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(Washington, DC) – Rep. Rush Holt (NJ-12) today issued the following statement on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s passage of the RESTORE Act (HR 3773), the committee’s alternative to the Protect America Act (Public Law 110-55):(Washington, DC) – Rep. Rush Holt (NJ-12) today issued the following statement on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s passage of the RESTORE Act (HR 3773), the committee’s alternative to the Protect America Act (Public Law 110-55):
“Today, the committee accepted four of my amendments to the RESTORE Act that will increase our ability to help protect Americans from those who would do us physical harm, and from the government itself,” said Holt. “While this bill does not contain a key protection I sought—the certainty that the courts will protect U.S. persons from unwarranted surveillance—it is a great improvement on the so-called “Protect America Act” that the Congress passed in August.”
Holt’s amendments would:
• Require the Bush administration to “fully inform” Congress on all surveillance programs conducted since 9/11.
• Increase the number of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) judges from 11 to 15; provide additional personnel to both the FISC and government agencies responsible for making and processing FISA applications; and create an electronic filing, sharing, and document management system for handling this highly classified data. The amendment would also mandate training in the FISA process.
• Require the Court to review and approve not only the targeting procedures and guidelines required under this Act, but also the application of those guidelines.
• Clarify that Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is the sole statutory basis for domestic surveillance.
President Bush has already vowed to veto any legislation that does not make permanent the unprecedented and easily-abused surveillance powers granted to him by the “Protect America Act,” a fact Holt noted.
“What separates our government from the totalitarian ones we despise is that they spy on their citizens in the name of national security,” said Holt. “We must hold tight to the structure of checks and balances, where the court makes sure that the surveillance and enforcement arms of our government are actually protecting Americans. The notion that we can only have security if we sacrifice some liberty along the way is a false choice—and over the last 200 hundred years, many people have found refuge in the United States because our system preserves their safety and security, not only from vicious enemies, but also from the excesses of the government itself. The President may not understand that, but the American people do. Our fight to uphold those principles continues.”
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