chairman sensenbrenner, ranking member scott -- >> could you, please, pull the microphone a little closer to you? >> chairman and members of the which, it is my honor to appear before you to discuss your oversight of the dea and our role in protecting crime, protect america from drugs and increasing our nation's security. bure highlighting dea's recent accomplishments i want to thank you for your continued support of our essential law enforcement mission. your partnership is especially appreciated in what we face. today a mall mark of our many trafficking organizations is the increasing number of their operations. traffickers are using the latest technology to conduct daily business from sophisticated communication devices and services to laundering money through electronic value transfers. they use innovative transportation methods. moving drugs in everything from planes to tunnels, from wooden canoes to fully submerced submarines. we cannot let up or we will never catch up. dea partners are successfully disrupting, dismantings networks. enforcing the availability of drugs and the harm t

sensenbrenner is recognized for his questions. >> thanks very much, mr. chairman. mr. attorney general, i do want to echo mr. conyer's commendation of you for coming before us on a regular basis. i know it takes a lot of time to prepare, i also know you don't know what's going to get thrown at you. and sometimes there will be curve balls. i hope mine is a curveball. i want to talk a little bit about the florida voter registration case. and it appeared in the "new york times" yesterday there was an article there about the state defending its search for ineligible voters and secretary of state ken ditsner of florida sent a letter to mr. haron of the voting section of the civil rights division talking about the problem. and the problem is simply this, and that is as florida's trying to purge its voter registration rolls of noncitizens including illegal immigrants, people are clearly not eligible to vote. and the department of homeland security has had a nine-month delay in giving the national voter registration laws to the state and now mr. haren appears to be taking the

. >> thank you chairman sensenbrenner. my first comment is to congratulate ranking member bobby scott on an excellent opening statement that tracks much of what i have been doing in preparing for this. i think the beginning of this discussion on the part of the subcommittee on crime could be one of the most important contributions that the house judiciary committee could make on the subject of the american criminal justice system but before i go any further, chairman sensenbrenner, i noted 14 issues that you raised with our distinguished witness and i stopped counting after that. the question that i have is are we going to have an additional hearing to give her an opportunity to respond to each and every one of those? >> will the gentleman yield? >> with pleasure. >> that depends on how responsive she is to the issues that are raised. we all would like to get this wrapped up in one hearing including miss leonhart. >> thank you, sir. it was my impression that we could devote the rest of the next couple hours to a discussion

. >> brown: for a different take, republican congressman jim sensenbrenner joins us from wisconsin. he is a past chairman of the house judiciary committee and has criticized the administration's move. welcome, congressman, cecilia munoz and the president said very clearly it's the right thing to do. you disagree, why? >> strongly so. now first of all the dream act was rejected by a democratic congress in 2010. now what the president is doing is having napolitano do selective law enforcement. the law is still on the books. if you are here illegally you ought to be subject to deportation. there should be no selection between people who won't be deported and who who will be deported. if you break the law, you will have to suffer the consequences. that's called equal protection of the laws. which is something our constitution guarantees. >> brown: of course the argument here is that these are young people who came through no fault of their own, no responsibility for why they're he. they have been here for a long time, they know no other country, really. they have been through school. th

but before i go any further, chairman sensenbrenner, i noted 14 issues that you raised with the, our distinguished witness, and i stopped counting after that. now, the question that i have, sir, is -- are we going to have an additional hearing to give her an opportunity to respond to each and every one of those? >> well the -- yield? >> with pleasure. >> that depends on how responsive she to the issued raised. i think we'd all like to get wrapped up in one hearing, including ms. leonhart. >> well -- thank you, sir. it was my impression that we could devote the rest of the next couple hours to a discussion between you and her about what you raised in your opening statement. so i don't -- i don't understand with a -- two, four, five six -- yes, sir? >> the chair notes from years and years that the current chair enforces the five-minute rule on himself as well as on everybody else. >> well, that's what makes it more difficult. i mean, that's the problem that i'm raising. with six members here and probably more that come, under the five-minute rule, there's no way she can ever get to the

sensenbrenner earlier called this a model of due process. in fact, the letters going to voters say they will be removed if they fail to respond within 30 days. the governor believes failure to respond to a letter within 30 days is reason enough to lose your right to vote even if you're a u.s. citizen. maybe you moved. maybe you don't read your mail. maybe it got lost. maybe, general holder, you're a different elderly veteran of world war ii who received the letter the week his wife died and threw it out because he didn't have time to deal with the preposterous assertion that he's not a united states citizen. that happened mr. attorney general. i applauded you last friday for requesting florida suspend this unaccountable purge. the doj rightly pointed out federal voter laws prohibit voter purges within 90 days of election. the closer you get to an election the less time you have to correct mistakes. mistakes like disenfranchising voters. now, i'm aware the governor responded to you late last night in a letter that showcases his administration

sensenbrenner, for two minutes. thspeaker pro tempore: the gentleman from wisconsin is recognized for two minutes. mr. sensenbrenner: mr. speaker, this isn't about politics. this is about th constitution. and it's about congress' map date to do oversight -- mandate to do oversight over both executive and judicial branches of government. the president is asserting executive privilege to attempt to shield these documents. and he is relying on a type of primpling called the deliberative process privilege. however, that privilege disappears when congress' investigating evidence of wrongdoing. and in 1997 the u.s. court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit wrote in part, moreover, the privilege disappears altogether when there is any reason to believe that government misconduct has occurred. in another case, it was decided by the first circuit in 1995, it says that the grounds that shielding internal government deliberations inhis context does not serve the public interest in honest, effective government. ther

