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The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the clerk will report S. 1301.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 1301) to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 1994 for intelligence activities of the United States Government and the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability System, and for other purposes.
The Senate proceeded to consider the bill, which had been reported from the Committee on Armed Services, with an amendment on page 14, line 24, to strike `(c)' through `Treasury' on page 15, line 2.
So as to make the bill read:
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SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.
(a) Short Title: This Act may be cited as the `Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994'.
(b) Table of Contents: The table of contents for this Act is as follows:
Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
Sec. 101. Authorization of appropriations.
Sec. 102. Classified schedule of authorizations.
Sec. 103. Personnel ceiling adjustments.
Sec. 104. Community Management Account.
Sec. 201. Authorization of appropriations.
Sec. 202. Technical corrections.
Sec. 301. Increase in employee compensation and benefits authorized by law.
Sec. 302. Restriction on conduct of intelligence activities.
Sec. 401. General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Sec. 402. Technical amendments to the CIA Act and National Security Act.
Sec. 501. Foreign language proficiency pay for members of the reserve components of the Armed Forces.
Sec. 502. National Security Education Trust Fund.
Sec. 601. Federal Bureau of Investigation counterintelligence access to consumer credit records.
TITLE I--INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES
SEC. 101. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.
Funds are hereby authorized to be appropriated for fiscal year 1994 for the conduct of the intelligence activities of the following elements of the United States Government:
(1) The Central Intelligence Agency.
(2) The Department of Defense.
(3) The Defense Intelligence Agency.
(4) The National Security Agency.
(5) The National Reconnaissance Office.
(6) The Central Imagery Office.
(7) The Department of the Army, the Department of the Navy, and the Department of the Air Force.
(8) The Department of State.
(9) The Department of the Treasury.
(10) The Department of Energy.
(11) The Federal Bureau of Investigation.
SEC. 102. CLASSIFIED SCHEDULE OF AUTHORIZATIONS.
(a) Specifications of Amounts and Personnel Ceilings: The amounts authorized to be appropriated under section 101, and the authorized personnel ceilings as of September 30, 1994, for the conduct of the intelligence activities of the elements listed in such section, are those specified in the classified Schedule of Authorizations prepared by the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate to accompany (S. 1301) of the One Hundred Third Congress.
(b) Availability of Classified Schedule of Authorizations: The Schedule of Authorizations shall be made available to the Committee on Appropriations of the Senate and the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and to the President. The President shall provide for suitable distribution of the Schedule, or of appropriate portions of the Schedule, within the executive branch.
SEC. 103. PERSONNEL CEILING ADJUSTMENTS.
(a) Authority for Adjustments: The Director of Central Intelligence may authorize employment of civilian personnel in excess of the number authorized for fiscal year 1994 under section 102 of this Act whenever the Director determines that such action is necessary for the performance of important intelligence functions, except that such number may not, for any element of the intelligence community, exceed 2 percent of the number of civilian personnel authorized under such section for such element.
(b) Notice to Intelligence Committees: The Director of Central Intelligence shall promptly notify the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives and the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate whenever the Director exercises the authority granted by this section.
SEC. 104. COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT ACCOUNT.
(a) Authorizations of Appropriations: There is authorized to be appropriated for the Community Management Account of the Director of Central Intelligence for fiscal year 1994 the sum of $144,588,000. Within such amounts authorized, amounts identified for the Advanced Research and Development Committee shall remain available for obligation through September 30, 1995.
(b) Authorized Personnel Levels: The Community Management Account of the Director of Central Intelligence is authorized 237 full-time personnel as of September 30, 1994. Such personnel of the Community Management Account may be permanent employees of the Community Management Account or personnel detailed from other elements of the United States Government.
(c) Reimbursement: During fiscal year 1994, any officer or employee of the United States or a member of the Armed Forces who is detailed to the Community Management Account from another element of the United States Government shall be detailed on a reimbursable basis, except that any such officer, employee, or member may be detailed on a nonreimbursable basis for a period of less than 1 year for the performance of temporary functions as required by the Director of Central Intelligence.
TITLE II--CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY RETIREMENT AND DISABILITY SYSTEM
SEC. 201. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.
There is authorized to be appropriated for the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability Fund for fiscal year 1994 the sum of $182,300,000.
SEC. 202. TECHNICAL CORRECTIONS.
(a) Corrections: The Central Intelligence Agency Retirement Act (50 U.S.C. 2001 et seq.) is amended as follows:
(1) In section 101(7)--
(A) strike out the comma after `basic pay' and insert in lieu thereof `and'; and
(B) strike out `, and interest determined under section 281'.
(2) In section 201(c), strike out `proviso of section 102(d)(3) of the National Security Act of 1947, (50 U.S.C. 403(d)(3))' and insert in lieu thereof `requirement in section 103(c)(5) of the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 403-3(c)(5))'.
(3) In section 211(c)(2)(B), strike out `the requirement under section 241(b)(4)' and insert in lieu thereof `prior notification of a current spouse, if any, unless notification is waived under circumstances described in section 221(b)(1)(D)'.
(4) In section 221--
(A) in subsection (a)(4), strike out `(or, in the case of an annuity computed under section 232 and based on less than 3 years, over the total service)';
(B) in subsection (f)(1)(A)--
(i) insert `after the participant's death' before the period at the end of the first sentence; and
(ii) strike out `after the participant's death' in the second sentence;
(C) in subsection (g)(1), strike out `(or is remarried' and insert in lieu thereof `(or is remarried,'; and
(D) In subsection (j), strike out `(except as provided in paragraph (2))'.
(5) In section 222--
(A) in subsection (a)(7), strike out `any other annuity' the first time it appears and insert in lieu thereof `any survivor annuity';
(B) in subsection (c)(3)(C), insert `the participant' before `or does not qualify'; and
(C) in subsection (c)(4), strike out `shall terminate' and all that follows and insert in lieu thereof `in the case of a spouse, shall terminate on the last day of the month before the spouse dies, and, in the case of a former spouse, shall terminate on the last day of the month before the former spouse dies, or on the last day of the month before the former spouse remarries before attaining age 55'.
(6) In section 224(c)(1)(B)(i), strike out `former participant' and insert in lieu thereof `retired participant'.
(7) In section 225(c)--
(A) in paragraph (3), strike out `any other annuity' the first time it appears and insert in lieu thereof `any survivor annuity'; and
(B) in paragraph (4)(A), strike out `1991' and insert in lieu thereof `1990'.
(8) In section 231(d)(2), strike out `241(b)' and insert in lieu thereof `241(a)'.
(9) In section 232(b)(4), strike out `section 222' and insert in lieu thereof `section 224'.
(10) In section 234(b), strike out `sections 241 and 281' and insert in lieu thereof `section 241'.
(11) In section 241--
(A) in subsection (c), strike out `A lump-sum benefit that would have been payable to a participant, former participant, or annuitant, or to a survivor annuitant, authorized by subsection (d) or (e) of this section or by section 234(b) or 281(d)' and insert in lieu thereof `A lump-sum payment authorized by subsection (d) or (e) of this section or by section 281(d) and a payment of accrued and unpaid annuity authorized by subsection (f) of this section';
(B) redesignate subsection (f) as subsection (g); and
(C) insert after subsection (e) the following new subsection (f):
`(f) Payment of Accrued and Unpaid Annuity When Retired Participant Dies: If a retired participant dies, any annuity accrued and unpaid shall be paid in accordance with subsection (c).'.
(12) In section 264(b)--
(A) in paragraph (2), insert `and' after the semicolon at the end;
(B) in paragraph (3), strike out `and to any payment of a return of contributions under section 234(a); and' and insert in lieu thereof `, and the amount of any such payment;'; and
(C) strike out paragraph (4).
(13) In section 265, strike out `Act' each place it appears and insert in lieu thereof `title'.
(14) In section 291(b)(2), strike out `or section 232(c)'.
(15) In section 304(i)(1), strike out `section 102(a)(3)' and insert in lieu thereof `section 102(a)(4)'.
(b) Retroactive Effective Date: The amendments made by subsection (a) shall be effective as of February 1, 1993.
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TITLE III--GENERAL PROVISIONS
SEC. 301. INCREASE IN EMPLOYEE COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS AUTHORIZED BY LAW.
There are authorized to be appropriated to carry out the purposes of this Act such additional amounts for fiscal year 1994 as may be necessary for increases in salary, pay, retirement, and other employee benefits authorized by law.
SEC. 302. RESTRICTION ON CONDUCT OF INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES.
The authorization of appropriations in this Act does not constitute authority for the conduct of any intelligence activity which is not otherwise authorized by the Constitution or the laws of the United States.
TITLE IV--CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
SEC. 401. GENERAL COUNSEL OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY.
(a) Position Established: The Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949 (50 U.S.C. 403a et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following:
`General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency.'.
(c) Effective Date: The amendments made by this section shall take effect one year after the date of the enactment of this Act.
SEC. 402. TECHNICAL AMENDMENTS TO THE CIA ACT AND NATIONAL SECURITY ACT.
(a) Amendments to CIA Act: The Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949 (50 U.S.C. 403a et seq.) is amended as follows:
(1) In section 5(a)--
(A) strike out `Bureau of the Budget' and insert `Office of Management and Budget'; and
(B) strike out `sections 102 and 303' and insert in lieu thereof `subparagraphs (B) and (C) of section 102(a)(2), subsections (c)(5) and (d) of section 103, subsections (a) and (g) of section 104, and section 303'.
(2) In section 6, strike out `section 102(d)(3)' and insert in lieu thereof `section 103(c)(5)'.
(3) In section 19(b)--
(A) strike out `231' in the subsection heading and in the matter after clause (iv) and insert in lieu thereof `232'; and
(B) strike out `(50 U.S.C. 403 note)'.
(b) Amendments to National Security Act: Section 103(d)(3) of the National Security Act of 1947 is amended by striking out `providing' and inserting in lieu thereof `provide'.
TITLE V--DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
SEC. 501. FOREIGN LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY PAY FOR MEMBERS OF THE RESERVE COMPONENTS OF THE ARMED FORCES.
(a) Bonus Authorized: Section 316(c) of title 37, United States Code, is amended by striking out paragraphs (1) and (2) and inserting in lieu thereof the following:
`(1) Under regulations prescribed by the Secretary concerned, when a member of a reserve component who is entitled to compensation under section 206 of this title meets the requirements for special pay authorized in subsection (a), except the requirement prescribed in subsection (a)(1), the member may be paid an annual foreign language maintenance bonus.
`(2) The amount of the bonus under paragraph (1) shall be determined by the Secretary concerned but may not exceed the annual equivalent of the maximum monthly rate of special pay authorized under subsection (b) for a member referred to in subsection (a).'.
(b) Effective Date: The amendment made by subsection (a) shall take effect with respect to the first month that begins more than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act.
SEC. 502. NATIONAL SECURITY EDUCATION TRUST FUND.
(a) Crediting of Gifts to the National Security Education Trust Fund: Section 804(e) of the Intelligence Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 1992 (50 U.S.C. 1904(e)) is amended by adding at the end thereof the following:
`(3) Any gifts of money shall be credited to and form a part of the Fund.'.
(b) Repeal of Authorization Requirement: Section 804(b) of such Act is amended--
(1) by striking `(1)';
(2) by redesignating subparagraphs (A) and (B) as paragraphs (1) and (2); and
(3) by striking paragraph (2).
(c) Transfer of Funds Requirement: The Secretary of Defense shall transfer $25,000,000 from the National Security Education Trust Fund to the miscellaneous receipts account of the Treasury.
TITLE VI--FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
SEC. 601. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION COUNTERINTELLIGENCE ACCESS TO CONSUMER CREDIT RECORDS.
Section 608 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 U.S.C. 1681f) is amended--
(1) by striking `Notwithstanding' and inserting `(a) Disclosure of Certain Identifying Information: Notwithstanding'; and
(2) by adding at the end the following new subsection:
`(b) Disclosures to the FBI for Counterintelligence Purposes:
`(1) Consumer reports: Notwithstanding the provisions of section 604, a consumer reporting agency shall furnish a consumer report to the Federal Bureau of Investigation when presented with a written request for a consumer report, signed by the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (hereafter in this section referred to as the `Director') or the Director's designee, which certifies compliance with this subsection. The Director or the Director's designee may make such a certification only if the Director or the Director's designee has determined in writing that--
`(A) such records are necessary for the conduct of an authorized foreign counterintelligence investigation; and
`(B) there are specific and articulable facts giving reason to believe that the consumer whose consumer report is sought is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power, as defined in section 101 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.
`(2) Identifying information: Notwithstanding the provisions of section 604, a consumer reporting agency shall furnish identifying information respecting a consumer, limited to name, address, former addresses, places of employment, or former places of employment, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation when presented with a written request, signed by the Director or the Director's designee, which certifies compliance with this subsection. The Director or the Director's designee may make such a certification only if the Director or the Director's designee has determined in writing that--
`(A) such information is necessary to the conduct of an authorized foreign counterintelligence investigation; and
`(B) there is information giving reason to believe that the consumer has been, or is about to be, in contact with a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power, as defined in section 101 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.
`(3) Confidentiality: No consumer reporting agency or officer, employee, or agent of such consumer reporting agency may disclose to any person, other than those officers, employees or agents of such agency necessary to fulfill the requirement to disclose information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation under this subsection, that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has sought or obtained a consumer report or identifying information respecting any consumer under paragraph (1) or (2), nor shall such agency, officer, employee, or agent include in any consumer report any information that would indicate that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has sought or obtained such a consumer report or identifying information.
`(4) Payment of fees: The Federal Bureau of Investigation shall, subject to the availability of appropriations, pay to the consumer reporting agency assembling or providing credit reports or identifying information in accordance with procedures established under this title, a fee for reimbursement for such costs as are reasonably necessary and which have been directly incurred in searching for, reproducing, or transporting books, papers, records, or other data required or requested to be produced under this subsection.
`(5) Limit on dissemination: The Federal Bureau of Investigation may not disseminate information obtained pursuant to this subsection outside of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, except to the Department of Justice as may be necessary for the approval or conduct of a foreign counterintelligence investigation.
`(6) Rules of construction: Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to prohibit information from being furnished by the Federal Bureau of Investigation pursuant to a subpoena or court order, or in connection with a judicial or administrative proceeding to enforce the provisions of this Act. Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to authorize or permit the withholding of information from the Congress.
`(7) Reports to the congress: On a semiannual basis, the Attorney General of the United States shall fully inform the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs of the House of Representatives, and the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the Senate concerning all requests made pursuant to paragraph (1) and (2).
`(8) Damages: Any agency or department of the United States obtaining or disclosing credit reports, records, or information contained therein in violation of this subsection is liable to the consumer to whom such records relate in an amount equal to the sum of--
`(A) $100, without regard to the volume of records involved;
`(B) any actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the disclosure;
`(C) such punitive damages as a court may allow, where the violation is found to have been willful or intentional; and
`(D) in the case of any successful action to enforce liability under this subsection, the costs of the action, together with reasonable attorney's fees, as determined by the court.
`(9) Disciplinary actions for violations: If a court determines that any agency or department of the United States has violated any provision of this subsection and the court finds that the circumstances surrounding the violation raise questions of whether or not an officer or employee of the agency or department acted willfully or intentionally with respect to the violation, the agency or department shall promptly initiate a proceeding to determine whether or not disciplinary action is warranted against the officer or employee who was responsible for the violation.
`(10) Good-faith exception: Any credit reporting agency or agent or employee thereof making a disclosure of credit reports or identifying information pursuant to this subsection in good-faith reliance upon a certificate by the Federal Bureau of Investigation pursuant to provisions of this subsection shall not be liable to any person for such disclosure under this title, the constitution of any State, or any law or regulation of any State or any political subdivision of any State.
`(11) Limitation of remedies: The remedies and sanctions set forth in this subsection shall be the only judicial remedies and sanctions for violations of this subsection.
`(12) Injunctive relief: In addition to any other remedy contained in this subsection, injunctive relief shall be available to require compliance with the procedures of this subsection. In the event of any successful action under this subsection, costs together with reasonable attorney's fees, as determined by the court, may be recovered.'.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will be 30 minutes of debate, equally divided, on the bill itself. There is an agreement for 2 hours and 10 minutes for debate on the amendment of the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Metzenbaum]. Three amendments are in order during the time of debate on the bill itself.
The pending question at this time is the committee amendment on page 14, line 24.
Is there any further debate on that amendment?
If not, the question is on agreeing to the amendment.
The committee amendment on page 14, line 24, was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
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Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, I thank the Chair for the restatement of the unanimous consent agreement and the adoption of the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, it is a distinct privilege for me in this my first year as chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, to present to the Senate, along with my distinguished colleague from Virginia and vice chairman of the committee, Senator Warner, S. 1301, the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 1994.
As always, this has been a bill arrived at by the committee after many hours of hearings and briefings, after digesting literally thousands of pages of budget justification relating to every intelligence program undertaken by our Government.
Indeed, Mr. President, I daresay that there is not another area of Government activity that receives the kind of detailed scrutiny of its activities from the Congress than does the area of intelligence. We are blessed with a particularly talented, knowledgeable staff who serve well the interests of the committee and the Senate as a whole.
Mr. President, this bill authorizes funding for fiscal year 1994 for all of the national intelligence activities of the Federal Government, to include those of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, the Central Imagery Agency, and the intelligence elements of the military departments, the FBI, and the Departments of State, Treasury, and Energy. In addition, it provides certain administrative authorities which I will explain in more detail at the end of my statement.
Because the amount authorized for national intelligence programs is classified by the executive branch, as well as the amounts authorized for specific programs, I am unable to provide specifics in an open session of the Senate. Every Senator is entitled to know, however, what is being authorized for every intelligence activity if he or she desires. As we do each year, the committee invited Members to come to its offices to see the specific numbers for themselves, or, if they preferred, to be briefed on them.
While I am unable to provide the specific numbers, Mr. President, the bill we are recommending today represents a significant cut from the administration's original request and would essentially hold the line at or just below last year's appropriated level. This would mean that for a fifth consecutive year, dating back to the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union, the budget for national intelligence activities has declined. Overall, if this bill is enacted, intelligence resources will have shrunk 13 percent in real terms when compared with 1989 appropriations.
Last year, the cut imposed by Congress was particularly severe, the largest percentage cut in at least 20 years. In addition to these funding cuts, Congress levied an across-the-board 17.5-percent reduction in personnel in all intelligence agencies, including the CIA, by 1997. So, there should be no mistake, Mr. President, intelligence has been cut and cut severely over the last 5 years. Functions are being consolidated, and agencies are being streamlined.
The administration, moreover, continues to tell us that it intends to fulfill its pledge to cut the prior administration's projected spending for intelligence by $7 billion over the next 4 years. It is optimistic that intelligence capabilities can be further restructured in a way that additional savings will be possible. At the same time, it urges us to work with it to draw down in a measured way which will leave the United States with a flexible but adequate capability to gather and analyze information needed by the President and other policymakers, by our military forces, and by literally thousands of other intelligence consumers in government and industry. The cuts being recommended to the Senate in this year's authorization bill, in my view, represent such a measured approach.
Yes, the world has changed. We no longer face the same
sort of threat to our survival that we faced during the cold war. At the same time, we cannot ignore the legitimate and continuing demands being placed upon intelligence.
To begin with, the focus of United States intelligence during the cold war, namely the military threat posed by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw pact allies, though changed, has not entirely disappeared. There remain in the Russian Republic and the former Soviet Republics of Ukraine and Kazahkstan roughly 30,000 strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. While the governments of these republics are no longer hostile to the United States and presently seem unlikely to become so, control of these weapons, to prevent their loss to extremist states or terrorists, remains a significant concern of the United States.
Indeed, the United States has a serious stake in preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, whether they be nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, as well as the proliferation of missile systems able to deliver these weapons over long distances. It is clear that several states--some of whom are hostile to the United States or have unstable relationships with neighboring countries--countries like North Korea, Libya, Iran, and Iraq--are attempting to become nuclear states or are developing chemical or biological weapons. Should they succeed in developing these capabilities, other states in the same region may decide they have no alternative but to follow a similar path.
The intelligence community monitors the control and movement of existing weapons of mass destruction and tracks the development and production of these weapons and the systems designed to deliver them. The results of these efforts have been the basis for diplomatic actions by the United States and increasingly are being provided to international bodies charged with monitoring compliance with treaties designed to prevent the spread of such weapons and related delivery systems.
The intelligence community also provides virtually the sole means of verifying many bilateral and multilateral agreements signed by the United States. In addition, the intelligence community plays a key role in terms of advising U.S. diplomats involved in negotiating such agreements.
In a similar vein, the intelligence community is asked to monitor the effectiveness of international economic or military sanctions which might be imposed on other countries by the United Nations or by the United States on a unilateral or multilateral basis. Frequently the results of these efforts have led to diplomatic or military actions to enforce or effectuate the sanctions or embargoes concerned.
A large part or the intelligence community's efforts are devoted to support of U.S. military forces, which, with the end of the superpower conflict, must prepare for a variety of new contingencies. While clearly the threat of nuclear devastation has lessened, longstanding ethnic, cultural, and political rivalries previously held in check by the superpower conflict have been unleashed. Regional conflicts have been spawned around the globe, and it has become increasingly difficult to predict where U.S. military forces might be deployed, what their objectives will be once deployed, or what type of military threat they might face. The job of the intelligence community is to anticipate where such deployments might occur and maintain an information base capable of supporting such contingencies.
This function entails not only identifying the capabilities and vulnerabilities of opposing military or paramilitary forces, but also gathering information to be used in planning U.S. operations, targetting data to guide U.S. smart weapons, data to counter enemy radars and sensors which otherwise might threaten U.S. aircraft, and other military support functions.
