Floor Statements

Checks & Balances: Domestic Surveillance

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I would remind the gentleman from Ohio that Tulane Medical Center opened today with a lot of fanfare. That is one of those dreadful private, for-profit corporations; and they are the first such hospital back in business in New Orleans. Ray Nagin said he wished he could bottle that and extend it to other companies.

 

   Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about the domestic surveillance that was in the news earlier. My colleagues may not have noticed a rather insightful op ed piece that appeared in the Washington Times on January 6 of this year penned by an Alan Nathan.

 

   Mr. Nathan writes that neither Congress nor the judiciary can remove this repeatedly court-recognized inherent authority granted to the President under the Constitution, just as the President cannot remove any of their powers guaranteed in the same great document.

 

   When called upon, all intelligence organizations in the United States are structured to operate in conjunction with the military and accordingly become an integral part of the President's domain as Commander in Chief. Congress voted for this on September 14, 2001, in the war resolution invoked under the War Powers Act of 1973 authorizing the President to use force against all nations.

 

    Given that the battleground includes this country, where the attacks were made, Democrats and Republicans objecting to his actions should be hard pressed to find him derelict in his duty.

 

   Mr. Speaker, we should take the words of Mr. Nathan to heart. They were germane January 6. They are germane now.





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