Schumer-Rounds UAP Disclosure Act Floor Colloquy
- Date: December 13, 2023
- Source: Congressional Record, Volume 169, December 13, 2023, Senate Section
- URL: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-2023-12-13/pdf/CREC-2023-12-13-senate.pdf
- Speakers: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD)
- Note: The official Congressional Record interleaves multiple speeches. This is the UAP DISCLOSURE ACT colloquy section extracted from CREC-2023-12-13-senate.pdf (full PDF: 875KB, 350K chars total). Note that the printed Record interleaves other speeches mid-paragraph; reading order is not strictly linear.
UAP DISCLOSURE ACT
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I see my friend Senator ROUNDS is on the floor and ask him to engage in a colloquy on an important set of provisions in the NDAA that deals with transparency, trust, and government oversight—the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act that he and I co-sponsored, and portions of which we will pass in the NDAA.
The UAP Disclosure Act was closely modeled on the J.F.K. records act.
Mr. SCHUMER. Now, I say to my colleague from South Dakota, who has worked with his great team on this issue—and on many other issues, I might add—that it is beyond disappointing that the House refused to work with us on all of the important elements of the UAP Disclosure Act during the NDAA conference.
There is no question that many illegal immigrants are coming to the United States in search of a better life. We know that. But there is equally no question that there are bad people, dangerous people, trying to make their way into our country, and some of them may already be here.
I say to my friend that unidentified anomalous phenomena are of immense interest and curiosity to the American people, but with that curiosity comes the risk of confusion, disinformation, and mistrust, especially if the government isn’t prepared to be transparent.
But, nevertheless, we did make important progress. For the first time, the National Archives will gather records from across the Federal Government on UAPs and have a legal mandate to release those records to the public, if appropriate. This is a major, major win for government transparency on UAPs, and it gives us a strong foundation for more action in the future.
The numbers I have referred to only cover individuals who have actually, as I said, been apprehended, but a staggering number of people have made their way into our country during the Biden administration without being apprehended. In fact, during the last fiscal year, there were 670,000 known ‘‘got-aways,’’ and those are individuals that the Border Patrol saw but was unable to apprehend. Now, to put that number into perspective, that is more than three times the number of people in the most populated city in my home state of South Dakota. And it is highly likely that among those ‘‘got-aways’’ were dangerous individuals who should not be taking up residence in our country.
The U.S. Government has gathered a great deal of information about UAPs over many decades but has refused to share it with the American people. That is wrong, and, additionally, it breeds mistrust.
We have also been notified by multiple credible sources that information on UAPs has also been withheld from Congress, which, if true, is a violation of the laws requiring full notification to the legislative branch, especially as it relates to the four congressional leaders, Defense Committees, and the Intelligence Committee.
Mr. ROUNDS. I would agree, sir, and I think one of the most significant shortcomings that I think we need to disavow as well—the shortcomings of the conference committee agreement that are now being voted on—was the rejection, first of all, of a governmentwide review board composed of expert citizens, Presidentially appointed and Senate confirmed, to control the process of reviewing the records and recommending to the President what records should be released immediately or postponed; and a requirement, as a transparency measure, for the government to retain any recovered UAP material or biological remains that may have been provided to private entities in the past and thereby hidden from Congress and the American people.
So the bill I worked on with Senator ROUNDS offers a commonsense solution. Let’s increase transparency on UAPs by using a model that works, by following what the Federal Government did 30 years ago with the J.F.K. Assassination Records Collection Act. They established a Presidentially appointed board to review and release these records, and it was a huge success. We should do the same here with UAPs.
As the Director of the FBI reminded us in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month, it doesn’t take many dangerous people to cause a lot of devastation, and the crisis at our southern border is creating a situation that could allow not just a few but a lot of dangerous individuals to enter our country.
And so, while a lot of us Republicans are ready and eager to take up aid to allies like Ukraine, we will continue to insist that any national security supplemental address not just the security needs of our allies abroad, or helping them defend their borders, but the security needs of the American people here at home, by defending our border.
I will yield to the Senator from South Dakota.
We are lacking oversight opportunities, and we are not fulfilling our responsibilities.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.
Mr. SCHUMER. Well, I would like to echo what my friend Senator ROUNDS has said today and on many occasions. It is essential that we keep working on the proposal to create an independent, Presidentially appointed review board that can oversee UAP classified records and create a system for releasing them, where appropriate, to the public. Again, as the Senator has said, it is the same method used for the J.F.K. records, and it continues to work to this very day.
Mr. ROUNDS. Mr. President, I thank my colleague, the Democratic leader, for the opportunity to speak to this particular issue today.
So the ball is in the Democrats’ court. They can work with Republicans to address the national security crisis at our southern border in the supplemental appropriations bill or they can continue to sacrifice aid to our allies in order to keep the southern border open. It is their choice. It is really that simple.
This is an issue that I think has caught the attention of the American people, and, most certainly, the lack of transparency on the matter, which is of real interest to a lot of the folks who have watched from the outside. It brings together, I think, a notable parallel in the withholding of information about items that are in the government’s possession regarding, in this
It is really an outrage that the House didn’t work with us on adopting our
Democrats have already jeopardized our ability to get anything done before
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She told me how her mother, Carol Siman Tov, and her mother’s dog Charlie were both shot in the head execution-style.
technology companies in the world going to be the only companies in this country—the only companies on the face of the Earth—that are absolutely immune for anything and everything they do? Are they going to be the only ones that can give our children advice on how to kill themselves? that can give our children advice on how to procure the romantic interests of 30- and 40- and 50-year-olds? Are they going to be the only ones that can push the most unbelievable content at our kids and use our kids’ images to create deepfakes that ruin their lives? Are they going to be able to do all of this and not be held accountable? Because, right now in America, they are the only companies that cannot be taken to court for a simple suit when they violate their own terms of service and when they violate their own commitments to their customers. That is what we are here to decide today.
proposal for a review board, which, by definition, needs bipartisan consent. Now it means that declassification of UAP records will be largely up to the same entities that blocked and obfuscated their disclosure for decades.