Once U.S. forces are deployed, the intelligence community typically brings to bear its entire capability in their support, both to achieve the rapid success of the mission and to protect U.S. lives and resources.
Increasingly, the intelligence community is also supporting the operational deployments of U.N. peacekeeping forces as well, providing intelligence on threats to the safety and mission of such forces. This has recently occurred in support of United Nations operations in Cambodia and Bosnia and Herzegovenia. Clearly, where United States forces are participating in United Nations operations, as they currently are in Somalia, the level of intelligence support is substantially enhanced.
In addition to supporting military operations, the intelligence community also provides support to the planning of U.S. military force structures and tactics, as well as to the research, development and acquisition of military weapons and equipment by the Department of Defense. Even in an era of military downsizing, the intelligence community continues to provide literally thousands of defense planners and contractors with information concerning foreign military capabilities which must be taken into account as they assess U.S. military needs of the future and build the capabilities to match them.
The end of the cold war has also seen increasing recognition of the importance of a strong domestic economy as an element of U.S. national security. This recognition has caused a reexamination of the intelligence community's capabilities and proper role in terms of supporting the competitive position of U.S. industry abroad. While there are clear pitfalls to be avoided in this area, intelligence agencies are increasingly being called upon by Federal agencies which are charged with promoting U.S. competitiveness abroad--principally, the Departments of State, Commerce, and the Treasury--to alert them to cases in which there is a need to keep the playing field level for U.S. business interests abroad. Similarly, the Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] and other elements of the intelligence community provide information to firms within the United States which indicates such firms may be the subject of an intelligence attack by foreign governments or by persons or companies acting under the sponsorship of a foreign government.
The intelligence community also plays important, though largely unseen, roles in the areas of counterterrorism and counternarcotics.
The FBI intelligence division has responsibility for tracking and monitoring possible international terrorist activity within the United States. The CIA and other intelligence agencies are involved in monitoring terrorist activities abroad. Such monitoring includes tracking the movements of known or suspected terrorists, developing information on their training, tactics, operations and equipment, and developing information regarding the relationships between terrorist groups and foreign governments. The information developed as a result of such monitoring is shared by the United States with the authorities of other governments whose nationals or resources might be threatened by terrorist activities. The objectives of such monitoring are to prevent terrorist incidents from taking place, such as the recent action by the FBI to prevent a series of bombings and assassinations in New York City, or to apprehend and prosecute the perpetrators of terrorist acts, such as the recent bombing of the World Trade Center or the downing of Pan Am 103 several years before. In each of the cases cited, the intelligence community played a significant role in preventing or redressing terrorist incidents involving U.S. citizens or property.
The role of the intelligence community in countering international narcotics activities is also significant but not well appreciated. U.S. intelligence capabilities are frequently used to determine where narcotic substances are being grown or produced in foreign countries, to determine where narcotics are being shipped or transported, to understand the network used to produce and distribute these narcotics, or to learn where proceeds from their sale are being used or deposited. This information is turned over not only to U.S. drug enforcement authorities, but to appropriate authorities in other governments to identify and locate the
individuals involved in such activities and to preclude them from successfully carrying out their plans. Often, there is only an indirect benefit to the United States, and more often than not the role of U.S. intelligence agencies is not publicly acknowledged by other governments. Suffice it to say, the involvement of U.S. intelligence often provides the key to a successful raid on a drug installation in a foreign country or a successful interception of narcotics in international transit.
Finally, Mr. President, the President and other key policymakers have a continuing need for secret, nonpublicly available information regarding the intentions and capabilities of other governments. To be sure, the world political environment has become far more open and foreign leaders more accessible since the end of the cold war. Communications between the United States and other governments, aided by the explosion of technology in recent years, have become more voluminous, direct, and timely. News media instantly flash images and commentary concerning world events to all points of the globe.
Still, the President needs a capability to assess what other governments are saying. Are events as they seem? Can the President rely upon what other governments are saying privately or what they state publicly? How firm is their position? What is their reaction likely to be if the United States takes a particular action and not another? Are U.S. interests threatened and, if so, how?
The intelligence community, by attempting to gather and analyze information concerning the actions or attitudes of other governments which is not publicly available, is often able to provide unique insights to the President and other policymakers. On occasion, this information has provided a reliable basis for a significant U.S. diplomatic or military initiative which would not have otherwise been attempted. This is not to say that the contribution made by U.S. intelligence has always been unique or reliable or actionable. I, myself, have criticized the intelligence community's analysis regarding the former Soviet Union and Iraq's military strength during the Persian Gulf war. I simply note that at times the contribution of intelligence has been invaluable.
In short, Mr. President, we have to stay ready. It makes no sense for us to close our eyes and ears to developments around the world which could ultimately save U.S. lives and resources. This funding level authorized by this bill leaves us in a strong position, and I believe deserves broad, bipartisan support within this body.
In addition to authorizing funds for intelligence, the bill achieves a number of other purposes. Let me summarize the key provisions very briefly.
Title I of the bill contains the annual authorizations for the funding and personnel levels of the community management staff, the element used by the Director of Central Intelligence to support his role as head of the U.S. intelligence community.
Title II of the bill authorizes the annual appropriation for the CIA retirement and disability fund and contains a series of technical amendments correcting errors in the CIA Retirement Act enacted last year.
Title III of the bill contains general provisions governing intelligence activities which appear in each year's authorization.
Title IV would create a statutory position of general counsel for the CIA, to be appointed by the President and subject to Senate confirmation. At present, the general counsel is appointed by the Director of Central Intelligence and is not subject to Senate confirmation.
Senator Glenn offered this amendment at the committee markup explaining that in his view Senate confirmation of the CIA general counsel would be an important safeguard in terms of ensuring that qualified attorneys rather than political
cronies are appointed to this key position. This provision had bipartisan support within the committee.
Title IV also contains a series of technical amendments to the CIA Act of 1949 and the National Security Act of 1947.
Title V provides the Secretaries of the military departments with authority to offer enhanced payments to members of military reserve components who maintain proficiency in foreign languages. At present, the maximum that can be paid to reservists as an incentive to maintain such proficiency is $185 per year, or a little over $15 per month. The bill would allow the military to pay up to $100 per month, the same as active duty military.
Title V also contains a minor amendment to the National Security Education Act and repeals the requirement in the law for an annual authorization in order to remove money from the trust fund established by the act. An annual appropriation would still be required.
Finally, title VI of the bill would amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act to grant the Federal Bureau of Investigation access to consumer credit records in counterintelligence and terrorism investigations. This authority was requested by the administration and was justified to the committee as an important adjunct to the FBI's investigative authorities.
I am pleased to note that the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, which has jurisdiction over the Fair Credit Reporting Act, consented to our committee doing this on our bill and has worked closely with us in crafting appropriate wording.
Mr. President, those are the key features of this year's intelligence authorization bill. it is a responsible bill which enjoys bipartisan support from our committee. I urge my colleagues to support it.
Mr. President, I yield to my vice chairman, Senator Warner.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia is recognized.
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Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, first I would like to commend the chairman of the committee, Senator DeConcini. We have worked, I think, in a bipartisan spirit, together with the members on our committee, to forge this important piece of legislation. We have also been assisted by very capable staff on this.
Mr. President, I support passage of S. 1301, the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 1994. It has been a privilege to work with the chairman of our Select Committee on Intelligence, Mr. DeConcini, in fashioning a bill to ensure that the Nation has the intelligence capabilities it needs for the future. We also appreciate the fine cooperation we received from the chairman, Mr. Nunn, and the ranking Republican, Mr. Thurmond, of the Committee on Armed Services.
With the end of the cold war and the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw pact military alliance, the United States had hoped for a new world order with stable and steady progress toward greater democracy, freedom, and free enterprise. What the United States faces in the post-cold-war era, however, is a more chaotic environment with multiple challenges to U.S. interests that complicate the efforts of the United States and cooperating nations to achieve the desired progress. In an unstable world of diverse and increasing challenges, the need for robust and reliable intelligence capabilities has grown rather than diminished.
Enactment of S. 1301 will help build and maintain the intelligence capabilities we need.
America faces a world in which ethnic, religious, and social tensions spawn regional conflicts; a number of nations possess nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them on a target; other nations seek nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons of mass destruction and the means to delivery them; terrorist organizations continue to operate and attack U.S. interests; international drug organizations continue on a vast scale to produce illegal drugs and smuggle them into the United States; and U.S. economic interests are under constant challenge. Of course, the United States continues to have a vital interest in close monitoring of developments in the independent Republics on the territory of the former Soviet Union.
As is reflected in the minority views accompanying the intelligence committee report on the bill (S. Rept. 103-115), I would have preferred a level of funding for intelligence activities higher than the committee recommended. Among other things, such activities are an important force-multiplier for our Armed Forces in meeting an increasing variety of challenges. Funding for the full range of Federal activities has grown extremely tight, especially in recent months as Congress has considered fiscal year 1994 funding bills, which is appropriate to protect American taxpayers interests. It is in this context that I support passage of S. 1301 to move the process forward. Within the overall level the committee has set for intelligence funding--which must, of course, remain secret--the committee has generally distributed the funding among the various intelligence programs effectively, to maximize the capability achieved from the given level of resources.
I support the four committee amendments, which are:
The Armed Services Committee amendment relating to the National Security Education Act;
The Intelligence Committee amendment relating to pay retention for certain FBI New York personnel;
The Intelligence Committee amendment requiring a report on gaps in U.S. intelligence capabilities; and
The Intelligence Committee amendment that revises section 307 of the National Security Act and ratifies a past funding transaction.
I will oppose the amendment to be offered by the junior Senator from Ohio to express the sense of Congress that the intelligence budget should be disclosed.
I regret that we were unable to reach a timely agreement with our majority colleagues on the Armed Services Committee on an amendment to section 504 of the National Security Act of 1947. The amendment the select committee was pursuing would have made it legally unnecessary to pursue supplemental intelligence authorization statutes in situations in which funds are appropriated for intelligence activities in excess of, or in the absence, of authorization of appropriations for such activities. It is our intention to pursue such an amendment to section 504 promptly as separate legislation. I introduced such legislation on October 21, 1993 (S. 1578) to solve the problems created by section 504, as set forth in detail in my statement upon introducing S. 1578, which is printed in the Congressional Record of that date.
I urge passage of S. 1301 with the four committee amendments.
Mr. President, I will summarize in just several sentences.
We are downsizing the Armed Forces of the United States. We do that by necessity because of the budget situation in the United States today. I personally think we are moving too fast in that direction. We have cut back too far.
But, nevertheless, the Nation's intelligence, as gathered by the various components--the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and other departments and agencies that work in the intelligence field--becomes a force multiplier. By providing timely and accurate intelligence for our Armed Forces, our intelligence agencies help us use our smaller Armed Forces to maximum effect.
The intelligence gathered by these intelligence services is fed to our decisionmakers, from the President on down, and becomes a force multiplier to help compensate for the reduction in defense spending.
So I urge our colleagues to adopt this bill. It is a good bill. It is carefully forged.
Regrettably it does not, dollarwise, meet the intelligence budget request for fiscal year 1994 of the President of the United States. I was very much in favor of the budget request of the President of the United States, which provided for strong U.S. intelligence capabilities. But it was not in the judgment of the majority of the committee to support that level of funding. I was overruled. I accept that judgment that the committee decided to mark to a lower figure.
I would also make just a few remarks on the amendment just adopted by the Senate. It is an amendment relating to the national security education trust fund, which is a concept that originated primarily with Senators Boren, Nunn, myself, and others. I am very pleased that that is incorporated as a part of the bill.
Mr. President, the Committee on Armed Services, on which I serve in addition to being vice chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, recommended a single amendment to the intelligence authorization bill.
The Armed Services Committee amendment would strike from the bill a provision that would return to the Treasury $25 million from the national security education trust fund. That trust fund finances a program of scholarships for undergraduate study abroad, graduate study in the United States, and grants to institutions of higher learning devoted to the study of foreign languages and cultures.
The Armed Services Committee amendment supports the National Security Education Program and had our support. We are pleased to support this program originated by Senator Boren when he was chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
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Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, I yield myself whatever time is necessary.
Mr. President, S. 1301 was reported by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence by a vote of 12 to 5 on July 28, 1993. It was subsequently referred to the Committee on armed Services, pursuant to the provisions of Senate Resolution 400 of the 94th Congress, and has now been reported by that committee with one minor amendment, which has just been discussed, regarding the National Security Education Act and has just been adopted.
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the fiscal year 1994 Intelligence Authorization Act. This marks the first budget cycle that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, of which I am a member, has been under the capable leadership of Chairman Dennis DeConcini and Vice Chairman John Warner. I would like to take this time to express my great respect and admiration for these two gentlemen and their fine work on the committee.
My colleague from Arizona has recently made the difficult decision to retire from the Senate after his current term expires. I know that this was a difficult decision for Senator DeConcini, but he has many reasons to be proud of his record here in the Senate. It has been a pleasure serving with him on the Senate Intelligence Committee and I look forward to continue serving with Senator DeConcini on the committee through next year under his chairmanship.
Despite my concerns with the level of reductions contained in this legislation, I ultimately supported final passage of the committee's markup of the fiscal year 1994 intelligence authorization bill. Under Chairman DeConcini's leadership, I believe that the reductions made to the intelligence budget in our committee markup were generally reasonable and responsible. Some of my Senate colleagues are anxious to further reduce the intelligence budget. I strongly oppose any such effort and would urge my colleagues to do the same.
Mr. President, I believe that intelligence comprises an unique and irreplaceable component of America's national security infrastructure and should be treated accordingly. With the end of the cold war--which existed in a comparatively stable and predictable international environment--the need for a robust and reliable intelligence capability has grown rather than diminished. In the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the so-called new world order is anything but orderly.
As the recent parliamentary crisis in Russia and the continued upheaval in the former republics clearly demonstrates, America continues to have significant interests in developments in the former Soviet Union. The intelligence community must continue to aggressively monitor these changes.
To the extent that we need to reduce resources to certain intelligence targets, we must focus more of our intelligence capabilities and resources on other security threats such as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, drug smuggling, terrorism, environmental change, arms control monitoring, low-intensity conflict in the Third World, and the illicit export of high-technology items.
Mr. President, in this period of enormous change and uncertainty, the need for timely and accurate intelligence is particularly compelling. Indeed, the United States depends on intelligence to detect and monitor these changes in the international system so we can reallocate increasingly scare national security resources in a more efficient manner.
The effectiveness of United States military forces in Somalia, Iraq, Panama, and elsewhere are directly attributable to timely and effective intelligence. Without question, accurate and timely intelligence is our greatest force-multiplier--particularly at a time when we are significantly reducing our defense spending. When the day comes that the United States must rebuild our national defense--to confront a threat that is now difficult to foresee, we must do so from the strongest and most reliable intelligence base possible.
This body should overwhelmingly oppose any effort to take a meat ax to America's intelligence budget.
Mr. President, I would like to address another aspect of the legislation before the Senate today. The bill contains a provision I sponsored in committee requiring Presidential nomination and Senate confirmation of the CIA general counsel. Currently, only three CIA officials--the Director of Central Intelligence [DCI], the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence [DDCI], and the inspector general [IG]--are confirmed by the Senate.
The precedent for White House and Senate involvement in the selection of senior CIA officials was established at the inception of the present-day U.S. intelligence establishment. The National Security Act of 1947 provided for Presidential nomination and Senate confirmation of the DCI, and the same procedure for selection of the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (DDCI) was established in 1953. In 1989, President Bush signed legislation into law which created a statutory inspector general [IG] for the CIA with a requirement that the nominee be confirmed by the Senate.
The general counsel position was in existence when the CIA was established in 1947. The CIA general counsel is responsible for providing legal advice to the DCI and the Agency as a whole on all matters, and is responsible for determining the legality of CIA activities and for guarding against any illegal or improper activity.
The responsibilities of CIA's general counsel are in some ways more significant than those of other general counsels in view of the extremely sensitive programs involved that directly affect our Nation's security. Many of the legal issues are
unique to the CIA and have to be treated without the extensive public discourse and numerous precedents that aid other general counsels. The incumbent CIA general counsel deserves the status of a Presidential appointment and Senate confirmation as well as the prestige that this status will give the incumbent in inter-agency deliberations.
Mr. President, I sponsored this provision because I am convinced that the confirmation process has become an increasingly important means to insure the accountability of senior level executive branch officials to the American people through their duly elected representatives in the Congress. This is particularly true of the CIA, which plays a special role in our Government.
Indeed, the CIA is unique among all Federal agencies in the level of trust it demands from the American public and the Congress. And the CIA is unique from other intelligence agencies such as the Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA], the National Security Agency [NSA], the National Reconnaissance Office [NRO], and the FBI.
Although the CIA is not charged primarily with policymaking, it plays a significant role in the formulation of national security policy. The close relationship between the CIA and policymakers is recognized in the legislation that established the CIA.
Among the duties assigned to the CIA by section 103(d)(5) of the National Security Act of 1947 as amended is to `perform such other functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security as the President or the National Security Council may direct.' This broad provision has been interpreted to include, among other things, the CIA's role in planning and implementing various types of sensitive activities overseas--including covert action, which is, need I remind my colleagues, operational U.S. policy.
As the CIA has grown over the years, its support to U.S. national security policies has broadened into many different areas. The individual who holds the CIA general counsel position advises the DCI and the DDCI about the legality of CIA activities. The DCI and the DDCI are in turn responsible for providing leadership and direction not only to the CIA, but the entire U.S. intelligence community as well. Thus, the CIA general counsel plays a significant role supporting the entire national security infrastructure of our Nation.
Unlike other intelligence agencies such as NSA, DIA, the NRO, or the FBI, the CIA is not organizationally subordinate to another department of the Federal Government--by statute, it directly supports the President and the National Security Council. NSA, DIA, and the NRO are agencies of the Department of Defense, and the FBI is subordinate to the Department of Justice. In addition, the CIA, unlike the NSA, DIA, the NRO, and the FBI and all other components of the intelligence community, is the only intelligence agency--and indeed the only Federal agency--that is not subject to GAO audits. This organizational independence places the CIA in a different category from other components of the intelligence community and argues for a greater degree of scrutiny of high-level agency officials.
Mr. President, I would also note that at the present time, all components of the intelligence community--except the CIA--are part of departments with statutory general counsels--or the equivalent--who are appointed by the President, and confirmed by the Senate. In some departments the title of general counsel does not exist, but essentially similar functions are performed by solicitors or legal advisers.
Specifically, the general counsels of the Department of Energy and the Department of the Treasury are confirmed, as is the Department of State's legal advisor. The FBI is an element of the Department of Justice, which has a Senate confirmed Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel. The Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA], the National Security Agency [NSA], and the National Reconnaissance Organization [NRO] are all elements of the Department of Defense--which has its general counsel confirmed.
The CIA, as a result of its size and importance within the Federal Government, should be treated in the same manner as other departments, including those having national security responsibilities. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has taken the lead in the last few years in seeking to provide a clearer statutory framework for intelligence agencies--and this initiative is a logical part of this effort.
Mr. President, Senate confirmation of the CIA general counsel is not a new idea. Indeed, it has been recommended to the Senate several times over the last two decades.
For example, the Church Committee, in its final report in 1976, recommended that the CIA have a general counsel nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate.
A similar recommendation in favor of Senate confirmation of the CIA general counsel was made by the congressional committees investigating the Iran-Contra affair in 1987. During the Iran-Contra affair, the CIA's general counsel drafted a retroactive Presidential finding to justify the Reagan administration's covert arms-for-hostages policy and provide after-the-fact authorization for CIA operations. This finding, in part, directed `the Director of Central Intelligence not to brief the Congress of the United States * * * until such time as I may direct otherwise.' The final version of this covert action finding was not reported to the Congress for almost
a year when public disclosure of the Iran-Contra affair made it impossible to continue to hide the finding from the intelligence committees.
Concerns about the working of the CIA General Counsel's Office were raised more recently.
Earlier this year, the staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence completed an investigation of the intelligence community's role in the BNL-Atlanta affair. The committee staff report documented a number of instances where the performance of the CIA General Counsel's Office was deficient. The most egregious of all the shortcomings documented in this episode was the preparation and release of a letter by the CIA General Counsel's Office to the Department of Justice--a public letter which lawyers at the CIA subsequently acknowledged was incomplete and misleading. Essentially, the letter failed to acknowledge information that the CIA had in its possession which might well have been pertinent to a Federal sentencing hearing in Atlanta.
If not for the diligence of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and others in Congress who--unlike the American public--had access to enough secret information to recognize that the letter was misleading, this action might have gone unnoticed. Instead, the controversy over the letter led CIA back to its secret files, where it found even more information relevant to the BNL-Atlanta case that had never been disclosed to the court or even to Federal prosecutors.
The committee staff report also found that the CIA General Counsel's Office had been remiss in responding to the concerns of the presiding judge at the Atlanta hearing, Judge Marvin Shoob. In addition, the report also found shoddy staff work performed by the CIA General Counsel's Office in terms of responding to Justice Department requests--as well as ensuring that the CIA itself was meeting its obligations under applicable case law.
Undeniably, mistakes can occur in any office and errors in judgment can take place whether or not the head of the CIA General Counsel's Office is confirmed by the Senate. But I do think that this unfortunate episode underscores the importance of the functions the CIA General Counsel's Office performs on a daily basis. Not only does this office serve an important advisory function to the DCI, but the CIA General Counsel's Office is also the point of interface with the Department of Justice and the courts. It is therefore essential that the CIA have someone in this position who not only understands intelligence, but the law enforcement system and judicial process as well. Our best guarantee of attaining this objective is to make sure that the Senate has an opportunity to assess the CIA general counsel's qualifications through the confirmation process.
