Jane Harman: “Mr. Speaker, I rise to thank the new chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the gentleman…”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise to thank the new chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), for his nice comments and for his enormous efforts at restoring bipartisanship to our committee. He, Senators Collins and Lieberman, House conferees on our side, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), have contributed a great deal, an enormous amount, to the legislation we are debating today. It is a good product, it is the right product, and I urge all of our colleagues on a bipartisan basis to support it. Mr. Speaker, this day, December 7, is a date which will live in infamy. So was September 11, 2001. Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were the two most tragic hours since America became a Nation. President Roosevelt launched a clear-eyed investigation of the intelligence lapses leading to Pearl Harbor, and since 9/11 we have worked hard to understand why critical intelligence about the plans, capabilities and whereabouts of the 9/11 hijackers fell through the cracks. Our intelligence system is broken. We have 15 intelligence agencies with different rules, cultures and databases. Our Intelligence Community operates on a 1947 business model designed to defeat the Soviet Union, which was defeated in 1989. Fifteen years later, the enemy is digital, but our organizational structure remains analog.”