time that the gentlewoman and I have been in Congress 
together until we pass Federal prison industries reform, this will be 
one of the most significant pieces of legislation that we will have 
worked on together.
  There are some talking points on the technicality as to what ``fully 
operational'' means, and those types of things; and whether it is fully 
operational now and whether it could have been fully operational before 
June 17, because that is when the law came into effect, we fully 
understand and appreciate the concern that the gentlewoman has in 
bringing this amendment forward, that we on the committee and that 
Congress and the American people be fully informed as to the progress 
we are making in implementing the intelligence reform bill.
  We are committed to doing that. We are committed to staying informed 
on

[[Page H4854]]

the committee, riding herd over the director of National Intelligence 
to make sure that this bill is implemented to the full intent of 
Congress when we passed it.
  So it is in light of the spirit of that approach that we accept this 
amendment.
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mrs. MALONEY. Madam Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to 
the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman), the ranking member.
  Ms. HARMAN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me 
time. I want to commend her and the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. 
Shays) for the enormous work they did outside the intelligence 
committee. As we were considering the intelligence reform legislation 
last year, the faces that I saw on a constant basis were theirs and the 
families. And I often have said that the families were the wind beneath 
our wings. I would add a couple of Members of Congress to that, too, 
and I thank them for all they did.
  I am very pleased that the majority is accepting the amendment. It is 
a good idea for us to make absolutely clear that the NCTC, the National 
Counter Terrorism Center, is a vital piece of the reform we enacted 
last year and that it needs to be fully operational ASAP.
  To explain further, one of the big mistakes we made leading up to 9/
11 is everyone now knows our failure to connect the dots. Obviously, 
having a fusion center designed for this purpose is a very good way to 
make sure we do not fail to connect the dots the next time.
  So it took, I would say, the introduction of this amendment to cause 
the President to nominate a very able fellow, Vice Admiral Redd, to be 
the director of the NCTC. He did that 2 days after this amendment was 
presented in the Committee on Rules. And perhaps now that we are 
accepting it as part of today's debate, the NCTC will become fully 
operational even before that prison reform bill is enacted.
  In conclusion, Madam Speaker, I strongly support this. I support the 
team that has brought this to us. And I would note to this body, that 
bill last year that we worked so hard on gets its real sea legs today 
as the House takes this necessary step in funding its critical parts 
and in making clear that we will not accept any efforts to roll back 
the jurisdiction of the DNI, who is going to be the commander of the 
tip of the spear in this era of terror.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mrs. MALONEY. Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to 
the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), and I commend his 
leadership and support on this amendment and his hard work on the 
intelligence reform committee. We both had many victims that were lost 
from our respective districts and we worked closely throughout that 
period with the families and with our colleagues on that important 
bill. I thank the gentleman for his hard work.
  Mr. SHAYS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me 
time. I thank her for her very hard work and the work again of the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) and the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Harman).
  I rise, obviously, in support of this amendment that we are offering, 
as amended, which would require the director of National Intelligence 
to provide Congress written explanation why the National Counter 
Terrorism Center, NCTC, is not fully operational since the June 17 
deadline set forth in Public Law 108-458.
  The Joint Inquiry and the 9/11 Commission both found that the lack of 
information-sharing and coordination within the intelligence community 
led to numerous missed opportunities to detect and prevent September 11 
terrorist attacks.
  The establishment of the NCTC was a key 9/11 Commission 
