Pete Hoekstra

Contact: Dave Yonkman 202.225.4401

Washington, Sep 28 - U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said that the Democrats’ plan to force a vote on the Fiscal Year 2010 Intelligence Authorization Bill one day before the period of time that it covers expires shows that they are more concerned with appearances than addressing the large number of terrorism-related gaps that have been identified since the first partisan vote on the bill in June—of 2009.

"Terrorists are constantly evolving their strategies, but this bill is locked into the past," Hoekstra said. "This is the 2010 authorization bill. Fiscal Year 2010 ends on Thursday, and we have done zero work on 2011."

The bill contains earmarks, despite previous house votes to strip it of secret pork. It allows for the Mirandizing of foreign terrorists. It allows for bringing terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay into the United States. Finally, it attempts to protect Speaker Pelosi, but not the CIA officers she accused of lying from potential Justice Department prosecution for doing the job that the speaker, the president and others asked them to do and approved.

"The American people have made clear that they want real national security issues addressed such as keeping terrorists out of America and not extending American rights to foreign terrorists," Hoekstra said. "The American people want to know that Congress is doing everything possible to give the intelligence community the tools to protect our homeland."

Hoekstra noted that the bill was not updated to respond to the terrorist attacks at Times Square, Fort Hood or in the skies over Detroit. It also does not address the Obama administration’s bungled handling of these attacks, including the flawed decision to Mirandize Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

"Nothing in this bill has been changed to respond to the attacks, the gaps they exposed or to address the flawed Obama administration terrorism policies that failed to detect, disrupt or prevent the attacks," Hoekstra said."Luck is not a national security strategy nor is cramming through a year-old intelligence bill that hasn’t been updated to reflect the fact that terrorists have attacked our homeland."