Congressional Record: October 4, 2004 (Senate)
Page S10296-S10358
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE REFORM ACT OF 2004
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now
resume consideration of S. 2845, which the clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:
A bill (S. 2845) to reform the intelligence community and
the intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the
United States Government, and for other purposes.
[...]
Amendment No. 3903
Mr. ROCKEFELLER. Madam President, I rise today in opposition to
amendment No. 3903, offered by Senator Ted Stevens. This amendment
strikes the provision in the bill that calls for the disclosure of the
aggregate amount of funding requested, authorized, and appropriated for
the national intelligence program.
There is one of the fundamental reforms recommended by the 9/11
Commission and one that I have long supported.
The proponents of this amendment have made two central arguments.
First, they suggest we are rushing into this decision without fully
understanding the implications.
Second, they suggest that revealing the amount of overall spending
could somehow damage our national security.
Let us address the first argument, that we are rushing into this
decision. I must point out this is not a new debate. The Congress has
been considering this particular question for at least a decade. In
1993, the Senate adopted an amendment calling for the disclosure of the
aggregate amount of intelligence spending.
Let me repeat that the Senate endorsed the idea 11 years ago.
That effort and a subsequent attempt to make the top line public,
which is what we are talking about--the total amount of the
intelligence budget--in 1997 had the support of Senators Specter,
Boren, and DeConcini, all of whom served as chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee. We had a full and complete debate in 1993, and
this issue has been reviewed, debated, and discussed numerous times in
the intervening years. The argument that we are being rushed into this
decision is an excuse being used to stop this important change.
Regarding the second argument, that disclosing the overall budget
will damage our national security, I cannot cite a better source than
the Deputy Director of the CIA John McLaughlin who testified last month
that this important step would reinforce responsibility and
accountability, not only for those receiving the money but for the
Congress as well. In addition, Robert Gates and John Deutch, former
Directors of Central Intelligence, have said that releasing the number
would not damage national security.
Arguing that disclosure of the total spending for national
intelligence would compromise our security and provide enemies with
useful information about our intelligence programs ignores the reality
of the current situation. While the number is in fact classified, it is
widely reported in the press. It also was officially declassified for
fiscal years 1997 and 1998 by former DCI Tenet.
Some have argued that the total amount is not the problem; it is the
budget trends that need to be protected. Again, current practice
undermines this argument. Every year when we do the intelligence
authorization bill, the chairmen and vice chairmen in both Houses come
to the floor and talk about whether we have increased or decreased the
budget that year. Often those statements include specific percentage
increases. These discussions and trends disclose nothing about the
specific intelligence programs being funded.
The idea that our enemies can somehow determine something about our
intelligence capability by knowing the total of what we spend is simply
not accurate. Year-to-year changes in any specific program will not
move the overall total number enough to give an adversary any
indication of how that money is being spent.
In other sensitive national security areas, we disclose much more
information without doing damage. We currently disclose an enormous
amount of detail about our defense budget and military capabilities.
The amount of money we spend on personnel, acquisition, and research
and development is unclassified. Also available are the amounts for
specific weapons systems, such as tanks, aircraft, and missile defense.
Even much of the spending in the defense budget for specific tactical
intelligence programs is unclassified currently.
The disclosure of the total of the national intelligence budget is
simply not an academic debate. This step is critical to many of the
other reforms in
[[Page S10325]]
this bill which our floor managers are trying so hard to get done, and
to some of the proposed congressional reforms we will be discussing
later this week. Without a separate unclassified budget number, the
fund for the National Intelligence Program will still need to be
included in the Defense Department budget. This arrangement will hinder
effective control by the national intelligence director and will
restrict our ability to organize in a way to streamline congressional
oversight, which is what the 9/11 Commission and our floor managers are
seeking in their legislation.
To conclude, it will be virtually impossible to have a separate
appropriations for intelligence without the declassified intelligence
budget. If we do not take this step and make this number public, we are
seriously undermining the reforms in this bill.
I urge my colleagues to oppose the Stevens amendment and support this
key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission.
I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.
Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I thank the Senator from West Virginia
for his very eloquent presentation.
As the Senator indicated, the intelligence budget's aggregate number
has been made public twice by the DCI. So this is not unprecedented.
But if the amendment offered by the Senator from Alaska were adopted,
let there be no mistake of what the effect would be. The effect would
be that the funding for the National Intelligence Program would still
be funded through Department of Defense.
