Congressional Record: March 31, 2003 (Senate)
Page S4546-S4551
DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN
[...]
Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, I join my colleagues today in
mourning the passing of a giant of the 20th century--our former
colleague, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The list of his
contributions to this Nation is long and impressive: from White House
aide, to Ambassador to India and the United Nations, to Senator from
the State of New York for 24 years. Pat Moynihan left an indelible mark
on our Nation and the world.
Senator Moynihan has been described as the best thinker among
politicians since Woodrow Wilson and the best politician among thinkers
since Thomas Jefferson. Few Senators in the 241-year history of this
institution have had the intellectual impact on public policy as did
Patrick Moynihan. From tax policy to environmental protection, he was
an always constructive and frequently dominant advocate. He frequently
converted a Senate committee hearing or floor debate into what was his
first passion, a college classroom. Those of us who were fortunate to
be his students are forever in his debt.
Adele and I offer our condolences to Elizabeth and their family, and
we will recognize in our prayers the loss that the Nation and each of
us individually have suffered.
Mr. President, I add that I consider it a terrible irony that on the
eve of Senator Moynihan's death, March 26, the White House announced
the signing of amended Executive Order 12,958. This Executive order
delays the release of millions of long-classified Government documents
and grants to Government bureaucrats new authority to reclassify
information. The vast majority of these documents are more than 25
years old and were to have been automatically declassified on April 17
of this year.
I consider this ironic because Senator Moynihan was a champion of
open government. Among his many writings, including 18 books, was "The
Torment of Secrecy: The Background and Consequences of American
Security Policy." Senator Moynihan concluded that book with these
words:
A case can be made that secrecy is for losers, for people
who don't know how important information really is. The
Soviet Union realized this too late. Openness is now a
singular and singularly American advantage. We put it in
peril by poking along in the mode of an age now past. It is
time to dismantle government secrecy, this most pervasive of
cold war era regulations. It is time to begin building the
supports for the era of openness, which is already upon us.
Mr. President, we in the Senate and those in the White House should
heed Pat Moynihan's wise words. As a former chairman of the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence, I can tell you that this
administration is being excessively cautious in keeping information
from the American people. Certainly, when we are at war and facing
increased threats from international terrorist networks, we need to
keep secret that information that could pose a threat to our security
if it were to fall into the wrong hands. But that hardly seems to be
the case with most of the information that is covered by this overly
broad Executive order.
Again, I emphasize that the overwhelming bulk of this material is
more than 25 years old. Ultimately, excessive secrecy will undermine
the public's confidence in our Government and its essential
institutions. Excessive secrecy denies to the American people their
full capability to participate, evaluate, and act as they determine to
be in the national interest.
By restricting access to crucial and often conflicting information,
excessive secrecy creates the environment for what is known as
incestuous amplification. This is a military term and is defined by
Jane's Defense Weekly. Incestuous amplification is "a condition in
warfare where one only listens to those who are already in lockstep
agreement, reinforcing set beliefs and creating a situation ripe for
miscalculation."
Excessive secrecy undermines the classification value of information
which is genuinely critical to our national security. Last year, I had
the honor to cochair a joint House-Senate inquiry into the events of
September 11, 2001. Our purpose was to help the American people
understand what our Government knew about potential threats from al-
Qaida prior to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,
and how our intelligence and law enforcement agencies responded. But
even more important, our responsibility was to develop an action plan
of recommendations to mitigate a repeat of this tragedy.
Our staff reviewed more than 500,000 pages of documents. We conducted
22 hearings, 13 of them closed, 9 open to the public. We filed our
final report--the classified version--on December 20, 2002.
[[Page S4548]]
The joint inquiry has requested declassification of our final report,
as well as key documents related to the Government's knowledge of al-
Qaida and potential terrorist threats. For 100 days, congressional
staffers have been working with the Central Intelligence Agency, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other relevant agencies to get the
final report of the joint inquiry declassified. We have not yet been
successful. I am hopeful that we can present most of this material to
the public at the earliest date. We have already released, in
declassified form, our findings and our recommendations.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a copy of those
recommendations at the conclusion of my statement.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
(See Exhibit 1.)
Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, I want to read one of the
recommendations from the joint inquiry committee. It is recommendation
No. 15:
The President should review and consider amendments to the
Executive Orders, policies and procedures that govern the
national security classification of intelligence information,
in an effort to expand access to relevant information for
Federal agencies outside the Intelligence Community, for
State and local authorities, which are critical to the fight
against terrorism, and to the American public.