conyers. >> thank you, chairman sensenbrenner. i feel and i appreciate your announcing that there will be continued hearings about d.e.a. and its role. you will note, madam director, that i originally pointed out in my remarks that we spend huge amounts of resources and the rate of illegal drug activity continues at about the same pace. have you been able to reflect on that in terms of how this keeps going on? and what we might be able to do about it? >> thank you for the question, sir. i think there's a lot of misinformation and misperceptions about actually the drug situation and especially when it comes to teams. i do want to tell you that will 650,000 fewer teenagers are using drugs today than a decade earlier. that's a 15% decline. the balanced drug strategy that we have has played a role. marijuana use by teens has dropped 7%. methamphetamine has plummeted 67%. ecstasy has been slashed 42%. and cocaine use is down 40% since 2006. meth has dropped even more, and that's 50% since 2006. so we do see these drops in teen drug use

sensenbrenner: madam speaker, i thank the gentleman from texas for yielding me this time. i introduced h.r. 4223, the safe doses act, to address the problem of medical cargo theft across the united states. medical cargo theft poses significant health risks to patients who have no reason to no their medicines have been stolen and improperly cared for before being sold back into the legitimate supply chain. stolen medical cargo can kill or injure those patients that need reliable safe medicines. sophisticated and enterprising criminal organizations are stealing large quantities of medical products and selling them via the wholesale market into legitimate pharmacies and hospitals. they are putting patient safety at risk because improperly cared for medical products can be ineffective or harmful and such damaged products are often impossible for health care professionals to identify. high-value pharmaceuticals, including treatments for serious diseases, are frequent targets. unfortunately, these high-value items are the very type of sensitive products that need the most carefu

sensenbrenner, for two minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from wisconsin is recognized for two minutes. mr. sensenbrenner: mr. speaker, this isn't about politics. this is about the constitution. and it's about congress' map date to do oversight -- mandate to do oversight over both executive and judicial branches of government. the president is asserting executive privilege to attempt to shield these documents. and he is relying on a type of primpling called the deliberative process privilege. however, that privilege disappears when congress' investigating evidence of wrongdoing. and in 1997 the u.s. court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit wrote in part, moreover, the privilege disappears altogether when there is any reason to believe that government misconduct has occurred. in another case, it was decided by the first circuit in 1995, it says that the grounds that shielding internal government deliberations in this context does not serve the public interest in honest, effective government.

sensenbrenner, for two minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from wisconsin is recognized for two minutes. mr. sensenbrenner: mr. speaker, this isn't about politics. this is about the constitution. and it's about congress' map date to do oversight -- mandate to do oversight over both executive and judicial branches of government. the president is asserting executive privilege to attempt to shield these documents. and he is relying on a type of primpling called the deliberative process privilege. however, that privilege disappears when congress' investigating evidence of wrongdoing. and in 1997 e u.s. court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit wrote in part, moreover, the privilege disappears altogether when there is any reason to believe that government misconduct has occurred. in another case, it was decided by the first circuit in 1995, it says that the grounds that shielding internal government deliberations in this context does not serve the public interest in honest, effective government. t

congressman sensenbrenner chaired the hearing. >> the meeting will come to order. i would like to welcome administrative michelle leonhart and thinker for testifying before the subcommittee this morning. we all appreciate the das efforts and great strides it has made to combat the increasingly dangerous drug trade did the administrators testimony comes at a timely moment as the war on drugs approaches a potential crossroads. on july 1, mexico will elect a new president. by all accounts, the institutional revolutionary policy is leading the field. the pri government has governed until 2000. while in power, they turned a blind eye to the cartels. the current president, felipe calderon, has changed that strategy and aggressively confronted organized crime. as mentioned in your testimony, the key to the dea success along the southwest border is her relationship with the government of mexico. you have characterized that relationship is at an all-time high. but are worried that our relationship could be a high water mark with the impending change in the office of the pre

sensenbrenner earlier called it the model of due process. the letters going to voters saying they will be removed if they fail to respond within 30 days. the company believes it fair to respond to live within 30 days is reason enough to lose your right to vote even if you're a u.s. citizen. maybe you move, maybe you don't read your mail, maybe it got lost. or maybe are different elderly veteran of world war ii and received a letter the week that his wife died and threw it out because he didn't have time to do with the preposterous thing that he is not a united states citizen. that happened, mr. attorney general. i applaud you last right for requesting that florida suspend this error ridden unaccountable and illegal border perch. the doj rightly point out the federal voter laws prohibited voter person within 90 days of election thanks to a law passed a few decades ago. the closer you get to an election the last time you have time to correct mistakes. mistakes like disenfranchising voters. i know where the government responded you late last ni

. >> the gem and from wisconsin and sensenbrenner is minced recognized for his question. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to ask of mr. conyers commendation of you for coming before us in a very regular basis. i know it takes a lot of your time to prepare. i also know that you don't know what's going to get thrown at you and sometimes they will be curveballs and beanballs. i hope mine is a curveball. i want to talk a little bit about the florida voter registration case. it appeared in "the new york times" yesterday. there is an article there about the state for voters and secretary of state ken geithner of florida has sent a letter to mr. herron of the voting section of the civil right section talking about the problem. and the problem is simply this, and that is as florin is trying to purchase florida legislation rows of noncitizens including illegal immigrant, people who are clearly not eligible to vote and the department of homeland security has had a nine-month delay in getting the national voter registration laws to the state, not mr. herron appears to be taking a position that