Congress Passes Major Anti-Terror Bill
Measure Carrying Out 9/11 Commission Recommendations Is Headed To President
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110th Congress
The balance of power shifts and new leadership takes control as the latest session convenes.
The measure carries out major recommendations of the independent 9/11 Commission.
The bill, passed by the House on a 371-40 vote, ranks among the top accomplishments of the six-month-old Democratic Congress. The Senate approved the measure late Thursday by 85-8, and the White House said the president would sign the bill.
Six years after the Sept. 11 attacks and three years after the 9/11 Commission made its recommendations, "Congress is finally embracing what the 9/11 families have been saying all along," said Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. "It takes a willingness to do things a different way."
The bill elevates the importance of risk factors in determining which states and cities get federal security funds — that would mean more money for such cities as New York and Washington — and also puts money into a new program to assure that security officials at every level can communicate with each other.
It would require screening of all cargo on passenger planes within three years and sets a five-year goal of scanning all container ships for nuclear devices before they leave foreign ports.
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., who steered the legislation through the Senate with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said it would "make our nation stronger, our cities and towns more secure and our families safer."
Republicans generally backed the bill while stressing their own administration's success in stopping another major terrorist attack. The bill, said Rep. Peter King of New York, top Republican on the Homeland Security panel, "is another step in the right direction building on the steps of the previous 5½ years."
"These efforts build upon the considerable progress we've made over the past six years," said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.
Completion of the bill, six months after the House passed its original version on the first day of the current Congress, was a major victory for Democrats who have seen some of their other priorities — immigration and energy reform and stem cell research funding — thwarted by GOP and presidential resistance and House-Senate differences.
Another goal, raising the minimum wage, went into effect last Tuesday, and Democratic leaders still hope for agreement on ethics and lobbying changes before Congress departs for its August recess at the end of next week.
The independent 9/11 Commission in 2004 issued 41 recommendations covering domestic security, intelligence gathering and foreign policy. Congress and the White House followed through on some, including creating a director of national intelligence, tightening land border screening and cracking down on terrorist financing.
Democrats, after taking over control of Congress, promised to make completing the list a top priority.
Former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., the vice chair of the 9/11 Commission, said with enactment of the bill some 80 percent of the panel's recommendations will have been met. "The bottom line is that the American people will be safer," he said.
The 9/11 bill led off the first busy legislative week in the House last January, and the Senate passed its version in March. The measure stalled after that, partly because of a White House veto threat over language, since dropped, to give collective bargaining rights to aviation screeners.
House-Senate negotiators finally reached an agreement this week after Democrats worked out a provision satisfying GOP demands that people who report what they in good faith believe to be terrorist activity around planes, trains and buses be protected from lawsuits.
The most controversial provision in the legislation requires the radiation scanning of cargo containers in more than 600 ports from which ships leave for the U.S. The White House, and other critics, say that the technology isn't there, that the requirement could disrupt trade and that current procedures including manifest inspections at foreign ports and radiation monitoring in U.S. ports are working well.
Supporters argue that the unthinkable devastation from the detonation of a nuclear device in an American port makes it imperative to scan cargo before it reaches U.S. shores. As a compromise, it was agreed that the Homeland Security secretary can extend the five-year deadline for 100 percent scanning in two-year increments if necessary.
The White House was also unhappy with a provision that requires total amounts requested and appropriated for the intelligence community to be made public.
There was more agreement on changing the formula to ensure that more federal security grants go to high-risk states and cities. The current formula makes sure that every lawmaker, even those representing rural areas relatively safe from terrorism, get a chunk of the federal grants. Under the new formula a larger percentage of grants will go to high-risk urban areas.
The bill also establishes a new grant program to ensure that local, state and federal officials can communicate with each other and approves $4 billion over four years for rail, transit and bus security.
It strengthens security measures for the Visa Waiver Program, which allows travelers from select countries to visit the United States without visas.
The massive legislation also contains language requiring the president to confirm that Pakistan is making progress in combatting al Qaeda and Taliban elements within its borders before the United States provides aid to the country.