In addition, the President and heads of Federal agencies
should ensure that the policies and procedures to protect
against the unauthorized disclosure of classified
intelligence information are well understood, fully
implemented, and vigorously enforced.
Congress should also review the statutes, policies, and
procedures that govern the national security classification
of intelligence information and its protection from
unauthorized disclosure.
Among other matters, Congress should consider the degree to
which excessive classification has been used in the past and
the extent to which the emerging threat environment has
greatly increased the need for real-time sharing of sensitive
information.
The Director of National Intelligence, in consultation with
the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the
Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Attorney General,
should review and report to the House and Senate Intelligence
Committees on proposals for a new and more realistic approach
to the processes and structures that have governed the
designation of sensitive and classified information.
The report should include proposals to protect against the
use of the classification process as a shield to protect
agency self-interest.
The public has the right to know what its Government has done and is
doing to protect Americans and United States interests. Potential
embarrassment is not a good enough reason to keep past or current
Government materials secret.
One of the most fitting tributes we could pay to Pat Moynihan would
be a heightened recognition of the damage that excessive secrecy exacts
on our Government's credibility, and to recommit ourselves to a
Government which trusts its people to know the truth.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record an
editorial from the New York Times of March 28, 2003.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Secrecy: The Bush Byword
Add one more item to the list of things the Bush
administration has been quietly doing on the home front while
the nation is preoccupied with Iraq. This week President Bush
signed an executive order that makes it easier for government
agencies, including the White House, to keep documents
classified and out of public view.
The order does a number of things at once. It delays by
three years the release of declassified government documents
dating from 1978 or earlier. It treats all material sent to
American officials from foreign governments--no matter how
routine--as subject to classification. It expands the ability
of the Central Intelligence Agency to shield documents from
declassification. And for the first time, it gives the vice
President the power to classify information. Offering that
power to Vice President Dick Cheney, who has shown
indifference to the public's right to know what is going on
inside the executive branch, seems a particularly worrying
development.
All of this amends an order by President Bill Clinton that
actually eased the process of declassification. The
administration says the three-year delay in declassifying
documents dating to the Carter administration and earlier is
necessary because of a huge backlog of documents that must be
reviewed before decisions are made on whether to declassify
them.
Taken individually, each of these actions might raise
eyebrows for anyone who values open government. Taken
together, they are reminders that this White House is
obsessed with secrecy. President Clinton's policy was that
"when in doubt," a document was not automatically
classified. That ensured that government papers would not
easily be kept under wraps without a compelling reason. And
while President Bush keeps in place many of the mechanisms
for automatic declassification, he has raised a bar that can
only hurt the ability of historians, researchers and all
Americans to arrive at informed judgments about the actions
of the presidents and their administrations.
____
Exhibit 1
Recommendations
Since the National Security Act's establishment of the
Director of Central Intelligence and the Central Intelligence
Agency in 1947, numerous independent commissions, experts,
and legislative initiatives have examined the growth and
performance of the U.S. Intelligence Community. While those
efforts generated numerous proposals for reform over the
years, some of the most significant proposals have not been
implemented, particularly in the areas of organization and
structure. These Committees believe that the cataclysmic
events of September 11, 2001 provide a unique and compelling
mandate for strong leadership and constructive change
throughout the Intelligence Community. With that in mind, and
based on the work of this Joint Inquiry, the Committees
recommend the following:
1. Congress should amend the National Security Act of 1947
to create and sufficiently staff a statutory Director of
National Intelligence who shall be the President's principal
advisor on intelligence and shall have the full range of
management, budgetary and personnel responsibilities needed
to make the entire U.S. Intelligence Community operate as a
coherent whole. These responsibilities should include:
Establishment and enforcement of consistent priorities for
the collection, analysis, and dissemination of intelligence
throughout the Intelligence Community;
Setting of policy and the ability to move personnel between
elements of the Intelligence Community;
Review, approval, modification, and primary management and
oversight of the execution of Intelligence Community budgets;
Review, approval, modification, and primary management and
oversight of the execution of Intelligence Community
personnel and resource allocations;
Review, approval, modification, and primary management and
oversight of the execution of Intelligence Community research
and development efforts;
Review, approval, and coordination of relationships between
the Intelligence Community agencies and foreign intelligence
and law enforcement services; and
Exercise of statutory authority to insure that Intelligence
Community agencies and components fully comply with
Community-wide policy, management, spending, and
administrative guidance and priorities.