recommendation and an integral part of the effort to increase 
information-sharing and coordination among intelligence agencies.
  The director will serve a critical function in our Nation's 
intelligence capability, as he will report to the President and to the 
director of National Intelligence.
  The NCTC, once fully operational, will be the Nation's primary agency 
for now analyzing terrorist threats and planning counterterrorism 
operations at home and abroad.
  The deadline by which the NCTC was required by law to be fully 
operational has passed, and while I am pleased the President nominated 
Vice Admiral John Redd as the Center's permanent director on June 10, I 
wish Congress had received this nomination sooner than a week before 
the deadline so that the Center could have been operational on time.
  The bottom line is it has been done. We are making progress. I thank 
the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) for accepting this amendment 
and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) as well. It is an 
amendment that I think deserves passage and I thank them for accepting 
it.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  I thank my colleagues for working through this amendment and making 
the necessary changes. As I indicated earlier, we are willing to accept 
this amendment.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mrs. MALONEY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Chairman Hoekstra) for accepting 
the amendment. Certainly certain issues are above partisan politics. 
The defense, the protection of our Nation, intelligence reform, is 
certainly among them.
  The gentleman and the ranking member have really worked together in 
the best interest of the American people on this important issue. I 
thank the gentleman for his support.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Madam Speaker, I rise to show my support 
for the men and women who work in the intelligence community each day 
sacrificing their lives so that we may remain safe. This measure, H.R. 
2475, does authorize 100 percent of the funding requests made by the 
community, which is a positive departure from the measure proposed in 
2005, which funded only 26 percent of the requests. In addition, this 
legislation improves upon the President's request of only 40 percent of 
the community's counterterrorism funding needs. This departure is 
important because this measure is the first authorization bill to come 
to the floor since passage of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism 
Prevention Act of 2004 (P.L. 108-458)--the families of the victims of 
9/11 as well as the entire international community still look to us for 
responsible action in the area of intelligence.
  I also applaud the Committee's inclusion of provisions for the 
recruitment and clearing of personnel adept in language skills 
necessary to truly aid our intelligence-gathering and processing 
initiative.
  However, I join my colleagues in disagreeing with Section 305 of the 
bill as reported out of Committee. This section gives congressional 
committees a ``pocket veto'' of the personnel transfers that the new 
Director of National Intelligence might recommend. Absent passage of 
the Manager's Amendment offered by Mr. Hoekstra, this provision will 
contravene much of the authority conferred in the Intelligence Reform 
and Terrorism Prevention Act that was signed into law by the President 
last year. Public Law 108-458 contains provisions that I offered that 
deal with commercial alien smuggling such as penalty enhancement as 
well as an outreach section that would require publication of the 
enhancements by DHS to act as a deterrent.
  I support the amendment that will be offered by my colleague from New 
York, Mrs. Maloney that would require a report to Congress until the 
Director of the National Counterterrorism Center has been confirmed and 
until the Center is fully functional.
  Madam Speaker, for the reasons above stated, I support the 
legislation with reservations.
  Mrs. MALONEY. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 331, the 
previous question is ordered on the bill and the amendment, as 
modified, offered by the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).
  The question is on the amendment, as modified, offered by the 
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).
  The amendment, as modified, was agreed to.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the engrossment and third 
reading of the bill.
  The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was 
read the third time.