Mr. President, I believe that both the Iran-Contra and the BNL-Atlanta examples clearly demonstrate why it is important that the top legal office of the Central Intelligence Agency be fully accountable to the Congress and the American people through the Senate confirmation process. I am convinced that Senate confirmation of the CIA general counsel would make the individual holding that important office far more sensitive to the fact that the Congress shares both the power and the responsibility for our nation's security.
And when confronted with decisions such as whether to deliberately ignore the requirement to provide notification to the congressional intelligence committees or publicly release deceptive information, a CIA general counsel who has faced the scrutiny of the confirmation process would likely think twice before considering whether or not it is possible to safely disappear in the fog of unaccountability at the CIA.
Mr. President, it is important to note that on the infrequent occasions when a presidential nominee is rejected, it is often because the nominee is considered to lack the requisite professionalism for the position. Hence, the confirmation process tends to support professionals against any administration's efforts to place unqualified non-professionals into senior positions in the Federal Government.
Senate confirmation is a constructive means of enhancing public and congressional confidence in the senior leadership of the CIA. This is accomplished not only by ensuring that the nominee has the necessary qualifications for the job, but that the nominee is also firmly committed to the intelligence oversight laws and will be truthful, candid, and forthcoming in dealing with Congress.
In view of their responsibilities in supporting the National Security Council in sensitive areas of policy formulation, I believe that Senate confirmation of the CIA general counsel will ultimately serve to create confidence and rapport between the nominees and the legislative branch. Through the record established during confirmation, the nominee and the SSCI could clarify and establish a common understanding of the position's role and responsibilities, develop a constructive working relationship, and define the appropriate constraints on CIA activities. This process will go a long way toward avoiding problems as a result of misunderstandings, which in turn could lead to abuses of authority.
Mr. President, some might argue that the DCI should make his or her own selection for this position and that we should be wary of anyone vetted through the so-called political swamp of the White House nomination process. This highly dubious line of reasoning presupposes that DCI's will be infallible in making selections for senior positions at the CIA. A review of the CIA's history and senior CIA officials appointed to their positions by past Directors of Central Intelligence would result
in the inescapable conclusion that some of these individuals--ostensibly placed in their positions without the political taint of the confirmation process--have been far from divinely inspired choices.
Alternatively, I would note that today there are currently three officials at the CIA--Director Jim Woolsey, Deputy Director Bill Studeman, and Inspector General Fred Hitz--who have been vetted through the dreaded White House political swamp and survived the Senate confirmation process intact. All three of these fine public servants have proven themselves to be excellent in their respective positions out at the CIA--and none of them seems to be worse off from the Senate confirmation experience.
Some have argued that requiring Senate confirmation of a senior position at the CIA--or anywhere else in the Federal bureaucracy--somehow politicizes the office. In fact, just the opposite is true. The confirmation process can only block the President from appointing a particular individual--it cannot compel the nomination of anyone with a particular viewpoint preferred by the Senate.
As Alexander Hamilton stated in the Federalist Papers No. 66:
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It will be the office of the President to nominate, and with the advice and consent of the Senate to appoint. There will, of course, be no exertion of choice on the part of the Senate. They may defeat one choice of the Executive and oblige him to make another; but they cannot themselves choose--they can only ratify or reject the choice he may have made.
In other words, without a requirement for Senate confirmation, there is nothing to prevent the politicization of a senior Federal Government position by an administration. Indeed, Senate confirmation should do more to prevent politicization than to promote it. As Dr. Richard Betts of Columbia University has stated, `considering the difference between the power to appoint and the power to review the appointment, politicization comes from the Executive more readily than from Congress. If a President or * * * DCI wish to put unqualified political cronies in sensitive CIA positions, they can do so, as of now, without challenge.'
It should also be noted that the confirmation of senior officials in Government has traditionally worked to protect against the politicization of these positions, while failure to confirm has worked to protect the President's political prerogatives. For example, senior Government officials who are not confirmed--such as the White House Chief of Staff and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs--have been exempted from the confirmation process precisely to prevent Congress from interfering with the President's political control of these positions on the President's personal staff.
Indeed, Senate confirmation will help prevent politicizing the position of the CIA general counsel by raising the standards of this important post. Because the nominee must appear before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence [SSCI], the nominee is more likely to be scrutinized carefully--by both the executive branch and the Congress--than otherwise. This process would help preclude a hasty or ill-considered appointment by a single individual--the DCI.
Requiring Senate confirmation of the CIA general counsel is no more likely to politicize the operation of the Central Intelligence Agency than would the existing requirement to confirm the DCI, the DDCI, and the inspector general.
Mr. President, I would also like to point out to my colleagues that under the legislation passed by our committee, the DCI--as well as the President--can remove the statutory CIA general counsel from office. Also, the committee report states specifically that the `establishment of the statutory position does not impair or affect the existing authority' of the DCI, and that the DCI should be afforded `substantial flexibility to decide from time to time what authorities to delegate and duties to assign to the CIA general counsel.'
The bill also stipulates a one-year period before the statutory CIA general counsel provision takes effect--allowing the Agency and the administration adequate time to take any necessary administrative and personnel actions for this transition to take place.
Mr. President, I strongly believe that accountability is the fundamental objective of congressional oversight of intelligence.
And intelligence oversight imposes a unique burden on the two congressional intelligence committees which serve as surrogates, not only for the Congress as a whole, but the American people. Because congressional oversight of the CIA and the rest of the intelligence community must necessarily be conducted in the black box of secrecy, the committees must demand accountability and possess the will to conduct thorough oversight. I would also point out to my colleagues that the CIA is the only intelligence agency over which the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has sole and exclusive authorization and oversight jurisdiction in the Senate.
Before the two intelligence oversight committees were created in the mid-1970's, Congress conducted what I refer to as oversight by oversight of U.S. intelligence--preferring to know little more than it was told by the CIA. As one Senator stated some years ago: `It is not a question of reluctance on the part of CIA officials to speak to us. Instead, it is a question of our reluctance, if you will, to seek information and knowledge on subjects which I personally * * * would rather not have. * * *'
Mr. President, this is an attitude that this body can ill-afford, particularly in the postcold war era.
I am second to no one in my support for a strong, effective, and responsible CIA. Nevertheless, the Central Intelligence Agency, like any large bureaucracy, is capable of waste, abuse, mismanagement, and incompetence. Because the CIA is such a vast and secretive organization, it is essential that it be made fully accountable for its actions.
Intelligence activities are consistent with democratic principles only when they are conducted in accordance with the law and in an accountable manner to the American people through their duly elected representatives. I am convinced that the confirmation process is a constructive means of demanding accountability, thereby enhancing public and congressional confidence in the senior leadership of the CIA.
Senate confirmation of the CIA's general counsel will serve to strengthen the accountability of the CIA--and ultimately enhance the effectiveness of this important agency.
Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support this bill as reported out of our committee.
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Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, there are three additional amendments. I send them to the desk and ask for their immediate consideration and ask the three amendments be considered en bloc.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the three amendments en bloc.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Arizona [Mr. DeConcini], for himself and Mr. Warner, proposes amendments en block numbered 1154, 1155, and 1156.
Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendments be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection it is so ordered.
The amendments are as follows:
On page 11, after line 2, insert the following:
SEC. 304. REPORT ON INTELLIGENCE GAPS.
(a) Report.--The Director of Central Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense jointly shall prepare and submit by February 15, 1994, to the Select Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on Armed Services, and the Committee on Appropriations of the Senate, and to the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on Armed Services, and the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives a report described in subsection (b).
(b) contents of Report: The report required by subsection (a) shall--
(1) identify and assess the critical gaps between the information needs of the United States Government and intelligence collection capabilities, to include the identification of topics and areas of the world of significant interest to the United States to which the application of additional resources, technology, or other efforts would generate new information of high priority to senior officials of the United States Government;
(2) identify and assess gaps in the ability of the intelligence community (as defined in section 3(4) of the National Security Act of 1947) to provide intelligence support needed by the Armed Forces of the United States and, in particular, by the commanders of combatant commands established under section 161(a) of title 10, United States Code; and
(3) contain joint recommendations of the Director of Central Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense on appropriate means, to include specific budgetary adjustments, for reducing or eliminating the gaps identified under paragraphs (1) and (2).'
Page 2, line 2, insert the following after the item relating to Section 303 (as added by committee amendment No. 2):
`Sec. 304. Report on Intelligence Gaps.'
On page 11, after line 2, insert the following:
SEC. 303. TEMPORARY PAY RETENTION FOR CERTAIN FBI EMPLOYEES.
(a) The Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act of 1990 as contained in Section 529 of the Treasury, Postal Service and General Government Appropriations Act, 1991 (Public Law 101-509) is amended by striking section 406 and inserting in lieu thereof:
`SEC. 406. FBI NEW YORK FIELD DIVISION.
`(a) No employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation assigned to the New York Field Division prior to September 29, 1993 in a position covered by the demonstration project created by section 601 of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1989 (Public Law 100-453), as amended, shall have his or her total pay reduced as a result of the termination of the demonstration project, unless that employee ceases or has ceased at any time after that date to be employed in a position covered by the demonstration project: Provided, That, beginning on September 30, 1993, any periodic payment under section 602(a)(2) of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1989 for any such employee shall be reduced by the amount of any increase in basic pay under title 5, United States Code, including an annual adjustment under section 5303, locality-based comparability payment under section 5304, initiation or increase in a special pay rate under section 5305, promotion under section 5334, periodic step increase under section 5335, merit increase under section 5404, or other increase to basic pay under any provision of law.'.
`(b) The amendment made by subsection (a) shall take effect as of September 30, 1993, and shall apply to the pay of employees to whom the amendment applies that is earned on or after that date.'.
(b) On page 2, line, insert in the table of contents the following after the item relating to section 302--
`Sec. 303. FBI New York Field Division.'
On page 11, after line 2, insert the following:
SEC. 303. AMENDMENT TO SECTION 307 OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY ACT AND RATIFICATION OF A PAST TRANSACTION.
(a) Amendment to Section 307 of the National Security Act of 1947: Section 307 of the National Security Act of 1947 is amended by striking `provisions and purposes of this Act' and inserting in lieu thereof `provisions and purposes of this Act (other than the provisions and purposes of sections 102, 103, 104, 105 and titles V, VI, and VII)'.
(b) Ratification of Funding Transactions.--Funds obligated or expended for the Accelerated Architecture Acquisition Initiative of the Plan to Improve the Imagery Ground Architecture based upon the notification to the appropriate committees of Congress by the Director of Central Intelligence dated August 16, 1993 shall be deemed to have been specifically authorized by the Congress for purposes of Section 504(a)(3) of the National Security Act of 1947.
On page 2, line 2, insert in the table of contents the following after the item relating to section 302--
Sec. 303. Amendment to Section 307 of the National Security Act of 1947 and Ratification of Past Transaction.
Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, I am offering three committee amendments to S. 1301, numbers 1154, 1155, and 1156, respectively. Let me briefly explain the purpose of each amendment.
Amendment No. 1155 provides that employees of the FBI Field Division in New York who were receiving certain retention payments as part of a previously authorized demonstration project will not suffer a loss in pay as a result of the termination of that project. Senator D'Amato, an outstanding member of our committee, first brought this matter to our attention and has taken the lead in developing the amendment I offer today.
Let me elaborate briefly. Pursuant to authority contained in the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 1989, a 5-year demonstration project was established in the FBI Field Division in New York whereby employees assigned to that division received a one-time payment to relocate to the New York office and thereafter received periodic payments up to 25 percent of their basic pay so long as they remained employed. The demonstration project terminated on September 29, 1993.
The Department of Justice and Office of Personnel Management recently concluded that in the absence of new legislation, the payments being made under the demonstration project must terminate on the date the project itself terminates; that is, September 29, 1993.
In order to avoid what in some cases would be a considerable loss of pay by individuals already receiving that pay, the administration has requested that the Congress provide authority to continue the payments under the project to those who have been receiving them. However, it has agreed that in the interests of fairness the basic pay of such employees should not rise in the future until the level of payments being made under the demonstration project has been surpassed as a result of incremental increases in the compensation of the employees concerned.
This is the policy embodied in the committee amendment. It has the approval of the administration and has been cleared with the Committee on Appropriations. It is a sensible compromise which will ensure that FBI employees in New York who have undertaken financial obligations in anticipation that the payments under the demonstration project would continue beyond the demonstration project itself are not unfairly penalized. I urge the adoption of this amendment.
Amendment No. 1154 would require a joint report from the Director of Central Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense to the appropriate committees of the Congress identifying gaps in U.S. information needs and the intelligence collection capabilities of the United States available to satisfy them. Where possible, the report will also include actions recommended to eliminate or close the gaps to satisfy the requirements of both civilian policymakers and military commanders in the field.
Senator Danforth was instrumental in developing this proposal, and, once this analysis has been completed, I believe it will provide a very valuable basis to assess future budget requests. I commend the Senator for his initiative.
The third and final amendment, No. 1156, has two purposes.
The first is to amend section 307 of the National Security Act of 1947, which provides a general authorization for any funds necessary and appropriate to carry out the provisions and purposes of the act, to make clear that such general authorization does not satisfy the requirement of section 504 of the National Security Act of 1947 that there be a specific authorization by the Congress in order for intelligence agencies to obligate or expend funds available to them. Subsection (a) of the amendment addressed this issue.
The second purpose of this amendment is to ratify a previous transaction notified to the appropriate committees of the Congress as satisfying the requirement of section 504 for a specific authorization by the Congress. This transaction involved the obligation of certain funds for an accelerated architecture acquisition initiative of the plan to improve imagery ground architecture, which was notified by the Director of Central Intelligence to the appropriate committees of the Congress on August 16, 1993. The proposed transaction met with no substantive objection from the committees concerned. The purpose of subsection (b) of the amendment is to deem this transaction, as a matter of law, as satisfying the requirement of section 504(a)(3) of the National Security Act of 1947.
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Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, as I have stated, I support passage of S. 1301 with the Armed Services Committee amendment and the three Intelligence Committee amendments. Each of the three Intelligence Committee amendments addresses a problem with U.S. intelligence activities that the Intelligence Committee has examined. One deals with pay retention for certain FBI personnel in New York, one requires a report on gaps in U.S. intelligence, and one amends section 307 of the National Security Act and ratifies a past funding transaction so that it complies with section 504 of the National Security Act of 1947. These amendments address satisfactorily the problems the committee has examined, and these select committee amendments are accepted.
The Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 1988 (Public law 100-453) authorized a 5-year demonstration project to provide retention bonuses and mobility payments to certain employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's New York Field Office, because of concerns about attracting and retaining talented FBI counterintelligence personnel for service in the expensive New York area. Congress has since addressed on a Governmentwide basis pay for Federal employees in high-cost-of-living areas, with enactment of the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act (Public Law 101-509) and other legislation relating to Federal employee locality pay.
The demonstration project expired on September 29, 1993. Absent further legislation, the FBI personnel covered by the demonstration project would receive a cut in pay, compared to what they had received under the demonstration project. Because FBI headquarters had innocently but erroneously represented to such employees to believe that the employees would continue to receive the higher pay, and the employees relied on such representations, the committee believes that legislation to address the employees' pay is appropriate.
The question has arisen of how best to provide relief to the affected FBI employees, coordinate it with implementation of the new legislation regarding locality pay, and avoid pay inequities among similarly situated Federal employees. The Department of Justice proposed that current FBI personnel who were receiving the special pay and benefits provided under the demonstration project continue to receive them until the pay and benefits
provided under other laws equals the amount payable to those personnel covered by the demonstration project. The demonstration project would end now in the sense that no one new could qualify for benefits under the demonstration project, but those individuals who were receiving benefits under the demonstration project at the time of its expiration would continue to receive the benefits as long as they continue to meet the criteria that applied under the demonstration project.
The Senator from New York [Mr. D'Amato], a distinguished member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, has the committee's appreciation for bringing the pay situation of FBI employees in New York to the committee's attention and for his origination of the committee amendment to correct the situation.
To manage effectively the resources of the United States devoted to intelligence activities, and indeed to decide what that level of resources should be, the United States must assess what it needs to know, what it does know, and what it does not know about events abroad. To assist the Secretary of Defense, the Director of Central Intelligence, and the Congress in allocating resources for intelligence, the committee is proposing an amendment to the bill to require an executive branch report assessing the gaps in U.S. intelligence capabilities and recommending how to address those gaps.
The Senator from Missouri [Mr. Danforth], a distinguished member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, has originated this amendment to ensure that the executive and legislative branches have the information they need to address funding for U.S. intelligence activities effectively next year and in the years beyond.
Section 307 of the National Security Act of 1947 contains a general statement that there are authorized to be appropriated such sums as may be necessary and appropriate to carry out the provisions and purposes of the act. Such general language does not suffice to meet the requirements in section 504 of the National Security Act that, to obligate or expend funds for an intelligence or intelligence-related activity, such funds must be specifically authorized by the Congress, which means that the amount of funds was authorized by statute to be appropriated for that activity. To make that point explicit in section 307, the amendment excludes from the scope of section 307 the intelligence provisions of the National Security Act of 1947.
The committee amendment also ratifies a transaction proposed to the committee by the Director of Central Intelligence on August 16, 1993, relating to the accelerated architecture acquisition initiative of the plan to improve the imagery ground architecture. The committee's review of the proposed transaction brought to light a need for changes to section 504 of the National Security Act to allow this transaction and others like it to go forward under the law.
The committee plans to proceed with separate legislation to make the necessary changes to section 504 to take care of the problem permanently. The committee understands, however, that the Director of Central Intelligence went forward with the funding transaction proposed by the letter of August 16, 1993; the proposed amendment is necessary to ratify that transaction, which otherwise would run afoul of section 504 of the National Security Act. The committee amendment ratifies explicitly the transaction proposed by the Director by letter dated August 16, 1993, because the review of that transaction first brought to the committee's attention that the phrase `specifically authorized by the Congress' in section 504(a)(3) of the National Security Act, like section 504(a)(1), required enactment of an authorization statute and could not be satisfied by a scheme of notification to
and concurrence by committees of the Congress. Transactions prior to the August 16, 1993, action which were undertaken based on the mistaken, but good faith, belief that the phrase `specifically authorized by the Congress' in sections 504 (a)(1) and (a)(3) of the National Security Act could be satisfied by notification to and concurrence by committees of the Congress also are intended to be deemed ratified, which protects certifying and disbursing officers.
Section 504 of the National Security Act of 1947 currently allows obligation and expenditure of appropriated funds for intelligence activities only in three situations. First, the appropriated funds may be used for an intelligence or intelligence-related activity when such use of the funds for the activity has been `specifically authorized by the Congress,' a phrase defined in the statute. Second, the appropriated funds may be used for an intelligence or intelligence-related activity when the funds involved are funds appropriated for the CIA Reserve for contingencies and the congressional intelligence and appropriations committees have been notified. Third, the appropriated funds may be used for an intelligence or intelligence-related activity if they were specifically authorized by Congress for a different activity and the activity for which they are instead proposed to be used is of higher priority, is based on unforeseen requirements, and the congressional intelligence and appropriations committees have been notified.
The phrase `specifically authorized by the Congress' as defined and used in sections 504 (a)(1) and (a)(3), means specifically authorized by statute, a requirement that cannot be satisfied by notification to and concurrence by committees of Congress. That interpretation is mandated under the constitutional principles enunciated in INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983), is supported by the text of the very legislative provision originally adding the provision to the National Security Act, is supported by the legislative history reflected in a statement on the House floor at the time of the adoption of the final version of the legislation in 1985, and is supported by the consistent practice of the Congress since then in enacting waivers of section 504(a)(1) as part of appropriations continuing resolutions enacted at the close of fiscal years when the annual intelligence authorization bills had not yet been enacted. My statement upon introduction of the Intelligence Authorization Process Adjustment Act (S. 1578), printed in the Congressional Record of October 21, 1993, sets this matter forth in further detail.
Provisions of section 504 require notification to appropriate committees of Congress of certain proposed funding transactions. Those provisions were enacted with
the understanding that, as a matter of comity between the executive and legislative branches, the concurrence of the committees will be obtained before certain proposed transactions go forward. The statutory requirements in Section 504 for advance notification to the committees of Congress are consistent with the Constitution (see Sibbach v. Wilson, 312 U.S. 1, 24 (1941)). Any theory that a statutory requirement for notification of the congressional intelligence committees in advance of the use of funds for intelligence or intelligence-related activities could in any way be construed as an unconstitutional condition has been considered and is rejected. Such a theory was propounded in the erroneous and recently published July 31, 1989 advisory opinion, addressing never-enacted legislation, by the Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Counsel concerning notification of the intelligence committees of use of funding for certain CIA activities.
In proceeding with the amendment to section 307 of the National Security Act and with the ratification of the transaction proposed on August 16, 1993, the committee is aware that there remains important unfinished business. The committee needs to pursue legislation to amend section 504 of the National Security Act to allow--after statutory notification to congressional committees, and with a nonstatutory, continued understanding that the concurrence of the committees will be awaited--use of funds for intelligence activities in excess of or in the absence of authorization by statute of appropriation of those amounts for those activities. A similar regime of statutory notification and non-statutory concurrence should apply when funds appropriated for one activity are intended to be used for a different intelligence or intelligence-related activity. Accordingly, the committee should pursue legislation to amend section 504 to achieve three goals: First, ensure compliance with the Constitution and laws of the United States in the funding and conduct of intelligence activities; second, preserve the Congress' power of the purse with respect to these sensitive activities; and third, ensure sufficient flexibility for the executive branch in the conduct of intelligence activities.