The whole purpose of this bill is to create a national intelligence
director with significant authority, and the first and perhaps most
significant of those authorities is the control of the budget. The only
way you can give the NID true control over the budget is if you have a
separate account that the NID controls. And we need to do that by
declassifying the top level number.
We did not go as far as the 9/11 Commission recommended. The 9/11
Commission recommended declassifying the top lines of all the agencies'
budgets within the National Intelligence Program. We did not adopt that
approach. Instead, we are only declassifying the aggregate number for
the entire national intelligence budget, a number I note is often
estimated and reported in the newspapers today.
But the point I want to make to supplement the remarks of the Senator
from West Virginia is if we do not do this, if we adopt the amendment
offered by the Senator from Alaska, we will undermine a key reform in
the bill because the intelligence budget is so big that if it is not
going to be declassified, it has to go through the Department of
Defense. There is no other agency or department that is big enough to
conceal the total amount of the budget.
This is going to be an important vote which is coming up this
afternoon.
[...]
Mr. STEVENS. Madam President, I apologize for not being here earlier.
I thank the managers of the bill, Senator Collins and Senator
Lieberman, and their staffs for the work that has been done over the
weekend, which we will be hearing about soon, trying to meet us halfway
in terms of some of the objections we have raised to the bill.
We will soon vote on amendment No. 3903, which the Senator from Maine
has just discussed, declassification responsibility. This is an
enormous step to take mainly because of the absolute lobbying and
pressure from two people from the 9/11 Commission. I have talked to
other members on the Commission who were not so keen about
declassification of the entire intelligence budget other than Mr.
Hamilton and Mr. Kean.
Clearly, it is a massive step. From President Truman to President
Bush, every President of the United States has said do not declassify
the top line of our budget. We have voted in the Senate many times
since I have been in the Senate as Members have tried to do this, and
we have uniformly turned down such a proposal.
Now it is in a bill for the first time. We must take it out. It
requires 51 votes to take out. In the past, it took 51 votes to pass.
We are in a different position now than we were before. Very clearly,
because of the scope of this bill, we are doing something even more
expansive than amendments that came before the Senate before.
Again, I call the attention of the Senators who will vote to the
scope of the definition of national intelligence under this bill. It is
a sweeping definition.
I ask that page 6, beginning on line 19, be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
(6) The term ``National Intelligence Program''--
(A)(i) refers to all national intelligence programs,
projects, and activities of the elements of the intelligence
community;
(ii) includes all programs, projects, and activities
(whether or not pertaining to national intelligence) of the
National Intelligence Authority, the Central Intelligence
Agency, the National Security Agency, the National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance
Office, the Office of Intelligence of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, and the Office of Information analysis of the
Department of Homeland Security; and
(ii) includes any other program, project, or activity of a
department, agency, or element of the United States
Government relating to national intelligence unless the
National Intelligence Director and the head of the
department, agency, or element concerned determine otherwise;
but
(B) except as provided in subparagraph (A)(ii), does not
refer to any program, project, or activity of the military
departments, including any program, project, or activity of
the Defense Intelligence Agency that is not part of the
National Foreign Intelligence Program as of the date of the
enactment of this Act, to acquire intelligence principally
for the planning and conduct of joint or tactical military
operations by the United States Armed Forces.
Mr. STEVENS. My point is this: Included in intelligence are the top
secret plans of this country. They are the planning for future devices
and concepts that deal with interception of information. They deal with
the ability to identify individuals. They deal with so many classified
areas that I may be violating some rules by mentioning the two I
mentioned.
All the money we put in this bill, hide in the intelligence bill, to
stop anyone from knowing about it, has to be disclosed under this
direction, to include everything, any program, project, or activity of
any one of these agencies.
I plead with Members to think about classification. This is not
routine classification of who is an employee of the CIA. That is bad
enough, come to think of it. These activities are so far reaching, and
with so many agencies, including the defense agency that deals with
research activities. It has projects it is working on, which are so far
out that may prove to be viable. They are part of the intelligence
budget. They are classified. They are down in the black portion of the
bill and are kept classified because we do not want anyone to know what
we are researching and what we are developing. It would be included in
this.
No amendment we ever looked at before would have done that, but
because of the definition of intelligence in this bill it becomes all
inclusive and there is no alternative.
Sometimes I think maybe I am just not able to communicate totally
what I am thinking about this bill. It is far reaching to the point of
having the ability to destroy intelligence capability to plan for the
future.