[[Page H4855]]

                Motion to Recommit Offered by Mr. Waxman

  Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit with 
instructions.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman opposed to the bill?
  Mr. WAXMAN. I am, Madam Speaker, in its current form.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to 
recommit.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Waxman of California moves to recommit the bill H.R. 
     2475 to the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence with 
     instructions to report the same back to the House forthwith 
     with the following amendment:
       At the end, add the following new title:

    TITLE V--ESTABLISHMENT OF INDEPENDENT COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE 
                            DETAINEE ABUSES

     SEC. 501. ESTABLISHMENT OF COMMISSION.

       There is established in the legislative branch the 
     Independent Commission on the Investigation of Detainee 
     Abuses (in this title referred to as the ``Commission'').

     SEC. 502. DUTIES.

       (a) Investigation.--The Commission shall conduct a full, 
     complete, independent, and impartial investigation of 
     intelligence and intelligence-related activities carried out 
     in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom, and 
     any operation within the Global War on Terrorism in 
     connection with abuses of detainees, including but not 
     limited to the following:
       (1) The extent of the abuses.
       (2) Why the abuses occurred.
       (3) Who is responsible for the abuses.
       (4) Whether any particular Department of Defense, 
     Department of State, Department of Justice, Central 
     Intelligence Agency, National Security Council, or White 
     House policies, procedures, or decisions facilitated the 
     detainee abuses.
       (5) What policies, procedures, or mechanisms failed to 
     prevent the abuses.
       (6) What legislative or executive actions should be taken 
     to prevent such abuses from occurring in the future.
       (7) The extent, if any, to which Guantanamo Detention 
     Center policies influenced policies at the Abu Ghraib prison 
     and other detention centers in and outside Iraq.
       (b) Assessment, Analysis, and Evaluation.--During the 
     course of its investigation under subsection (a), the 
     Commission shall assess, analyze, and evaluate relevant 
     persons, policies, procedures, reports, and events, including 
     but not limited to the following:
       (1) The Military Chain of Command.
       (2) The National Security Council.
       (3) The Department of Justice.
       (4) The Department of State.
       (5) The Office of the White House Counsel.
       (6) The Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central 
     Intelligence Agency.
       (7) The approval process for interrogation techniques used 
     at detention facilities in Iraq, Cuba, Afghanistan, and 
     elsewhere.
       (8) The integration of military police and military 
     intelligence operations to coordinate detainee interrogation.
       (9) The roles and actions of private civilian contractors 
     in the abuses and whether they violated the Military 
     Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act or any other United States 
     statutes or international treaties to which the United States 
     is a party.
       (10) The role of nongovernmental organizations' warnings to 
     United States officials about the abuses.
       (11) The role of Congress and whether it was fully informed 
     throughout the process that uncovered these abuses.
       (12) The extent to which the United States complied with 
     the applicable provisions of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, 
     and the extent to which the United States may have violated 
     international law by restricting the access of the 
     International Committee of the Red Cross to detainees.
       (13) The extent to which the United States complied with 
     the applicable provisions of other human rights treaties, 
     including the International Covenant on Civil and Political 
     Rights and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, 
     Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

     SEC. 503. COMPOSITION OF COMMISSION.

       (a) Members.--The Commission shall be composed of 10 
     members, of whom--
       (1) 1 member shall be appointed by the President;
       (2) 1 member shall be jointly appointed by the minority 
     leader of the Senate and the minority leader of the House of 
     Representatives;
       (3) 2 members shall be appointed by the majority leader of 
     the Senate;
       (4) 2 members shall be appointed by the Speaker of the 
     House of Representatives;
       (5) 2 members shall be appointed by the minority leader of 
     the Senate; and
       (6) 2 members shall be appointed by the minority leader of 
     the House of Representatives.
       (b) Qualifications; Initial Meeting.--
       (1) Nongovernmental appointees.--An individual appointed to 
     the Commission may not be an officer or employee of the 
     Federal Government or any State or local government.
       (2) Other qualifications.--Individuals that shall be 
     appointed to the Commission should be prominent United States 
     citizens, with national recognition and significant depth of 
     experience in such professions as governmental service, law 
     enforcement, the armed services, law, public administration, 
     intelligence gathering, international human rights and 
     humanitarian law, and foreign affairs.
       (3) Deadline for appointment.--All members of the 
     Commission shall be appointed within 45 days following the 
     enactment of this Act.
       (4) Chairman and vice chairman.--The chairman and vice 
     chairman of the Commission shall be elected by a majority 
     vote of the members.
       (5) Meetings.--The Commission shall meet and begin the 
     operations of the Commission as soon as practicable. After 
     its initial meeting, the Commission shall meet upon the call 
     of the chairman or a majority of its members.
       (c) Quorum; Vacancies.--Six members of the Commission shall 
     constitute a quorum. Any vacancy in the Commission shall not 
     affect its powers, but shall be filled in the same manner in 
     which the original appointment was made.
       (d) Conflicts of Interest.--Each member appointed to the 
     Commission shall be independent of any agency, individual, or 
     institution that may be the subject of investigation by the 
     Commission.

     SEC. 504. POWERS OF COMMISSION.