Hamilton said that one shortcoming of the bill is that it fails to carry out the commission's recommendation that Congress streamline its own overlapping setup for monitoring intelligence and homeland security matters. "I think congressional oversight still remains a weakness in our homeland security," he said.
© MMVII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.



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See all 216 CommentsIt's about time! The republican controlled congress sat on it's hands and did squat toward securing the homeland, preferring instead to waste our money, that of our grand children and that of our great grand children into an insane war in Iraq, rather then serious address the weaknesses in at our ports, nuclear facilities, etc. here! It's about time we starting fighting the REAL war on terror, rather then the phony one in Iraq which had and has nothing to do with it!
Trusting the government to protect your liberty is like trusting a child rapist to babysit your kids.
This is an effort to show some legislative action out of this congress. The impact will be marginal
More Nuclear Plants are scheduled to be
Built in China This Year
In The Year 2000
Former : Defense Secretary Rumsfeld - Was involved in selling
a Nuclear Plant to : North Korea
Along with the technology to refine : Uranium and produce Plutonium.
The main ingredients of a : Nuclear Weapon
More nuclear power plants in China
More "Nuclear Bombs" In China
More "Nuclear Missiles " In China
China allied to : %u201CNorth Korea%u201D allied to %u201CSyria%u201D allied to: %u201C Iran%u201D
Each Country - Hostile to the - United States
Now ! ! - All exchanging Nuclear Weapon Technology
Good old fashioned - American - Patriotism
Demonstrated By :
Criminal Corporate America
The Bush - Cheney Administration
The Republican Party
There was a time when : "Treason"
was a : Criminal Offense
Lastdance
+ report abuse
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The day chinese national or a person who was trained by china came over and detonated those NUCLEAR BOMBS in your neck of the woods or a chinese national or a person who is sympatethic to any chinese cause decides to kindapp, kill or behead american citizens to sway our domestic and foreign policies is that day i march down to the white house WITH YOU and demand that Bush should be impeached or worse..TILL THEN SHUT THE F UCK UP because from where it stands NOW and since you are giving every pathethic excuse to hinder ANNNNY effort to defend ourselves from A REALISTIC, CURRENT AND IMMINENT THREAT..it is YOUR DUMB ARSE WHO SOULD BE TRIED FOR TREASON.
if you know a facist state and what it will do to a person who would to al franken and micheal moore..if you know how it feels to go to work or take your children to school and have to carry an m-16 to protect themselves from some arse who is lurking in the corner ready to detonate a bomb strapped on themselves..THEY WOULD JUST SIMPLY SHUT UP.
PROBLEM: many of these anti-war activists never knew how it feels to have a threat actually come to life.
**this is how a terrorist diplomaticaly deal with anything**
Very, very well said. Of course some of the bozos here, like RandyBoBS will never get it in a million years. They will always equate Fascist with Republicans, when the majority of those who would gladly sieg heil these days, as well as blame America and Israel for what Islamonazis do are anti-war Democratic Liberals - they're the new fascists.
Time to owe up to it. Or try telling me that the anti-Semitic slime printed on the DailyKos or on MoveOn.Org is a figment of your own imaginations.
+ report abuse
********
but after 6 years, it never materialized. WHAT IS GETTING REALLY THICK is the effort by the the DNC and your liberal buddies to impead ANYTHING that puts that threat on check. REMEMBER GITMO?? REMEMBER THE ELECTRONIC SPYING?? JUST READ MOST OF THE POSTS IN HERE..
if there is anybody to be blamed, it would be you and your buddies..it was you and your buddies that held every effort down..giving away strategies and secrets, taking away resources that could help stop an attack..ALL BECAUSE OF SOME CONSPIRACY MUMBO JUMBO YOU HEARD FROM SOME B-RATED COMEDIAN DOING A SKIT AS A REGULAR SOURCE OF NEWS ON COMEDY CENTRAL.
