Congress Passes Major Anti-Terror Bill

Measure Carrying Out 9/11 Commission Recommendations Is Headed To President

(AP)  Congress sent President Bush legislation Friday to intensify anti-terror efforts in the U.S., shifting money to high-risk states and cities and expanding screening of air and sea cargo to stave off future Sept. 11-style attacks.

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.

[speakinup]

US18988 - RandalDS claims to have been an 'volunteer' enlisted man in Vietnam (fat chance). He has a total distain for authority. In fact, he doesn't care about anyone except himself. Probably his lack of faith. Amazing isn't it, how those of no faith feel so compelled to blame those with faith for all the world's problems. I'm sure his home life has suffered.

Anyway, as you undoubtedly have seen, he's on this site almost everytime one logs on, and likes to project his personal problems on others. Somewhere there is a scout master that abused him.

Oh yeah, and, he can't type or open his mouth without putting in swear words. Watch for his next post to see what I mean. Bring it on Sarge.

[prinzowhales]

Great job Congress!...now run make copies of your new law and leave them at the water stations in the desert provided for the tens of thousands of people crossing the border illegally every single month without encountering a single solitary border agent...I'm sure your law will be a great weapon in defense of a 'Homeland' that is at once well protected by the Regime and yet, at the same time, strangely vulnerable to attack.

[randalds]

The moment I chose to disclose my service I knew Witless, you and your fellow Islamoappeasers would start your sh*t. That's why I'm going to leave it as is.

Posted by US18988 at 12:14 PM : Jul 28, 2007

Sorry as*shole, but sucking your scoutmaster off does NOT qualify as having provided a service in uniform. Better luck next time liar.

[coffeehead-2009]

you can drive a nuclear reactor across the northern and southern borders of our nation in broad daylight.
XXXXXX


so why the big push to have OPEN borders by 2010? AND - the "food and poverty" solution Kissinger speaks of is to be provided by YOU - till you have no more to give.




The term %u201Cnationalism%u201D is an obscenity to Bilderberg, being equated with patriotism.

%u201CTell your people you fixed the treaty to meet their complaints, and let your parliaments ratify without a popular vote,%u201D he said.

Then the problem of the failure of the %u201CAmerican Union%u201D was addressed. %u201CWe must help the enlightened media, as opposed to small journals obsessed with national sovereignty, understand that it is the patriotic duty of the people to support the North American zone [U.S. Mexico and Canada] because it will bring prosperity to the poor and put food in the mouths of hungry babies,%u201D Henry Kissinger said. %u201CThen it can expand, as NAFTA was intended, to all the Western Hemisphere and evolve into the %u2018American Union.%u2019 %u201D

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/bilderberg_2007.html

[coffeehead-2009]

Since 9-11 the move towards a totalitarian Pelosi and the bill will do little or nothing to combat a real threat... even against the dreaded hydrogen peroxide and flour super weapons.


I find their efforts a little more "soothing" and feasible to squash my shaking code red fear factor - than say.......

selling our ports to the middle east capitalist.
selling our vital roadways and transportation systems to foreign countries. hmm- and sending enough ammo and weaponry to the very country that 99% of the attacking terrorist originated from. Gosh - I would feel so much better if we would supply them with more of our jobs, our personal data and a few more billion of our tax $$$ in foreign subsidies.

It's a small shuffle forward after many HUGE tumbles over the cliff. But yeh - it's a little tidbit tossed to the subliminal peons to placate us after selling our souls. Now who are those terrorist again?

[prinzowhales]

Oh goody, another anti-terror bill...

Notice the little soap opera with Edwards playing the peacemaker? And then there is Bill Richardson with his plan to announce his cabinet ahead of time...and they'll be from 'outside the Beltway'...just like Carter's promise of outsiders instead of insiders. Just as at Lowes Home Improvement...manure comes in all sorts of colorful plastic bags.

Since 9-11 the move towards a totalitarian pollice state has escalated and here's Piggy Pelosi with more money to throw on the police state fire. Either Bush is right and we are in Iraq to keep them (the terrorists) from following us home, or they've see a Hammond World Atlas before and have a pretty good idea how to get here without a trail of bread crumbs. In either event, Pelosi and the bill will do little or nothing to combat a real threat... even against the dreaded hydrogen peroxide and flour super weapons.

[lostcountry1]

bush will probably veto it anyway so his butt buddy guilianni can orchestrate the next attack for an election shot

[lostcountry1]

im surprised the bush team didnt say that putting a fixed timetable on implementing these security measures was giving the terrorists a fixed date in which to carry out their next attacks.

[coffeehead-2009]

a flipping joke -

We sell our roads to foreign countries - they WANT to sell our ports. In essence every bit of OUR money spent on "homeland" security will bite us in the azz. We are SUPPLEMENTING these -- well I guess they are TRAITORS --- via our taxes. They keep up this MANTRA and FEAR about attacks but close our exit routes by selling them to foreign INTERESTs? Then this b.s. -
how STUPID do they think we are.
They make us support the very countries who attacked us, the jobs to foreigners, our military to mercenaries and u.n. powers and then they supply terrorists nations with enough ammo to blow us off the planet. Yeh - we need homeland security like another million needy welfare recipients..


U.S. officials said the arms sales are expected to include air-to-air missiles and Joint Direct Attack Munitions, which turn standard bombs to "smart" precision-guided bombs. Most but not all of the sales to the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries %u2014 Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman %u2014 will be defensive, they said.

The proposed package has made Israel and some of its supporters in Congress nervous. Senior officials who described the package Friday said they believed the administration has resolved those concerns, in part by promising Israel $30.4 billion in military aid over the next decade, a significant increase over what it has received in the last 10 years.

[micma-2009]

I wonder how well we could have secured our own country if instead of spending a trillion dollars invading and occupying Iraq, we had spent that money at home?