       (a) In General.--
       (1) Hearings and evidence.--The Commission or, on the 
     authority of the Commission, any subcommittee or member 
     thereof, may, for the purpose of carrying out this title--
       (A) hold such hearings and sit and act at such times and 
     places, take such testimony, receive such evidence, 
     administer such oaths; and
       (B) subject to paragraph (2)(A), require, by subpoena or 
     otherwise, the attendance and testimony of such witnesses and 
     the production of such books, records, correspondence, 
     memoranda, papers, and documents,
     as the Commission or such designated subcommittee or 
     designated member may determine advisable.
       (2) Subpoenas.--
       (A) In general.--A subpoena may be issued under this 
     subsection only--
       (i) by the agreement of the chairman and the vice chairman; 
     or
       (ii) by the affirmative vote of 6 members of the 
     Commission.
       (B) Signature.--Subject to subparagraph (A), subpoenas 
     issued under this subsection may be issued under the 
     signature of the chairman or any member designated by a 
     majority of the Commission, and may be served by any person 
     designated by the chairman or by a member designated by a 
     majority of the Commission.
       (3) Scope.--In carrying out its duties under this Act, the 
     Commission may examine the actions and representations of the 
     current Administration as well as prior Administrations.
       (b) Contracting.--The Commission may, to such extent and in 
     such amounts as are provided in appropriation Acts, enter 
     into contracts to enable the Commission to discharge its 
     duties of this Act.
       (c) Information From Federal Agencies.--
       (1) In general.--The Commission may secure directly from 
     any executive department, bureau, agency, board, commission, 
     office, independent establishment, or instrumentality of the 
     Federal Government, information, suggestions, estimates, and 
     statistics for the purposes of this Act. Each department, 
     bureau, agency, board, commission, office, independent 
     establishment, or instrumentality shall, to the extent 
     authorized by law, furnish such information, suggestions, 
     estimates, and statistics directly to the Commission, upon 
     request made by the chairman, the chairman of any 
     subcommittee created by a majority of the Commission, or any 
     member designated by a majority of the Commission.
       (2) Receipt, handling, storage, and dissemination.--
     Information shall only be received, handled, stored, and 
     disseminated by members of the Commission and its staff 
     consistent with all applicable statutes, regulations, and 
     Executive Orders.
       (d) Assistance From Federal Agencies.--Departments and 
     agencies of the United States may provide to the Commission 
     such services, funds, facilities, staff, and other support 
     services as they may determine advisable and as may be 
     authorized by law.

     SEC. 505. PUBLIC HEARINGS.

       (a) Public Meetings and Release of Public Versions of 
     Reports.--The Commission shall--
       (1) hold public hearings and meetings to the extent 
     appropriate; and
       (2) release public versions of the reports required under 
     section 509.
       (b) Public Hearings.--Any public hearings of the Commission 
     shall be conducted in a manner consistent with the protection 
     of information provided to or developed for or by the 
     Commission as required by any applicable statute, regulation, 
     or Executive order.

     SEC. 506. STAFF OF COMMISSION.

       (a) Appointment and Compensation.--The chairman and the 
     vice chairman jointly, in accordance with rules agreed upon 
     by the Commission, may appoint and fix the compensation of a 
     staff director and such other personnel as may be necessary 
     to enable the Commission to carry out its functions.
       (b) Detailees.--Any Federal Government employee may be 
     detailed to the Commission.
       (c) Consultant Services.--The Commission is authorized to 
     procure the services of experts and consultants.

[[Page H4856]]

     SEC. 507. COMPENSATION AND TRAVEL EXPENSES.

       (a) Compensation.--Each member of the Commission may be 
     compensated at a reasonable rate for each day during which 
     that member is engaged in the actual performance of the 
     duties of the Commission.
       (b) Travel Expenses.--While away from their homes or 
     regular places of business in the performance of services for 
     the Commission, members of the Commission shall be allowed 
     travel expenses, including per diem in lieu of subsistence.

     SEC. 508. SECURITY CLEARANCES FOR COMMISSION MEMBERS AND 
                   STAFF.

       (a) In General.--Subject to subsection (b), the appropriate 
     Federal agencies or departments shall cooperate with the 
     Commission in expeditiously providing to the Commission 
     members and staff appropriate security clearances to the 
     extent possible pursuant to existing procedures and 
     requirements.
       (b) Exception.--No person shall be provided with access to 
     classified information under this title without the 
     appropriate required security clearance access.

     SEC. 509. REPORTS OF COMMISSION; TERMINATION.

