mr. lungren: mr. speaker, while we were gone for the last week, the united states, the department of justice made an unfortunate decision announcement. that is they announced they would no longer defend an act of congress that was signed into law by president clinton. that is the defense of marriage act. the statement that came out of the justice department said they could find no constitutional basis for defending that law. i recall we had the same thing happen in my home state where then attorney general jerry brown said he could not defend proposition 8 which dealt with the definition of marriage. having served in that office in california, i can tell you, i defended laws i disagreed with. i defended laws i had voted against. and i thought it was my solemn obligation to uphold the constitution and the laws duel enacted in my state just as i believe the attorney general of the united states has that obligation. i believe it is a dereliction of duty. to somehow now find that there is no constitutiona

mr. lungren. mr. lungren: what i'd like to say, mr. speaker, with respect to roving wiretaps it's only available after the government is able to prove to the court that the target may engage in countersurveillance activity such as rapidly changing the cell phone number. it doesn't allow the government to make a general, boilerplate application. it requires them if they can't identify the individual, the very specific individual to describe to give some particularity in the request to identify that person as much as they possibly can. it is a -- it is also required that we put into law that once they have actually utilized this roving wiretap on different instruments of communication they have to report to the court within 10 days as to what took place. we have refined this as much as absolutely possible. what we're trying to do is keep up with technology. we know that some of these targets will buy 100 cell phones and use them for a single conversation and throw the -- throw that cell phone away. you can't just think that's going to ha

mr. lungren: thank you very much , mr. speaker. i thank the gentleman, the chairman of the rules committee, for granting me this time. the author of the sunset provision that requires us to these three portions of e patriot act. i offered that when we had the re-authorization of the overall bill because i thought these were three sections that were, at that time, controversial, and that we ought to be required to review it. so i did support the authorization for a year that we had last year, but i fully expected that the judiciary committee would hold hearings so that before this date we would have acted on any changes anyone deemed necessary. i would say i am not aware of any changes that are necessary, and i have followed this ever since they put the sunset provisions in. nonetheless, i had thought that during the last year while my friends on the other side were in charge, as a matter of fact i believe our committee pasd out a full re-authorization of the patriot act, that is the judiciy committee, under the leadership of chairm

mr. lungren: thank you very much , mr. speaker. i thank the gentleman, the chairman of the rules committee, for granting me this time. the author of the sunset provision that requires us to these three portions of the patriot act. i offered that when we had the re-authorization of the overall bill because i thought these were three sections that were, at that time, controversial, and that we ought to be required to review it. so i did support the authorization for a year that we had last year, but i fully expected that the judiciary committee would hold hearings so that before this date we would have acted on any changes anyone deemed necessary. i would say i am not aware of any changes that are necessary, and i have followed this ever since they put the sunset provisions in. nonetheless, i had thought that during the last year while my friends on the other side were in charge, as a matter of fact i believe our committee passed out a full re-authorization of the patriot act, that is the judiciary committee, under the leadership of

mr. lungren: and that he'd be 100 years old today. all i can say is, we're not looking backward, we're trying to take the essence of the man, his commitment to the fountation of this country hurricanes openness and optimism and utilize that at a time when we desperate hi need it. i never thought he looked at a person and thought, you're african-american, you're caucasian, you're hispanic, you're asian, he looked at you and he said, you're an american. and therefore i'm going to expect the best out of you, and this country is beginning to give you the opportunity to be the very, very best. so i thank you for this time and this weekend was wonderful, not only for us to reflect in our memories, but also to bring the ronald reagan we knew, we know, to the present people of america, particularly those young people who were not born when he was president of the united states, and let them have a sense of what it was that commanded this country, that led this country, that inspired this country. so i thank the gentleman very, very much. mr.

