Statement Of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.),
Preserving Strong Relations With Our International Neighbors
September 10, 2007
Among the important issues I wish to discuss this
morning is an international border issue with our friendly neighbors in
Canada and Mexico that could have severe implications for the social and
economic ways of life for border communities in Vermont and all across
our country.
In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks,
a number of new border security measures have been put in place – all
with the expressed goal of preventing another terrorist incident. I
worked hard to provide balance and needed resources and to ensure that
in the intervening years we did not focus solely on our Southern
Border. I have also tried to convey something of the special
relationship we have with our northern neighbor Canada.
It is convenient to forget that most of the 9/11
hijackers entered the United States with legal visas, that some were on
secret watch lists but not being watched, and that this Administration
was sending them official letters even after they had killed themselves
and thousands of innocent people in their attacks. In reaction, the
Administration has demanded billions for constructing border fences,
seeking to develop and deploy surveillance technologies, and adding
troops along our borders. We have snared some illicit drugs shipments
and snared a few criminals, but not many terrorists.
We must protect our borders, but do it sensibly and
intelligently. Instead, the Administration’s policy threatens to fray
the social fabric of countless communities that straddle the border;
they have needlessly offended our neighbors, sacrificed much of the
traditional good will we have enjoyed, and undermined our own economy in
border states. Local chambers of commerce along the border estimate
that the costs will amount to hundreds of billions of dollars.
I have heard from many Vermonters about problems
they have encountered at U.S. border crossings – from long traffic
backups to invasive searches and questioning to inadequate communication
from federal authorities about new facilities and procedures. Such a
top-down approach does not work well in interwoven communities along the
border, where people cross daily from one side to the other for jobs,
shopping, and cultural events.
Canada has been an important trading partner and
friendly neighbor to Vermont and the United States for more than 200
years. It is in the best interests of both of our countries to keep
those relations as positive and productive as possible. Post 9/11,
everyone on both sides of the border recognizes that there are potential
threats and security needs. We have hardened security around this
Capitol and the White House and built fences near San Diego. Those
procedures do not work on Canusa Avenue in Beebe Plain, a two-lane road
where one side of the street is the Vermont and the other side is
Quebec, or at the Haskell Free Library and Opera House in Derby Line,
Vermont, and Stanstead, Quebec, which straddles the international
border.
That is why I am so troubled by the so-called
Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, or “WHTI,” which will require
individuals from the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean to
present passports or other documents proving citizenship before entering
the United States. This is a dramatic change in the way that border
crossing have been processed in the Western Hemisphere since the Treaty
of Paris set up the international boundary with Canada in 1783. It is
already costing us greatly.
The Departments of State and Homeland Security have
been charged with implementing this law – and should be coordinating
their efforts with our neighbors in Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean to
ensure a smooth transition at our borders. Unfortunately, as I have
detailed to Secretary Rice and Secretary Chertoff on several occasions,
there are serious problems in the ways in which their agencies have
pushed forward with implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel
Initiative, before the necessary technology installation, infrastructure
upgrades, and training take place at our border stations. If these
critical features of the deployment are not in place, we will see severe
delays at our border and law-abiding citizens from the United States,
Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean will have great difficulty moving
between our countries. Most importantly, a hasty implementation without
assurances that the technology to be used is truly effective can result
in a less secure border.
Month after month and despite hearing after
hearing, DHS and State have high-handedly rushed to impose this new
border-crossing plan on the American people before they are ready with
the necessary technology, infrastructure, and training, and at every
step their rosy assurances have been wrong. The Administration’s record
on implementing the new passport program is clear, and it has been
abysmal. Hundreds of Vermonters have been calling my office for
assistance in salvaging their travel plans, and I know that Americans
from other state have experienced high levels of concern and problems,
as well. We have been doing what we can – passport by passport – but a
large backlog persists.
The huge passport backlogs, prompted by the launch
of DHS’s requirement for air travel passports earlier this year, are
just a taste of the chaos that is likely next summer when they want to
start enforcing passport checks at our land and sea borders. Those land
and sea border crossings account for 10 times more than the volume than
crossings from air travel.
I have been urging the State Department and the
Department of Homeland Security not to rush into establishing rules and
procedures that shut our borders to legitimate travel and trade and,
instead, coordinate with our neighbors on security plans. We can be
smarter and more effective if, rather than arrogantly insulting our
traditional friends we work with them on joint intelligence operations
to identify and target terrorist.
Unfortunately, my calls – and the pleas from border
communities from Maine to Alaska and, for that matter, from California
to Texas – have been largely ignored. This Administration is setting
the American people up, yet again, for a fiasco of failure and
frustration.