       (a) Interim Reports.--The Commission may submit to Congress 
     and the President interim reports containing such findings, 
     conclusions, and recommendations for corrective measures as 
     have been agreed to by a majority of Commission members.
       (b) Final Report.--Not later than 18 months after the date 
     of the enactment of this Act, the Commission shall submit to 
     Congress and the President a final report containing such 
     findings, conclusions, and recommendations for corrective 
     measures as have been agreed to by a majority of Commission 
     members.
       (c) Form of Report.--Each report prepared under this 
     section shall be submitted in unclassified form, but may 
     contain a classified annex.
       (d) Recommendation to Make Public Certain Classified 
     Information.--If the Commission determines that it is in the 
     public interest that some or all of the information contained 
     in a classified annex of a report under this section be made 
     available to the public, the Commission shall make a 
     recommendation to the congressional intelligence committees 
     to make such information public, and the congressional 
     intelligence committees shall consider the recommendation 
     pursuant to the procedures under subsection (e).
       (e) Procedure for Declassifying Information.--
       (1) The procedures referred to in subsection (d) are the 
     procedures described in--
       (A) with respect to the Permanent Select Committee on 
     Intelligence of the House of Representatives, clause 11(g) of 
     Rule X of the Rules of the House of Representatives, One 
     Hundred Ninth Congress; and
       (B) with respect to the Select Committee on Intelligence of 
     the Senate, section 8 of Senate Resolution 400, Ninety-Fourth 
     Congress.
       (2) In this section, the term ``congressional intelligence 
     committees'' means--
       (A) the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the 
     House of Representatives; and
       (B) the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate.

     SEC. 510. TERMINATION.

       (a) In General.--The Commission, and all the authorities of 
     this Act, shall terminate 60 days after the date on which the 
     final report is submitted under section 509(b).
       (b) Administrative Activities Before Termination.--The 
     Commission may use the 60-day period referred to in paragraph 
     (1) for the purpose of concluding its activities, including 
     providing testimony to committees of Congress concerning its 
     reports and disseminating the final report.

     SEC. 511. FUNDING.

       (a) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized 
     to be appropriated funds not to exceed $5,000,000 for 
     purposes of the activities of the Commission under this Act.
       (b) Duration of Availability.--Amounts made available to 
     the Commission under subsection (a) shall remain available 
     until the termination of the Commission.

  Mr. WAXMAN (during the reading). Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous 
consent that the motion be considered as read and printed in the 
Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.

                              {time}  1600

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Miller of Michigan). Pursuant to the 
rule, the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) is recognized for 5 
minutes in support of his motion.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Speaker, this motion to recommit would amend the 
bill to add language establishing an independent commission to examine 
detainee abuses.
  In the year since the horrific photographs of prisoner abuse at Abu 
Ghraib surfaced, more and more instances of detainee abuse from a 
growing number of locations around the world have come to light.
  The reports of detainee abuse are undermining one of our Nation's 
most valuable assets: our reputation for respect for human rights.
  The Pentagon's internal investigations of the abuse allegations have 
resulted in conflicting conclusions. Some of these reports have been 
little more than whitewashes.
  Congress has failed to conduct a comprehensive public investigation 
of detainee abuse allegations at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and 
other facilities. We have abdicated our constitutional duty to conduct 
responsible oversight.
  My motion to recommit would fill the huge oversight gap. A lack of 
oversight leads to a lack of accountability, and no accountability 
breeds arrogance and abuse of power.
  It is time for this House to take our oversight responsibility 
seriously, and I urge a ``yes'' vote on the motion to recommit.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman), 
the ranking member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, 
my colleague.
  Ms. HARMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me and 
commend him for sponsoring this notion of an independent commission to 
look at detainee abuses.
  Mr. Speaker, though I am a strong supporter of this legislation, I 
think it would be even better if it included language to establish this 
commission, and so I support the motion to recommit the bill for the 
purpose of adding the gentleman from California's (Mr. Waxman) 
amendment.
  Military historians often talk about the ``fog of war.'' I believe 
our intelligence professionals operate in a fog of law, a confusing 
patchwork of treaties, laws, memos and policies.
  Article I, section 8 of the Constitution says that it is Congress' 
responsibility to establish rules concerning captures on land and 
water. I hope that we will seize this responsibility.
  But as Congress studies the policy options going forward, it is vital 
that we have the facts. Only a bipartisan, independent commission can 
get to the bottom of what happened among administration policymakers 
within the military chain of command and out in the field.
  The steady stream of revelations about Guantanamo and other 
facilities around the world erode our moral credibility, just as we are 
trying to win the hearts and minds of the Arab and Muslim world.
  It is vital to our national security, Mr. Speaker, that we fix this 
problem so that our detention and interrogation policies get us 
actionable intelligence without creating a whole new generation of 
terrorist recruits. Pretending that there is no problem is not a 
strategy for success.
  So in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, our committee, on a bipartisan basis, 
is looking into these issues through our Subcommittee on Oversight. I 
commend our progress; but in addition, I think the public will have 
more confidence in what we are doing if we also have an outside, 
independent commission.
  In that spirit, I support the Waxman motion to recommit.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, the failure to have an investigation of 
detainee abuse is eroding our moral standard in the world. It is also 
endangering our Armed Forces and inciting hatred against the United 
States. As Senator Biden said about Guantanamo, it is the greatest 
propaganda tool for the recruitment of terrorists worldwide.
  Some of the allegations that have been repeated over and over again 
may not be true. In fact, I hope they are not true. President Bush 
calls them absurd, but we do not know what is true and what is not 
unless we investigate; and when we refuse to conduct a thorough, 
independent, credible investigation, the rest of the world thinks we 
have something to hide.
  The independent commission established by this proposal would 
establish a 10-member bipartisan commission modeled on the successful 
9/11 commission. I think we need this. I think we need it badly.
  If the Congress had done its job of oversight, we might well say the 
job is done and we do not need to do anything further; but Congress has 
done relatively little on this whole matter. The reports that have been 
issued by the

