Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 5825, the Electronic Surveillance Modernization Act.  Since the President’s illegal domestic wiretapping program became public, I have called for greater oversight and Congressional involvement to ensure that we can provide our intelligence agencies with the tools needed to fight terrorism while protecting essential civil liberties of Americans.  The bill before us today does not meet those standards.

As a member of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees, I am fully aware of the dangers posed by those who wish to harm Americans, and I have strongly supported efforts to make our nation safer.  However, the Bush Administration has not explained to my satisfaction why powers available under existing law cannot meet the needs of the war on terrorism.  For example, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) already permits the warrantless surveillance of communications under certain limited circumstances. Nevertheless, the Bush Administration did not use those emergency powers and instead chose to expand the authority of the National Security Agency (NSA).  The President’s decision to expand domestic surveillance, while notifying only a handful of legislators, does not constitute Congressional consent and is a danger to our established Constitutional system of checks and balances. 

I would have been receptive to modifications to FISA that preserved the vital oversight through the creation of the FISA court system.  I am a cosponsor of H.R. 5381, the Lawful Intelligence and Surveillance of Terrorists in an Emergency by NSA (LISTEN) Act, introduced by the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, the gentlewoman from California, Mrs. Harman.  This legislation would mandate that all monitoring of calls, email records and phone records be carried out in accordance with FISA and further asserts that the 2002 authorization for the NSA domestic surveillance program outside of FISA was not within the Bush Administration’s authority. 

Instead, this legislation gives the President broad authority to continue his domestic surveillance program without approval from the FISA court.  It uses judicial and Congressional notification as a substitute for legitimate oversight, and it establishes such broad justifications for surveillance that the Administration will have almost unlimited ability to continue its past practices with little to no changes.  Disturbingly, it also removes an important protection of current law that requires the government to certify that its warrantless surveillance of foreign agents would not intercept the communications of U.S. citizens. 

Once again, the President has sought to expand his own authority at the expense of Americans’ civil liberties, and Congress has willingly abdicated its oversight authority.  I urge my colleagues to vote against this measure so that we can find a better way to crack down on terrorist who would do us harm while safeguarding the rights of Americans.