I urge the adoption of the three intelligence committee amendments to S. 1301.
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Mr. D'AMATO. Mr. President, I want to begin by commending the senior Senator from Arizona, the very able chairman of the Intelligence Committee and my good friend, for his inclusion in the committee amendment of an amendment to correct a technical problem with statute language relating to the end of the FBI's New York demonstration project. I also want to thank our vice chairman, my friend, the distinguished senior Senator from Virginia, for his support and assistance with this amendment.
This amendment is very simple. What it does is provide for pay retention for FBI personnel assigned to the New York Field Division after the end of the New York demonstration project.
Without this amendment, FBI employees assigned to the New York field division face real pay cuts--let me say this again--real pay cuts--of 8 percent for special agents, of 17 percent for GS-grade support personnel, and of 25 percent for Wage Grade support personnel.
This situation arises because the New York demonstration project, which was established by section 601 of the Intelligence Authorization Act of 1989, expires on October 23, 1993. The demonstration project was created because of the difficulty the FBI was experiencing in recruiting new personnel or transferring personnel into the New York Field Division, due primarily to the very high cost of living in the New York City metropolitan area.
As a result of this problem, the FBI could not fully staff the New York Field Division, endangering important investigations and operations. Congress responded to this problem by authorizing the FBI to pay $20,000 lump sum payments to FBI special agents who accepted reassignment to the New York Field Division for a 3-year tour of duty. We also authorized periodic payments of an additional 25 percent of basic pay to such personnel.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation informed us that they were having similar difficulty with support personnel, so we expanded the demonstration project to include all personnel assigned to the New York Field Division. We did this when we adopted section 601 of the Intelligence Authorization Act of 1990.
The New York demonstration project was intended to meet this critical need. In addition, it was intended to be a prod to the Federal personnel management structure to address the hardships high cost of living areas posed to Federal employees across the Nation. With passage of the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act, Public Law 101-509, in 1990, a structure was established to provide for locality pay for Federal employees in high cost-of-living areas.
The New York demonstration project worked. It dramatically reduced attrition and made the New York Field Division an attractive assignment for experienced special agents and enabled the division to recruit and hire the specialized support personnel some of its operations require.
Mr. President, I ask that the executive summary of the August 1993 `Fourth Annual Assessment of the FBI's New York Demonstration Project,' published jointly by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, be printed in the Record at the end of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
One provision of this act, section 406, contained language that the FBI thought would protect the personnel receiving New York demonstration project special pay once the project ended. Because this pay retention provision was adopted, no FBI employee had reason to believe that he or she might face a very serious real cut in pay when the project ended.
Many FBI employees signed mortgages, bought cars, and made college plans for their children based upon the level of pay they were receiving under the New York demonstration project and that they thought had been guaranteed by passage of section 406 of FEPCA.
However, this August, the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel concluded that section 406 did not, in fact, grandfather these employees' pay. The FBI was told that when the New York demonstration project terminated by operation of section 601(b) of the statute that created it, the FBI had no legal authorization to continue to pay former demonstration project pay recipients at their former pay rates.
Mr. President, this situation is thoroughly discussed in an August 23, 1993, memorandum from Mr. Walter Dellinger, Acting Assistant Attorney General, to Mr. Joseph R. Davis, Assistant Director, legal counsel of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
I ask unanimous consent that this memorandum be printed in the Record at the end of my remarks.
Accordingly, the FBI has asked for legislative assistance to address this situation. Attorney General Reno, the Office of Personnel Management, and the Office of Management and Budget have declared that seeking such a legislative remedy is administration policy.
Mr. President, what we have here is an appeal to equity and fairness. If we do not pass this amendment, FBI special agents and support personnel investigating the World Trade Center bombing and the Sheik Rahman's Islamic Fundamentalist terror network will be in danger of having their homes foreclosed upon, their cars repossessed, and their children forced to leave school.
Finally, this amendment only grandfathers the pay levels FBI New York Field Division personnel are now receiving. The demonstration project itself still ends on October 23, 1993. After that date, no new personnel will be entitled to receive either the lump sum payment or the periodic payments. Only the total level of pay will be protected for persons already receiving the periodic payments.
Mr. President, the language of the amendments provides that increases in all other statutorily authorized pays--including promotions, step increases, and cost of living increases--will be offset against payments under this grandfather clause.
What this means is that every person now receiving New York demonstration project pay will effectively be under a pay cap until the combination of the total increases from these other pay provisions exceeds the amount of New York demonstration project payments. Only then will they be able to receive a higher level of pay.
Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to vote for this amendment. I know my colleagues well enough to know that they will not thank the very law enforcement personnel who took great personal risks and worked long hours to break the World Trade Center bombing case and the Islamic Fundamentalist terrorist ring cases by cutting their pay.
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In September 1988, President Reagan signed the Intelligence Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 1989, authorizing the New York Demonstration Project. The demonstration project permits lump-sum mobility payments of $20,000 upon directed assignment to the New York Office for those employees who sign a three-year service agreement, relocate from a different geographical area, and agree to reside within approximately 50 miles of the office. It also provides retention allowances of 25 percent of basic pay to New York Office employees. Originally, demonstration project allowances and payments were provided to all Special Agents and approximately 35 percent of the support employees in the office. In November 1989, pursuant to Public Law 101-193, all employees of this division became eligible for project payments. Retention allowances are paid biweekly, but are not considered to be part of basic pay. This report addresses the fourth year of the demonstration project, covering the period of October 1991 through September 1992.
The cost of the project for Fiscal Year 1992 was $13,258,084, $1.3 million less than projected due to reductions in retention payments made to offset geographic pay adjustments for law enforcement officers and interim geographic adjustments for all other employees. Total project costs to date are $63,642,948; estimated costs for Fiscal Year 1993 are comparable to those of Fiscal Year 1992 and are projected to be $13,254,594.
During the time period addressed by this report, the FBI was unexpectedly confronted with two significant organizational challenges which affected the administrative operations of the New York Office. First, of the employees predicted to separate from the FBI during this fiscal year (due to resignations or retirements), only 25-30 percent elected to do so and attrition was significantly less then expected. Agency-wide, the FBI exceeded its authorized target staffing level by more than 700 employees and a general hiring freeze was imposed in May of 1992. To complicate matters further, in response to changes in the geopolitical arena associated with the end of the cold war, the Department of Justice mandated a shift in program emphasis, requiring the FBI to reallocate some of its resources away from foreign counterintelligence work to violent crime matters. The impact of the hiring freeze and the shift in program emphasis on the New York Office are addressed in this report.
Staffing: Due to policy changes concerning target staffing level allocations for Special Agents assigned to the New York Office, they began Fiscal Year 1993 one percent over their authorized staffing level; prior to the project, staffing levels ranged from six to 12 percent below authorized levels.
Resignations: Since the project was implemented, Special Agent resignations have declined by 98 percent, from 41 to one. During each of the three years prior to the project, an average of eight Special Agents resigned annually upon receiving transfer orders to New York; since the project began, only three Special Agents have resigned under transfer.
Tenure: Average tenure of Special Agents assigned to this office has now been increased by 19 percent or 16 months. Supervisory tenure also increased by an average of a year and a half.
Transfers: Prior to the demonstration project there were no transfers of senior Special agents into this office as their Office of Preference. Since project inception, there have now been 45 such transfers. Additionally, the presence of Newark Special Agents on this list has now declined, returning to predemonstration project levels, due largely to the number of Office of Preference transfers into the New York Office already granted to Newark Special Agents, as well as the provision of a 16 percent Special Pay Adjustment for Law Enforcement Officers for Special Agents assigned to Newark.
The support complement in the New York Office encompasses professional, administrative, technical, and clerical personnel who provide direct operational support to FBI Special Agents.
Staffing: During the first year of the project, approximately 65 percent of the support staff was excluded from the project and the office was five percent below its target staffing level. During the second and third years of the
project, when all employees were included, the office exceeded its authorized target staffing level by one percent. During the project's fourth year, due to increases in target staffing level allocations for support personnel, the office slipped below its authorized target staffing level by one percent.
Resignations: Support resignations have declined from 15 percent during the first year of the project to three percent in Fiscal Year 1992. Specifically, when only 35 percent of the support complement received project allowances in 1989, there were 120 support resignations. During the project's fourth year when all employees were included, resignations dropped to 23.
Tenure: As expected, due to hiring increases resulting from the provision of more competitive salaries, tenure was initially diluted. However, during the project's fourth year, tenure finally rose by 10 months or 11 percent.
In response to questions contained on the December 1992 attitude survey, the following data provides important insight into the perceptions of employees:
Ninety-five percent report strong satisfaction in working for the FBI (down slightly from 97 percent the previous year);
Eighty-nine percent report satisfaction with the amount of job security provided by employment with the FBI (down slightly from 90 percent the previous year);
Eighty-nine percent report their jobs are interesting, (the same as the previous year);
Seventy-nine percent believe their jobs provide personal satisfaction, (down slightly from last year);
Only eight percent of respondents indicated that they will look for outside employment during the next year (up slightly from the seven percent of respondents indicating such intentions on the 1991 survey);
Seventy-six percent of survey respondents believe they have good supervisors, (a one percent decrease from the previous year);
Seventy-six percent of respondents stated that the demonstration project has improved their standard of living (an increase of five percent); and
Thirty-four percent of survey respondents reported satisfaction with their salaries (up slightly from 33 percent).
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The fourth year of the demonstration project cost the FBI $13.3 million; $1.3 million less than initial projections due to the provision of additional compensation initiatives. To date, many of the primary objectives of the project have been successfully addressed. However, a downturn in the economy, resulting in fewer employment opportunities, and internal policy changes, such as the extension of the retirement ceiling, have quite likely impacted New York Office employees, making it difficult to specifically attribute recent positive changes in the office directly to this project.
Nevertheless, since the demonstration project began, the Special Agency resignation rate has declined by 98 percent and resignations of Special Agents under transfer to the New York
Office have been eliminated. At the beginning of Fiscal Year 1993, the New York Office was one percent over its Special Agent target staffing level. On the support side, the New York Office slipped to one percent below its support target staffing level for the first time since the project was extended to all employees. Additionally, support resignations dropped from 120 to 23 and sick leave usage held steady with the previous year's level.
Lastly, employee satisfaction with the FBI as an organization remained constant, as did satisfaction with job security and supervisory personnel. Although satisfaction with overall compensation remains low at 34 percent, it reflects a slight improvement over previously reported satisfaction levels. Overall, 88 percent of survey respondents believe they have meaningful work, 78 percent are satisfied with their current work assignments, and 76 percent of survey respondents believe the demonstration project has improved their standard of living.
Office of Legal Counsel,
Washington, DC, August 23, 1993.
Memorandum for Joseph R. Davis, Assistant Director, Legal Counsel, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Re: Construction of 406 of the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act of 1990
This memorandum responds to your request for our opinion whether 406 of the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act of 1990 (FEPCA), 104 Stat. 1427, 1467, 1
preserves extraordinary benefits payable under 601 of the Intelligence Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 1989, Pub. L. No. 100-453, Stat. 1904, 1911 (1988), as amended by Sec. 601 of the Intelligence Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 1990, Pub. L. No. 101-193, 103 Stat. 1701, 1710 (1989) (collectively, 601), even after expiration of 601's payment authority. We conclude that 406 does not preserve the benefits payable under 601 beyond the expiration of the latter provision.
Footnotes at end of article.
Section 601 establishes a demonstration project that attempts to improve recruitment and retention at the New York Field Division (NYFD) of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) by increasing the pay of NYFD employees. See H.R. Rep. No. 591(I), 100th Cong., 2d Sess. 11-12 (1988). Pursuant to Sec. 601, any FBI employee transferred to the NYFD receives a lump sum payment of up to $20,000, conditioned upon the employee's agreement to serve at least three years in that office. 601(a)(1). In addition, all employees in the NYFD receive periodic bonus payments of between 20% and 25% of their basic pay for the period covered by the bonus. 601(a)(2). Section 601(b) provides that these benefits will terminate five years after the program is established by the FBI. We understand from you that this date falls on September 30, 1993.
FEPCA institutes a system of pay adjustments for general schedule employees throughout the Federal government, including locality pay to accommodate the higher cost of living in certain areas. Under FEPCA, special agents in the NYFD currently receive a 16 percent premium over base pay to account for New York's higher cost of living. Similarly, support staff who receive pay under the general schedule receive an 8 percent premium. Support staff who receive pay under the federal wage system do not receive any premium. See FEPCA 101, 404, 104 Stat. at 1429-30, 1466; Exec. Order No. 12786, Schedule 9, 5 U.S.C. Sec. 5304 note.
Thus, 601 and FEPCA each provide extra pay for NYFD employees (except for wage employees who receive benefits under Sec. 601 but not FEPCA). FEPCA's 406, however, instructs the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to coordinate the two programs to ensure that their payments are not cumulated:
Notwithstanding [601], as amended, the Office of Personnel Management shall reduce the rate of periodic payments under such section as the provisions of this Act [FEPCA] are implemented: Provided, That no such reduction results in a reduction of the total pay for any employee of the New York Field Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Notwithstanding such [Sec. 601], the Office of Personnel Management may make such periodic payments inapplicable to employees newly appointed to, or transferred to, the New York Field Division on or after January 1, 1992.
The main clause in the first sentence of 406 clearly does not authorize a continuation of Sec. 601 benefits beyond the life of the demonstration project. On the contrary, it expressly directs OPM to reduce 601 payments to NYFD employees as FEPCA is implemented. The second sentence of 406 also contemplates the curtailing of 601; it instructs that employees hired after January 1, 1992, need not receive any 601 benefits.
Notwithstanding this general thrust of 406, it has been suggested that the proviso in the first sentence might be intended as independent authority to `grandfather' current NYFD employees with continued extra pay at the Sec. 601 level. The suggestion is that the proviso forbids any reduction in the total pay of NYFD employees as a result of a reduction in 601 benefits. Therefore, because the termination of 601 benefits will otherwise cause a reduction in the total pay of NYFD employees (because FEPCA's benefits are lower and also do not extend to wage employees), it is urged that the proviso operates to authorize continued pay at the 601 level.
This suggestion misconstrues the purpose of the proviso. As indicated above, the main clause of 406 directs OPM to reduce Sec. 601 payments in response to FEPCA. That clause, however, does
not specify by how much the payments are to be reduced. It is the proviso that limits OPM's discretion in this regard. The proviso precludes any reduction of 601 benefits that `results in a reduction of the total pay for any employee of the [NYFD].' In effect, this means that OPM may not reduce Sec. 601 benefits by more than one dollar for every dollar introduced under FEPCA; if it did, an employee's total pay would be reduced, in violation of the proviso. Thus, for each reduction in 601 payments implemented pursuant to the main clause of 406, the proviso caps the reduction at the amount of FEPCA dollars that the employee receives, which prevents any net loss of pay.
It must be understood that the proviso's protection applies only with respect to OPM's reduction of 601 benefits pursuant to Sec. 406. This much is established by the phrase, `no such reduction,' which unmistakably links the proviso's operation with the preceding clause. See also 2A N. Singer, Sutherland Statutory Construction 47.08, 47.09 (5th ed. 1992) (in general a proviso should be strictly construed to relate to the enactment of which it is part). In this case, the reduction of pay will occur as a result of the winding down of 601's internal clock, and not pursuant to 406. Thus, the proviso will not be triggered. Accordingly, 406 cannot be said to authorize continued extra pay at the 601 rate. 2
Please let us know if we may be of further assistance.
Walter Dellinger,
Acting Assistant Attorney General.
1 FEPCA was enacted as Sec. 529 of the Treasury, Postal Service and General Government Appropriations Act, 1991, Pub. L. No. 101-509, 104 Stat. 1389 (1990). All references to provisions of FEPCA in this memorandum will cite the internal section numbers and corresponding pages in the statutes at large.
2 We can find no references in the legislative history of FEPCA (nor were any presented to us) to suggest that Sec. 406 was intended to continue 601 benefits beyond their natural span.
Mr. DANFORTH. The amendment I have originated relating to intelligence gaps is designed to accomplish one simple task: To inform members of congressional committees responsible for the intelligence budget of what policymakers and warfighters most want to know but are unable to learn with existing intelligence resources. A clear understanding of our intelligence gaps--ranked according to our national security priorities--is a prerequisite to any responsible sizing of our intelligence and defense budgets.
Currently each major intelligence agency provides a congressional budget justification book outlining proposed initiatives for the next fiscal year. These books also suggest the enormous accomplishments which the past year's efforts have secured. Such agency-by-agency review of programs, systems and architectures made sense during the Cold War; the adversary was well understood and the threat it posed was of an evolutionary kind.
Yet in today's world, threats are likely to develop and dissipate quickly. Strategic plans and their attending security requirements fluctuate. We must not wait for war, an unexpected nuclear explosion or new terrorist attack to clarify the deficiencies in our collection capabilities. We must anticipate them and we must end them before they tie our hands or cost us lives.
To accomplish this end, the executive branch must help Congress understand in concrete terms what the intelligence community is not good at but should be. Congress needs to know when and how changing national security priorities change intelligence collection requirements and stretch our capabilities across agencies and programs. Congress must also be convinced that any gaps--real or impending--will be efficiently addressed. What requirements do the huge amounts of resources, labeled only as base funds, fulfill? What gaps in information justify new resource expenditures in which agency's programs and why? How do we know resources cannot be transferred from other accounts?
This amendment simply requires the Director of Central Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense to present to Congress by March of next year, a report on the key gaps in our intelligence collection capabilities, ranked according to policy priorities. This report will include an assessment of how next fiscal year's budget submission affects or closes those gaps and, when appropriate, why new appropriations must be sought.
Fortunately, the DCI has just approved a refined requirements process which will capture information on policy needs and collection capabilities for budgeting purposes. Moreover, the National Intelligence Council is productively engaged in systematic review and evaluation of our national estimates so that these gaps can be identified and corrected as efficiently as possible. I heartily endorse these efforts and hope that they are fully implemented.
This amendment will ensure that the appropriate congressional committees are fully apprised of the results of these new evaluative processes within the context of our annual budgetary reviews. If the results of these new initiatives are as significant as I expect them to be, the report called for in this bill will become a useful annual instrument for illuminating and measuring our intelligence priorities.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendments en bloc.
The amendments (Nos. 1154, 1155, and 1156) were agreed to en bloc.
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Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which these amendments were agreed to.
Mr. DeCONCINI. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
Mr. DeCONCINI. Mr. President, I do want to say that the support that we have had from the vice chairman is appreciated by this Senator. He and I have had some disagreements on where we should go with national intelligence. But there is no one for whom I have more respect or who knows more about armed services and the defense of this country than the Senator from Virginia, who has also served this country with a distinguished career as Secretary of the Navy.
We have forged what I believe is a good bill. It is not perfect, by any means, but it approaches the intelligence necessities here for our national security in such a way that I believe the national intelligence agencies can provide the necessary information that is necessary for our national security. I feel that without the Senator from Virginia we would not be here today. We had a long time getting this bill up. I am glad the Senator was able to help me in that capacity.
I also want to thank the staff on both the minority and majority sides for their long, long efforts in putting this together.
Mr. President, under the previous order, the only amendment to be offered is a sense-of-the-Congress amendment to be offered by the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Metzenbaum] calling for disclosure of the intelligence budget. Under the previous order, debate on the Metzenbaum amendment is limited to 2 hours and 10 minutes, with 75 minutes being controlled by the Senator from Ohio, 45 minutes controlled by the Senator from Virginia, and 10 minutes for the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Specter].
I am hopeful, Mr. President, that we will not use all this time, because I think this subject matter has been discussed at some length, but I know the Senator from Ohio feels very strongly and wants to go into the background of this.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, if I may just join my colleague and express my appreciation for his personal comments here. I certainly share those sentiments with respect to the Senator from Arizona.
I look forward to next year. We have a very fine committee under our joint leadership. I think we achieved the Senate's wishes in terms of our Nation's intelligence.
Mr. DeCONCINI. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio is recognized.
Mr. METZENBAUM. Mr. President, on behalf of myself, Mr. Boren, Mr. Murkowski, Mr. Inouye, Mr. Moynihan, Mr. Durenberger, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Bumpers, and Mr. Wofford, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Ohio [Mr. Metzenbaum], for himself, Mr. Boren, Mr. Murkowski, Mr. Inouye, Mr. Moynihan, Mr. Durenberger, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Bumpers, and Mr. Wofford, proposes an amendment numbered 1157.
Insert at the appropriate point the following new section:
`SEC. . SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING DISCLOSURE OF ANNUAL INTELLIGENCE BUDGET.
`It is the sense of Congress that, in each year, the aggregate amount requested and authorized for, and spent on, intelligence and intelligence-related activities should be disclosed to the public in an appropriate manner.'.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. METZENBAUM. Mr. President, I hope those who are cosponsors of this amendment will see fit to join us on the floor. There certainly will be time available for them if they wish to be heard.
This is just a minor amendment that Members of the Senate should readily support. Although it is a minor amendment, however, there is a significant reason for us to adopt it.
I am pleased to report that it is cosponsored by all the former chairmen of the Senate Intelligence Committee who still serve in the Senate; that is, Senators Inouye, Durenberger, and Boren; by all but one of the former vice chairmen of the committee who are still serving; that is, Senators Moynihan, Leahy, and Murkowski; and by Senators Bumpers and Wofford.
As my colleagues know, the budget that this bill addresses is, in fact, classified. Indeed, in the budget documents we receive from the executive branch, the figure for the total intelligence budget is classified `Secret.' In theory, pursuant to Executive Order 12356, this means that unauthorized disclosure of that number `reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security.'
