SENATOR HUTCHISON DISCUSSES THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE AMENDMENTS ACT OF 2007

The Intelligence Committee voted the bill out on a bipartisan basis. It was certainly debated and balanced within the committee. I think this Senate should support the Intelligence Committee and all the work they have done to prepare this very important legislation. So to Senator Rockefeller and Senator Bond, I say thank you for doing a great job.

I do rise today to support this bill. It is essential that we do so to protect our country. I was proud to join my colleagues last August in passing the Protect America Act. It will expire in 8 days--in 8 days. The majority leader has said we are going to pass this legislation this week out of the Senate. That is a good thing. The House needs a week to look at it and determine if they will pass it. I hope they will pass the same legislation that is before us from the Intelligence Committee and send it to the President without amendment.

Our enemies are not going to expire in 8 days. Al-Qaida, we know, uses cell phones and wireless Internet networks and countless other technologies that were not in place when the original FISA passed 30 years ago. Thirty years ago, we did not have cell phones. Thirty years ago, you would go to a court and say: We want to tap the phone line of this number. Today, a cell phone can be thrown away before you can go to get a court order.

So in the act we passed last year, we determined that you could get a court order to intercept the communications between suspected terrorists and you can go to the person rather than to a phone number, which would be unusable by the time you could get a court order. So that is one way we have begun to upgrade the technology to match the threat. Because our enemy is very technologically capable. We must be able to meet that with law enforcement. Delays could mean the difference between life and death.

Unless we take action, this protection of our ability to intercept potential plots against our country will go out of existence. We cannot, in good conscience, let that happen.

Let's talk about the litigation aspects because that is going to be the first amendment we vote on. The first amendment we vote on is going to be out of the Judiciary Committee. There will be other amendments, I know, that have already been discussed on the floor regarding litigation against telecom companies.

After 9/11, the Federal Government requested that America's telecom companies share proprietary information to help prevent future terrorist attacks. After the existence of the national security program was illegally leaked 2 years ago, America's telecom companies began to get hit with dozens of class action lawsuits that could expose them to catastrophic liabilities.

Originally, the telecom companies had nothing to fear from those lawsuits because they had evidence that what they did was at the request of our law enforcement officials. But due to the sensitive nature of the Government's request of these companies, the law enforcement officials barred the telecom companies from the release of certain documents that they needed for their trials. So we have created a situation in which companies have cooperated with law enforcement to keep our country safe, and then, when the lawsuits arose, they were not allowed to defend themselves. Now, some of my colleagues say: Well, that is tough. They should have known better.

We are talking about the security of our country. The people who are in the business of telecommunications were asked to be patriotic Americans. And they said yes. So if we do not give them protection for these actions, as well as those going forward, we are going to put our businesses in an untenable situation. Either they can help law enforcement, be sued and hampered in their legal defense because they are not able to introduce certain types of evidence because of security reasons, or they can say no to law enforcement and put our country in jeopardy.

Now, I will tell you that I have talked to the CEO of one of our major telecommunications companies. He has said: Senator, I am going to do what is right for America. That is my first responsibility as a citizen of this country. But, Senator, I don't think I should be put in jeopardy for my shareholders and my consumers while being a patriotic American.

The Senate must act responsibly. We must be able to go to a company and say: help our country. Because in the past a terrorist could communicate between two countries overseas, and we would have the right to intercept those messages. I wish I could say we have no enemies inside our country who would communicate with a terrorist outside our country, but we all know that is not the case. We all know there are people in our country today plotting to kill innocent Americans. We know because plots have been uncovered. And we know because that is what happened on 9/11. There were people inside our country who were aiding and abetting, living in our country, and planning to kill innocent Americans.

So we must have the capability to give protection to a telecommunications company that would cooperate with our Federal law enforcement officials to intercept messages between al-Qaida in Pakistan or Afghanistan or anywhere in the world communicating with a terrorist sympathizer in our own country. It is our responsibility to do this for the safety and security of Americans.

We must pass this bill. We must pass it in the form that the Intelligence Committee did on a bipartisan basis. We must respect the work that has been done by those who have heard hours and hours and hours of testimony and seen classified information about the threats to our country. We must do our part, along with the President, with the Members of the House of Representatives, and with our law enforcement officials to ensure that no stone is left unturned to uncover a plot against innocent Americans.

If that is not the duty of the U.S. Senate, Mr. President, I ask you, what is? That is our responsibility. That is why we were elected: to protect our country. I hope this body, of which I am so proud to be a Member, will do the right thing and extend this act and give our law enforcement the tools they need to do the job we are asking them to do to protect America.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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