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Goodlatte: NSA reform can't dodge Judiciary Committee

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) declared Thursday that he'll fight any effort to move National Security Agency surveillance reform legislation to the House floor without going through his panel.

Asked whether he would insist that his committee be permitted to consider and modify any reform proposal, Goodlatte forcefully replied: "Absolutely."

In an interview taped for C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" program, Goodlatte said he welcomed input from the House Intelligence Committee like the NSA reform bill that panel's leaders unveiled last month. However, the Virginia Republican made clear that he views his committee as the central venue for debate and amendment of legislation aimed at reining in U.S. government surveillance activities.

"This is the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee. Obviously, the Intelligence Committee has an interest in how intelligence is gathered. But because of the civil liberties entailed that must be protected under our Bill of Rights, this is very clearly the jurisdiction of our committee. The underlying legislation that’s in question was the product of the Judiciary Committee," Goodlatte said, referring to the Patriot Act provision used to authorize bulk collection of U.S. telephone records.

Goodlatte did not wed himself to any particular legislative proposal, such as the bill jointly endorsed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), House Judiciary Committee ranking Democrat John Conyers of Michigan and former House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) However, the current House Judiciary chair was emphatic about the need for reform legislation to correct what he declared was a violation of the statutes previously enacted by Congress.

"I very definitely believe it needs to be tackled. We have a serious problem. It emanates from the fact that not just this administration but prior administrations have engaged in intelligence-gathering activities that I and many others do not believe comport with the law: the Patriot Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act," Goodlatte told C-SPAN.

The Judiciary Committee chairman confirmed a report in POLITICO earlier this week that he's consulting closely with the White House as staffers work to see if legislation can be crafted that meets the demands of those who strongly object to the current program—as a majority of lawmakers on the House Judiciary panel indicated in a floor vote last year—as well as those on the Intelligence Committee who are most familiar with the counterterrorism concerns which inspired the surveillance program. The latter group generally favors more modest reforms.

President Barack Obama has proposed ending the current program under which the NSA gathers the phone data in bulk, holding it for five years. The president said he favors replacing it with one where the data remains with phone companies for 18 months and can be quickly obtainined and analyzed by the government with the approval of a judge.

Goodlatte suggested that whatever emerges from his committee will lean more aggressively in the direction of reform than what Intelligence Committee leaders have laid out.

"We are hard at work on that. We’ll certainly take into consideration the work of the Intelligence Committee. We are also very interested in the work done thus far by the president, who has outlined some approaches to this. We would like more specifics there, but I think that’s important as well. But we are working in a bipartisan fashion in the Judiciary Committee that will go much more strongly towards protecting the civil liberties of Americans while still ensuring that intelligence can be gathered that’s necessary to keep our country safe," Goodlatte said.

House leaders are concerned that if the stalemate over NSA reform measures isn't broken, it could wind up blocking action on defense bills and appropriations measures.

The central legal provision used to authorize the bulk data collection on phone calls as well as data-gathering still considered top-secret expires next June if Congress doesn't take action to extend the measure.

Goodlatte also said officials were foolish to think a program gathering information on vast numbers of telephone calls could remain under wraps forever.

"To expect that a program as massive as that one could remain secret indefinitely I think is inappropriate," the chairman said. "There could have been a great national debate about wehther it was appropriate or not and the decision being made. Now we’re going to have that great national debate anyway but it’s done in an environment of great distrust."

Goodlatte was interviewed by this reporter, CQ/Roll Call's John Gramlich and Susan Swain of C-SPAN.