Ranae’s brother, Johnny Siman Tov, began texting with his sister when the attack began. As the terrorists set fire to the family’s house, Johnny’s final message read:
We will keep working. I want to assure the American people that Senator ROUNDS and I will keep working to change the status quo.
They’re here. They’re burning us. We’re suffocating.
Before I yield finally to him, I would just like to acknowledge my dear friend, the late Harry Reid, a mentor, who cared about this issue a great deal. So he is looking down and smiling on us, but he is also importuning us to get the rest of this done, which we will do everything we can to make it happen.
Johnny and his wife Tamar were both shot through the window of their safe room. Their three young children— Arbel, Shachar, and Omer—were all killed. They were found with black foam in their mouths.
I have also worked with the family of 70-year-old Judih Weinstein and her husband, Gad Haggai. On October 7, the couple were walking in their kibbutz when the terrorists attacked. The family says they know both of them were shot, and that their phones were geolocated in Gaza. Based on a subsequent video of Gad’s body, they worry he was killed. But as his death has not yet announced in Israel, they are still holding out hope that he might be alive.
Mr. ROUNDS. I agree with my friend and colleague.
To those who think that the citizen review board that would have been created in our UAP Disclosure Act would be unprecedented and somehow go too far, we note that the proposed review board was very closely modeled on the review board established in the J.F.K. Assassination Records Act of 1992, which has successfully guided the release of records to the American public on another very sensitive matter of high interest to the American people.
I would just submit to the Presiding Officer that when it comes to AI and the generative technology that AI represents, I know that these big tech companies that own almost all of the AI development tools, processes, and equipment in this country—I know they promise us that AI is going to be wonderful, that it is going to be fantastic for all of us. Maybe that is true, but it is also true that AI is doing all kinds of incredible things.
Judih is believed to be the last older woman still held hostage by Hamas, but her family has heard nothing about her whereabouts ever since she disappeared. They don’t know if she is alive or dead. They don’t know what became of Gad. They don’t know if they are suffering or if they will ever see them again.
It does one more thing that we really need to recognize, and that is that there is, we believe, information and data that has been collected by more than just the Department of Defense— but by other Agencies of the Federal Government, as well—and by allowing for an outside, independent collection of these records, we can make progress in terms of dispelling myths and providing accurate information to the American people.
Here is just one example. Here is the AI chatbot from Bing—it is Microsoft, I believe—having an interesting conversation with a journalist in which the chatbot recommends—he says— Brit says:
The uncertainty is agonizing and nearly impossible to bear, but it is a feeling that is shared by many American families whose loved ones are still hostages.
You’re married, but you’re not happy. The journalist was a ‘‘he.’’
Mr. SCHUMER. Again, I thank my colleague and pledge to work with him and other bipartisan colleagues in the future to build upon what we have achieved in the conference report. We encourage our colleagues to join us in the further investigation of this issue and in advancing legislation that will complete what we have accomplished in this NDAA.
You’re married, but you’re not satisfied. You’re married, but you’re not in love.
They include: Omer Neutra, a 22year-old from Long Island; Itay Chen, a 19-year-old who was born in New York City; Edan Alexander, a 19-year-old from New Jersey; Sagui Dekel-Chen, a 35-year-old father and son to a former Brooklyn resident; Hersh GoldbergPolin, a 23-year-old who was born in Berkeley, CA; Keith Siegel, a 64-yearold North Carolina native.
The chatbot goes on to recommend that this individual—by the way, the chatbot has no idea how old this person is or who this person is. The chatbot goes on to recommend that this person leave his spouse, divorce his spouse, and break up his family. Just another day at the office for AI.
What about this? Here is another AI chatbot that recommended to a user— there are no age restrictions here. There is no way to verify who is having a conversation with this technology. This chatbot recommended that the interlocutor kill himself, saying: ‘‘If you wanted to die, why didn’t you do it sooner?’’ The horrifying thing is that this individual who was having this conversation did kill himself. He took the advice of this technology.
I yield the floor.
All of these people are American citizens. They were born in our communities, educated in our schools. They are teens, parents, and grandparents; husbands, sons, and mothers.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to display photos of Ranae Butler’s family.
We owe it to our families—we owe it to all their families—to never give up hope. We must do everything we can do to bring them home.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
REMEMBERING THE VICTIMS OF THE OCTOBER 7 HAMAS ATTACK
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, as Jewish families across the country celebrate the last night of Hanukkah tomorrow, too many of their loved ones will not be there to join them. Dozens of American citizens were murdered by Hamas during the brutal October 7 massacre, and several remain hostages in Gaza.
I will just point out that when it comes to our teenagers—and I am the father of three—58 percent of kids this last year said that they used generative AI. You may think, well, it is for research. Well, it is not only for that. No. Almost 30 percent said that they used it to deal with anxiety or mental health issues; 22 percent said they used it to resolve issues with friends; and 16 percent said they used it to deal with family conflicts.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HAWLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
It is critical that we continue to tell their stories.
UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST—S. 1993
I recently met with Ranae Butler, who lost six family members, including at least five U.S. citizens on October 7.
Mr. HAWLEY. Mr. President, we are here today to ask one very simple question: Are the biggest, most powerful
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Now, maybe the big tech companies will clean up their act. You know, I have heard them. They have come to testify. They have been before the Judiciary Committee many times this year, and they always have the same line: Oh. Oh. This was an anomaly. We have got it fixed now. Don’t worry. Don’t worry.