Howard Berman: “Three points: first, the logic of the amendment from the gentleman from Florida is simple. Consular employees, State…”

“Three points: first, the logic of the amendment from the gentleman from Florida is simple. Consular employees, State Department consular employees have granted visas to bad people. They have made mistakes. Therefore, eliminate them. Eliminate the State Department role. Under that logic, the CIA should be taken out of intelligence-gathering because they did not know that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons during the 1980s. The central office of the FBI should be collapsed because they did not act on messages from the Phoenix and Minneapolis offices regarding suspicious activities by people in the United States. And the National Security Agency should be folded up because it did not translate intercepted communications fast enough to warn us about September 11. I would suggest that for 2 days we have been debating amendments with arguments tossed back and forth. Well, in this case the administration, the three committees of jurisdiction, and the Special Committee on Homeland Security have considered the gentleman's amendment and have rejected it.”