Independent Thinking

INDEPENDENT THINKING -- (House of Representatives - December 06, 2004)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, on September 11, 2001, our Nation suffered the most horrible attack ever on American soil at the hands of those with a deep-seated, enduring hatred for freedom.

Since that day, every one of us has been anxious to do whatever we can to protect our Nation's security. We have made great strides in this direction over the past 3 years, and much of the bill currently being considered seeks to capitalize on the success of the policies of the Bush administration.

When 9/11 Commission Vice Chair Lee Hamilton and Commission member Slade Gorton testified before the Committee on the Judiciary, I promised that I would carefully analyze any proposal that would come before this Congress to ensure that independence and ingenuity are preserved and that any intelligence-gathering entity or entities are not susceptible to groupthink.

The creation of the National Intelligence Director in this bill is precisely the formula for groupthink.

I absolutely believe the sharing of information is essential, but a National Intelligence Director with budget control and hiring and firing authority will create the climate for top-down groupthink. This groupthink will eliminate the competition of ideas and hinder innovation and creativity. Next time, it will not matter how faulty the information sharing, but a matter of the information not being generated or discovered to begin with. Instead of seeking to create out-of-the-box, non-linear thinking, creative, effective intelligence organizations, this legislation is carving square pegs to fit into round holes. It is impossible not to reach the conclusion that groupthink is the inevitable result of the 9/11 Commission NID proposal.

We need to establish open channels of information-sharing between agencies, but not cripple them with top-down control. The testimony both before and by the 9/11 Commission established that there was not a single model of an intelligence culture that got it right. We must find the models we can use to create the types of agencies that can think outside the box.

Just as importantly, our national security begins at our borders. H.R. 10 included many immigration reforms that would have greatly improved the security of the United States. The conference committee either completely removed most of those provisions or mutilated them beyond recognition.

They removed a requirement that all people entering the U.S. must provide secure verification of their identities and citizenship; a requirement that people present secure identification to establish their identity to Federal employees. They took out provisions which would have expedited the removal of illegal aliens and prevented terrorists from obtaining asylum.

They stripped a provision that would have cut down on excessive judicial review of the deportations of criminal aliens. They cut a provision which would have mandated that dangerous aliens who cannot be deported be detained. They chopped a section that would have imposed criminal penalties for false claims of citizenship.

Finally, the issue that has received the most attention lately, they cut a provision that would have barred illegal aliens from obtaining driver's licenses.

After all of this, they told the people who lost their loved ones on September 11 that those who are truly seeking to improve their safety are the ones holding this bill up in conference.

This is not a time for partisan politics or turf wars. If the goal here is truly to improve the security of our Nation as best we can, we cannot stifle intelligence activities nor ignore the mammoth threat pouring through our borders and living among us.

I urge my colleagues to join me in refusing to settle for a bill that does not do all it can to improve the safety of those who sent us here to represent them.