(Washington, DC)- House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. released the following statement to President Bush's commitment to work on foreign surveillance legislation through the recess:
"The president’s efforts to cast blame on FISA, echoed by his allies in Congress, show an appalling disregard for the facts. He threatened to veto any extension of the Protect America Act and, following his lead, every single Republican in the House voted against the 21 day extension I sponsored in the House. The president and House Republicans cannot have it both ways, simultaneously arguing that the PAA is essential to national security and also engineering the defeat of an extension of it. The consequences for inaction are their responsibility.
“Unfortunately, it is the same old tired rhetoric of fear that the country overwhelmingly rejected in the 2006 elections.
"From what I have seen from the Justice Department documents so far, there is no need to provide amnesty to telecommunication companies who are protected under current law, as long as they and the government are acting accordingly. I have not seen anything that leads me to believe, as the president seems to believe, that providing amnesty to these companies is a more compelling public interest than our constitutionally protected right to privacy. We must maintain our civil liberties and give the government the tools it needs to collect intelligence information, but I do not believe telecom amnesty is necessary in order to accomplish that goal.
"I have told my colleagues in the House that I am committed to working through this recess and will be discussing this legislation with Chairman Reyes and Senators Leahy and Rockefeller. I appreciate the president's dedication to seeing this through and hope that he will join me in putting Americans before corporate interests."