But that does not mean, of course, that you cannot read estimates of that number. A witness before our committee once called it the worst-kept secret in Washington. And earlier this year, a Washington Post article based at least partly on an interview with the outgoing Director of Central Intelligence included a detailed chronology of the requests and the cuts in the fiscal year 1993 national and tactical intelligence budgets--to the nearest $100 million.
Yet, that budget figure is still classified. The American people may read leaks, estimates, or rumors on that figure. But nobody is permitted to tell them honestly and openly how much of their hard-earned money is being spent on U.S. intelligence programs.
I wish we could enact something much stronger than the amendment I have just introduced. But I regret to say that anything stronger than this would be opposed by the administration. And that is a great disappointment to this Senator and to many others in this body and in this country.
Two years ago, the version of the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 1992 that was passed by the Senate did contain language to require, beginning in 1993, disclosure of the total amount requested, authorized, and spent for intelligence and intelligence-related activities.
I had proposed that initiative in the Intelligence Committee markup, and I was very pleased that it gained the support both of our chairman, Senator Boren of Oklahoma, and of our vice chairman, Senator Murkowski of Alaska.
Both of those fine gentlemen have since left the Intelligence Committee, but both are cosponsors of the present amendment, for which I am most
grateful. Their steadfastness is a reminder that the issue of leveling with the American people has real continuity. It does not go away; rather, it lasts through the years.
President Bush opposed the Senate's language 2 years ago and threatened to veto the authorization bill over it. Faced with that threat, our House colleagues became nervous and the Committee of Conference settled on sense-of-Congress language instead. The language that was enacted was as follows:
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It is the sense of Congress that, beginning in 1993, and in each year thereafter, the aggregate amount requested and authorized for, and spent on, intelligence and intelligence-related activities should be disclosed to the public in an appropriate manner.
The very same language was enacted again last year, in the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 1993, without any debate or opposition.
My colleagues will note that the language I am proposing today is essentially the same as that previous language. I have merely dropped the reference to the year 1993, since that year is already upon us.
The amendment before us would, thus, simply restate the policy that Congress has enacted each of the last 2 years. It does not require budget disclosure; it merely keeps us from backsliding on the issue and it indicates that the Congress believes that the number should be disclosed; and it is a message to the President and the head of the Central Intelligence Agency.
This year we have a new President of the United States of whom we are very proud. He has proclaimed a new commitment of openness in Government. I expected and encouraged the President, therefore, to determine how best
to disclose the intelligence budget total and, in the words of a popular advertising slogan, to `just do it.'
As I said in a letter to the President last February:
With the end of the Cold War, there is a new requirement to buttress public trust in U.S. intelligence. The old forces that once assured a consensus on the need for secret intelligence no longer exist.
A limited budget disclosure such as that which Congress has recommended would be an important, and simple, first step toward creating a new basis for that public trust.
On March 27, the President replied as follows:
* * * I take seriously your suggestion that our Administration disclose the aggregate amount spent on intelligence when we submit our Fiscal Year 1994 budget to the Congress. But as Jim Wooslsey and the rest of our national security team attempt to structure new intelligence priorities, my hope is that you will allow us the opportunity to evaluate carefully both the benefits and legitimate concerns which are associated with such public disclosure.
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I willingly gave the administration more time to adopt a policy on this matter, confident that there were no concerns that could not be readily answered. But the new Director of Central Intelligence has rather old-fashioned views on this issue. He fears that disclosure of the budget total would result in his budget being cut. He also argues--without justification, in my view--that such disclosure would lead inexorably to more detailed budget disclosure.
Mr. President, intelligence budget disclosure is an old issue. And although the administration has not moved smartly on this issue, we are making some gradual progress.
In the old days, opponents of disclosing the intelligence budget total used to argue that disclosure of even this one figure would provide important intelligence information to foreign countries. That argument is no longer used. People realize that little or no intelligence information can be gleaned from this figure, even though it does provide a useful indicator of budget priorities to the American people, which the American people have a right to know.
Two years ago, the Senate Intelligence Committee asked several witnesses whether any danger to the national security would result from disclosing the intelligence budget total. On March 21, 1991, Admiral Bobby Inman, former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence in the Reagan administration, spoke directly to this issue, saying:
Our worry has been * * * that somehow if we release those figures, it was going to help foreign intelligence services figure out where to go burrow in and conduct effective counterespionage. And I have increasingly had difficulty in seeing where just the total figures were going to let them do that.
Admiral Inman said that we could even disclose the budget totals by agency without harming the national security. We chose not to go that far, but here was a former NSA Director and Deputy DCI assuring us that such highly aggregated budget figures can be disclosed without betraying any sensitive information.
Two months later, we had a hearing with some of the old boys who had held major CIA positions in the earliest days of the cold war. One of those witnesses was Ray Cline, an aide to Wild Bill Donovan in OSS who went on to become CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence and then Director of the State Department Bureau for Intelligence and Research. He commented on budget disclosure as follows:
If you are talking just about the total, I think it is entirely appropriate now to make it public. I don't see any reason not to. * * * It really was the kind of fascination with clandestinity that caused it to be kept [secret] so long.
Perhaps because of such testimony as that, the next Director of Central Intelligence actually supported disclosure of the intelligence budget total. On September 16, 1991, responding to a question from Senator Warner, of Virginia in the first of his confirmation hearings, Robert Gates testified as follows:
I don't have any problem with releasing the top line number of the Intelligence Community budget. I think we have to think about some other areas as well.
The following day, in response to a question from Senator Chafee, of Rhode Island, Dr. Gates added that his stand was `premised on my belief that it would send a good signal to the American people of change' that would reflect the intelligence community's adjustment to a changing world.
That need to `send a good signal to the American people of change' is still with us, Mr. President. The American people need some assurance that in a post-cold war world, U.S. intelligence programs will no longer be run on a cold war basis.
In particular, the American people need assurance that their views will be considered when Congress and the executive branch decide how much of the national treasury to spend on this function of Government. And that is what disclosure of the intelligence budget total would accomplish, for it would permit the American people to compare what we spend on intelligence with what we spend on other Government activities--on housing, on education, on the U.S. Navy, or whatever the case may be.
Clearly, if the American people are ever to trust their secret arms of Government, the time has come to trust the American people in turn with the basic fact of how much we spend on intelligence. I am, frankly, baffled, Mr. President, by the thought that anybody would still fear that disclosure of this budget figure would harm the national security.
I know some people still say that if we release one number, we will go on to release more details. That is the so-called slippery slope argument. It is sort of like original sin, or eating just one potato chip: once we start, presumably we will be unable to control our base impulses to disclose more and more information.
Having served over 6 years on the Intelligence Committee, I must say that I trust my colleagues not to do that. We handle very sensitive matters all the time. And if we and the executive branch agree on the proper extent of intelligence budget disclosure, I am utterly confident that none of us would breach that agreement and make improper disclosures.
As I noted earlier, there are already plenty of leaks and press reports regarding the intelligence budget figure. But that is not how the intelligence budget should be handled.
The fact is that the executive branch's historic preoccupation with secrecy in this matter is precisely what has bred this city's cynical acceptance of leaks and rumors of intelligence budget information. The best way to stop leaks is to adopt a sensible disclosure policy, one that accepts the public's right to know this information when it can be released without harming the national security.
The argument that disclosure of the ingellgence budget total would lead to cuts in that budget is more interesting. I have to admit that I think it would do just that, or at least it might do that. I think the American
people would object to spending so much on intelligence. If the budget figure is more than the American people want spent on intelligence, then why should we be spending it? Are we not here to reflect the views of the people whom we represent?
I also think the American people would be right if they thought that the budget should be cut. Too much is spent on intelligence today, and a leaner Intelligence Establishment would be both more efficient and more effective.
When it comes to the intelligence budget, then, you may count me on the same side as Gen. Bill Odom, the former NSA Director, who testified to the Intelligence Committee as follows:
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* * * I would not be at all hesitant to impose a 15- to 20-percent reduction on intelligence in the next couple of years and let them scramble. * * *
But you do not have to favor budget cuts to support this modest bit of openness. This bit of openness has nothing to do with whether you favor a higher budget or lower budget. Some of my colleagues look at our total Defense bill and say that intelligence is a bargain by comparison. But they, too, are not afraid to let the American people know how much this costs. It is the old bureaucrats who do not want the American people to be told how much money the executive branch wants or spends for intelligence.
Frankly, those bureaucrats are being shortsighted in their approach to budget disclosure. The world has changed. Intelligence budget cuts are very likely unavoidable, given the end of the cold war and our economic problems at home.
Even CIA Director Woolsey may recognize this. In a letter to many of us on October 5, he wrote as follows:
I certainly recognize and support the urgent need to reduce the budget deficit by cutting back on expenditures. Intelligence cannot be immune from such reductions.
So the handwriting is on the wall: the intelligence budget is very likely to be cut, at least in the short run, whether the budget total is disclosed or not.
Disclosure of the budget figure will simply permit the American people to take part in deciding budget priorities, as they should do in this great democracy. The American people have a right to be told--in a regular and official way, rather than through leaks and rumors--how much is actually being spent on intelligence.
And that right of the American people is especially important to us in the Congress. That is because we, too, must deal with a climate of voter distrust. And continued Government secrecy on something as basic as the
intelligence budget total preserves not the budget itself, but rather the people's distrust both of intelligence and of congressional oversight.
Mr. President, I am certain that some day disclosure of the intelligence budget total will be permitted. The American people's right to know this information is clearly implied--if not required--by clause 7 of article 1, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution, which reads as follows:
No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations, made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.
That is from the Constitution.
It has become abundantly clear that there is no real security justification for keeping the intelligence budget total secret. So if the executive branch continues to hide this information from the people, it will only look more and more out of date. I believe that this is a President who is very much up to date. I believe that this is a President who is very much with it. I believe that the President of the United States has been misinformed and misadvised in connection with this issue.
I hope that the administration will see the light sooner, rather than later, and simply disclose the intelligence budget total. Our continued expression of concern on this issue should serve to hasten that day. If it does not, Mr. President, then some day both Houses of Congress must summon the courage to require this modest and sensible disclosure.
For now, however, renewing our traditional expression of the `sense of Congress' will send a useful message of our continued commitment to openness in Government and specifically of our belief that a measure of openness can be achieved on the intelligence budget without endangering the national interest.
I urge my colleagues to join me and the other cosponsors of this amendment in supporting this basic commitment to open Government.
I yield the floor.
Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio yields the floor.
The Chair recognizes the Senator from Virginia [Mr. Warner].
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I yield to myself such time as I require.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Ohio said the President of the United States was misinformed. I bring to his attention that the Director of Central Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency were established in 1947, so does that mean Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton were all misinformed, I ask the Senator?
I doubt that. Under the Constitution, they--the Presidents--are the Commander in Chief. Under the Constitution, they are the chief architect of foreign policy. Nothing is more essential to the discharge of those two constitutional responsibilities than the collection of intelligence.
They were not misinformed, I say to the Senator. They were fully informed. They made a careful decision, which has been consistent throughout the Presidency since 1947, that the top figure or any other figures relating to the Nation's intelligence should not be disclosed.
If I may ask a question of my colleague from Ohio, how many major nations of the world adhere to the objective of the Senator from Ohio and disclose their top line intelligence budget?
Mr. METZENBAUM. I have not the slightest idea, and I do not think it would be relevant.
Mr. WARNER. That to me just shows the fallacy of this whole debate. The other major nations do not do it.
Mr. METZENBAUM. I say to my colleague, I do not believe the United States is supposed to follow Germany, or England, or France, or the former Soviet Union, or Russia, or any other nation in this world. I believe this relates to an obligation of this Congress and this Government to report to the people of America, and we are not responsible to other nations. I am amazed that my colleague would suggest that.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the Senator from Ohio has answered my question. Not a single, major nation in this world discloses the top line of their budget. And why? Because intelligence is an interlocking, interdependent network. When we have problems in various areas of the world, we call on colleagues in those nations to help us supplement such knowledge as we may or may not have.
That is one of the fundamental reasons. Intelligence is an interlocking, interdependent network. If we were to adopt the resolution as advocated by my friend from Ohio, it would begin to undermine that very structure of interdependent, interlocking network of intelligence throughout the world that makes it possible to preserve freedom and our security. If cooperating countries saw us disclosing our intelligence budget, they might become concerned about what else we would disclose.
I say to my colleague, why did 265--I repeat, 265--Members of the House of Representatives vote no on a proposition comparable to that of the Senator from Ohio? Only 168 went along with that proposition.
I do not know what we gain as a nation standing alone, as the Senator points out, in disclosing this. I can show nothing on the positive side to contributing to the national dialog on national defense. But I can show you any number of negatives, strong negatives, for not adopting the resolution of the Senator from Ohio.
Indeed, this would, in my judgment, undermine a most valuable asset that we have in that our President must act on a moment's notice both in matters of national security as well as foreign policy, while the Congress is dispersed across the United States.
So, Mr. President, I now yield the floor.
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Mr. METZENBAUM. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Maine such time as he may require.
Mr. METZENBAUM. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. WARNER. Of course. Mr. President, we will yield only on both sides. We would yield on the time of the Senator from Ohio because I gave him time to try to make his point. I only need half the time to make mine.
Mr. METZENBAUM. Twice as many people want to come over and speak on my side, want to be a cosponsor and want to protect their rights.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair would ask whose time is being yielded?
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I suggest the time of the Senator from Ohio.
I will yield for a question.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. METZENBAUM. Would the Senator from Virginia care to expand upon the point he just made that the President has to be prepared to act on a moment's notice when there is a problem anywhere throughout the world, and explain what relevance that has to this amendment, which only says that the American people are entitled to know how much we are spending on intelligence and is a sense of the Congress?
Mr. WARNER. Precisely. I thank the Senator.
Mr. President, the answer to that is as follows. Often that decision he must make in a matter of seconds is dependent on the quality and the quantity of the intelligence he has at hand. I have a fundamental precept that to adopt this amendment begins to erode the international network of contributions, interlocking contributions by other nations of the world because they will become suspect as to how we manage our intelligence here and what we will keep secret.
Mr. METZENBAUM. I thank the Senator from Virginia for his response. But I have to say that I think it is a non sequitur. I do not think it is a response to the question, but we will let it go at that.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I yield such time to the Senator from Maine as he may require.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from Maine, Mr. Cohen.
Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I came in only on the very tail end of that particular exchange, but let me offer a few observations. As I understand it, the Senator from Ohio is offering this amendment because the public has a right to know.
The public does know through its elected officials, Members of the House and Members of the Senate. We sit in deliberation day after day after day and listen to the presentations on budgetary and other matters. Reports are made to the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Armed Services Committee. Every Member in this Chamber has access to those numbers. And so the public does have knowledge through its elected officials.
But the Senator from Ohio wants to go further. He is suggesting the public has a right to know the bottom line number that we spend for intelligence. I would then raise the question, to what end? Is it for the purpose of allowing our constituents to know whether we are spending too much for intelligence? If that is the purpose, then you have to ask the next question. How will they know?
Assume you give them the figure of $5 billion, $10 billion, $15 billion, $50 billion. How is the public to make a judgment as to whether that is too much or too little unless they know what? Unless they know all of the other factors involved.
So the next question will be, how much are we spending for satellite coverage? How much are we spending for human intelligence? How much are we spending for covert activity? How much are we spending for a whole variety of programs that the intelligence community and the President recommend and believe is in our national security interest to pursue?
That is the only way the public has any measure of knowing whether there is too much money being allocated for intelligence or too little.
So the notion that somehow we are going to disclose to the public the bottom line figure and that is going to inform the public I think is sheer nonsense--I think it is shear nonsense--unless we are willing to say the public has a right to know the components that make up that total budgetary figure. Then you can make the argument the Senator from Ohio is making. Then the public will be in a position to make a judgment as to whether we are spending too much or too little.
Now, I was tempted to come over here and offer a second-degree amendment to the amendment of the Senator from Ohio, and that would be to have the markup of the Intelligence Committee conducted in the open. Make it open, and that way the public through C-SPAN or any other network could then listen to the debate and the presentations made to the members of the committee. Then the public would be able to judge whether or not their Senators are measuring up to what is perceived to be their responsibility to the public as to whether we are making the right kinds of decisions.
Are we spending too much on satellite coverage over Iraq? Are we spending too little on satellite coverage over Libya? Should we have greater resources devoted to what used to be the Soviet Union? Will there be a proliferation of nuclear weapons? Who is watching this? Is it enough, or is the cold war over? Do we have to be concerned about 30,000 nuclear weapons rolling around over there or the chemicals being developed even to this day by Iraq or those in Iran--or the biological weapons, or do we not need to be concerned about them because the cold war is over?
I submit to you, Mr. President, and to my colleagues in the Senate, disclosing the bottom-line figure of what we spend on intelligence will not contribute one iota to the public's understanding of what goes into the makeup of that intelligence budget, and we have determined as a Senate and as a House that that knowledge should not be made public. We have imposed sanctions on the Members not to disclose that information under penalty of being expelled from this place and prosecuted by the Justice Department if they disclose the components of that particular budget.
Yet, if you really want to say the public has a right to know, you have to take the next step. And the next step is to allow the public to see what are the ingredients of that budget, and allow not only our public, but every nation's public, to understand the ingredients of what makes up our intelligence community.
We had something of this debate last spring when there was a motion made, apparently successfully as I recall, to cut $1 billion out. I argued strenuously against that because I thought it was ill-advised. But that is another matter.
But the Members at least had access to the budget figures. They had access to go over and examine what the budget was so they could make a reasonable determination as to whether they favored more or less for the intelligence community. I tried to point out that it is ironic that many of the Members who were calling for greater reductions in spending for intelligence also were demanding more from the intelligence community, better analyses, better human intelligence. We all know it takes a long time to develop good agents in the field, to develop the kind of intelligence that is necessary. But that is another issue altogether.
I see the chairman of the committee. I respect the kind of work he has been doing in the intelligence field, both in the FBI and the CIA, as well as all of our intelligence community. But at least he has access to that information. I think he would be the last one to say let us disclose everything that the budget is made up of.
I find it ironic also that here we are prepared, at least on the part of some, to disclose a bottom line, a specific figure, on what we spend for intelligence activities in this country. And yet we adopt some broad categories for financial disclosure on the part of Members. It struck me as I was coming over here that we are very protective of our own particular personal situation. We have categories, zero to $10,000, $10,000 to $50,000, $50,000 to $200,000, whatever the assets might be. We are very general and vague about protecting things that we deem to be of some private nature.
Yet, this is the most private. The secrets of this country are the most private. They are the most important. Yet, we say, let us just disclose the specific numbers. I submit to you if you disclose the number this time, that is just the beginning and not the end because next year in the next debate there will be an effort to say it does not tell us anything. How can we as a public, the American people, judge exactly what is being spent? Tell us more. How much will this satellite cost? How much will that satellite cost? What will it do? Where will it go? How often will it cycle over that specific area? You mean to say we are spending that amount of money for this particular system? We could do a whole lot better by getting four systems for that one with a little less capability.
So the debate will start not in the Senate Intelligence Committee or the Armed Services Committee, but in the general public forum.
Mr. President, I know there are a lot of speakers who would like to talk on this issue. But I would say that I spent a good deal of time on this committee. I still take a great interest in its activities and mission. I can think of nothing positive that will come from an amendment like this should it pass. I can see a whole lot of negatives.
So I want to alert my colleagues that, if this were to pass, I would be prepared to move that we open up the intelligence process so that the public really can know and can see its Members in operation, reviewing the systems, the programs, and the activities that come before the Members, and let the public make a judgment as to whether we are fulfilling our responsibilities.
I think that is really the logical consequence of this amendment. But simply to tell the public we are serving you by telling you the bottom-line figure really is misleading them into thinking they will be able to make a judgment as to whether it is too much or too little.
Is it too much because the percentage of defense spending is coming down? There are Members on both sides of the aisle who will point out to you that as defense spending is coming down you really want to increase your intelligence, not decrease it. Intelligence is a force multiplier. It does not matter how many weapons you have, how many systems you have to fight a war if you cannot see and you cannot hear and, moreover, you do not understand what is going on in the world. We need more intelligence, not less.
So then you can find yourself locked into some kind of arbitrary formulation that if you just keep squeezing that defense budget down, we can take more and more out of intelligence. That is the wrong way to go. But that would be the force of that particular line of argument.
So, Mr. President, I suggest that there is no good to come from this amendment. It is misleading the public to suggest that they will now know something of very positive value that will enable them to make a judgment as to whether we are spending too much on intelligence. We would then have to disclose all of the ingredients of the intelligence budget. And that, I think, would lead to a great compromise of our national security interests.
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Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I express my appreciation to my friend and colleague, with whom I have served for almost 15 years on the Armed Services Committee. A comparable argument can be made: That the Senate go into that committee's work and make disclosures on all types of programs that the Armed Services Committee handles. I would be against that. The basic point is that the people in the United States elected us to come here to discharge the trust they reposed in us, and in such instances, to discharge that trust in a way that we maintain the confidentiality of sensitive national defense matters.
I thank the Senator from Maine for his very valuable contribution. He has served 8 years on the Senate Intelligence Committee, the last 4 of which he was the vice chairman of that committee. He knows of what he speaks.
Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, as I listen to the arguments on the pending issue, I do not find that they are very compelling, candidly, on either side. But I think that the balance of persuasion is on the side of and in favor of disclosure.
When the Senator from Virginia talks about strong negatives, I did not hear him say any strong negative at all.
He talks about `interlocking independence.' I really do not know what that means. He talks about undermining an asset of a President. Whatever asset the President has by way of intelligence, he has it or he does not have it. But the disclosure of the total figure seems to me not to have any real disadvantage at all.