There is no question about the right to know everything--except the
secrets of the country. Aren't we allowed to
[[Page S10326]]
have some secrets? Do we have to disclose a number that encompasses the
financing of secret activities, some so classified they are not even
top secret; they are code word? You have to be cleared for the word.
You have to be totally cleared. And there are very few people cleared
for these activities. I don't think there are many people in the Senate
who are cleared for code word activities.
Should we tell them what we are spending for code word activities? We
do not even tell them the word--but we will have to print in the Record
now, disclose in the top line of the intelligence budget, all of those
activities.
I will speak later about it. Again, I implore the managers of the
bill to think twice about this precedent we would be setting, reversing
the votes in the Senate--reversing because now it requires 51 votes to
take it out. In the past, it was 51 votes to get it passed.
This has shifted the burden from the intelligence people who want to
protect the Intelligence Committee to the people who do not understand
it, do not wish to really understand it. I am not being accusatory of
my two friends. They have worked hard and are trying to understand, but
some of us have lived a lifetime in trying to understand it. This
amendment has to pass.
If we want to disclose the budget to the extent that it is not
classified in terms of top secret or above, that is another matter. We
can disclose a portion of the budget that is in the secret category,
but when we get to top secret and above--no. If we include that, count
me out. I cannot believe we would do that. I hope the Senator will
listen to us later.
Mr. BURNS. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. STEVENS. I am delighted to yield.
Mr. BURNS. As I looked at this amendment and thought of making
available the information of how much we spend on intelligence--not
only are there operations we have to take into consideration, lives of
people are on the line. We make them more vulnerable every day in their
work, gathering intelligence.
Mr. STEVENS. The Senator is absolutely right.
Mr. BURNS. And I ask the Senator, has anyone determined what it does
to the human assets, the people? They are the best we have. Are they
willing to work for this agency to get the best intelligence we need?
Mr. STEVENS. The problem is, once we make available this top line
they wish to disclose and then start through the budget on what you can
find easily, pretty soon you come down to the portion of the budget
that is in the classified sector, and then you start to pick it
apart. You know what will happen. It will keep getting question after
question after question.
But the people who risk their lives, who are foreign nationals, are
paid from this budget. We are really going to put in there how much we
are paying people around the world to spy for us? Are we naive enough
to think we are not paying people? It would be in there. Unless the
Senator disagrees with me, there is one little exception: unless
someone decides otherwise. I am not sure what that means because it
only refers to that one section. It is related to national
intelligence.
Now, national intelligence is intelligence that is covered by section
5. It does not refer to counterintelligence or law enforcement
activities conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It does
not say it does not cover counterintelligence or activities of the CIA
or the DIA, but it does for the FBI.
I think the problem is, the definitions of these programs are so
specific now to this bill. But this one covers the disclosure of the
total amount. That is what I object to.
Mr. BURNS. Madam President, I have drawn the conclusion that
basically this destroys the network. And we wonder why we do not have
human resources on the ground in some areas in the world and, yes, even
in our own country. I will tell you, if this is disclosed, this will be
one of the main reasons that we will have.
Mr. STEVENS. Let me tell the Senator one thing before I quit. I
remember one morning I woke up and the New York Times had a picture of
the Predator on the front page, and it disclosed that it was capable of
carrying the Hellfire missile. If there was anything that was totally
classified at that time, that was it, and there it was out there on the
front page. Do you know what. About a week later, we missed several
people in Afghanistan on whom we were trying to use the Hellfire
missile. They knew it was already there. They knew it was armed by that
time. Before that, it had not been armed and before that no one had the
capability to arm it. But we developed a way to arm it, and there it
was on the front page of the New York Times.
Now, this concept of leakage of the intelligence community's
activities starts from the top line. I do not understand why we should
reverse the history of this Senate. The Senate has never voted to
disclose the intelligence budget--never.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I have great respect for the Senator
from Alaska. He has always contributed to our country in so many
different ways. I have great respect for his long experience in matters
of defense and intelligence. I assure him of this.
He raised the question about whether the Senator from Maine and I
understand what we are doing. Let me assure him, we understand. We have
spent a lot of time studying this issue. The 9/11 Commission has spent
a lot of time studying this issue. We disagree with the amendment of
the Senator from Alaska. We have a difference of conclusion about
policy, but we understand exactly what we are doing.
