HR 963 Report Published – SAR Immunity

On Monday the House Judiciary Committee filed their report (H. Rept 112-204) on HR 963, the See Something, Say Something Act. The Committee had ordered the bill favorably reported at their markup hearing for the bill that was held back in July. The publication of this report now clears the bill for possible floor action by the whole House.

Since there were no amendments adopted in the markup of this bill there are no changes in the bill that we had to wait for this report to review. There are no surprises in the description the report makes about the provisions of the bill.

The most interesting part of the report is found at the end; the Dissenting Views section. Here the Committee Democrats outline their concerns that “H.R. 963 may end up promoting racial profiling, thereby violating the constitutional rights of those targeted individuals” (page 18). As I noted in my blog posting on the markup hearing, we will almost certainly see floor amendments to this bill addressing these concerns, but I doubt that any will be adopted by the House.

HR 963 – SAR Immunity – Passes in Committee

As was expected last week, the House Judiciary Committee passed HR 963, the See Something, Say Something Act of 2011. After defeating four amendments from Democrats, three by voice vote and one by a lopsided 16-4 vote (which may have been closer if more Democrats had showed up for the hearing), the bill was approved by a voice vote.

Readers may remember that I had commented on the fact that a nearly identical version of this bill (HR 495) had been introduced earlier by Rep. King (R, NY). That bill was passed over by the Committee to take up this bill that had been subsequently introduced by Chairman Smith (R, TX). This was obliquely addressed by Smith’s official statement on this markup of HR 963. He said:

“I’d like to thank Chairman Peter King of the Homeland Security Committee, who has long advocated for this and other measures to keep America safe.”

With that left-handed endorsement buried in the historical record, Chairman Smith’s name will now be the sole name associated with this legislation, a fact that will almost certainly show up in future campaign literature. Unless, of course, the Senate takes up S 505, the companion bill to HR 495, that was introduced by Senators Lieberman (I, CT) and Collins (R, ME) before the whole House passes HR 963.

This bill will almost certainly pass in the full House. Democrats will again attempt to get anti-profiling language added to the bill, but that will not be successful. Senate passage is also likely, but the lack of restrictions on racial profiling could interfere with the bill being considered there. It is hard to see how such restrictions could be effectively worded when dealing with suspicious activity reports by civilians since ‘profiling’ definitions typically depend on patterns of activity not individual cases.

Committee Hearings Week of 07-18-11

Congress continues on a streak this week with both Houses in Washington. Lots of hearing action but very little of specific interest to either the chemical security or cyber security communities. In fact there is only one hearing this week that will be mentioned hear and that is a markup hearing that will cover multiple bills with only one being of any interest.

On Wednesday and Thursday the House Judiciary Committee will be conducting a full Committee markup of seven bills including HR 963, the See Something, Say Something Act of 2011. I discussed this suspicious activity reporting (SAR) immunity bill in an earlier blog when it was introduced.

BTW: If anyone is keeping track I won the bet (I doubt that there were any takers on this suckers bet). Chairman Smith’s bill will be considered before his Committee looks at the earlier and substantially identical bill introduced by Rep. King (R, PA). Actually King’s bill will never get considered. So much for the dispassionate and fair exercise of personal political power. Hopefully, this won’t be one of those silly things that poisons relationships between Committee Chairmen.

Congressional Hearings Week of 6-20-11

Two weeks in a row with both houses of Congress in Washington, what a concept. The hearing schedule is beginning to reflect the approach of the summer vacation period with lots of increased activity with seven hearings this week of potential interest to the chemical and cyber security communities. As I mentioned yesterday there will be a markup of HR 901; additionally there will be two cyber security hearings, a budget hearing, a rail security hearing, a suspicious activity reporting immunity hearing and the political favorite, a WMD hearing. There will also probably be a House Rules Committee hearing on the rule for HR 2219 that I mentioned last night.

Cyber Security

Two different committees will be looking at the Obama Administration’s cybersecurity proposal. On Tuesday the Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism of the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold their hearing with witnesses scheduled from the Department of Justice, DHS-NPPD, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

On Friday the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies of the House Homeland Security Committee will hold their hearing on the subject. There is no witness list available yet for this hearing.

As I noted in an earlier blog, there are significant a control systems provisions in the President’s cybersecurity proposal, but that is no guarantee that they will even be mentioned in these hearings. The inclusion of NPPD and NIST witnesses does provide the possibility that this topic will be covered in the Senate hearing, but a lot will depend on the questioning from the Senators. Being a Judiciary Committee panel, I don’t hold out a lot of hope for the Senate hearing, but I do expect a better chance of substantive covereage of control systems security issues in Friday’s hearing.

Coast Guard Budget

The Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard Subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee will be holding an oversight and budget hearing on Thursday looking at the Coast Guard. This is kind of late in the season for a budget hearing, but the Senate is way behind the House in the budget process this year. I doubt that there will be much in the way of MTSA coverage in this hearing. No witness list is currently available, but we can certainly expect the Commandant to be on hand.

Rail Security

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will be holding a hearing on Wednesday looking at rail security operations. The recovery of information from the Bin Laden compound indicating an interest in attacking rail targets on the 9/11 anniversary is bringing some attention to this neglected area. If last week’s hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee is any indication, there will be no substantive discussion of the existence of a freight rail threat; but we can always hope. Those hopes are partially dashed by the fact that there is no railroad witness on the current witness list.

See Something Say Something

The Subcommittee on the Constitution of the House Judiciary Committee will be holding a hearing on HR 963, the See Something, Say Something Act of 2011, on Friday. This is bill introduced by the Judiciary Committee Chair to provide immunity to people making good-faith suspicious activity reports. There are no witnesses currently listed for this hearing.

WMD

Late last session Rep. King (R, NY) introduced HR 5057 that dealt with defenses against terrorist uses of weapons of mass destruction. King’s bill focused almost exclusively on nuclear and biological weapons to the exclusion of chemical weapons. That bill is apparently pending re-introduction and will be the subject of a hearing before the Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies Subcommittee of King’s Homeland Security Committee on Thursday.

HR 963 Introduced – SARS Immunity

Last week Rep. Smith (R, TX), the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced HR 963, the See Something, Say Something Act of 2011. Now if you think that this sounds familiar it is because I wrote last week about S 505 which had the same title. In fact, the observant reader might remember that I wrote that the earlier bill was a companion measure to HR 495.

I explained in the blog about S 505 that a companion bill is an identical bill introduced into the second house of Congress to make it easier to get the bill through committees in an expeditious manner. The language in S 505 and HR 495 are identical.

HR 963 is not technically a companion bill to S 505 and it can’t be a companion bill to HR 495, having been introduced into the same house of Congress. I say that it cannot ‘technically’ be considered a companion bill because it is not identical; it differs in just one word from the other two bills. In §890A(b)(1) S 963 says, in part; “authorized official as defined by section (d)(1)(A)”. The other two bills say; “as defined by sub-section”. As you can clearly see this is a substantial difference (SARCASM ALERT).

The earlier bill, authored by Rep. King (R, NY) was assigned to the House Judiciary Committee for consideration, the Committee chaired by Rep. Smith (R, TX). It is obvious that Chairman Smith and his committee staff are extremely diligent in reviewing legislation referred to their committee (I know there was already one sarcasm alert in this post). Anyone want to bet which bill gets reported out of Committee?

BTW: In my listing of legislation, I am going to tack HR 963 to the listing for HR 495 to which I have already tacked S 505. Sorry about that Rep. Smith, but here I try to go first come, first serve.