The question as to what is the advantage, I suggest, is not too great either. I think there is some advantage, Mr. President, of having the total figure because it does show some relationship to what the figure was in the past, what the figure was in relation to the total budget, what the figure was in relation to the defense budget.
The Senator from New York [Mr. Moynihan], introduced a similar resolution back in 1990 where I joined him. At that time, the then chairman of the committee, the Senator from Oklahoma [Mr. Boren], and the Senator from Maine [Mr. Cohen], then vice chairman, took the floor and suggested that there be hearings on the subject. I served 6 years on the Intelligence Committee myself and am looking forward to going back next year for my final 2 years, hopefully as chairman--that will only require a Republican majority--and, if not, then as vice chairman.
I do not recall whether the hearings were held. This was referred from the proceedings we had back in 1990. I have heard the statements from quite a number of the former heads of the CIA, Mr. Inman and Mr. Gates, both of whom favor disclosure. One factor which weighs in my mind is the constitutional provision, article I, clause 7, which says:
No money shall be drawn from the Treasury but as a consequence of the appropriations made by law, and a regular statement of account of the receipts and expenditures of all public moneys shall be published from time to time.
On its face, the statement about a regular statement of accounts of expenditures of all public moneys shall be published from time to time would appear to include this type of a disclosure.
I have great respect for my colleague from Maine with whom I served on the committee for 6 years, and also my colleague from Virginia. Based on what has been said thus far, I have not seen any strong reason for nondisclosure.
When the Senator from Maine talks about disclosure as to Members' programs, it should be more precise. If so, I would have no objection to that. I think that kind of disclosure really is on the high side anyway. I look at the totals in the newspapers about my net worth, and it is a lot higher than my actual net worth.
When the Senator from Virginia talks about disclosures on the Department of Defense budget, there are precise figures which are made there. But in the absence of some compelling reason why there should not be disclosure--and I know of none from the arguments today, or from my service on the Intelligence Committee, or from my service in the Senate, or from my general activities as a citizen--then there is some value in that, in combination with the factor that we have twice passed a sense-of-the-Senate resolution calling for disclosure.
I am informed that this year the sense-of-the-Senate resolution was not included on the expectation that there would be a stronger resolution compelling disclosure. I wonder, as I listen to the amendment of the Senator from Ohio, why his amendment does not call for mandatory disclosure. So in the context of this record, it seems to me that it would be a step backward to retreat even from the sense-of-the-Senate resolution. That is why, on a narrow reading, without very powerful arguments on either side, my inclination is to support the amendment of the Senator from Ohio.
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Mr. WARNER. Might I briefly reply to my colleague from Pennsylvania, who could quite likely become the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee next year, succeeding me on the committee.
Mr. SPECTER. Quite likely the chairman.
Mr. WARNER. My point in a most serious vein is that you questioned my statement with respect to the defense budget. There are many programs to which we refer by the generic term of `special access programs.' The funding for those programs is not a matter of public record.
Second, you expressed concern about my point with respect to the interdependency of other nations in our intelligence network. Each day our intelligence agencies are working in a cooperative way with their counterparts in many nations. It is that flow back and forth which contributes to the quality and, indeed, in many instances, the quantity of the intelligence made available to our President as Commander in Chief.
I point out that nine Presidents, I say to my friend from Pennsylvania, have had the authority to disclose the U.S. intelligence budget if they wished, and each of them has declined to do so, including the current officeholder of the Presidency.
Mr. SPECTER. By way of brief reply, I am well aware of the provisions in the Department of Defense budget as to nondisclosure. Nonetheless, I thank my colleague from Virginia for pointing that out.
Not only are those figures not disclosed to the public, but there is substantial effort to avoid disclosure of those figures to Senators. I recall one day in 1982 or 1983 when there was an issue on the Senate floor involving $100 million, and I asked what it was about. I was taken into the Cloakroom by the then chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and we had quite a discussion as to whether a sitting Senator, albeit a junior one, ought to know about it. So I think Senators ought to know about those figures, even though some other Senators might say no. There are good reasons why those figures are not subject to public disclosure. I do not think that impacts on the pending argument in any way.
When the Senator from Virginia talks about working in cooperation with intelligence agencies in other countries, I am well aware of that. But I do not think total disclosure will have a negative impact on foreign cooperation. When the Senator from Virginia says that no President has made a voluntary disclosure, I have not seen any President make any voluntary reduction of a scintilla of executive power. I am not impressed by the fact that Presidents do not give up anything, even if it is a semicolon. I balance this weight in favor of the Senator from Ohio.
How much time do I have remaining, Mr. President?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania has 4 minutes remaining.
Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia has 27 minutes remaining.
The Chair recognizes the Senator from Rhode Island, Senator Chafee.
Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the amendment of the Senator from Ohio.
Senator Metzenbaum argues that greater openness regarding the intelligence budget will somehow prove to be of value to the American people without jeopardizing national security. Let's examine this concept for a moment.
I would like to ask the Senator from Ohio, if greater openness regarding intelligence is desirable, why is he only proposing to release the total budget figures? Why not release the budgets on each intelligence agency? Why not release the budget figures for specific satellite programs? Why is he only proposing to release the overall figures for intelligence spending instead of more detailed budgetary information? Obviously, we cannot provide such information without damaging our security.
Mr. President, I would like to suggest that revealing the intelligence budget total could be worse than meaningless, because it could very well lead to unauthorized disclosures that would compromise some of the substantial investments we have made on sophisticated technical collection systems. That is where most of our intelligence dollars are. In addition, if greater scrutiny leads to more leaks, this amendment could ultimately jeopardize sensitive relationships with over countries and deter potential agents who might fear for their personal safety.
Anyone who doubts the slippery slope argument should recall what happened with the B-2 bomber. The fact is, it simply became impossible to support the B-2 program without a detailed discussion of the plane's capabilities. Information regarding the plane's range, payload, radar cross section, armaments and other characteristics quickly became public once we began to debate the B-2 bomber's cost. In the case of the B-2, this has been a useful and necessary debate and one that has not damaged U.S. national security. I say that because the plane's incredible capabilities serve as a deterrent to potentially hostile nations. Further, this aircraft is so sophisticated that there is little prospect other countries can duplicate it or develop effective countermeasures. Intelligence capabilities, however are often highly perishable. Billions of dollars have been invested in intelligence capabilities that could be rendered useless if they were disclosed.
Intelligence is inherently a secret business and will always remain so. The sponsors of this amendment implicitly acknowledge that fact by indicating that they do not want to reveal the
details of classified programs. If the details of the intelligence budget remain secret, then the only impact this amendment can have is to frustrate a curious public and politicize the intelligence budget. If the details do not remain confidential, then the impact will of course be to compromise programs that we rely on to protect our soldiers and citizens.
The Senator from Ohio says that the overall intelligence figure is a poorly guarded secret, and its release will cause no harm. Why not release other poorly guarded intelligence information? There have been leaks regarding some of our intelligence satellites, which are very expensive, why not declassify the budget figures for these programs? Perhaps that would enable us to come down to the Senate floor and offer amendments regarding different intelligence satellites. Clearly, this is a very slippery slope.
Mr. President, I believe this amendment is falsely advertised. Its sponsors have no intention of permitting the public to see or understand how their intelligence dollars are spent. They readily admit that they have no intention of revealing sensitive programs or capabilities. So the idea that the public will be better informed, or in a position to evaluate intelligence spending, is pure hyperbole. What the proponents want to do is to put a bulls eye on the intelligence budget, and hold it up as a target for public ridicule, recognizing full well that we cannot engage in a meaningful public debate regarding intelligence programs.
There are many opportunities here in Congress, within the confines of at least six committees, to freely debate the intelligence budget. The Senate intelligence committee has hearings and briefings virtually every week, as does its House counterpart. We have an audit team that travels to distant parts of the world to examine the minute details of intelligence programs. The Senator from Ohio, who serves on the intelligence committee, and the Senator from Arkansas, who serves on the appropriations panel, have every opportunity to review this budget and offer committee amendments proposing specific reductions. Their party controls both the White House and the Congress. In these committees, there is a level playing field because intelligence costs and capabilities can be freely discussed. But the sponsors of this legislation have not had much luck on a level playing field, so they now want a public debate on a tilted field where they can discuss costs but others cannot discuss capabilities.
I believe that all of us in the Senate support the concept of openness. Yet, we also all realize that there is a great deal of Government information that should remain confidential. For example, we all agree that the data compiled by the FBI during background investigations should not be made public, although some could argue that the public would be better informed if the FBI records regarding the administration's nominees were made public. There are appropriate limits on openness and the public expects us to protect sensitive information. Similarly, we all agree that many defense and intelligence programs need to remain classified in order to protect national security.
Mr. President, if you want to politicize the intelligence budget, invite unauthorized disclosures, or have a meaningless or even misleading public debate about intelligence spending, then you should vote for this amendment. That's all that revealing the top line figures can produce. On the other hand, if you believe that the intelligence, armed services and appropriations panels do their jobs properly, and provide effective oversight; and if you believe that intelligence, like foreign policy, should not be a partisan issue, you should oppose this amendment.
Indeed, I want to ask the Senator from Ohio a couple of questions, if I might.
If the objective is greater openness so the public can better understand the intelligence budget, why do you only reveal the total budget figure? Why not get into the details of each of the agencies, for example, and why not release the budget figures for specific satellite programs? It seems to me, then, one can compare the budgets of agencies A and B and C, and what the various capabilities are of the overhead programs; that is the way to really make sense out of this. Whereas, if you just argue about an overall fixed sum, intelligence costs x billions of dollars, so what? I am curious. Will the Senator help me on that?
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Mr. METZENBAUM. I am happy to respond to my colleague and friend from Rhode Island. I think you can compare it to other expenditures in Government. We spend x dollars on the intelligence budget as compared to so many dollars that we know we are spending on education, or on crime, or on issues that challenge us with respect to the environment. So we have a chance to make a comparison, and the American people have a right to know whether we are spending half as much, twice as much, or five times as much on intelligence as we are on other worthwhile programs.
Mr. CHAFEE. I appreciate that from the Senator. I have a limited amount of time. I did ask a question, and he was very kind to respond. But I am caught in the situation where I have to receive very brief answers--unless, of course, the Senator could respond on some other time. Is that possible? Could the Senator get any time to respond to me?
Mr. METZENBAUM. Mr. President, I will respond on my own time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio has 54 minutes remaining.
Mr. METZENBAUM. The other point has to do with the fact that if we went too far, there were some who are more knowledgeable than I about intelligence, who have actually worked in this field, who would indicate a concern that if we got into the specifics of spending so much on this program or on that program, that others throughout the world might be able to divine, discern, or determine just how far we are in this particular intelligence-gathering process,
and that it might serve some useful purpose for them as far as their being able to relate to America's strategic advantage or disadvantage.
For that reason, I have not advocated the specifics. I am frank to say that I am not sure that I could not be persuaded that there would be an advantage to going further than this amendment.
But this amendment really goes just the very slightest amount. It merely says that it is the sense of the Congress that this one number should be made public.
It is a fact that we have already enacted this. We passed this very same thing last year and the year before, saying that it is the sense of the Congress that in 1993 the numbers should be made public.
This does not even say that. It does not say the 1993 figure should be made public, but it indicates that the Congress has not backed off its commitment to the concept that this number should be made public.
As I said before in offering the amendment, I am very proud of the fact that just about every former chairperson and vice chairperson, with one or two exceptions, are cosponsors of this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, I voted against it in the past and I will vote against it in the future. I am quite consistent here.
I think it is bad business. You get a total figure. It does not do you any good. You get X billions of dollars on intelligence. So what are you getting--a new satellite system? Are you using new type of equipment? Are you establishing CIA representatives in such and such a country? You do not know anything significant when you only get a lump sum figure. Therefore, you start down a slippery slope of having to get disclosures of what you are going to spend the money on.
When you go out to buy a car, you see what you are going to get for your money. What kind of a car is it? Is it some kind of clunker, or does it have all these marvelous things with the upholstery that smells like leather, and all those other wonderful options? That is what you find out when you are going out to buy a car. You just do not work with a lump sum.
It seems to me that all that can come of the Senator's amendment, if approved, is that with the details of the budget remaining secret, as it does under his amendment, it only frustrates the public, which wants to find out more about how the money is spent.
Some say that there have already been leaks regarding some of our satellites, for example, which are very expensive, and perhaps by disclosing the lump sum and then getting down into more detail, we would be able to come on to this floor and discuss the capabilities of the various intelligence satellites. But that in itself I believe would be a great mistake.
You might say, well, here we are. We are all moving around in the dark. That just is not so. We have six committees in the Congress, three in each body, that have the capability of knowing every single detail of the intelligence budget, the Appropriations Committee, the Intelligence Committee, and the Armed Services Committee.
Any Senator on those committees or any Senator, really, in the Senate who wants to know the details of the budget of the Intelligence Agency, all he has to do is go find out. The difference is, are we going to discuss it here on the floor and reveal it entirely to the public? I think that would be a great mistake. You might say oh, well, nowhere else do we keep anything a secret. That just is not so.
We all know that the FBI records concerning nominees that come up to us are not made public. When we get a nominee come before us, there is an FBI report on that individual. That is not made public. That is kept secret. Think of it. That wicked word `secret' is used, but the facts are that for good reason the public expects us to protect sensitive information.
I believe if you want to politicize the intelligence budget, if you want to invite unauthorized disclosures, if you want to have misleading or meaningless public debate about intelligence spending, then go ahead and vote for this amendment.
I think it would be a mistake. I hope the Senate will reject the amendment of the Senator from Ohio.
I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. METZENBAUM. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the former vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Senator
Moynihan.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York [Mr. Moynihan] is recognized for 10 minutes.
Mr. MOYNIHAN. I thank my friend from Ohio.
Mr. President, once again I rise to discuss this matter with a combination of concerns, not the least of which is that the honor and the reputation of the Central Intelligence Agency should be left intact at the end of the cold war for which it was established and through which time it has existed.
I would tell the Senate an anecdote which I think we might all learn from or recognize. It takes place in 1984 and that wonderful gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Boland was retiring. He had been chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. A reception was given for him on the House side. It was quite an elaborate reception, I may say, and some industrial firms, electronic firms, and aerospace firms paid for it. The Speaker of the House was there. I was asked to come over representing the Senate committee to say just a word or two of friendship to our departing counterpart.
About halfway through this, a senior official of the intelligence community came up and said: `Senator, everyone has known for years that if an activity in the executive branch wishes to thrive, it gets itself a pair of committees on Capitol Hill to look after them. Senator, could you explain to me how it has taken something called the intelligence community 30 years to figure this out,' as he looked at all this happiness going on about him because, indeed, the Intelligence Committee had been then only 4 years old, barely that.
Here we are 10 years later, more or less, with the mission of this intelligence activity having been, finished. The committee continues to insist that it exists. It is a pattern all over Government but a particularly difficult pattern in this case.
The Central Intelligence Agency has had a mixed experience.
Present at the creation of the Agency was Dean Acheson. There are many of us who perhaps remember Dean Acheson in this Chamber. He was a man of great perspicacity when the Agency was created in July 1947. In his memoirs, he wrote. `I had the gravest forebodings about this organization and warned the President'--that would be President Truman--`that as set up neither he, the National Security Council, nor anyone else would be in a position to know what it was doing or to control it,' an experience President John F. Kennedy had within the first 4 months of his administration.
The Agency has done important things, but I do not think it could escape the general proposition that it vastly overestimated the size and power of the Soviet Union and failed completely to see its demise.
Only today we were talking at lunch about the problem of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine, an independent Ukraine, a prospect that was absolutely inaccessible to the community mind of the 1980's.
Adm. Stansfield Turner, who headed the Central Intelligence Agency under President Carter, wrote in Foreign Affairs 2 years ago, that here and there was sought insight in the intelligence community about the weaknesses of the Soviet Union during the cold war but, in the main, the corporate view failed totally.
That is an admiral standing up to the facts. Rocks and shoals: If your ship goes aground, you are held accountable.
We missed it. He said a revisionist view is coming into place, but it ought not. Yet it has.
My friend, the gallant Senator, and former Secretary of the Navy, has spoken of the Agency's work and how things might be revealed about it.
This April 15, we opened the New York Times to learn that the administration had asked for a substantial increase in intelligence spending. At a time when this Senator was devising a means to cut moneys from charity hospitals in the central cities of this country, the secret proposal to increase was made public. It was public all the time. It is an instrument of national policy to give out CIA material when it is in the interest of the administration.
Now they are moving on to painful matters. I received a letter from a man I respect greatly, the present head of the Agency, not long ago telling us that, `Yes, the cold war is over but,' said Mr. Woolsey, `the demise of the Soviet Union has had no effect on international narcotics cartels which continue to pour poison into this country.'
I wrote him to say that if I understand the word `cartel' correctly a cartel is a group of businesses which get together to restrict supply in order to raise prices.
Well, theoretically, we should welcome the existence of drug cartels, because they would be sending less of this poison, as it were.
The answer came back, `We said `cartel,' but that is not what we meant,' and so forth. Well, if you do not mean what you say, why have you said it?
Finding activities like narcotics interdiction and such like, that is called organizational maintenance. It is normal for a bureau to seek ways to survive. Every suburban county in this country has extension agents of the Department of Agriculture advising on how to grow better lawns and to get more corn. But do we really want it and is it really in the interest of the intelligence community?
The intelligence community is too large by half. Its military intelligence is not used by the military: They have their own intelligence. It is just not the nature of the military to take a civilian agency's advice in matters having to do with war and peace.
Its economic intelligence is at the level where, 2 years before the Berlin Wall came down, the Central Intelligence Agency estimated that the per capita gross domestic product in East Germany was higher than in West Germany. I know that drives them crazy when one says that, but they did. Any taxi driver in Berlin could have told you it was not so, but the internal logic of our model told us it was.
Back in the 1950's, they developed models which showed the Soviet economy growing at something like a 6-percent rate a year, at rates in which the Soviet economy would now surpass the American economy. The internal logic of those models was never accessible because they are secret. Secrecy congeals intelligence. It conceals failure, and it conceals mistakes. Do you not correct your mistakes?
So President after President was driven by the impression of an enormous power in the Soviet Union that was not there. At a time in the late 1970's, we estimated the size of the Soviet economy to be about 60 percent of the United States GNP. It was, in fact, perhaps 20 to 25 percent. The difference had enormous strategic consequences. The arms buildup went on far past the time in which it need have done. And we are left with ethnic strife and missiles spread across Eurasia that we had no contingency plans for.
This is a very modest proposal. The Senator from Ohio has been restrained, has been respectful, has been factual. I hope he might be heard.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York has yielded the floor.
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Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I yield 7 minutes to the Senator from Alaska.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska, Senator Stevens, is recognized for 7 minutes.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I oppose the amendment of the Senator from Ohio, and I join the Senator from Virginia in opposing it very strongly.
Having been associated with defense appropriations for many years, we have dealt with the intelligence structure. This past year, I decided I would attempt to, and have, become a member of the Intelligence Committee because of some of the trends I perceived in that committee, and I wanted to find out a little bit more what was happening. This amendment is a good example of that.
If the Senator from Ohio really wants to force this disclosure, he should offer an amendment to do it. It is another sense of the Senate. It just states a policy of some people that they would like to start down the track of destroying the intelligence apparatus of this country.
As a practical matter, now is the worst time that I have known since I have been in the Senate to start down this track. We know we are reducing the intelligence budget. It is being reduced much lower than I would like to have it reduced.
As a matter of fact, I wish we could talk about some of the votes that have taken place in the committee. I wish we could come out here and tell the American public who is reducing it down so low.
But to go down this track of now disclosing the numbers would confirm to some of our potential enemies throughout the world what we have done, what we are doing to reduce the redundancy in our intelligence system, what we are doing to lower the support for some of the most sustainable systems we have ever developed, and what we are doing to increase the risk to our defense.
Now, having been so involved in the defense structure in terms of watching the funding for defense, we will soon be here to tell the Senate that we have funded, to the maximum extent possible, the authorization bill. That is not to say we provided the kind of money that we need for the defense of the United States. It is going very low. As a matter of fact, the intelligence level is too low, and to say now we should start disclosing that is just like starting to draw a nice, big picture of what it is like.
A nation such as ours needs secrets. We need to have the ability for people to worry about what we will be able to do should they challenge our interests or our people abroad. We saw that in the Persian Gulf. We disclosed some of our secrets in the actions in the Persian Gulf, and we now are rebuilding some of those. We are developing new concepts, albeit at a very low level. That means we have to make decisions.
Now, I see no reason, no reason at all, for even passing a sense-of-the-Senate resolution on this matter.
Again I say, and I ask the Senator from Ohio, if he really wants it done, why does he not make it a matter of law?
We now have one of the finest Directors of the Central Intelligence Agency. He is from the other side of the aisle. He has worked with us openly through the years as a very well-known, articulate Democrat. Jim Woolsey has indicated he opposes this. He is in transition in intelligence. Why should we ask this man, give him a sense-of-the-Senate resolution that says, `Oh, by the way, we are not going to pass a law saying you have to, but why don't you disclose your budget?'
Now, as a practical matter, to my knowledge the President of the United States has not supported this, either.
And I believe when people become Presidents, when they become Directors of the CIA, when they have the job, they have a different sense of responsibility than when they are the ex-Presidents and ex-Directors of the CIA.
I am not an ex-Senator, and I do not look forward to becoming an ex-Senator in the near term. And I do not expect to vote to start down the path of telling our potential enemies what we are working on by virtue of showing them our ever-decreasing budget.
Now, that is my point to you. If you start that this year, I guarantee you will show next year how much more we requested and how much more we have the next year.
We are on a path, as far as I am concerned, of reducing the intelligence support down to the level where it increases the risk of the security of this country.
