The FISA Amendments Act of 2008

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Mr. Reid: Mr. President, as I said twice yesterday--and I will just say it briefly this morning--Democrats believe there are a lot of bad people out there and that there should be some form of collecting information over the telephone. But we believe it should be done in an orderly way in keeping with our Constitution. It appears, based on Republican actions yesterday, they want no controls whatsoever on the President. They want exactly what he has been doing now, which is violating the law.

Mr. President, we have offered a 2-week extension of the bill, a 30- day extension, a 15-month extension. If this bill that we have now before us is not enacted, it is not because of Democrats, it is because the Republicans, in conjunction with Vice President Cheney and the President, have made some determination that there should be no FISA legislation.

I, frankly, do not think that cloture will be invoked Monday afternoon. That being the case, it is virtually legislatively impossible to do anything by February 1. Remember, the House is out of session all but 1 day next week.

So the record should be very clear, we believe there are very bad people out there. We believe there should be some way of collecting information. But we believe, as does the vast majority of the American people, it should be collected in some way that is within the bounds of our Constitution.

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Mr. McConnell: Mr. President, let me respond briefly.

I think it is a little early in the session to begin the finger- pointing. We have here--I had hoped--a good, sort of bipartisan start to the session. The facts are that we have a bill before us, the Rockefeller-Bond bill, that we know will get a Presidential signature and protect the homeland. That is before us. We have an opportunity, on Monday, by invoking cloture, to pass a bill that we know will become law.

So I hope we do not sort of get back into the pattern that sort of underscored the early part of the first session of the 110th of just sort of endless finger-pointing and game-playing. I filed a cloture motion because I knew this was a bill that would get a signature. This is something that could become law. And if the House acted rapidly, it would become law before the deadline--a great bipartisan accomplishment.

We have that opportunity Monday. I hear my good friend and counterpart saying cloture will not be invoked, so I assume it will not be invoked. But I think that is a great mistake. This would have been a wonderful way to begin the session with a high point of bipartisan cooperation.

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Mr. Reid: Mr. President, we have lost about 4,000 soldiers in Iraq. Thirty-five thousand have been wounded. About a third of them have been grievously wounded. As we know, about 40 percent of the men and women coming back from Iraq have what is now called--we used to call it, after the Second World War, shell shock. Now they call it post- traumatic stress syndrome.

I just wrote a letter to the Nevada parents of a young man who was killed. I have done that lots of times. I was unable to speak to them, and that is why I wrote the letter. Most of them I try to visit. But the family has been split up a little bit, and it was not possible for me to do that.

Mr. President, I hope we can figure out a way to get our troops home soon. General Petraeus said the war cannot be won military, and every day that goes by that is proven certainly so. The Iraqi Government has nothing to move toward a settlement of this situation. There are far too many stories like Josh.

I hope we can work on a bipartisan basis on many matters. We hope, for this package which is coming from the House maybe sometime next week dealing with the stimulus, that we can work on a bipartisan basis. From all accounts I got yesterday, that, in fact, will be the case. Senators Baucus and Grassley, who have jurisdiction of 85 or 90 percent of the potential matters that go into the bill, have indicated they are going to have a bipartisan markup next week, and hopefully we can take a look at that piece of legislation in a bipartisan way and get it to the President as quickly as possible. There are many other things we have to work on, on a bipartisan basis, and I look forward to that.

I say with all due respect to my friend--and he is my friend--the Republican leader, that one thing the President has done and done very well these past years is frighten the American people, and it appears we are entering into another zone of frightening the American people. It started a couple of days ago with the Vice President, and the President followed him by a day, and we have the State of the Union coming. It is obvious that this FISA bill--which I hope something works out so it can be passed, but unless there is a way to amend it, it certainly doesn't appear that it is going to be. The President's State of the Union and certainly leading up to it will, again, frighten the American people. The best way to take that away is for the President to work with us. Are we asking for the impossible?

There have been efforts to amend this FISA legislation. In title I, there are probably five or six amendments we would want to vote on. Title II, which deals with immunity, Senators Dodd and Feingold for a long time have said they wish to have a vote on that. That is not unreasonable. Many of us support that. I can't imagine why we can't move forward on that, unless this is something the President wants to ratchet up so that he has something to frighten the American people about on Monday night when he gives his State of the Union, that we are not protecting the American people. We are protecting the American people, just as this young man, Josh, was, whom the Republican leader talked about. I wrote a letter, as I indicated, to the Gaul family a couple of days ago.

We need to enter into a new era of bipartisanship where we are not frightening the American people but we are trying to work with the American people, to move out of some of the areas in which we find ourselves bogged down. I hope this year will allow us to do that.

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Mr. McConnell: Mr. President, just one further observation with regard to my friend's remarks.

The Bond-Rockefeller bill is exactly the way we ought to be doing our business. It came out of the Intelligence Committee 13 to 2. It is supported on a bipartisan basis. It is supported by the President of the United States. We have a product that was carefully negotiated by Senator Bond and Senator Rockefeller, approved by the Intelligence Committee 13 to 2, and supported by the President of the United States. That is my definition of a bipartisan accomplishment. Now the question is, Can we finish the job and get a signature?

This is not about frightening the American people. The American people should be frightened, and remember full well what happened on 9/ 11. They also remember with gratitude that it has not happened again for 6 years. The reason for it, obviously, is we have been on offense, going after the terrorists where they are, and we have improved our defense.

An integral part of protecting the homeland is the measure before us, carefully crafted on a bipartisan basis, supported by the President of the United States. If we want to finish the job and have a bipartisan accomplishment that all of us can be proud of, the way to do that is to pass this bill, send it to the House, urge them to take it up and pass it, and send it to the President, who awaits it to affix his signature.

I yield the floor.

The Acting President pro tempore: The majority leader is recognized.

Mr. Reid: Mr. President, there is no question that Senator Rockefeller and Senator Bond have worked hard on this legislation. Also, we have had good work from Senator Leahy and Senator Specter of the Judiciary Committee. Senator Rockefeller wants a piece of legislation to pass very badly. He does not support cloture in this effort that is going to take place on Monday because he believes the bill needs to be changed. Just because there is a bill that comes out of committee doesn't mean we shouldn't deal with it here on the floor. Senator Rockefeller is not going to support cloture on this bill on Monday. It is a decision he made, and he has made it because we have not had the opportunity to do things to this piece of legislation that he believes should happen. It is a rare piece of legislation that comes out of one of these major committees that comes to the floor that doesn't require some improvement.

So it is simply unfair to say that Senator Rockefeller and Senator Bond's piece of legislation should go through as if it were written in script on top of some big mountain. It was written in a committee room with a lot of discussion and votes, and some of the amendments passed, some didn't. It came to the floor. We all are happy it came to the floor. But at this time, even Senator Rockefeller believes there should be changes in it, and he will not support cloture, as he told me last night, because he feels it has been handled so poorly by the minority here on the floor.

The Acting President pro tempore: The Senator from Missouri is recognized.