The Director of National Intelligence should be a Cabinet
level position, appointed by the President and subject to
Senate confirmation. Congress and the President should also
work to insure that the Director of National Intelligence
effectively exercises these authorities.
To insure focused and consistent Intelligence Community
leadership, Congress should require that no person may
simultaneously serve as both the Director of National
Intelligence and the Director of the Central Intelligence
Agency, or as the director of any other specific intelligence
agency.
2. Current efforts by the National Security council to
examine and revamp existing intelligence priorities should be
expedited, given the immediate need for clear guidance in
intelligence and counterterrorism efforts. The President
should take action to ensure that clear, consistent, and
current priorities are established and enforced throughout
the Intelligence Community. Once established, these
priorities should be reviewed and updated on at least an
annual basis to ensure that the allocation of Intelligence
Community resources reflects and effectively addresses the
continually evolving threat environment. Finally, the
establishment of Intelligence Community priorities, and the
justification for such priorities, should be reported to both
the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on an annual
basis.
3. The National Security Council, in conjunction with the
Director of National Intelligence, and in consultation with
the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the
Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, should prepare,
for the President's approval, a U.S. government-wide strategy
for combating terrorism, both at home and abroad, including
the growing terrorism threat posed by the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction and associate technologies. This
strategy should identify and fully engage those foreign
policy, economic, military, intelligence, and law enforcement
elements that are critical to a comprehensive blueprint for
success in the war against terrorism.
As part of that effort, the Director of National
Intelligence shall develop the Intelligence Community
component of the strategy, identifying specific programs and
budgets and including plans to address the
[[Page S4549]]
threats posed by Osama Bin Laden and al Qa'ida, Hezbollah,
Hamas, and other significant terrorist groups. Consistent
with applicable law, the strategy should effectively employ
and integrate all capabilities available to the Intelligence
Community against those threats and should encompass specific
efforts to:
Develop human sources to penetrate terrorist organization
and networks both overseas and within the United States;
Fully utilize existing and future technologies to better
exploit terrorist communications; to improve and expand the
use of data mining and other cutting edge analytical tools;
and to develop a multi-level security capability to
facilitate the timely and complete sharing of relevant
intelligence information both within the Intelligence
Community and with our appropriate federal, state, and local
authorities;
Enhance the depth and quality of domestic intelligence
collection and analysis by, for example, modernizing current
intelligence reporting formats through the use of existing
information technology to emphasize the existence and the
significance of links between new and previously acquired
information;
Maximize the effective use of covert action in
counterterrorist efforts;
Develop programs to deal with financial support for
international terrorism; and
Facilitate the ability of CIA paramilitary units and
military special operations forces to conduct joint
operations against terrorist targets.
4. The position of National Intelligence Officer for
Terrorism should be created on the National Intelligence and
a highly qualified individual appointed to prepare
intelligence estimates on terrorism for the use of Congress
and policymakers in the Executive Branch and to assist the
Intelligence Community in developing a program for strategic
analysis and assessments.
5. Congress and the Administration should ensure the full
development within the Department of Homeland Security of an
effective all-source terrorism information fusion center that
will dramatically improve the focus and quality of
counterterrorism analysis and facilitate the timely
dissemination of relevant intelligence information, both
within and beyond the boundaries of the Intelligence
Community. Congress and the Administration should ensure that
this fusion center has all the authority and the resources
needed to:
Have full and timely access to all counterterrorism-related
intelligence information, including "raw" supporting data
as needed;
Have the ability to participate fully in the existing
requirements process for tasking the Intelligence Community
to gather information on foreign individuals, entities and
threats;
Integrate such information in order to identify and assess
the nature and scope of terrorist threats to the United
States in light of actual and potential vulnerabilities;
Implement and fully utilize data mining and other advanced
analytical tools, consistent with applicable law;
Retain a permanent staff of experienced and highly skilled
analysts, supplemented on a regular basis by personnel on
"joint tours" from the various Intelligence Community
agencies;
Institute a reporting mechanism that enables analysts at
all the intelligence and law enforcement agencies to post
lead information for use by analysts at other agencies
without waiting for dissemination of a formal report;
Maintain excellence and creativity in staff analytic skills
through regular use of analysis and language training
programs; and
Establish and sustain effective channels for the exchange
of counterterrorism-related information with federal agencies
outside the Intelligence Community as well as with state and
local authorities.