Now, for those people who support this, I will tell you, you are wrong. You are wrong. As a matter of fact, we ought to have a meeting like we used to have out here and talk about this in camera.
Do you know why we cannot do that, Mr. President? It is because we have the television cameras. They did not tell me that when I voted for television in the Senate.
We really cannot go into the security interests of the United States before the Senate now because there is no way to disconnect the apparatus that is here to provide the public knowledge as to what the public should hear.
I think the public trusts us to deal with the security interests of this country. They know we need intelligence on foreign activities. They know we need systems to deal with those potential enemies of the United States. This is no way to treat it, by asking us to tell the Director of the CIA, it is the sense of the Senate you should disclose what we have authorized you to spend.
To me it is wrong to ask us to take a position on that. If we want to make it a matter of law, bring it out here and make it a matter of law. But this idea of telling the Director of the CIA, make public what you have, and once you start down the path you will do it every year, and pretty soon anyone who is involved in the system will be able to see what we peeled off.
Periodically we surge. Periodically, we have to surge, in terms of support of systems like this, adding new systems that cost money and then pulling some out. There is no reason to demonstrate that we are doing that. Because anyone who reads that can say within 2 or 3 years we are going to be fielding a new system; in 2 or 3 years we might be retiring a system when we reduce. That kind of information ought to be kept close.
It has been pointed out when I came to the Senate there were four people in the Senate who had knowledge of this budget; four people. Today, we have three full committees and we have a rule that every Member of the Senate can go to a classified area and obtain a full briefing on what is in this budget. We have gone to the point where we do not just have a few people examining this budget. But we do still have a system of being able to keep the confidence, keep the intelligence secrets we must have in order to preserve a system and, by the way, just in closing, to protect the lives of people who are out there throughout the world to try to help gather this information to provide for our defense and sustain our economy.
I oppose this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lieberman). Who yields time? The Senator from Virginia.
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Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, momentarily I will yield the floor, but I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record following the remarks of the distinguished Senator from Alaska, the pertinent part of the document from the Executive Office of the President which indicates the policy of the Clinton administration. It is dated October 18, 1993. I read one sentence:
Furthermore, the Administration opposes any change to S. 1301 that would disclose, or require the disclosure of, the aggregate amount of funds authorized for intelligence activities.
There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
Executive Office of the President,
Washington, DC., October 18, 1993.
The Administration supports S. 1301. The Administration will seek to manage prudently reductions of the intelligence authorization contained in the bill, but notes that S. 1301 already makes cuts beyond those in the House bill. The Administration will oppose any amendment that would further reduce intelligence spending beyond what the Select Committee on Intelligence has recommended. Furthermore, the Administration opposes any change to S. 1301 that would disclose, or require the disclosure of, the aggregate amount of funds authorized for intelligence activities. The current procedure that provides for the authorization of appropriations in a classified annex continues to be appropriate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. METZENBAUM. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I use.
Just in response briefly to the Senator from Alaska, who indicated he just recently came on the Intelligence Committee, I would like to point out to him three former chairpersons of the committee and three former vice chairpersons of the committee, three of whom are Members of his party and three of whom are Members of my party, all are cosponsors of this amendment. One of them is from the same State as the Senator who just spoke, from Alaska.
Having said that, I think we might get some gems of wisdom from the former chairman, the immediate past chairman of this committee.
Therefore, Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. WARNER. Will the distinguished Senators from Ohio and Oklahoma permit the Senator from Nebraska, who has been waiting for some period of time, to use 3 minutes of the time under the control of the Senator from Virginia?
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Mr. METZENBAUM. I have no objection. Mr. President, may we just then yield 3 minutes on Senator Warner's time to Senator Exon, and 3 minutes of my time to Senator Boren.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. EXON. I thank the Chair, Senator Warner, and my colleagues for their consideration. I am going to be very brief.
Certainly the amendment offered by my distinguished friend from Ohio, with a very impressive list of cosponsors on the sense-of-the-Senate resolution, might make some believe it should be agreed to.
I rise because a substantial portion of the funding for our intelligence agencies, and they are far flung--we hear the CIA, time and time again. I suspect most of the people in America think most or all of the intelligence money goes to the CIA. I am not going to get into the disposition of the total intelligence budget but that portion of the intelligence budget known as defense intelligence comes through my subcommittee. It has for many, many years.
Certainly Senator Boren, Senator Warner, I believe my friend from Ohio, and certainly the present chairman, the distinguished Senator from Arizona, and others know that for many, many years I have been holding a club over this, saying we have to cut down the expenditures on international intelligence especially in the areas I have first jurisdiction over.
I would simply echo the comments made by the Senator from Alaska. We have made significant reductions, in cooperation with Senator Boren when he was chairman, and now the new chairman Senator DeConcini--with their counterparts on the other side of the aisle. So significant cuts, in billions of dollars, have been made.
I am not going to go so far as the Senator from Alaska, when he said he thought we are spending too little today on national security intelligence. But I would say it is probably about right. Certainly those who are in a position of responsibility, in my opinion, have done a very, very good job in making recommended reductions. I think we are on the right track. I do not believe we should go down the track, though, as suggested in the sense-of-the-Senate resolution by the Senator from Ohio for several reasons.
The President of the United States is not for it. Some say they are disappointed that the new President of the United States is not for this. Probably before he was President of the United States he, like so many others, said we should spend this much less. I simply say, Mr. President, now that the cold war is over the demands on our defense agency I think are more.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
Mr. WARNER. I am pleased to yield 2 additional minutes to the Senator from Nebraska.
Mr. EXON. Mr. President, I would simply say, with the new challenge facing our defense intelligence and national intelligence agencies, and CIA, the problems they face today are increased significantly over when we were concentrating only on the Soviet Union. To put it another way, there are more hot spots and trouble spots, potentially, around the world, than we had 5 years ago.
So I say this is the wrong road we are going down. I emphasize that if and when we ever put out publicly what the total billions of dollars in expenditures are, I can hear now, with the offsetting requirements we have in the budget bill, when somebody comes up with a very, very good program,
It is only $100 million. Let us just take that out of defense intelligence or the CIA, or out of the intelligence budget total.
I think it is a step in the wrong direction. The President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief opposes it; the head of the CIA opposes it; most of the military leadership involved in military intelligence, which is my domain, are opposed to it. I simply say while it sounds good I agree with the Senator from Alaska, I believe the people of the United States recognize when you start making disclosures, then the question is how much are you spending for that satellite? How much are you spending for this human intelligence?
I am afraid when we announce what it is we open up a can of worms. The demands are going to be made, how are you spending it and in what areas?
When you get down to that level, then we have concerns. I have no basic concern with the lump-sum disclosure, but I cannot vote for the sense-of-the-Senate resolution because I am afraid, as the Senator from Alaska has indicated so forcefully, once we start down that road it is going to be picked to pieces and when you start picking it to pieces, then you are going to reveal to potential enemies how much we are spending and approximately in what areas.
I hope we will defeat the sense-of-the-Senate resolution.
I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of any time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma has been yielded time by the Senator from Ohio.
Mr. BOREN. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and thank my colleague from Ohio for yielding to me.
I have been listening to this discussion. It is a matter that has been debated for a long time. It was being debated during the time when I served on the Intelligence Committee and had the privilege of serving as chairman.
This is, in my mind, a relatively close question. It is a matter about which very honorable people, sincere people--and let me say highly intelligent and capable people--can differ.
There is a strong argument that can be made on both sides. On balance, I come down on the side of those who feel it is appropriate to reveal the aggregate figure. As others who have spoken previously, I would be very concerned if we went further than that. If I really thought that it was going to lead to demands that would be complied with or full disclosure of major items in the budget, differentiating how much we were spending on certain technical systems--for example, human intelligence in certain parts of the world--I would not be for it. I do not think it will necessarily lead to those kinds of steps that would follow on.
I also do not support this amendment because I believe that we ought to dismantle the intelligence community. I heard some of the comments made by the Senator from New York earlier who has advocated very sharp cuts, if not the dismantling, of the intelligence institutions, as we now know them, in our country. At a time in which we are undergoing rapid change in our world, at a time when we are cutting back on the defense budget, at a time in which we are going to have fewer and fewer forces in a forward position around the world, I strongly believe that that is the time when you need intelligence even more than you needed it before. You need early warning, you need an understanding of what is going on in very complex areas of the world, and you need to know about it as soon as possible because we are not so forward in position, we are not able to respond quickly militarily.
We all know that intelligence is a force multiplier: The better information you have, the more you can cope with an emergency with smaller numbers of forces. If we are indeed going to go forward and cut the defense budget as has been felt necessary, it is even more important we have a strong intelligence capability.
Having said all of that, let me return directly to the subject of this amendment. I have always believed that even though, of necessity, the intelligence operations and budgets and programs must be essentially conducted in secret--there are many things that have to be secret--that we should go as far as we possibly can in protecting those things that should be kept secret.
I see the Senator from Maine on the floor who served as vice chairman while I served as chairman. We were known as something of fanatics about safeguarding those things that should be kept confidential and secret in the national interest. We developed very strong rules in our committee about disclosing classified information.
My philosophy is this: Those things that should be kept secret, keep them secret, have very strong rules that make certain, that do everything you can to keep them secret in the national interest. But those things that do not have to be kept secret, that can be known by the full Congress, that can be known by the American people, allow those things to be made public so that you have as much accountability as you can possibly have in the intelligence process.
So much has to be secret that I think it is healthy when we share with the American people as much as we can. We tried to do that in the confirmation process with Mr. Gates, to give the American people a glimpse into how the intelligence community operates, how the analysts work, how the operators work, to the maximum degree possible. It is a shame that most of the successes--we heard some of the failures of the intelligence community discussed publicly--it is a shame that the successes cannot be known publicly. By very definition, often the success is a success because the program worked and it remained secret. I think if the American people knew more about the quality and caliber of those serving in the intelligence community, they would feel better about it than they do. They would have a more positive view of the work of those people in intelligence, who often risk their lives and who are people of enormous talent, than they do.
So let me just say this: Since I think we need as much accountability as we can have, I think our committees of the two Houses, the two Intelligence Committees, because they do operate largely in secret, should be under as much constraint as possible to make sure that the budgets are held to levels where they should be, that we get the full dollar's worth out of a dollar invested.
I do not think it is going to compromise the basic capability of our country, I do not think it is going to compromise too much information if we share the total figure with the public as to how much is being expended on intelligence matters, just as I did not think that we compromised anything by having open hearings on the proposed reorganization of the intelligence community to cope with changes in the post-cold-war world, just as I did not think it was unhealthy for us to share, during confirmation process, with the American people as much as we possibly could about the operation of the intelligence community.
It is a delicate balance between what can be shared with the public and what should not be shared in the national interest. I realize honest people can differ as to where that balance should be struck. I simply believe we should share with the people as much as we can, we should be as accountable as we possibly can be, just as I always believe that in judging covert actions, we should always make sure that those actions, if they were known by the American public, would be actions that would be approved of as being consistent with basic American values.
The committee operates in a trusteeship role.
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Mr. COHEN. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. BOREN. I will yield in a moment. It is under the very able leadership of the distinguished vice chairman and the distinguished chairman, Senator Warner and Senator DeConcini. It is under fine leadership, and these are issues, as I said, that honest people can differ about. I simply believe the balance will be better struck by agreeing to the Metzenbaum amendment.
Mr. COHEN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. BOREN. I will be happy to yield.
Mr. WARNER. Can the question be answered on the time of the Senator from Ohio? Because we are rather short on this side.
Mr. BOREN. How much time is remaining to this Senator?
Mr. METZENBAUM. Take another minute or two.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 34 1/2 minutes remaining on the time allocated.
Mr. BOREN. Mr. President, I believe the Senator from Ohio yielded me a couple extra minutes.
Mr. COHEN. Will the Senator explain to me how the public is going to be in a better position to know whether the Senate and the House are acting appropriately in terms of its allocation of funds by the simple disclosure of the bottom line figure? For example, assume that it were $50, $60, or $70 billion--giving an exaggerated figure, obviously, in order to not disclose any figures--assuming that was the case, how does the public really know whether or not that is an appropriate amount? It has no basis to know, if there were a 10-percent increase, as to whether or not that was for a new satellite system.
Let me suggest to my colleagues, the Senator and I were involved in a very delicate matter to get a particular type of system paid for that could not come out of the intelligence budget. We went to great, extraordinary lengths to do that. That was not a matter that I think the Senator from Oklahoma or the Senator from Maine would want to make a matter of public record, in terms of what the system was or its costs or its function and when it is going to be deployed and under what circumstances. Those are the kinds of issues that really have no business being in the public domain.
Yet, I submit to my friend from Oklahoma, with whom I served for so many years, that the mere disclosure of the bottom-line figure tells the public very little. And when you say it is a close question, I ask whether or not it is better to err on the side of preventing us from going to the next stage, which is tell us what the ingredients of the intelligence budget are.
Mr. BOREN. I will say to my colleague--and it is rare I differ with him on any matter of intelligence policy. Usually we see eye to eye, and we certainly do 99 percent of the time. I do not think we necessarily will go down to the next stage, and I do think that, at least in some sense, it would inform the American people. If, indeed, we are spending $50 billion on intelligence, which we obviously are not, or $60 billion, certainly we would have a sense that we have gotten out of hand; it is far too much. If we are spending $1 billion on intelligence or $2 billion on intelligence, which I am glad to say we are not, that would inform us of doing far too little in terms of the intelligence capability.
So within certain parameters, I think it does inform, to a degree--not to a large degree. That is the reason I say it is a close question.
Mr. COHEN. Will the Senator yield further?
Mr. BOREN. In just a moment. I will say also that the figure has often been bandied about in the press. There has been speculation about the figure. You can say, `Well, it has never been confirmed one way or the other,' and I am not here commenting on the accuracy of every press report. They have not always been the same number. Generally they have been in the same ball park.
I think even that it is generally a widely discussed matter that when something continues to be discussed over and over again, it almost then causes a disregard for those things that should be kept secret. That is the reason I believe in sort of building a very strong line between something that can be told, that really is not going to hurt the national security interests, and those things that clearly are on the other side of the line, and we should go to the wall to protect those things from ever being known.
My colleague makes a good case. I cannot quarrel with the arguments that he makes. I simply do not think we necessarily go all the way down the primrose path if we release this one figure, which is often bandied about in the press already.
Mr. COHEN. Can I ask a further question? In the Senator's judgment, is it appropriate that the intelligence budget should be considered as a percentage of the defense spending or a percentage of the total budget? He indicated $50 billion would be, obviously, too much; $2 billion too little. How does the Senator go about calculating what is a fair percentage for the intelligence budget to be based upon?
Mr. BOREN. I would look at both, frankly. I think as defense budgets go down, I honestly think the percentage of the total Defense budget devoted to intelligence has to go up because it is a force multiplier, as I said earlier.
I think, in terms of total spending, you still have to look at the total resources of the country. Whether or not we are educating our children properly and a lot of other areas of Government spending ultimately relate to our national security in the broadest sense.
So I think there has to be some balance kept. So I would really look at both of those figures.
Mr. COHEN. That is the basis on which the American people make a judgment, the percentage of the defense spending plus the percentage of the total budget? On that they can make a proper determination of the intelligence needs of the country?
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Mr. BOREN. I do not think the American people are going to make an exact determination, but I think they will have some general idea as to whether or not the Congress is staying within the bounds of some reason, or within the border of some reason.
Mr. COHEN. How do you determine what is reasonable under the circumstances?
Mr. BOREN. I would say to my colleague, by the two measures he just talked about.
Mr. COHEN. Is it the threat that drives or should shape the budget, or is it the budget that shapes what we appropriate for intelligence matters?
Mr. BOREN. I think we have enough discussion of public policy matters in foreign policy and defense policy, and we discuss Defense appropriations on this floor, which we certainly do quite openly except for a very few programs. I think the American people have a common sense, basic judgment about the nature of the threat facing this country and would have some parameters with which to judge whether or not we are in the ballpark on defense spending by looking at an aggregate number.
Mr. COHEN. I thank my friend from Oklahoma.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I wonder if I could ask one short question to my colleague from Oklahoma on the time allocated to the Senator.
Mr. BOREN. Mr. President, I would have to ask the Senator from Ohio. I do not want to intrude upon his time.
Mr. METZENBAUM. On whose time?
Mr. WARNER. The Senator from Ohio. We gave the Senator 2 minutes for every minute we have.
Mr. METZENBAUM. I am running out of time. I have other speakers coming. I did not interrupt the Senator from Maine and the Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. WARNER. Will the Senator yield a minute for him to reply to a short question?
Mr. METZENBAUM. I yield 1 minute.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Ohio.
I think the key words used in the Senator's presentation to the Senate are that this is a `delicate balance.' I repeat, that is a very wise and judicious characterization of this debate, a `delicate balance.' Then I ask my friend, why, given that it is a `delicate balance,' would the Senator want to go against the collective judgment of nine Presidents, the majority in the other body, the House of Representatives, and the fact that no other nation, major nation, in the world has taken the initiative as sought by the Senator from Ohio? Why would the Senator want to upset that `delicate balance"?
Mr. BOREN. Mr. President, as always, the Senator from Virginia asks a very difficult question, and now I wish I had not agreed to yield to such a difficult question because he asks it very well.
I would just have to say that there are others who have other judgments. Presidents, I think institutionally, hesitate to share this information just as they are always skeptical about oversight itself and do not always see the positive nature of oversight of a process.
There are others, I would say, not just myself but others, who have shared the responsibilities in the Intelligence Committee and in the intelligence community who have been in favor of open accounts.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time has expired.
Mr. BOREN. It is a judgment each Senator will have to carefully make.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. METZENBAUM and Mr. WARNER addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. METZENBAUM. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the chairman and manager of the bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. DeCONCINI. I thank my friend from Ohio.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, if I might interrupt, we have one Senator who cannot stay. Can we allocate him 4 minutes, Mr. President, I ask the Senator from Arizona?
Mr. DeCONCINI. On the Senator's time.
Mr. WARNER. Yes. I thank the Senator for his courtesy.
Mr. President, I allocate 4 minutes to the Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. WALLOP. Mr. President, I thank the Chair and thank the Senators.
Mr. President, a curious thing. America is a great country that does nice things, but it is not a great country because it does nice things. It is a great country because it does strong and wise things.
This is not a strong and wise thing. It may well be a nice thing. It may well satisfy some curious need to be `a well-informed public.' But the public cannot be well informed through this amendment. Foreign intelligence agencies can be well informed through this amendment but the public cannot be.
The Senator from Oklahoma was talking about the needs and the common sense of the American people. They have it in spades. But they cannot possibly be expected to know of the changing circumstances worldwide day in and day out. Our requirements for intelligence, I am sure the Senator from Virginia would agree, are much more complicated than they were during the cold war. We have missile proliferation. We have what is coming out of China. We have what is coming out of Pakistan. We have what is coming out of India. We have what is coming out of Iran and Iraq. We have what is coming out of Libya. We have places in the world that are taking untold, unpredictable, and unknown, unknowable steps.
Now, those circumstances are going to change, and they do not require the same kinds of intelligence purposes that we had before.
What sort of information is the public going to derive by our satisfying those needs through a changing bottom line figure? The bottom line figure is going to give them absolutely nothing, to know the needs of America and whether or not they are going to be met.
What this does is a little bit like sort of a prurient peep show--having given you a little look, you want to look under the sheet now. You want the movie to become more explicit and yet more explicit.
The fact is that what America needs--it is an intelligence world--is very well satisfied by the amount of information that is now provided through the Senate of the United States in its what, three committees and through the House of Representatives and its three committees.
We have untold numbers--in the judgment of the Senator from Wyoming, almost irresponsible numbers--of people now knowing the details, plus the fact there is not a Senator here who cannot satisfy his or herself as to the details of the intelligence community if they wish.
Now, I suspect that those who are voting for this have never come to the committee and asked to be informed. It is too darned difficult to be informed. It is easier just to have us come and publish it.
My friends, that is not the responsible road to travel. Great nations remain strong, great nations by doing wise things. This is nice to know. This is not needed to know. What is needed to know the Senator from Ohio can get and any other Senator can get, any other Member of the House of Representatives can get. They need to have the ambition to go get it. When they have taken those steps, maybe the Senate ought to agree that a further step would be taken. But until that time, I suggest this is just a way, a lazy man's way, of finding out information that means little or nothing when published, literally nothing, except to foreign intelligence agencies who can draw great inferences by tracking that figure.
I thank the Senator from Virginia. I thank especially the Senator from Arizona for allowing me to proceed in front of him.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, we do thank the Senator from Wyoming.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Feinstein). Who seeks recognition?
Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I simply say that the Senator from Wyoming has nearly a decade of service on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
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Mr. DeCONCINI addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. DeCONCINI. Madam President, I am going to proceed on the time allocated to me from the Senator from Ohio.
I thank the Senator from Ohio for bringing this to us again. The distinguished former chairman from Oklahoma, Senator Boren, has operated this committee longer than anybody I believe, and he certainly has an understanding of what is dangerous or what is necessary for security reasons and has imposed some very tight rules, along with the Senator from Maine when he was the vice chairman, and the Senator from Virginia and I have attempted to maintain that.
I think it is very important that some information be kept secret. Why is that? The American public may say, well, tell everything. Because there are many, many dangers involved in the gathering of intelligence, those who gather it, those who inform, those who take pictures, those who give information, and instruments, if that is all exposed, even the amounts that are paid for or contributed to such activities, would jeopardize some people.
It is interesting to note how many nations today are looking at the United States. I know the Senator from Virginia often gets visitors from foreign countries. We had some parliamentarians here from Bulgaria. They want to know about the oversight. We have had parliamentarians from Romania. We have had parliamentarians from Hungary, from Russia, and from the Ukraine.
