Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Legislation Statement Urging Passage of the Legislation by the House of Representatives.

The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote this week on the foreign intelligence surveillance act, one of the most significant legislative initiatives involving our intelligence agencies in the last three decades.

This act will establish the Nation's first legislative controls over foreign intelligence surveillance conducted by the United States Government. Most importantly, those controls will be established so as to protect both the strength of our Nation's intelligence agencies and the privacy rights of our citizens.

American citizens will be assured that the intelligence agencies so vital to protecting our security will be able to perform their tasks fully and effectively. The bill also assures intelligence officers who serve our country that their proper activities in this field will be authorized by statute.

By providing clear statutory standards, this legislation will help strengthen the ability of our intelligence agencies to deal with foreign espionage and international terrorism. The strong support of this legislation by every intelligence agency clearly reflects this fact.

The passage of this legislation is also a major step toward eliminating the potential for abuse of electronic surveillance by the Federal Government. Americans will now be afforded the safeguards of a judicial warrant procedure for any electronic surveillance which might affect their rights.

This legislation has been carefully developed over several years, by executive and congressional leaders of both parties. The kind of bipartisan cooperation needed to develop legislation in the intelligence area, which is so important to the defense of our Nation, was demonstrated earlier this year by the overwhelming Senate vote, 95-1, passing the bill.

I urge the Members of the House to vote for passage of this legislation, so that we can promptly begin to implement this well-balanced, long-overdue initiative.