6. Given the FBI's history of repeated shortcomings within
its current responsibility for domestic intelligence, and in
the face of grave and immediate threats to our homeland, the
FBI should strengthen and improve its domestic capability as
fully and expeditiously as possible by immediately
instituting measures to:
Strengthen counterterrorism as a national FBI program by
clearly designating national counterterrorism priorities and
enforcing field office adherence to those priorities;
Establish and sustain independent career tracks within the
FBI that recognize and provide incentives for demonstrated
skills and performance of counterterrorism agents and
analysts;
Significantly improve strategic analytical capabilities by
assuring the qualification, training, and independence of
analysts, coupled with sufficient access to necessary
information and resources;
Establish a strong reports officer cadre at FBI
Headquarters and field offices to facilitate timely
dissemination of intelligence from agents and to analysts
within the FBI and other agencies within the Intelligence
Community;
Implement training for agents in the effective use of
analysts and analysis in their work;
Expand and sustain the recruitment of agents and analysts
with the linguistic skills needed in counterterrorism
efforts;
Increase substantially efforts to penetrate terrorist
organizations operating in the United States through all
available means of collection;
Improve the national security law training of FBI
personnel;
Implement mechanisms to maximize the exchange of
counterterrorism-related information between the FBI and
other federal, state and local agencies; and
Finally solve the FBI's persistent and incapacitating
information technology problems.
7. Congress and the Administration should carefully
consider how best to structure and manage U.S. domestic
intelligence responsibilities. Congress should review the
scope of domestic intelligence authorities to determine their
adequacy in pursuing counterterrorism at home and ensuring
the protection of privacy and other rights guaranteed under
the Constitution. This review should include, for example,
such questions as whether the range of persons subject to
searches and surveillances authorized under the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) should be expanded.
Based on their oversight responsibilities, the Intelligence
and Judiciary Committees of the Congress, as appropriate,
should consider promptly, in consultation with the
Administration, whether the FBI should continue to perform
the domestic intelligence functions of the United States
Government or whether legislation is necessary to remedy this
problem, including the possibility of creating a new agency
to perform those functions.
Congress should require that the new Director of National
Intelligence, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of the
Department of Homeland Security report to the President and
the Congress on a date certain concerning:
The FBI's progress since September 11, 2001 in implementing
the reforms required to conduct an effective domestic
intelligence program, including the measures recommended
above;
The experience of other democratic nations in organizing
the conduct of domestic intelligence;
The specific manner in which a new domestic intelligence
service could be established in the United States,
recognizing the need to enhance national security while fully
protecting civil liberties; and
Their recommendations on how to best fulfill the nation's
need for an effective domestic intelligence capability,
including necessary legislation.
8. The Attorney General and the Director of the FBI should
take action necessary to ensure that:
The Office of Intelligence Policy and Review and other
Department of Justice components provide in-depth training to
the FBI and other members of the Intelligence Community
regarding the use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act (FISA) to address terrorist threats to the United States;
The FBI disseminates results of searches and surveillances
authorized under FISA to appropriate personnel with the FBI
and the intelligence Community on a timely basis so they may
be used for analysis and operations that address terrorist
threats to the United States.
The FBI develops and implements a plan to use authorities
provided by FISA to assess the threat of international
terrorist groups within the United States fully, including
the extent to which such groups are funded or otherwise
supported by foreign governments.
9. The House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary
Committees should continue to examine the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act and its implementation
thoroughly, particularly with respect to changes made as a
result of the USA PATRIOT Act and the subsequent decision of
the United States Foreign Intelligence Court of Review, to
determine whether its provisions adequately address present
and emerging terrorist threats to the United States.
Legislation should be proposed by those Committees to remedy
any deficiencies identified as a result of that review.
10. The Director of the National Security Agency should
present to the Director of National Intelligence and the
Secretary of Defense by June 30, 2003, and report to the
House and Senate Intelligence Committees, a detailed plan
that:
Describes solutions for the technological challenges for
signals intelligence;
Requires a review, on a quarterly basis, of the goals,
products to be delivered, Funding levels and schedules for
every technology development program;
Ensures strict accounting for program expenditures;
Within their jurisdiction as established by current law,
makes NSA a full collaborating partner with the Central
Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation
in the war on terrorism, including fully integrating the
collection and analytic capabilities of NSA, CIA, and the
FBI; and
Makes recommendations for legislation needed to facilitate
their goals.
In evaluating the plan, the Committees should also consider
issues pertaining to whether civilians should be appointed to
the position of Director of the National Security Agency and
whether the term of service for the position should be longer
than it has been in the recent past.
