Terrorists Enjoying "Free Speech" Courtesy of Speaker Pelosi

Press Release

As I write this column, America is entering the third straight week without the authority to adequately gather intelligence on foreign terrorist activities. We lost this critical advantage on February 16 when the current authorization to monitor terrorist communications expired and the liberal leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives blocked a vote on a bill to permanently update the decades-old law.

Even as early as 1978, Congress realized the U.S. government's need to keep tabs on foreign terrorist communications. That year the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was passed into law. Today, FISA remains the principal law allowing our Intelligence Community to monitor foreign terrorist communications coming into and leaving the United States. Changes in technology and the global nature of communications today have unfortunately rendered the three-decade-old FISA legally ineffective. After 9/11, Congress gave the president authority to update the FISA law, albeit temporarily.

Under the revised FISA law, also known as the Protect America Act, foreign terrorist communications can be better monitored. And, the government must still demonstrate probable cause to monitor any suspected terrorist communication inside the country that involves a U.S. citizen. Because the Protect America Act has not been made permanent, the continual need to seek Congressional approval to adequately monitor foreign terrorists has caused disruption to intelligence gathering and places our citizens at greater risk.

As a senior member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which has oversight of the Protect America Act, I can say that America is certainly safer due to our ability to proactively track and monitor foreign terrorists. These terrorists have not and will not stop trying to attack our homeland. We must, therefore, have adequate legal tools to stay ahead of them.

In a recent letter calling for the permanent enactment of the Protect America Act, J.M. McConnell, Director of National Intelligence and U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey state: "Using the authorities provided by the Protect America Act, we have obtained information about the efforts of an individual to become a suicide operative, efforts by terrorists to obtain guns and ammunition, and terrorists transferring money. Other information obtained using the authorities provided by the Protect America Act has led to the disruption of planned terrorist attacks."

The U.S. Senate realized the urgent nature of making the Protect America Act permanent and accordingly passed legislation to do so by a resounding 68 to 29 margin on February 12. However, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, has steadfastly refused to allow a House vote on this legislation and even allowed the House to go on a 12-day recess while the Protect America Act expired.

Every day that our intelligence officials do not have the ability to adequately monitor foreign terrorist communications we lose more ground in tracking terrorists. It's time the liberal leadership of the U.S. House stopped playing political games and allowed a vote on legislation making the Protect America Act permanent.

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