[[Page H4857]]

various investigative agencies have been in conflict.
  This is why I ask my colleagues to support this motion to recommit. 
Vote ``aye.''
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to 
recommit.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) 
is recognized.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I am a little confused, as I listened to 
those on the other side as to whether we have or have not done 
oversight. The author of the amendment says there has been no 
oversight. My ranking member applauds the work that the committee has 
done in its role of doing oversight on a bipartisan basis.
  Mr. Speaker, we are at a time of war that was not begun by the making 
of the United States. We are at war against an international terrorist 
movement that has engaged our country in a clash of values driven by 
those who fundamentally oppose American democracy and freedom.
  The 9/11 Commission emphasized the importance of engaging the 
terrorists in the ``struggle of ideas,'' noting that many views in the 
Muslim world of the United States are ``at best uninformed about the 
United States and, at worst, informed by cartoonish stereotypes among 
intellectuals who caricature U.S. values and policies. Local newspapers 
and the few influential satellite broadcasters, like al Jazeera, often 
reinforce the jihadist theme that portrays the United States as anti-
Muslim.''
  Mr. Speaker, comments that significantly exaggerate and overstate the 
situation in Guantanamo Bay do nothing but reinforce the false 
perceptions of America that have encouraged our enemies.
  There is aggressive oversight under way by the executive branch and 
by Congress into our detention procedures. It is only because of this 
aggressive oversight and the freedoms provided by American democracy 
that we are having this discussion in the first place. The system is 
working properly, and we should continue to let it work; and for those 
who do not know about the work that is going on, perhaps they could 
ask.
  So when senior Members of Congress, including a member of the 
minority leadership in the Senate, exaggerate and distort these issues, 
including by comparing American soldiers to Nazis, those comments do 
nothing but reinforce the false prejudices abroad that have led us to 
war.
  As an example, I note that the al Jazeera network gave prominent 
coverage to the remarks of a Member of the Senate comparing the actions 
of U.S. soldiers to Nazis, Soviet gulags, and a mad regime like Pol 
Pot's Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
  A columnist in the Chicago Sun Times said of those remarks: ``He 
should at least be made a little uncomfortable over what he's done.'' 
What did he do? ``In a time of war, make an inflammatory libel against 
his country's military that has no value whatsoever except to America's 
enemies.''
  We are better than those who oppose us. Our oversight has exposed our 
weaknesses. Now is the time to move on.
  To quote from President Roosevelt's ``Man in the Arena'' speech: ``It 
is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong 
man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.''
  I want this Congress to be seen as a doer of deeds. If we fail, we 
fail while daringly great. To do anything less would be unworthy of the 
House of Representatives.
  Self-loathing of America on the floor of this House accomplishes 
nothing but fueling the fires abroad that seek to destroy America's 
democracy and our way of life. I encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' 
on this motion to recommit.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is 
ordered on the motion to recommit.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a 
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 and clause 9 of rule 
XX, this 15-minute vote on the motion to recommit will be followed by 
5-minute votes, if ordered, on passage of H.R. 2475 and on the motions 
to suspend the rules previously postponed in the following order:
  H.J. Res. 52, by the yeas and nays,
  H. Con. Res. 160, by the yeas and nays,
  H. Con. Res. 180, de novo.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 197, 
nays 228, not voting 8, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 289]