There's only one word for a pile like that--horsepuckey!
The Repubs gut civil liberties, spit on the Constitution, create a hugely instrusive government spy apparatus about which their AG lies, and promote an optional war so their billionaire constituency can get rich..
The REpub Congress of the last 6 years has made sure that nobody can ever use these words again without laughing: PRINCIPLED CONSERVATIVE.
LOL!@
We see which party actually does something about terrorism and which party simply uses it as a pretext to advance their agenda.
well said like the Al Qaeda symp that you really are.
Name me one Democratic leader from Pelosi, Reid, Dean on who has donned the uniform of the United States military? Or any of their Presidential candidates? You can't because all of them, including Hillary, Obama, Durbin, Schumer, Biden and others have spent a lifetime diluting our military strength or betraying the soldiers in the field. It's not just their cowardly personalities, its the cornerstone of their - and your party since 1968, and you know it.
As for Republicans taking away your civil liberties, you and RandyBoBS, Whitman and some of the other Al Qaeda cheerleaders are still around to spew? Where's Bush's torture camps - where's your rights trampled.
Don't say a word unless you can prove otherwise. Of course xzavierbrown said it best when he told you to F as in Tucker (another Islamonazi apologist) off.
LOL.
Howie Dean called for "evenhandedness" in the Middle East, implying he'd kiss up to Hamas over our ally Israel. Pelosi ran to service her boyfriend Assad, whose father murdered US Marines in the Beirut Barracks. Because Joe Lieberman supported the war, he was called "Jew Lieberman" by those who supported Lamont, and Lamont himself never denounced it. So you want to discuss fascism, little one g? Your party is full of fascist supporters and symps.
And speaking which, I see KKK Byrd still holding a senate seat all these years without being censured despite his odious views. Even Boy Obama su*cks up to him.
The American people have been safer...until the Democrats decided to start dismantling the NSA surveillance program, Gitmo, Cut & Run from Iraq and for some decide that the War on Terror is just a "Bumper Sticker Slogan"...
You mean like John Kerry, who served while your Repubs were dodging the draft?
Or are you referring to your FairyFuhrer, George W. Bushit, coward of the Champagne Squadron who went AWOL in Alabama?
5-Deferment Darth perhaps? Rummie?
You're so full of sheeyit your eyes are brown. Time to pull the plug on your tired recording.
Georgie has never really done anything on his own, other than drink and snort. Not only did he deliberately avoid any personal risk during the Vietnam war, which he supported vocally, but he has been too afraid to confront regular people. His meetings are very carefully screened to make sure the Bubble Boy never confronts a contrary view. He had his Brown Shirts throw people out of "town meetings" and public gathering for wearing a T-shirt that might cast doubt on his veracity.
George W. Bushit: liar, thief, coward. And his spineless lickspittle Repugniscum backers.
Posted by US18988 at 07:28 PM : Jul 27, 2007
Bush closed the torture camps after he denied that they even existed. Never heard of "rendition", US18988? Apparently not.
Our rights protecting us from unlawful search and seizure require that probable cause exist before executing searches. Bush and the neocon's approch is to ignore that requirement, forego warrants and search anyone they wish.
Our men and women deserve the right to win this war, and to preserve the safety and stability of those Iraquis who desire NO Al Qaeda and NO Iranian Shi'te death squads. They do NOT deserve - and listen loud and clear, boy - the rants and raves of people who never served a day in military uniform in their lives, namely your friends, Reid, Pelosi, Dean. And Obama and the draft dodger and his cuckolded shrew.
Would you care to share a foxhole with them, sarge? I wouldn't.
Posted by gracchus1 at 07:47 PM : Jul 27, 2007
You think that there are 10 Repubs in the Senate who would vote to convict "King Bozo"? There aren't and that's what it would take.
Hell, Lieberman wouldn't even vote to convict, much less the Repubs....
What good does it do for the House to impeach if there's no chance the Senate would convict?
Scream for impeachment all you want but the votes aren't there.
Typical Dummkopf Demme.
