Congressman Lamar Smith, Twenty First Congressional
District of Texas
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. House of Representatives passed the RESTORE Act of 2007, a Democrat-sponsored bill that overhauls the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The final vote was 227-189.
“Democrats today failed to protect the American people by ignoring urgent requests from the intelligence community to update tools and modernize laws governing intelligence gathering,” stated Ranking Member Smith. “The RESTORE Act undermines our national security and increases the risk of a future attack on our country.”
“Democrats are playing politics by claiming that this bill ‘restores’ checks and balances,” continued Smith. “But politics should never come before national security. This bill restores nothing but a legal loophole for terrorists and spies. Today’s vote comes at the expense of our national security.”
“Contrary to Congress’s intent when FISA was originally enacted, this bill requires the government obtain a court order to conduct surveillance of overseas targets,” said Smith. “The implications of this requirement alone could be catastrophic.”
“The RESTORE Act requires intelligence officials to obtain a court order to conduct surveillance on Osama Bin Laden, but does not require one to conduct surveillance on an illegal immigrant,” Smith added. “The bill gives terrorists overseas more rights under the law, than individuals inside the U.S. That is simply absurd.”
“This bill does nothing to protect America, nothing to preserve civil liberties and nothing to promote national security,” concluded Smith. “So what does this bill do? It ignores 30 years of precedent in intelligence gathering and panders to special interests groups. Americans would be better served if lawmakers listened to their requests, rather than playing politics with the safety and security of our nation.”
Republicans introduced a Motion to Recommit that would address three critical concerns in the legislation. First, the current bill requires intelligence officials to obtain a court order to conduct surveillance on Osama Bin Laden, but does not require one for illegal immigrants in the U.S. The Republican motion ensures that the law does not provide greater protections to terrorists than individuals in the U.S., regardless of their legal status.
Second, the motion preserves the ability of the intelligence community to conduct surveillance on Osama Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, the Iranian National Guard and other terrorist organizations to protect America from imminent attack. Finally, the motion adds the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a specific terrorist organization. Democrats opposed these common-sense proposals by a vote of 194-222.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard carries out military operations outside of Iran, including insurgent activities in Iraq against U.S. Armed Forces, and is responsible for the export of terrorism to other terrorist organizations in the Middle East.
A report released from the International Atomic Energy Agency today found that Iran could be closer to a acquiring a nuclear weapon than previously believed. According to the report, Iran may be as little as a year to 18 months away from having enough uranium to produce a nuclear weapon.