                               YEAS--197

     Ackerman
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baird
     Baldwin
     Barrow
     Bean
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Boren
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brady (PA)
     Brown (OH)
     Brown, Corrine
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Cardoza
     Carnahan
     Carson
     Case
     Chandler
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costa
     Costello
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Emanuel
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Ford
     Frank (MA)
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Higgins
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hooley
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick (MI)
     Kind
     Kucinich
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Leach
     Lee
     Levin
     Lipinski
     Lofgren, Zoe
     Lowey
     Lynch
     Maloney
     Markey
     Matsui
     McCarthy
     McCollum (MN)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McKinney
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Melancon
     Menendez
     Michaud
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, George
     Mollohan
     Moore (KS)
     Moore (WI)
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal (MA)
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Ross
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Sabo
     Salazar
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sanders
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schwartz (PA)
     Scott (GA)
     Scott (VA)
     Serrano
     Sherman
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Solis
     Spratt
     Stark
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor (MS)
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Towns
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Watson
     Watt
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Wexler
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn

                               NAYS--228

     Abercrombie
     Aderholt
     Akin
     Alexander
     Bachus
     Baker
     Barrett (SC)
     Bartlett (MD)
     Barton (TX)
     Bass
     Beauprez
     Biggert
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonner
     Bono
     Boozman
     Boustany
     Bradley (NH)
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (SC)
     Brown-Waite, Ginny
     Burgess
     Burton (IN)
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Capito
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chocola
     Coble
     Cole (OK)
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crenshaw
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Cunningham
     Davis (KY)
     Davis (TN)
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     Deal (GA)
     DeLay
     Dent
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Doolittle
     Drake
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Ehlers
     Emerson
     English (PA)
     Everett
     Feeney
     Ferguson
     Fitzpatrick (PA)
     Flake
     Foley
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Fossella
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Garrett (NJ)
     Gerlach
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gingrey
     Gohmert
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Granger
     Graves
     Green (WI)
     Gutknecht
     Hall
     Harris
     Hart
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Hostettler
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hyde
     Inglis (SC)
     Issa
     Istook
     Jenkins
     Jindal
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Keller
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MN)
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Kline
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kuhl (NY)
     LaHood
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     LoBiondo
     Lucas
     Lungren, Daniel E.
     Mack
     Manzullo
     Marchant
     Marshall
     Matheson
     McCaul (TX)
     McCotter
     McCrery
     McHenry
     McHugh
     McKeon
     McMorris
     Mica

[[Page H4858]]


     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Moran (KS)
     Musgrave
     Myrick
     Neugebauer
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nunes
     Nussle
     Osborne
     Otter
     Oxley
     Paul
     Pearce
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Poe
     Pombo
     Porter
     Price (GA)
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Reichert
     Renzi
     Reynolds
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Royce
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Saxton
     Schwarz (MI)
     Sensenbrenner
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simmons
     Simpson
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Sodrel
     Souder
     Stearns
     Sullivan
     Sweeney
     Tancredo
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Turner
     Upton
     Walden (OR)
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Westmoreland
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Young (AK)

                             NOT VOTING--8

     Carter
     Conaway
     Herseth
     Lewis (GA)
     Murphy
     Pence
     Sessions
     Young (FL)

                              {time}  1639

  Mrs. KELLY, Mr. BUYER, and Mr. ABERCROMBIE changed their vote from 
``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Messrs. GONZALEZ, ETHERIDGE and CHANDLER changed their vote from 
``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So the motion to recommit was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Petri). The question is on the passage 
of the bill.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. This will be a 5-minute vote.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 409, 
nays 16, not voting 8, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 290]

