On the recordJanuary 9, 2018
As we destroy the caliphate in the Middle East, foreign fighters and terrorist sympathizers have fled the battlefield and are looking for new ways to spread their hatred, recruit new followers, instill fear, kill innocent people, and disrupt our way of life. The December 11 bombing at the New York City Port Authority Bus Terminal was the second terror attack in New York in less than 2 months and a grave reminder of the reality of this threat. Given this current environment, at the direction of Chairman McCaul, I led a task force to identify specific national security challenges and examine how terrorists might infiltrate our homeland and bring harm to our people. Subsequently, we produced a report with a series of solutions to fix any identified weaknesses that may be exploited by our enemies. This report resulted in several pieces of legislation that have come before the House today. To that end, my bill, the Counterterrorism Information Sharing Improvement Act, seeks to enhance the current information-sharing environment that exists within the Federal and military communities. Throughout the task force, we heard time and time again about the incredible amount of biometric and biographic data being pulled off battlefields in Syria and Iraq, as U.S. forces and our allies continue to roll back the territories once held by ISIS.…