LOL.
Posted by US18988 at 07:55 PM : Jul 27, 2007
What our warriors deserve is to not be prostituted with a dead loser of a strategy.
A standing army will never defeat a competent guerilla force who has the support of the local populace.
Colombia and the Phillipines have been proving this for 40 years ON THEIR OWN TURF yet.
Guatemala failed with it for 36 years.
You've either never served or slept through your training on strategy and tactics.
For You - and - All that you Beleive in ! ! ! !
Now take a pill - Go back into : "Fantasy Land"
Reality is just - Too Much for You ! ! !
Beijing, Jul. 24, 2007
Westinghouse Electric Co. closed deals Tuesday to build four (4)
Nuclear power plants in China.
President and chief executive of Westinghouse, described the deal for
The company's newest "Nuclear Plants" as a "multi-billion dollar" contract.
He said the Chinese Buyers asked : Westinghouse -
"Not" - to give details of the contract.
Westinghouse agreeed to hand over -
"The Technology" That will allow the Chinese buyers -
To build their : "Own Versions" of : -
"Nuclear Plants" - In the future.
More nuclear power plants in China
More "Nuclear Bombs" In China
More "Nuclear Missiles " In China
China allied to : %u201CNorth Korea%u201D allied to %u201CSyria%u201D allied to: %u201C Iran%u201D
Each Country - Hostile to the - United States
Now ! ! - All exchanging Nuclear Weapon Technology
Good old fashioned - American - Patriotism
Demonstrated By :
Criminal Corporate America
The Bush - Cheney Administration
The Republican Party
(and good old Party Loyal : (xzavierbrown)
There was a time when : - "Treason"
Was a Criminal Act
Lastdance
The USS Bushit is headed for the bottom, and the rats are swimming away as fast as their stubby little legs will carry them. All except the rats too stupid to swim, like US18988.
Swim, rats, swim, your Decider is foundering!
Posted by US18988 at 07:55 PM : Jul 27, 2007
Just how do I give aid and comfort to the enemy?
You are like all neocons. Anyone who sees this boondoggle for what it is is attacked as a traitor (I'm now the grandson of Benedict Arnold according to you) or an enemy agent.
Let me tell you something punk, I put my a$$ on the line for my country and I'm not about to lay down while a coward like yourself calls my partiotism into question.
Where did you do your combat service, little man? Mine is listed below:
USMC
Bin Hoa RVN
1972-1973
+ report abuse
*****
hey!! moron..you are talking about the chinese..we are talking about islamic terrorists..YOU ARE IN THE WRONG BOARD if you want to stick with the wrong group.
Now if you really have a hard on against the chinese..why dont you picket outside the chinese embassy. YES THEY DO HAVE ONE..these ISLAMIC TERRORISTS dont.
you are so eager to vomit anything anti-bush that you are pretty much OUT OF SUBJECT. why dont you do this hang around at berkley, fire up a huge joint and rant about bush and the chinese. isnt that how most of your rants are created?
"when in doubt, spew incoherently, viciously, and stupidly, like gkc.
Typical Dummkopf Demme.
LOL."
Are you out of High School yet?
From the looks of it, I highly doubt it.
Either that or you're just stupid.
Any more questions, Democrat stooge. Don't forget to wipe Pelosi and Hillary's spittle off your dress uniform, or have you forgotten how they insulted General McCaffery?
Case closed. I didn't call you a coward or insult you except that you do act like Arnold's great grandson. And by the way, chum, it is the Neo-Cons who are primarily responsible for the modernization of our Armed Forces after the number they took from another one of your heroes, Jimmy Carter aka coward, bigot and anti-Semite.
Posted by US18988 at 08:11 PM : Jul 27, 2007
Tell me about your combat service, punk. You call a combat vet a traitor and accuse me of aiding and giving comfort to the enemy and I'll bet 10 to 1 you've never even faced an enemy in combat you little puke.