mr. lungren. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. mr. lungren: i don't know whether we're in an episode of "alice in wonderland" here or not. just because you say something is true doesn't make it true. the gentlelady just spoke a moment ago and said we need to look at this, we need to crub this, yet she is asking her colleagues to vote against the rule to not even allow this to be brought up. what is the conclusion of that? what's the intimation of this? to allow the provisions to expire. not to have time to look at them but they would expire -- one legislative day left. these are three major provisions in our effort to fight against terrorism. these are the provisions that initially were put under a sunset by the gentleman from wisconsin when he was chairman of the committee and then later on, when we redid, reviewed and reformed provisions of this, i authored, brought forward, the extension with the sunsets on these three provisions. so i find it interesting to have my friends on the other side of the aisle tell us what we were doing a

mr. lungren: i thank the gentleman for yielding. at the core of the supreme court decision was a protection of the first amendment political right of free speech. and that it would not be lost because you joined with others. as a corollary of that, the court and the -- in the majority opinion written by justice kennedy talked about the fact that one of the real fears of the founding fathers was the government acting in disparate ways. that is treating different groups differently for political reasons. so i just say, in the scenario by the gentleman from maryland, one would force an obligation of disclosure on one group and not another. so the defense contractors he said would, if he funded a statement on television, but the union members who worked for the defense contractor would not or those who are federal employees represented by unions would not, but i guess what we're saying here is, we know the corporations influence elections but it is absurd to assume that unions do. and if you believe that, then support this amendment. >>

mr. lungren from california, the former attorney general. the chair: the gentleman from california is recognized for one minute. mr. lungren: look, i stand before you as a conservative member of the republican study committee, former chairman of the republican study committee in strong opposition to this proposal. across the board cuts are lazy members' way to achieve something. this will cut 11% for the security of the congress. since the tragedy in tucson, i have had imnumerable members come to me as the chairman of house administration and asking me what more we can do for the security of this house, our members and our constituents. there is not a single member of this house who has asked me to cut security. quite the contrary. this would cut 250 officers, it would not allow me to do the things you have asked me to do in terms of securing your offices here or at home. secondly, the greatest obligation we have here, i believe, is oversight of the federal government. so what does this amendment do? it cuts us twice as much as those who are

mr. lungren and mr. rohrabacher and others in remembering someone who i believe is one of the very greatest americans ever to live, ronald reagan. mr. dreier: mr. speaker, i thank my friend very much for his thoughtful remarks and i want to assure him, it didn't begin or end this evening, but we are in fact in an entire year's celebration. tomorrow evening, our colleague who represents the ronald reagan library is going to be talking about him as well. now to close out this evening, we are pleased to have the newest member who has become a veteran, one of the great champions of the conservative friends, mr. mcclintock. . mr. mcclintock: thank you. i want to talk about what kind of times brought ronald reagan here to washington. i mean, we're told today that we face the worst economy since the great depression, a lot of us remember an even worse time when we did have double-digit unemployment and double -- double-digit inflation and mile-long lines around gas stations and interest rates that exceeded 20%.

mr. lungren and others on dealing with the questions of the lone wolf and roving wiretaps and all that. we need to have that addressed as quickly as possible. let's do it. let's do it now. let's pass this thing in a bipartisan way. with that, i yield back the balance of my time and move the previous question. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the previous question is order. the question is on dotchings the resolution. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it, the resolution is agreed to. mr. polis: i request the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are ordered. those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. a sufficient number having amendment number 223 printed in the congressional record offered by the gentleman from new jersey, mr. pascrell, had been postponed. and the bill had been read through page 263, line 9. pursuant to clause 6 of rule 18, proceedings will now resume on those amendments printed in the congressional record on the committee will be in order. the chair: committee will be in order. for what purpose does the g

mr. lungren, is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. pistole, for your service to the f.b.i. and service now. thank you for taking some arrows on the issue of full body scanners when that came up a little while ago. i mean a few months ago. i would just like to ask you, though, about your decision with respect to the screening partnership program. you said that members of congress when they enacted the legislation wanted a pilot project. pilot project was conducted. you said that the results were good. you then said, however, that you made a decision with respect to granting collective bargaining rights to the employees because you listened to them and you thought it would be a good idea they should vote. are you denying the airports of this country the right to vote. airports, a number of them, want to be involved in this. and you basically now raised the bar and said there has to be a compelling reason. do you have that same standard when you decided with respect to collective bargaining, compelling reason? >> i think those are two distinguishable issues. >> my question is,