11. Recognizing that the Intelligence Community's employees
remain its greatest resource, the Director of National
Intelligence should require that measures be implemented to
greatly enhance the recruitment and development of a
workforce with the intelligence skills and expertise needed
for success in counterterrorist efforts, including:
The agencies of the Intelligence Community should act
promptly to expand and improve counterterrorism training
programs within the Community, insuring coverage of
[[Page S4550]]
such critical areas as information sharing among law
enforcement and intelligence personnel; language
capabilities; the use of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act; and watchlisting;
The Intelligence Community should build on the provisions
of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003
regarding the development of language capabilities, including
the Act's requirement for a report on the feasibility of
establishing a Civilian Linguist Reserve Corps, and implement
expeditiously measures to identify and recruit linguists
outside the Community whose abilities are relevant to the
needs of counterterrorism;
The existing Intelligence Community Reserve Corps should be
expanded to ensure the use of relevant personnel and
expertise from outside the Community as special needs arise;
Congress should consider enacting legislation, modeled on
the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, to instill the concept of
"jointness" through the Intelligence Community. By
emphasizing such things as joint education, a joint career
specialty, increased authority for regional commanders, and
joint exercises, that Act greatly enhanced the joint
warfighting capabilities of the individual military services.
Legislation to instill similar concepts throughout the
Intelligence Community could help improve management of
Community resources and priorities and insure a far more
effective "team" effort by all the intelligence agencies.
The Director of National Intelligence should require more
extensive use of "joint tours" for intelligence and
appropriate law enforcement personnel to broaden their
experience and help bridge existing organizational and
cultural divides through service in other agencies. These
joint tours should include not only service at Intelligence
Community agencies, but also service in those agencies that
are users or consumers of intelligence products. Serious
incentives for joint service should be established throughout
the Intelligence Community and personnel should be rewarded
for joint service with career advancement credit at
individual agencies. The Director of National Intelligence
should also require Intelligence Community agencies to
participate in joint exercises;
Congress should expand and improve existing educational
grant programs focused on intelligence-related fields,
similar to military scholarship programs and others that
provide financial assistance in return for a committee to
serve in the Intelligence Community; and
The Intelligence Community should enhance recruitment of a
more ethnically and culturally diverse workforce and devised
a strategy to capitalize upon the unique cultural and
linguistic capabilities of first-generation Americans, a
strategy designed to utilize their skills to the greatest
practical effect while recognizing the potential
counterintelligence challenges such hiring decisions might
pose.
12. Steps should be taken to increase and ensure the
greatest return on this nation's substantial investment in
intelligence, including:
The President should submit budget recommendations, and
Congress should enact budget authority, for sustained, long-
term investment in counterterrorism capabilities that avoid
dependence on repeated stop-gap supplemental appropriations;
In making such budget recommendations, the President should
provide for the consideration of a separate classified
Intelligence Community budget;
Long-term counterterrorism investment should be accompanied
by sufficient flexibility, subject to congressional
oversight, to enable the Intelligence Community to rapidly
respond to altered or unanticipated needs;
The Director of National Intelligence should insure that
Intelligence Community budgeting practices and procedures are
revised to better identify the levels and nature of
counterterrorism funding within the Community;
Counterterrorism funding should be allocated in accordance
with the program requirements of the national
counterterrorism strategy; and
Due consideration should be given to directing an outside
agency or entity to conduct a thorough and rigorous cost-
benefit analysis of the resources spent on intelligence.
13. The State Department, in consultation with the
Department of Justice, should review and report to the
President and the Congress by June 30, 2003 on the extent to
which revisions in bilateral and multilateral agreements,
including extradition and mutual assistance treaties, would
strengthen U.S. counterterrorism efforts. The review should
address the degree to which current categories of
extraditable offenses should be expanded to cover offenses,
such as visa and immigration fraud, which may be particularly
useful against terrorists and those who support them.
14. Recognizing the importance of intelligence in this
nation's struggle against terrorism, Congress should maintain
vigorous, informed, and constructive oversight of the
Intelligence Community. To best achieve that goal, the
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United
States should study and make recommendations, concerning how
Congress may improve its oversight of the Intelligence
Community, including consideration of such areas as:
Changes in the budgetary process;
Changes in the rules regarding membership on the oversight
committees;
Whether oversight responsibility should be vested in a
joint House-Senate Committee or, as currently exists, in
separate Committees in each house;
The extent to which classification decisions impair
congressional oversight; and
How Congressional oversight can best contribute to the
continuing need of the Intelligence Community to evolve and
adapt to changes in the subject matter of intelligence and
the needs of policy makers.
