2007 Intelligence Authorization Bill Advances in Senate
The 2007 intelligence authorization bill was approved without amendment on February 8 by the Senate Armed Services Committee with a recommendation that it be passed into law.
The Senate bill would notably require public disclosure of the annual intelligence budget total, an objective long sought by open government advocates and classification reformers. Although there is no credible national security rationale for withholding the amount of the intelligence budget, it remains formally classified.
The Committee issued a brief report on the pending intelligence bill.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence held a closed hearing February 8 on Saudi Arabia and the reputed role of some Saudis in financing terrorist activities.
The hearing was held at the request of SSCI member Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) who described his perspective on the subject in a rather blunt statement on the Senate floor.
“It is time to bring to light the way in which Saudi oil money is fueling the fires of terrorism so people can actually see who is getting burned and what is necessary to protect the security and the well-being of Americans in a perilous world,” he said.
The proposed Office will resurrect the long-closed Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), the archive of which has been maintained by FAS for decades at https://ota.fas.org/.
If Congress needs help understanding the risks and rewards of a piece of technology, they shouldn’t have to rely solely on the sparknotes from a salesman. The rub is much simpler: Congress needs nerds.
If we set up the new OTA to do its job well, members will see it as the first stop to see what issues are lurking around the corner. They will bring their questions early. And they will keep coming back for more.
Even the best-designed policy rests on assumptions about who will staff it, how it will be funded, whether the responsible institutions have ever coordinated, and if the goals are achievable.