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For Immediate Release: June 29, 2006

REP. FRANK FLOOR STATEMENT ON SUPPORTING INTELLIGENCE AND LAW ENFORCEMENT PROGRAMS TO TRACK TERRORISTS AND TERRORIST FINANCES

(House of Representatives - June 29, 2006)

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Mr. Speaker, people who want things to be done in a bipartisan manner should not engage in extreme partisanship at the outset. The resolution that is before us was drafted entirely by Republicans with no input from any Democrat, from the Intelligence Committee, from the Financial Services Committee, or anywhere else, and presented to us a little over 24 hours ago. We then asked for the right to offer amendments, or at least a substitute resolution. It was denied.

   I find it extraordinary that repeatedly in the interest and in the name of democracy the majority degrades democracy. How can it be justified that no alternative can be offered? How can it be justified that no amendment can be offered?

   Let me say again: We are telling the Shiia majority in Iraq that in their parliament they ought to make an effort to include the Sunni; that it is not simply the majority doing everything, but you work with the minority. You then give, Mr. Speaker, through your party, the opposite example by not allowing even a resolution to be offered for us to be voted on.

   We have an alternative that is supported by a very large majority of our caucus. And now let me talk about that resolution, because let us be clear about what is not at issue today.

   We have agreement that the method of tracking terrorists through their financial dealings is a good thing. The Democratic resolution, which the majority refuses to allow to be considered in their abusive use of their majority, says explicitly that we support efforts to identify and track terrorists and their financial supporters. So if it isn't unanimous, it is the fault of the majority by doing it so divisively.

   We also in our resolution deplore the unauthorized disclosure of classified information. But we talk not simply about people who might print it, but the people in the administration who might release it. Earlier today someone said, well, what would happen if you gave out the name of spies? Well, ask the people in this administration who gave out the name of Valerie Plame. We hope that something will be done.

   Here is the difference between the two resolutions: the Republican resolution, drafted entirely by them and withheld from us until its publication, agrees that we should track terrorist financing. So does the Democratic resolution. Theirs, however, includes a number of factual statements that I do not believe we yet have a basis for making.

   Now, in some cases, some of those factual statements are about things that turn out, we think, not to have been true. For example, on page 3 of their resolution they have reference to a prior incident in which the Washington Times was accused of having disclosed classified information regarding efforts to monitor the communication of Osama bin Laden.

   They don't mention the Washington Times because they like the Washington Times. They mention the New York Times. Times, they are a changing. If it is the New York Times, they don't like it, and they criticize it. If it is the Washington Times, they talk about a far more serious allegation about the Washington Times, that it gave away to Osama bin Laden how we knew where he was, but they don't mention them.

   But now it turns out they may very well have been inaccurate about that, and I plan to submit an article from The Washington Post that defends the Washington Times.

   But here is the problem we have: we want to say in our resolution, and we hoped it could have been unanimous, that we support this kind of tracking; that we don't want things to be disclosed. But what we are not prepared to say, and, frankly, nobody here is intellectually prepared to say it, people may say it on faith, but here is what they want to say: we find that the program has been conducted in accordance with all applicable laws, regulations, and executive orders; that appropriate safeguards and reviews have been instituted to protect individual civil liberties, and that Congress has been appropriately informed.

   I think that the part about our being informed is very inaccurate, and I don't know the answer to the other. What you have done is to hijack the virtually unanimous support for tracking terrorist financing into an endorsement of the way the Bush administration has conducted itself. That is how it became partisan.

   Why should this House vote now to say that the program has been conducted with all the safeguards, et cetera, et cetera? We don't know that. Members don't know that. Members on the other side are entitled to take it on faith. I know faith-based resolutions are very important to them, but I don't think as Members of the House of Representatives we ought to be asked to vote, the most solemn thing you do in a democracy as a representative, on factual statements when people cannot know whether they are true.

   Again, I want to go back and say, how can you justify, in the name of democracy, denying us a chance to even present an alternative resolution supporting this program?

[From the Washington Post, Dec. 22, 2005]

   File the Bin Laden Phone Leak Under `Urban Myths'

(By Glenn Kessler)

   President Bush asserted this week that the news media published a U.S. government leak in 1998 about Osama bin Laden's use of a satellite phone, alerting the al Qaeda leader to government monitoring and prompting him to abandon the device.

