Pending Intelligence Legislation

“Today, following over a year of coordinated effort among the Intelligence Community and the Department of Justice a bill is being submitted to Congress to request long overdue changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,” according to an April 13 fact sheet (pdf) on the proposed changes issued by the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The text of the proposed legislative changes to FISA, with a section by section analysis, may be obtained here (pdf).

“If S. 372 [the FY 2007 Intelligence Authorization bill pending in the Senate] were presented to the President, his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill,” according to an April 12 Statement of Administration Policy (pdf). Among the bill’s intolerable provisions, the Statement said, are the fact that it would require public disclosure of the annual intelligence budget total.