+ report abuse
****
btw, you are worried about nuclear POWER plants??why dont you heckle clinton for selling nuclear WEAPON technology secrets to the chinese.
Posted by US18988 at 08:11 PM : Jul 27, 2007
What a crock of redneck hillbilly sh*it! The only cuts in the military during Carter was the finishing of demobilizing troops from Vietnam and nothing else and either you know it and are a fu*cking liar or are just a fu*cking moron that doesn't know any better.
And IF (a huge IF) you really were a Ranger you sure as fu*ck never learned any respect for other vets. Your half-as*sed excuse of saying you didn't call formrusmcsgt a coward by referring to him along the line of Benedict Arnold is as big of a stinking pile of sh*it as you seem to be!
Posted by drummer94 at 08:13 PM : Jul 27, 2007
Because they are little panty-wastes who feel safe behind their ISP address.
But they have the audacity to call a man who has served in combat a traitor even though they are too cowardly to do so themselves. What scumbags.....
+ report abuse
****
just because you served in the military does not really mean that whatever come out of that feeble little mind of yours is correct. its quite pathethic that you always resort to that. what do you want a medal? you were probably smoked out your mind that the whole vietnam war was a blur.
Posted by randalDS at 08:16 PM : Jul 27, 2007
He'd put up his unit, location, and tour(s). BTW, I omitted my unit in MY post:
MAG-12 MATCU-62
Bin Hoa, RVN
1972-1973
Just checking in for a moment bro. Gotta go walk the dogs. They're both full of US18988 and need to take a dump real bad to empty it out. There's about as much chance that that POS ever wore any other uniform then the Boy Scouts (and that just to turn his scoutmaster on) is there is that my dogs have...none.
Try telling your bs to the army bases here and in Europe that were short of tank ammunition in 1978 and 1979, or to the sailors whose ships were also mothballed during that period, while the Soviets - and their Cuban friends - were moving all over Africa and Central Asia.
But do keep spewing - that's always par for the course for an Islamonut apologist and brain dead clown like you, Randy.
BTW - six or seventh bottle of champipple?
"They do NOT deserve - and listen loud and clear, boy - the rants and raves of people who never served a day in military uniform in their lives..."
Oh, you must be talking about ******** Cheney, GW Bush (well, technically he wore a uniform, but he just barely served - can you spell AWOL?), Rumsfeld and the rest of the folk who started the war in Iraq.
Why is it you didn't mention their names?
Is it because you're a right wing, kkk supporting republicanazi moron?
Sounds like it.
I bet you've never served a day in your life either.
+ report abuse
*****
In fact, I really doubt that you did serve. YES I CALL YOU ON THAT.
Give me some information and I will expose your poser arse
Why aren't you over in Iraq helping to save the United States?
Are you too scared to go over there and fight?
Are you just another chickenhawk?
That's my bet.
Our representitives are still feeding off of that farce of a report, how stupid can these people really be. The 9/11 commision was a joke, another layer of coverup by the chimp.
If the press was interested in the truth why did they not press the FBI for actual films of this GREAT BIG 757 hitting the pentagon. Because no 757 hit the pentagon, and the media was duped, and now they have to fall in line with the chimp in order to save face.
9/11 was a lie, and the report was a disgrace to the American people.
Posted by xzavierbrown at 08:17 PM : Jul 27, 2007
I DO NOT contend that I am correct about anything based on my combat service.
And I have medals already, thank you.
But I am not about to take accusations of treason from cowardly punks who never had the honor or guts to put THEIR a$$ on the line for their country.
"you were probably smoked out your mind that the whole vietnam war was a blur."
You mean, smoked out just like you are now?
Maybe you've been smoking a little with Ted Haggard.
Is that it?
I bet he gave you a couple of things to "smoke" on.
They always want to post their units and ranks as if it impresses the world. Or maybe their cowardly, non-serving Democratic Party heroes like Bill, Hill, Nan, Harry and Boy Obama. It doesn't impress me. I know where I was, I just wonder where THEY WERE.
Gotta run. Hang in there with the bozos.
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