   The story of the vicious leak that destroyed a valuable intelligence operation was first reported by a best-selling book, validated by the Sept. 11 commission and then repeated by the president.

   But it appears fa be an urban myth.

   The al Qaeda leader's communication to aides via satellite phone had already been reported in 1996--and the source of the information was another government, the Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan at the time.

   The second time a news organization reported on the satellite phone, the source was bin Laden himself.

   Causal effects are hard to prove, but other factors could have persuaded bin Laden to turn off his satellite phone in August 1998. A day earlier, the United States had fired dozens of cruise missiles at his training camps, missing him by hours.

   Bush made his assertion at a news conference Monday, in which he defended his authorization of warrantless monitoring of communications between some U.S. citizens and suspected terrorists overseas. He fumed that ``the fact that we were following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone made it into the press as the result of a leak.'' He berated the media for ``revealing sources, methods and what we use the information for'' and thus helping ``the enemy'' change its operations.

   White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Monday that the president was referring to an article that appeared in the Washington Times on Aug. 21, 1998, the day after the cruise missile attack, which was launched in retaliation for the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa two weeks earlier. The Sept. 11 commission also cited the article as ``a leak'' that prompted bin Laden to stop using his satellite phone, though it noted that he had added more bodyguards and began moving his sleeping place ``frequently and unpredictably'' after the missile attack.

   Two former Clinton administration officials first fingered the Times article in a 2002 book, ``The Age of Sacred Terror.'' Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon wrote that after the ``unabashed right-wing newspaper'' published the story, bin Laden ``stopped using the satellite phone instantly'' and ``the United States lost its best chance to find him.''

   The article, a profile of bin Laden, buried the information about his satellite phone in the 21st paragraph. It never said that the United States was listening in on bin Laden, as the president alleged. The writer, Martin Sieff, said yesterday that the information about the phone was ``already in the public domain'' when he wrote the story.

   A search of media databases shows that Time magazine had first reported on Dec. 16, 1996, that bin Laden ``uses satellite phones to contact fellow Islamic militants in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.'' Taliban officials provided the information, with one official--security chief Mulla Abdul Mannan Niazi--telling Time, ``He's in high spirits.''

   The day before the Washington Times article was published--and the day of the attacks--CNN producer Peter Bergen appeared on the network to talk about an interview he had with bin Laden in 1997.

   ``He communicates by satellite phone, even though Afghanistan in some levels is back in the Middle Ages and a country that barely functions,'' Bergen said.

   Bergen noted that as early as 1997, bin Laden's men were very concerned about electronic surveillance. ``They scanned us electronically,'' he said, because they were worried that anyone meeting with bin Laden ``might have some tracking device from some intelligence agency.'' In 1996, the Chechen insurgent leader Dzhokhar Dudayev was killed by a Russian missile that locked in to his satellite phone signal.

   That same day, CBS reported that bin Laden used a satellite phone to give a television interview. USA Today ran a profile of bin Laden on the same day as the Washington Times's article, quoting a former U.S. official about his ``fondness for his cell phone.''

   It was not until Sept. 7, 1998--after bin Laden apparently stopped using his phone--that a newspaper reported that the United States had intercepted his phone calls and obtained his voiceprint. U.S. authorities ``used their communications intercept capacity to pick up calls placed by bin Laden on his Inmarsat satellite phone, despite his apparent use of electronic `scramblers,' '' the Los Angeles Times reported.

   Officials could not explain yesterday why they focused on the Washington Times story when other news organizations at the same time reported on the satellite phone--and that the information was not particularly newsworthy.

   ``You got me,'' said Benjamin, who was director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council staff at the time. ``That was the understanding in the White House and the intelligence community. The story ran and the lights went out.''

   Lee H. Hamilton, vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, gave a speech in October in which he said the leak ``was terribly damaging.'' Yesterday, he said the commission relied on the testimony of three ``very responsible, very senior intelligence officers,'' who he said ``linked the Times story to the cessation of the use of the phone.'' He said they described it as a very serious leak.

   But Hamilton said he did not recall any discussion about other news outlets' reports. ``I cannot conceive we would have singled out the Washington Times if we knew about all of the reporting,'' he said.

   A White House official said last night the administration was confident that press reports changed bin Laden's behavior. CIA spokesman Tom Crispell declined to comment, saying the question involves intelligence sources and methods.

   Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

 

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 Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee, asked us to say where we disagree with this resolution. I would be glad to tell you that.

   This resolution makes factual assertions that I do not believe any Member of the House can confidently and honestly make, and certainly not more than four or five could even pretend.

   It says, for example, in the resolved clause that we know, those of us who would be voting for this, as a fact ``that the program has been conducted in accordance with all applicable laws, regulations, and executive orders; that appropriate safeguards have been used and been instituted to protect individuals' civil liberties.''

   I don't believe any Member knows that. Maybe one or two will claim that. Do Members feel free to vote for things and say they know things which they don't?

   It is also true in the whereases: ``Whereas the terrorist finance program consists of the appropriate and limited use of transaction information while maintaining respect for individual privacy.''

   That may or may not be the case, but Members here don't know it. And let me talk about briefings, by the way. I am the senior Democrat on Financial Services, and I have been for 3 1/2 years. I was, about a month ago, asked to a briefing. I was asked to a briefing and told that this was about to be made public and, therefore, they were going to brief me. But that if I listened to the briefing, when it was made public I couldn't talk about it.

   Yes, I did not accept that briefing. It was a briefing only because it was about to be made public, and then I could not talk about it. But even if I had had the briefing, I do not believe I could in good conscience say these things.

   Now, there are Members here who may have such faith in their administration that they will claim to say things which I know they don't know. Yes, faith-based programs are very useful, but I don't think faith-based resolutions do our job.

   So I don't know that these things are wrong, but I disagree with making factual assertions about the program that may not be correct.

   There is another factual assertion that may not be correct. And I know there has been a lot of concern about the Times. In the Republican majority's resolution there is an attack on the Times. It doesn't mention them. Quite sensitively, it doesn't mention the Times, but it talks about one of the most damaging allegations I have seen about a leak.

   It says, on the bottom of page 2: ``In 1998, disclosure of classified information regarding efforts to monitor the communication of Osama bin Laden eliminated a valuable source of intelligence information on al Qaeda's activities.'' Now, that is a serious accusation to make against the Times. It is, of course, the Washington Times. Somehow, that adjective sort of disappeared.

   There has been a lot of talk about the New York Times. It is the Washington Times who is referred to in your own resolution, Mr. Speaker, as having done a far more damaging specific thing. But the Washington Post came to the defense of the Washington Times and said, no, that was already known. Well, that is in controversy.

   I am not prepared to vote for the resolution which accuses and convicts the Washington Times of having foiled our efforts to find Osama bin Laden when I don't know that as a fact. The Washington Post says it is unfair to the Washington Times.

   You may be prepared, Mr. Speaker, to condemn the Washington Times so clearly for undermining our efforts to find Osama bin Laden. I am not.

   But we are only here partly about the specifics. This is an outrage, the procedure. I do not understand how Members can hold up their heads when they advocate this.

   Well over half of the Democratic Members saw this resolution for the first time at 4:15. There was no consultation about the draft. It was drafted entirely in a partisan way. We looked at it and said, we agree with some of it and not others. Yes, I think almost all Democrats agree that we should track the financial doings.

   We have a resolution which takes much of the language from the Republican resolution and says that. It says we are in favor of tracking things, and we condemn leaks. We think it is wrong for people to leak. So we would like to have that in there. But we don't want to have to say, at the same time, that the Bush administration has done everything perfectly. We don't want to make some of the criticisms of the media that you make, including this denunciation of the Washington Times.

   We are asking for a chance, in a democracy, to put forward our resolution where we could make clear that we disagree with some of the leaking; where we make clear that we think you should track the financial records of the terrorists; but we do not want to have to say that we also agree with the administration. That would seem to me a reasonable choice.

   Mr. Speaker, to the discredit of the Republican Party, you have denied us that choice. This is not democracy, this is plebiscitary democracy. You demand a ``yes'' or ``no.'' Mubarak and Peron and Hugo Chavez would be proud of your understanding of the democratic process.

 

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The Committee oversees all components of the nation's housing and financial services sectors including banking, insurance, real estate, public and assisted housing, and securities. The Committee continually reviews the laws and programs relating to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Reserve Bank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and international development and finance agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The Committee also ensures enforcement of housing and consumer protection laws such as the U.S. Housing Act, the Truth In Lending Act, the Housing and Community Development Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, the Community Reinvestment Act, and financial privacy laws.