Political Quotes

“It is my honor to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts, a colleague of mine on the Rules Committee, Mr. McGovern. Mr. McGOVERN. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk just for a couple of minutes about a serious matter that relates to the Intelligence bill that we will later consider. For the past decade, Colombia's intelligence agency, the Department of Administrative Security, or the DAS, has engaged in illegal activities. Created to investigate organized crime, insurgents, and drug traffickers, the DAS instead provided paramilitary death squads with the names of trade unionists to be murdered and carried out illegal surveillance on journalists, human rights defenders, political opposition leaders, and Supreme Court judges. American cash, equipment, and training to help shut down drug trafficking may have been used for spy operations, smear campaigns, and threats against civil society leaders in Colombia. Several U.S. agencies aided the DAS--the State Department, Pentagon, DEA, CIA, and DIA--even as scandal after scandal after scandal became publicly known. It was only in April, 2010, when U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield suspended U.S. aid to the DAS, diverting those resources to the Colombian National Police. Yesterday, Congresswoman Schakowsky and I sent a letter to the Secretaries of State and Defense, the U.S.…”