                               YEAS--409

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Aderholt
     Akin
     Alexander
     Allen
     Andrews
     Baca
     Bachus
     Baird
     Baker
     Baldwin
     Barrett (SC)
     Barrow
     Bartlett (MD)
     Barton (TX)
     Bass
     Bean
     Beauprez
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Biggert
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Blumenauer
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bonner
     Bono
     Boozman
     Boren
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boustany
     Boyd
     Bradley (NH)
     Brady (PA)
     Brady (TX)
     Brown (OH)
     Brown (SC)
     Brown, Corrine
     Brown-Waite, Ginny
     Burgess
     Burton (IN)
     Butterfield
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Camp
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Capito
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardin
     Cardoza
     Carnahan
     Carson
     Case
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chandler
     Chocola
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Coble
     Cole (OK)
     Cooper
     Costa
     Costello
     Cox
     Cramer
     Crenshaw
     Crowley
     Cubin
     Cuellar
     Culberson
     Cummings
     Cunningham
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     Davis (KY)
     Davis (TN)
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     Deal (GA)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     DeLay
     Dent
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Drake
     Dreier
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Emanuel
     Emerson
     Engel
     English (PA)
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Everett
     Farr
     Fattah
     Feeney
     Ferguson
     Filner
     Fitzpatrick (PA)
     Flake
     Foley
     Forbes
     Ford
     Fortenberry
     Fossella
     Foxx
     Frank (MA)
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Garrett (NJ)
     Gerlach
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gingrey
     Gohmert
     Gonzalez
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Gordon
     Granger
     Graves
     Green (WI)
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Gutknecht
     Hall
     Harman
     Harris
     Hart
     Hastings (FL)
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Higgins
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hooley
     Hostettler
     Hoyer
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hyde
     Inglis (SC)
     Inslee
     Israel
     Issa
     Istook
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Jenkins
     Jindal
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones (NC)
     Jones (OH)
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Keller
     Kelly
     Kennedy (MN)
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick (MI)
     Kind
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Kline
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kuhl (NY)
     LaHood
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Leach
     Levin
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Lofgren, Zoe
     Lowey
     Lucas
     Lungren, Daniel E.
     Lynch
     Mack
     Maloney
     Manzullo
     Marchant
     Markey
     Marshall
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy
     McCaul (TX)
     McCollum (MN)
     McCotter
     McCrery
     McGovern
     McHenry
     McHugh
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McMorris
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Melancon
     Menendez
     Mica
     Michaud
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, Gary
     Miller, George
     Mollohan
     Moore (KS)
     Moore (WI)
     Moran (KS)
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Musgrave
     Myrick
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal (MA)
     Neugebauer
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nunes
     Nussle
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Osborne
     Otter
     Oxley
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Pearce
     Pelosi
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Platts
     Poe
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Porter
     Price (GA)
     Price (NC)
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Reichert
     Renzi
     Reyes
     Reynolds
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Ross
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Royce
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Ryan (WI)
     Ryun (KS)
     Sabo
     Salazar
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sanders
     Saxton
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schwartz (PA)
     Schwarz (MI)
     Scott (GA)
     Scott (VA)
     Sensenbrenner
     Serrano
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherman
     Sherwood
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simmons
     Simpson
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Sodrel
     Solis
     Souder
     Spratt
     Stearns
     Strickland
     Stupak
     Sullivan
     Sweeney
     Tancredo
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Terry
     Thomas
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Thornberry
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Tierney
     Towns
     Turner
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Upton
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walden (OR)
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Wasserman Schultz
     Watt
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Westmoreland
     Wexler
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Wu
     Wynn
     Young (AK)

                                NAYS--16

     Conyers
     Duncan
     Jackson (IL)
     Kucinich
     Lee
     McDermott
     McKinney
     Oberstar
     Owens
     Paul
     Payne
     Rangel
     Stark
     Waters
     Watson
     Woolsey

                             NOT VOTING--8

     Carter
     Conaway
     Herseth
     Lewis (GA)
     Murphy
     Pence
     Sessions
     Young (FL)

                              {time}  1647

  So the bill was passed.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
  Stated for:
  Mr. CONAWAY. Mr. Speaker, I was detained and unable to cast a vote on 
H.R. 2475, the Intelligence Authorization Act for FY06, on June 21, 
2005. I was enroute to Brownwood, Texas to attend the funeral of Lance 
Corporal Mario Castillo, a Marine from the 11th District of Texas. 
Please let the Record reflect that had I been here, I would have voted 
``yes.''

                          ____________________