mr. chairman , i yield myself such time as i may consume . 
mr. chairman , i think every member of this congress , liberal or conservative , republican or democrat , takes seriously the oath that we took at the beginning of this congress to preserve , protect , and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies , foreign and domestic . 
the amendment that the gentlewoman from california has introduced is going to make it very difficult to conduct any type of criminal or terrorist investigation using a national security letter because it basically eviscerates the nondisclosure rules that national security letters and literally all other tools in criminal investigations have attached to them . 
i think the last thing in the world the american public wants to see is if somebody gets a national security letter or a grand jury subpoena or testifies before the grand jury , something in the newspaper that says that john doe is being investigated . 
and if john doe is really involved in criminal or terrorist activities , that is going to be a tip-off that the feds are on the heels of john and maybe he ought to flee the country or do other things to eliminate the evidence that would be used to convict that person of the crime that he has either committed or a crime that he is in a conspiracy with others to commit . 
let me say that by their very nature national security letters involve our national security , and the national security letters are usually not issued against the targets of investigations but to get records that would establish evidence that could be used against the target of the investigation . 
and if that evidence that was being collected ended up being disclosed and became a matter of discourse in the public press , i do not know how law enforcement would be able to complete its investigation to go after those that are suspected of criminal or terrorist activities . 
but let me say there is another aspect to the gentlewoman 's amendment that i think is really bad policy and can really hurt somebody who is innocent . 
because of the nature and threat of terrorism , when there is a tip that is sent to law enforcement , law enforcement is obligated to investigate it . 
now , that tip might be false . 
that tip might be a malicious tip by a personal enemy against the person who had information given to law enforcement . 
but , nonetheless , law enforcement has got to proceed . 
and if they do their investigation and issue national security letters and find out that the person that the tip was lodged against is up to absolutely no criminal or terrorist activity , if that person 's name gets in the newspaper , their reputation is destroyed even though they are innocent . 
so i think that the amendment of the gentlewoman 