Since DHS and State keep saying that the WHTI is a
“congressionally mandated” program, they should stop opposing the
bicameral and bipartisan legislation now moving through Congress to
shift the new passport requirement to June 2009. They have been warned
repeatedly that they are not ready. Even the fresh embarrassment of
this passport debacle has not humbled them. In the memorable words of
President Bush, they are doing “a heckuva job.” The incompetence that
led to the human and economic tragedy of Katrina and its aftermath — a
tragedy that has not been rectified for more than two years — is
striking, again. By maintaining the fiction that they will be ready to
implement the largest phase of this program next January, they are
recklessly risking the travel plans of millions of Americans and the
economies of scores of states and communities.
Today is September 10th. Tomorrow is
the sixth anniversary of the attacks. The Administration’s failure to
prevent those attacks, to connect the dots, to take seriously the
warnings of Richard Clarke, to listen to FBI field agents in Minnesota
and Arizona -- all because of the preeminence of its ideological agenda
-- is no longer subject to denial. Those failures, however, are no
excuse to indulge in authoritarian excesses now and in the future.
When we sacrifice our freedoms, Americans lose and
the terrorists have taken from us what they cannot by force of arms. As
we commemorate the sacrifices of so many that took place six years ago
tomorrow, we need to rededicate ourselves to American principles and
values.
In the days ahead the Judiciary Committee will be
holding a series of hearing into important security matters. Today I am
writing to the Director of National Intelligence inviting him to join us
on September 25th for a hearing into warrantless surveillance
of Americans. I am not convinced that the sweeping scope and lack of
checks and balances in the recently enacted temporary amendment to the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act are necessary to address the
national security concerns that the Administration had identified. As
elected representatives of the American people we need to consider
whether there are more effective mechanisms to ensure appropriate
oversight of surveillance involving U.S. persons. We need to restore
the proper balance in order to maintain our security while preserving
the constitutional rights of Americans and providing appropriate
oversight of Executive action involving private communications of
Americans.
Just this past weekend we saw reports indicating
that the President’s surveillance programs of Americans was much more
extensive that he led us to believe. The New York Times reported
that the FBI was not just concerned about known or even suspected Al
Qaeda operatives, as the President and his spokespeople repeated over
and over since the programs became known in December 2005, but with
casting a much wider net for information about what is termed a
“community of interest.” We need to examine how far this so-called link
analysis has gone, how far down the daisy chain it has gone, what use
was made of the private call information and whether private information
of innocent Americans has been collected and retained in government
databases without congressional authorization. How many innocent
Americans who called someone, who called someone else, who may have had
some innocent contact with someone else, are now in a government
database? It is telling that as this story became public the FBI
responded by saying that this data is “no longer being used” and “was
used infrequently.” Is the Administration nonetheless going to prevent
Congress from obtaining the information in needs to provide appropriate
oversight? Will our patriotism be threatened anew if Congress seeks to
examine the Administration’s overreaching and ineffectiveness? I hope
not but we will have to see. The very first hearing we held before the
Senate Judiciary Committee this year was on datamining. With the
leadership shown by Senator Feingold, we have passed a reporting
requiring on government datamining. We now need to follow up and get
the information we need and exercise oversight authority.
The first week in October we are looking forward to
hearing from Professor Jack Goldsmith who served at a critical juncture
in 2004 as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal
Counsel at the Department of Justice. In that capacity he considered
the constitutional underpinnings of the President’s warrantless
wiretapping program and helped lead the way to changes in that
clandestine surveillance affecting the rights of Americans.
This past week we were reminded yet again of the
need to improve the operations of the Terrorist Screening Center, which
failed to make watch list records on suspected or known terrorists
available to frontline screening agents but continues to list the names
of innocent Americans in its watch list database. We saw a recent
Government Accountability Office report on the Department of Homeland
Security with its failing grades, having failed to achieve half its
performance expectations since 2003. We heard from an independent
commission of former military leaders that indicated the Iraqi police
forces are so riddled with corruption and sectarianism that they should
be disbanded and, after 4 years and hundreds of millions of American
taxpayer dollars, we should start over from scratch.
This past week also provided a reminder of the need
to refocus our efforts on Bin Laden. Six years after 9/11 he has not
been brought to justice but continues to taunt us. He should never have
been allowed to escape when our forces had him cornered in Tora Bora.
Withdrawing our special forces and not providing the support needed then
was another mistake driven by ideology. The bipartisan leaders of the
9/11 Commission are right that the occupation of Iraq has provided a
recruiting bonanza for Al Qaeda and a costly distraction. We need to be
smarter and more focused in countering terrorism.
How many costly mistakes are the American people
going to be asked to bear? I hope all Senators, Republicans and
Democrats, will join together in the days ahead as we did six years
ago. The American people deserve a government that works and that works
for them. American freedom and values need to be defended and
reinforced, not mortgaged to fleeting and ill-considered promises of
security.
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