I have talked to most of them. They want to know what we do. They want to know, well, how much does it cost? Of course, I cannot tell them. They say, well, in your democracy, do you not publish that? We tell them no, we cannot do that because of the reasons I have explained.
Even the U.K., having talked to Members of the Parliament there on both sides of the aisle, talk about oversight for the first time. They have literally no parliamentary oversight. They do not know, the members, what is spent. They want to know.
Then of course the question is, we know, does the public need to know? Indeed I think there is some public information and public purpose for the amendment that is before us today.
It is my best judgment that I have to disagree with my friend from Alaska, who said we do not spend enough on intelligence. I would ask him or anybody else who thinks we do not spend enough to show me one program that we have cut, one program that this committee has cut, or the appropriations defense committee, which will be on the floor shortly, that we have cut that has damaged or jeopardized the national security. We have not.
We did not do everything that was requested of us because it costs a lot of money. And it is time that we reduce the expenditures, not only of the Defense Establishment and the defense part of our bill, but also the intelligence.
That is where I think the Senator from Virginia and I have tried to steer this committee. Perhaps the Senator would have gone a little bit further with the expenditures, and I might have gone a little further with reductions. But we have reached a compromise. Nothing has been jeopardized.
The Senator from Alaska sits on the Defense Appropriations Committee as the ranking member. I sit on that committee too. That committee that will be before us on the floor shortly cut more than the authorizing committee, than this committee did.
So now we are not jeopardizing the national intelligence and the national security capabilities of this country by this bill or the appropriations bill.
Look at the increase of what has been spent on intelligence. Of course the figure is secret. We have all read about amounts that are in the newspapers, the press. I cannot confirm nor deny. But we know from just those stories it is a lot of money. And rightfully so.
The public asks me. Is that an accurate figure? I am sorry. I cannot tell you. They say, well, if it is, it is a lot of money.
Then you get to the point where the Senator from Maine says what is it for? I am sorry. I cannot tell you what it is for. Why not? Well, because of the reasons I have explained.
But yet they would like to know just how much you are spending. I have to come down on the side of the Senator from Ohio. I think it is a proper thing to tell them this is what we are spending, and them explain it to them. It is not difficult to explain to them why you cannot disclose each figure or each category of the expenditures.
So we are faced here with a public confidence or lack of public confidence. When we see in the decade of the eighties where the intelligence expenditures went up over 100 percent more than the defense expenditures did under the Reagan and partially the Bush administration--and I voted for it--I thought, yes, sir, the President is correct. We have to spend that money on intelligence. We have to know what the Soviets are doing. We have to understand what they are doing, and we have to follow it.
We saw the Senator from New York point out how improperly intelligence can be used and how improperly it was used in analyzing the Soviet Union. We were told year after year that the Soviet Union had an economy second to none, except the United States. And we know it is a basket case. When it fell as it did, we know now that that intelligence was misused. Maybe they had too much money. Maybe there was a wrong direction coming from the executive branch to that agency. `You cook up what we want. You work for us.' And then use that for public policy.
That is wrong in my judgment. What does Congress do when some agency does something like that? You start cutting away at their budget, and rightfully so. That is what we have done. We have done that with other agencies who have misused the public trust, and to the credit of Mr. Woolsey, he has changed that, and also to the credit of Mr. Gates, his predecessor, who I did not support because I was afraid he would not have the courage to change the direction of the Central Intelligence Agency as to what kind of information was brought forward to the National Security Council, the White House, and to the Congress of the United States.
There is one example after another. During the Persian Gulf war, we received daily briefings on that war. We were told what the casualties would be. We were told what a great army Saddam Hussein had, sixth largest, fourth largest army, the state of the art technology from the former Soviet Union, had the faster tanks. We found out they did not have those. We
knew it.
We had intelligence information that was wrong. And I contend that it was purposely supported in order to build public opinion. That is not what intelligence is for. It is so the people who need that information can make a judgment.
So what do you do with an agency that misuses--that is what I think happened--the public trust and the public funds? You start reducing, you oversee, and you ask the questions. Why? That is what we have done here.
The Senator from Ohio says, well, let us just tell the public. The Senators from Maine, Alaska, Wyoming, or Virginia will say, wait a minute. They do not need to know. If they need to know, they will want to know about every specific item.
The public is not as dumb as some of us might think that on occasion they are. If the public knew that 100-percent increase in the intelligence budget over the 10-year period during the eighties, I think they would ask us all some questions. And we had better have some answers for them.
Then when they looked at it, found out that the Soviet Union was not the second-largest economy that our Government said it was, they would say, well, did you get a good amount of information for the money you spent?
I think that is a valid public information policy to have out. That is what the Senator is asking us to do. I am not afraid to explain it to the public in Arizona. I am not afraid at all to say, yes, that is what we spent. I cannot explain every program but I think it is important for them to know and they will judge--and rightfully so--they should judge how much we spend on defense, how much we spend on intelligence, how much we spend on health care, and how much we spend anyplace else.
So, Madam President, I think the Senator has approached this in a most reasonable way, and not as the Senator from Alaska who I have great respect for and work not only on this committee of defense and many other committees of appropriations whom I have great respect for. Why does he not just go out and do it all, and make it law? Or the Senator from Maine, say do all the programs, and make it law? Well, that would be irresponsible. And I do not think it is appropriate.
The Senator has only asked to start to build the confidence in the public that the amount of money totally spent, the total amount is this much. If you are going to spend more next year, maybe you should explain why. Maybe because there are areas in the former Yugoslavia that we need to know more information about, or areas in Africa, or some other continent that we need to know more about, or the political or economic changes in Asia or some other place. And explain that. If they are not there, then why is the budget going up?
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Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, will the Senator yield for one question, respectfully?
Mr. DeCONCINI. I am happy to yield on his time.
Mr. WARNER. We have to allocate the time of the Senator from Ohio.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Arizona has expired.
Mr. WARNER. How much time does the Senator from Virginia have?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. You have 2 minutes and 50 seconds.
Mr. WARNER. I wish to allocate now 2 of those minutes to the Senator from Maine. Madam President, we have the pending question of the Senator from Alaska.
Mr. DeCONCINI. My time has expired. I will ask the Senator from Ohio to yield an additional couple of minutes after the Senator from Maine is finished.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska is recognized for the present time for 2 minutes.
Mr. METZENBAUM. I yield the Senator from Arizona 1 minute.
Mr. WARNER. Parliamentary inquiry.
Mr. STEVENS. One second. Go ahead.
Mr. WARNER. If I understand, Madam President, the Senator from Virginia has 2 minutes and 50 seconds.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
Mr. WARNER. I ask that 2 of those minutes be given to the Senator from Maine.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. I beg your pardon. I thought you said Alaska.
Mr. WARNER. I thank the distinguished Chair, and 50 seconds remaining under the control of the Senator from Virginia.
Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, I will take 1 minute. As chairman----
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Ohio yield for these purposes?
Mr. METZENBAUM. What is the question?
Mr. STEVENS. I want to ask the Senator from Arizona a question, and I need 1 minute for him to answer it.
Mr. METZENBAUM. I yield 1 minute to the Senator.
Mr. STEVENS. I am on the committee with the Senator from Arizona, who is our chairman. The chairman just said if next year we had to increase it, we could explain why.
As a member of your committee, am I at liberty to explain why we have increased the intelligence budget? Could I come out here and tell the public what we increased it for?
Mr. DeCONCINI. I believe the Senator could come out here and, in the areas that it was increased and in the areas it was decreased, make some general statements as to why we spent that much. I think the Senator from Alaska decreased it in appropriations, and I support it. I suspect you are going to vote for the conference report here that cuts more than this committee. How are you going to explain that? I think you can explain it.
I reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is recognized for 2 minutes.
Mr. COHEN. Madam President, the Senator from Arizona said, `Show me a program that we have cut which jeopardized the national security.' The problem is that you cannot point to any program that has been cut until there has been a disaster. After you have a disaster, that is the one way you can tell. Like in Somalia, apparently a decision was made to reject a recommendation coming from the field commanders that was approved all the way through the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. It was rejected. A disaster ensued. A decision was made that somehow contributed, or appeared to have contributed, to a very sad incident in that country.
The Senator from New York has indicated he would like to abolish the CIA and transfer all of its responsibilities to the State Department. I have to ask the question: Is the mission of the CIA, as the Senator from New York has said, over? Are the nuclear weapons in the world over? Is Libya over? Is China over? Does it matter if North Korea builds a nuclear weapon? Does the NSA matter anymore? Do we disband it all and give it to the State Department? A lot has been said that is critical of our Central Intelligence Agency and the intelligence community.
I would like to submit, for the Record at least, that I believe it was our agency's activity that contributed to the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. I think that was of seminal importance in leading to the dismantlement of that empire. They were bogged down and defeated in Afghanistan largely due to the efforts of our agency.
How about the success in the discovery of the Krasnoyarsk ABM radar? Our intelligence community said that is a violation of the ABM Treaty. That is not a satellite-tracking system. That is an ABM battle management system. Over the objections of many on the other side and many in the other House, and listening to the argument and lies of Mr. Gorbachev, who said it is only for satellite tracking purposes, our intelligence community was correct.
Also, with respect to the Persian Gulf, let us give our intelligence community credit that the Persian Gulf war was won largely as a result of the kinds of intelligence provided to our military, notwithstanding the kind of statements made on the floor today.
Mr. DeCONCINI. I have a few seconds left, I believe.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. DeCONCINI. To respond, we saw General Schwarzkopf criticize the intelligence. That is what we have tried to correct in the committee and in the appropriations process. We know that there is always some good intelligence, and that is correct; there are some very good examples, even in the Persian Gulf, where overall the intelligence was not good, at least as told to the oversight committee. I was there every day listening to it, and it turned out to be pretty ugly.
Mr. COHEN. We won the war pretty well.
Mr. METZENBAUM. Madam President, I will suggest the absence of a quorum to be charged to the parties if nobody wishes to speak. I see that Senator Specter wishes to speak.
Mr. WARNER. I object. We only have 50 seconds left. I seek recognition.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I have to respectfully disagree with the chairman of the committee, which I seldom do, about the reports that he tells us of the gulf war. The Senator from Maine is exactly right. He tells us it was key to the execution of that conflict, and while General Schwarzkopf bore in on certain real-time features and the need to improve that, there was no overall indictment by him or anybody else.
Mr. COHEN. It was real-time tactical intelligence.
Mr. WARNER. The Senator is correct. It was real-time tactical intelligence.
Madam President, I move to table and ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion to table is not in order while time remains.
Mr. WARNER. I ask that at the appropriate time the Senator from Virginia be recognized for the purpose of moving to table.
Mr. DeCONCINI. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is objection.
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Mr. WARNER. I know exactly when and where that can be done. I am just trying to accommodate the Senate.
Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, how much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 4 minutes.
Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, I agree with the most recent comments made by the Senator from Maine concerning the value of the Central Intelligence Agency. In supporting the amendment by the Senator from Ohio, I do not do so on the grounds that it is a way to weaken or undercut or cripple the CIA. I believe the CIA is a very important agency. I believe that the CIA may well be in a better position to command more support for its operation if its funding is disclosed and if there is a greater public understanding of what is going on in the intelligence community.
When we are debating the total appropriation figure, as I said earlier, I think it is a close question. I have not yet heard, at least to my satisfaction, any forceful reasons to oppose total disclosure. I think the tilt is in favor of disclosure, and it accords with the constitutional provision which calls for disclosure. But I believe there are many phases of the CIA's activities which require substantial support, like human intelligence, the issue of locating terrorists, which is a big issue for the United States. There are major areas of deficiency. For example, we do not have sufficient intelligence on the ground. We had sufficient ideas as to what was happening in the Soviet Union prior to August 19, 1991.
It may well be that if the public had more of an idea, there would be more public support for the CIA. I think there are some areas which do have to remain secret. My colleague from Virginia made a comment to me that my earlier remarks were not clear as to whether there were funds in the Department of Defense which are black box, not publicly disclosed. There may be ambiguity in the Record on my comments. Permit me to make it plain that there are such funds in the DOD budget which are not subject to public disclosure, and necessarily so. But to the extent that disclosure may be made in a free society, it is highly desirable. Just because other countries do not do it--no country is as free and open as the United States. My view is that we can derive considerable strength from that openness, and I think the CIA would, in fact, be stronger with this minimal disclosure. It is only a sense of the Senate.
How much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 1 minute 15 seconds.
Mr. SPECTER. I would be glad to yield that time to the Senator from Virginia.
Mr. WARNER. Madam President, this has been an excellent debate. A key statement was that it is a very delicate balance whether or not to proceed with this amendment.
The Senator from Maine pointed out in a very forceful manner, as I have endeavored to do, if it is a delicate balance, why should we do it? How do you go back home to your constituencies and say that we have changed the positions of nine consecutive Presidents? And say that we have taken a position inconsistent with every other nation in the world? If we were to do so, we may have jeopardized not only the lives and the safety of some of our agents serving overseas, but indeed the men and women in the Armed Forces, who so highly depend upon the quality and quantity and accuracy of our intelligence, which could be jeopardized.
Madam President, as I understand the Chair is about to rule the time of the Senator from Virginia has expired.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. I think you got it.
The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. METZENBAUM. Madam President, I yield up to 10 minutes or such time as the Senator uses in excess of 10 minutes to the Senator from Arkansas.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas is recognized.
Mr. BUMPERS. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Ohio for yielding. I will not take 10 minutes.
I came over to express my very strong support for the Senator's amendment.
Let me say, first of all, that I do not believe there is a single person in the Senate naive enough not to know that the reason Members of Congress do not want the macro figures on the amount of the intelligence budget is because not having them makes it almost impossible to have an intelligent legitimate debate on how much we ought to be spending. How can the American people evaluate whether they think it is too much or not?
Some people around here take the position it is none of the American people's business; we have to do a certain amount of intelligence; we are going to do it no matter what the cost; and this is really none of their concern.
A lot of the people who are involved in making up this number feel the same way about Members of the United States Senate. If you are not on the Intelligence Committee or the Armed Services Committee, the subconscious or maybe overt belief is that other Members of the Senate have no business talking about this issue.
I have been so gun shy, even though it has been published, in trying to cut the intelligence budget. This year I consistently referred to the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times and what they say the intelligence budget is, $28 billion.
We are not here today debating about whether that is enough or too much. I personally feel, as you all know, that it is too much.
At the height of the cold war, when we were spending 65 to 70 percent of it spying on the Soviet Union, it was not much more than that. You get the same justification for the intelligence budget as you get for the B-2, the super collider, and the space station: We have already spent so much; you cannot cut funding.
The Senator from Virginia, who I consider one of the very finest men in the United States Senate, one of the most courageous and certainly my dear friend, just got through saying we might jeopardize our agents. Nobody here really wants to jeopardize an agent, an on-the-ground human agent that the CIA might have someplace.
While we are not debating the amount of the intelligence budget, I want you to think about this: Our intelligence budget is bigger than the entire defense budget of 10 NATO countries. Our intelligence budget is bigger than the French defense budget. You think about that. And the present CIA director, unlike his predecessor, Robert Gates, is strenuously opposed to making this total figure public.
Mr. WARNER. Madam President, could I ask a 10-second question of my good friend.
Mr. BUMPERS. Absolutely.
Mr. WARNER. The Senator questioned the statement by the Senator from Virginia with respect to the statement not only regarding intelligence agents abroad but the men and women of the Armed Forces. Tell me how releasing this figure is going to increase their ability to perform the mission, be they agents or men and women of the Armed Forces? That is the question you have to ask. How will it increase their safety abroad or their security if it is released?
Mr. BUMPERS. It does not increase or decrease their ability to carry out their mission. That is not my reason for being here. I am not trying to cut the feet out from under the intelligence community. They perform a useful function. Nobody denies that.
But I am just simply saying, What kind of nonsense is it for us to come here as 100 men and women of the United States Senate and say we cannot dare mention the total amount we are talking about? You know what the debate was about on the intelligence budget when I was trying to cut it. Someone said, We have already cut 3.7 percent. But then the question is for the ordinary citizen of the country and most of the United States Senators, 3.7 percent of what? Nobody had a clue. Maybe 3.7 percent of $50 billion or $10 billion.
It was 3.7 percent from the President's request, which was a substantial increase over last year's budget.
The President is my dear friend, and I forgive him because he is a first-year President, and this is a very arcane subject. But you think about it. You think about it--us standing around here not knowing a percentage of what we are cutting. It is just such powerful nonsense. It has nothing to do with jeopardizing agents on the ground. It has nothing to do with
the reconnaissance or anything else. What it has to do with is, Is the figure too high or is it too low and how on Earth can you know if you do not know what the figure is?
I thought the Senator from Virginia was going to challenge me on the statement I made about how we spend more on intelligence than the French spend on defense. I was wrong by $5 billion. They spend $33 billion on defense, and we spend $28 billion on intelligence according to the press.
But look at this: Italy, $5 billion less on their entire defense budget than we spend on intelligence; Saudi Arabia, $15 billion; China--look at that--we spend almost twice as much on intelligence as China spends on its entire defense budget, and every time we are threatened by the Chinese military we jump under our desk. In South Korea, one of our stepchildren, who we defend, they are putting up $13 billion, not half as much as we spend on intelligence.
Good Lord.
The amount we spend is important, and if you cannot deal with this, you cannot deal with anything else unless you know what you are talking about.
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Mr. WARNER. Madam President, now I ask: Is the Senator informing the Senate and indeed the American public as to the total of the U.S. commitment to intelligence? If so, it seems to me that could be very much a violation of the rules of the Senate.
Mr. DeCONCINI. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. WARNER. I will not yield.
It would be a violation of the rules of the Senate to disclose information submitted in confidence by the executive.
Mr. BUMPERS. Do I have the floor?
Mr. METZENBAUM. Regular order.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Conrad). If the Senator will yield for a moment, the Senator from Arkansas retained the floor.
Mr. BUMPERS. He asked a question.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is the Senator yielding for the purpose of a question?
Mr. WARNER. That is correct.
The Senator yielded, and I was propounding the question when others sought to interject. I retain the floor, and I pose the question.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. No. The Senator from Virginia does not retain the floor. The Senator from Arkansas retains the floor. The Senator from Virginia asked for permission to ask a question.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the permission was granted, and I was in the course of asking the question when others sought to interject.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator may proceed to ask a question.
Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the question to my colleague is: Does that figure marked `U.S. intelligence' represent----
Mr. BUMPERS. Right.
Mr. WARNER. Their $28 billion?
Then I ask the question without confirming or denying the accuracy of the number stated on the chart the Senator is displaying: The rules of the Senate state that Members may not disclose publicly information which is transmitted by the President in confidence to the Senate.
Mr. BUMPERS. Mr. President, to answer the Senator's question, see this big asterisk here next to the number on the chart. It is down here. That is according to the Los Angeles Times, August 4, 1993, and the Senator's question is precisely why I am over here supporting the amendment of the Senator from Ohio because the Senator would deprive me or anyone else from using anything except press reports. I know what the figure is, but I am not telling the world what I know. I am telling the world what has been reported in the Los Angeles Times, and that is about what 80 of the Senators in this body has to go by--what they read in the newspaper.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. METZENBAUM. Mr. President how much time does the Senator from Ohio have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 4 minutes 42 seconds.
Mr. METZENBAUM. Mr. President, I yield 3 1/2 minutes to the Senator from Alaska.
Mr. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Senator.
Mr. President, I have served on the Intelligence Committee for 8 years and 2 years as vice chairman of the committee.
I support the Metzenbaum amendment, which expresses the sense of the Congress that the President disclose the aggregate amount of the intelligence budget.
This is not a new position for me. While I served as vice chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, I supported a similar measure which emerged in a conference agreement with our House counterparts, and some speaking against it today also supported it then.
Providing the public with the total funding provided to the intelligence community will not harm our national security, nor should it compromise our ability to engage in sensitive intelligence activities. I rely on intelligence professionals, like Robert Gates, in arriving at these conclusions. During our confirmation hearings of Bob Gates to be Director of Central Intelligence, he acknowledged that releasing the overall budget figure would do no harm.
In fact, under Director Gates and President Bush, the intelligence community began promoting greater openness in dealing with the public on a variety of subjects. For example, Director Gates testified in open sessions, before various congressional committees on activities in the former Soviet Union, on proliferation of nuclear and other weapons, and other topics affecting our national security. To me, giving the public more information from our intelligence experts, not less, proves the worth of our investment in our national intelligence system.
This has led me to support this sense-of-Congress approach, which urges the President to release the gross intelligence budget figure. The public ought to understand that we take our Nation's intelligence mission very seriously, and that we are willing to spend a large amount of money to maintain an active and effective intelligence capability. I have no difficulty defending spending levels for our intelligence community, nor any individual portion of it. It is money well spent, and is as necessary today as it was when the Soviet Union was our primary adversary. It is often said that our intelligence mission today has become much more complicated, with renewed attention being paid to regional conflicts, international drug networks, proliferation of weapons, and even global economic issues. Therefore, releasing the overall amount of money we spend on this important aspect of our national defense should inform our taxpayers that we take quite seriously our need to gather intelligence, and to assess events in a complex world.
I do not favor providing details on funds allocated to individual programs or activities. Our adversaries, who ever they may be at any given moment, should not be given any insights that may indirectly or directly advance their causes.
Finally, let me reiterate that the ultimate decision to release the aggregate budget number for intelligence will still reside with the Commander in Chief, if the Metzenbaum amendment is adopted. This mild proposition will do no harm, and it has already passed Congress in a previous authorization bill.
I urge my colleagues to support the Metzenbaum amendment.
I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
END