15. The President should review and consider amendments to
the Executive Orders, policies and procedures that govern the
national security classification of intelligence information,
in an effort to expand access to relevant information for
federal agencies outside the Intelligence Community, for
state and local authorities, which are critical to the fight
against terrorism, and for the American public. In addition,
the President and the heads of federal agencies should ensure
that the policies and procedures to protect against the
unauthorized disclosure of classified intelligence
information are well understood, fully implemented and
vigorously enforced.
Congress should also review the statues, policies and
procedures that govern the national security classification
of intelligence information and its protection from
unauthorized disclosure. Among other matters, Congress should
consider the degree to which excessive classification has
been used in the past and the extent to which the emerging
threat environment has greatly increased the need for real-
time sharing of sensitive information. The Director of
National Intelligence, in consultation with the Secretary of
Defense, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland
Security, and the Attorney General, should review and report
to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on proposals
for a new and more realistic approach to the processes and
structures that have governed the designation of sensitive
and classified information. The report should include
proposals to protect against the use of the classification
process as a shield to protect agency self-interest.
16. Assured standards of accountability are critical to
developing the personal responsibility, urgency, and
diligence which our counterterrorism responsibility requires.
Given the absence of any substantial efforts within the
Intelligence Community to impose accountability in relation
to the events of September 11, 2001, the Director of Central
Intelligence and the heads of Intelligence Community agencies
should require that measures designed to ensure
accountability are implemented throughout the Community.
To underscore the need for accountability:
The Director of Central Intelligence should report to the
House and Senate Intelligence Committee no later than June
30, 2003 as to the steps taken to implement a system of
accountability throughout the Intelligence Community, to
include processes for identifying poor performance and
affixing responsibility for it, and for recognizing and
rewarding excellence in performance.
As part of the confirmation process for Intelligence
Community officials, Congress should require from those
officials an affirmative commitment to the implementation and
use of strong accountability mechanisms throughout the
Intelligence Community; and
The Inspectors General at the Central Intelligence Agency,
the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, and the
Department of State should review the factual findings and
the record of this Inquiry and conduct investigations and
reviews as necessary to determine whether and to what extent
personnel at all levels should be held accountable for any
omission, commission, or failure to meet professional
standards in regard to the identification, prevention, or
disruption of terrorist attacks, including the events of
September 11, 2001. These reviews should also address those
individuals who performed in a stellar or exceptional manner,
and the degree to which the quality of their performance was
rewarded or otherwise impacted their careers. Based on those
investigations and reviews, agency heads should take
appropriate disciplinary and other action and the President
and the House and Senate Intelligence Committees should be
advised of such action.
17. The Administration should review and report to the
House and Senate Intelligence Committees by June 30, 2003
regarding what progress has been made in reducing the
inappropriate and obsolete barriers among intelligence and
law enforcement agencies engaged in counterterrorism, what
remains to be done to reduce those barriers, and what
legislative actions may be advisable in that regard. In
particular, this report should address what steps are being
taken to insure that perceptions within the Intelligence
Community about the scope and limits of current law and
policy with respect to restrictions on collection and
information sharing are, in fact, accurate and well-founded.
18. Congress and the Administration should ensure the full
development of a national watchlist center that will be
responsible for coordinating and integrating all terrorist-
related watchlist systems; promoting awareness and use of the
center by all relevant government agencies and elements of
the private sector; and ensuring a consistent and
comprehensive flow of terrorist names into the center from
all relevant points of collection.
19. The Intelligence Community, and particularly the FBI
and the CIA, should aggressively address the possibility that
foreign
[[Page S4551]]
governments are providing support to or are involved in
terrorist activity targeting the United States and interests.
State-sponsored terrorism substantially increases the
likelihood of successful and more lethal attacks within the
United States. This issue must be addressed from a national
standpoint and should not be limited in focus by the
geographical and factual boundaries of individual cases. The
FBI and CIA should aggressively and thoroughly pursue related
matters developed through this Joint Inquiry that have been
referred to them for further investigation by these
Committees.
The Intelligence Community should fully inform the House
and Senate Intelligence Committees of significant
developments in these efforts, through regular reports and
additional communications as necessary, and the Committee
should, in turn, exercise vigorous and continuing oversight
of the Community's work in this critically important area.
Mr. GRAHAM of Florida. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a
quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
[...]
