Federal News Service - Transcript - Panel II of a Hearing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

Federal News Service

HEADLINE: PANEL II OF A HEARING OF THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE

SUBJECT: 9/11 COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS: COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYSIS AND COLLECTION, REQUIREMENT FOR IMAGINATION AND CREATIVITY

CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE PORTER GOSS (R-FL)

PANEL II WITNESSES: DR. JAMES J. CARAFANO, SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW, HERITAGE FOUNDATION; AND TIMOTHY EDGAR, LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION

LOCATION: 2318 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

BODY:

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. RAY LAHOOD (R-IL): Thank you.

I want to remind the viewers that are watching C-SPAN that Congress has not-and the administration has not-been sitting on its hands for three years. We created a Homeland Security agency that combines 22 agencies and costs taxpayers about $40 million now.

We secured all of the airports through hiring of TSA employees and all new equipment to screen people, which has made enplanements increase and, I think, given the public a sense of security about flying. We've helped the airline industry secure their airplanes through a $15 billion appropriation that we passed almost immediately after 9/11.

We passed the Patriot Act, which has created the kind of communication that did not exist before 9/11.

We compensated the city of New York for the cleanup of the twin towers area and to the families-almost 95 percent now have been compensated for the loss of their loved ones.

We authorized and are recruiting and hiring a thousand new FBI agents. And we authorized and are recruiting and training a thousand new CIA agents.

TTIC was created for better communication. It works. We've held hearings on that.

The Joint Terrorism Task Forces that exist in every major city in the country work. Has a lot of coordination going on, and cooperation.

We've dismantled al Qaeda through the invasion and liberation of Afghanistan, and we've liberated the people of Iraq and taken the war on terror to the terrorists. Our country has not been attacked for three years.

For those who think that Congress and the administration and the Bush team have been sitting on their hands, haven't been doing anything, haven't been creating any kind of counterattack against the terrorists, I think these facts and what we've done, what the administration have done, hopefully, will give people a sense of security. We have not been attacked for three years.

The House and Senate Intelligence Committees met for over 12 months and created an 800-page report! Many of the recommendations have been implemented, and many of them are similar to the ones that the 9/11 commission-it hasn't gotten the kind of publicity that the 9/11 commission-but a lot of work went into that.

A lot of hearings were held, and many of us participated in that.

So I want to make sure the record is clear on this, and I think it bears repeating so that the American people, the American taxpayers, show up-or know why that the country is safer and why the polling that's taken more recently indicates that Americans do feel safer. Every poll that's been taken in the last several weeks indicates that Americans feel safer, and part of the credit goes to the Bush team and to the Congress for stepping up and carrying out our responsibilities.

Mr. Edgar, I'd be curious to know what you or your organization-how you feel about the effectiveness of the Patriot Act, and as we begin our deliberations next year about either continuing the Patriot Act or making some changes, what your feeling is about that.

MR. EDGAR: Well, I would say that there are certainly things in the Patriot Act that we supported and don't have a problem with. We do believe that there are parts of the Patriot Act that go too far and that should be corrected.

Let's take-I mean, we should take on the hardest one, I think, which is the significant purpose test under FISA. That's the part of the Patriot Act that is often cited as having broke down the barrier between intelligence and law enforcement. I think that if you look at what the commission found, you'll see a very different story, a story that there was bureaucratic hoarding of information, there was very serious misunderstanding about FISA and what it allowed and what it didn't allow, and that really, that was the main problem in information sharing.

We're concerned that that part of the Patriot Act may have gone too far in allowing the criminal prosecutors to essentially direct the use of intelligence tools; that intelligence surveillance and powers should be used to gather foreign intelligence, but that they shouldn't be used by prosecutors as an end run around the Fourth Amendment and the greater protections in Title 3 for wiretapping under the criminal surveillance powers.

Does that mean they can never talk to each other? Well, of course not. And I think the 9/11 commission found that many of those walls and barriers were the result of misunderstanding. And one thing they said about the Patriot Act, they didn't favor extending it. They did not say that the Congress should immediately lift the barriers in the Patriot Act. They said instead that there should be a national debate about whether some of these powers go too far, and that the burden has to be on the government to show specifically how they've used these powers to thwart terrorism and whether we can have greater civil --

REP. LAHOOD: I know what the 9/11 commission said. I want to know what you think about extending it. Do you think it's a good idea next year, as we debate this, to extend the Patriot Act?

MR. EDGAR: Well, we are opposed to many of the provisions in the Patriot Act that are subject to the sunset clause. Like I said, a lot of the Patriot Act is non-controversial. But some very intrusive surveillance powers are subject to a sunset clause. We think those need to be fixed and that if they are fixed with greater judicial review and oversight, if they are extended by Congress, if that's your judgment, that there should be another period where we look at them.

We certainly do not agree that you should just renew the Patriot Act. I think that would be a huge mistake. I think we can look back at what we did after 9/11 quickly, and fix some of those powers in order to bring them back in line with the Constitution.

REP. LAHOOD: Mr. Carafano, do you have an opinion on this?