What we are doing is saying that the billions of dollars that are
spent every year on intelligence is the people's money. Unless there is
a national security reason not to tell them what the bottom line is we
are spending, they have a right to know. One of the consequences of
that is that there will be more accountability.
Acting Director of Central Intelligence John McLaughlin said to our
committee:
I think it would make some sense to declassify the overall
number of the foreign intelligence program. It would
reenforce responsibility and accountability.
This is nobody who was pulled in out of nowhere to run the CIA. He
spent his entire career, more than 30 years, in intelligence.
Mr. STEVENS. Will the Senator yield?
Mr. LIEBERMAN. No. I would like to----
Mr. STEVENS. But you are using foreign intelligence. This is national
intelligence. He talked about foreign intelligence.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Excuse me, he talked about national intelligence
before our committee. It is the bottom line, a gross number.
The colloquy between the Senator from Montana and the Senator from
Alaska was interesting but bore no relevance whatsoever to the proposal
in our bill. Do you think we would make this recommendation if we
thought it would compromise the security of anybody in our intelligence
community?
Let me ask you this: How would it? It is the bottom line. It is not
even the 15 constituent agencies of the intelligence community. This
does not compromise anybody's security any more than the Defense
Department budget compromises the security of our soldiers, or the DEA
budget, which is public, Drug Enforcement Agency, compromises the
security of any of our drug enforcement agents, or the FBI budget.
People in DEA and FBI are involved in very dangerous work.
Anyway, it is only the bottom line.
[...]
Amendment No. 3903, as modified
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There will now be 2 minutes of debate equally
divided on the Stevens amendment No. 3903.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, could we have order?
Determining classification is the responsibility and duty of the
chief executive of the United States, the President, who is also
Commander in Chief. Presidents Truman through Bush has determined that
the overall intelligence budget top-line figure is, and shall remain,
classified, and I believe we should not overrule that judgment.
The foundation of an effective intelligence capability, is secrecy.
Secrecy protects not only the information that we collect, but also the
brave people that put themselves at risk to do the collection of it. We
are an open and a free society that generally abhors secret dealings by
our Government. But in the case of intelligence collection and
analysis, secrecy, is absolutely necessary.
Some of my colleagues argue that the American people have a right to
know how much of their money is being spent to defend their Nation's
security through intelligence-gathering operations. I assert today
that, through its elected officials, the public interests are being
effectively served.
Some argue that disclosing the total budget amount will instill
public confidence and enable the American people to know what portion
of the Federal budget is dedicated to intelligence activities. This
bill recommends that the overall intelligence budget should no longer
remain classified. I believe that the total budget figure is of no use
to anyone but to those who wish to do us harm.
For example, what do the numbers tell our adversaries or potential
adversaries in the world? In any given year, perhaps, not a great deal.
But while watching the changes in the budget over time, and using
information gathered by their own intelligence activities,
sophisticated analysts can indeed learn a great deal.
Trend analysis, as you know, is a technique that our own analysts use
to make predictions and to reach conclusions. There are hostile foreign
intelligence agencies all over the world that are focused solely on
gathering every bit of information that they can about our own
intelligence-gathering operations and our capabilities. Their ultimate
goal is to exploit weaknesses and to deny access and to deceive our own
intelligence collectors. Denial and deception is already a serious
concern for the intelligence community, and providing our enemies or
potential enemies with any insight as to what we spend on intelligence
will only make it worse, not better.
No other nation, friend, or ally, reveals the amount that it spends
on intelligence. It would set a terrible, dangerous precedent, because
right after the aggregate budget was revealed, that number doesn't say
much and so the calls would be quickly for more information.
This is a slippery slope. Reveal the first number and it will be just
a matter of minutes before there will be a call to reveal more
information.
I want to remind my colleagues that we voted on a similar measure in
1997--the amendment failed by a vote of 56-43. There have also been
five votes in the House--all of which have failed. Let us not change
our records now.
The President of the United States and every President since Harry
Truman has requested that the Senate not declassify the amount our
country spends on intelligence. I believe we should listen to what he
tells us. I have amended my original amendment to request that only a
study be done on this important issue. That the national intelligence
director have the time to investigate this important topic and let
[[Page S10330]]
him, with the President, decide what the safety needs of our Nation are
to be.
Based on the recommendations of our colleagues here in the past, I
hope you will accept this change and support this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I rise respectfully to oppose the amendment of the
Senator from Alaska. The 9/11 Commission recommended that we disclose
not only the bottom line of what we spend on intelligence but the
budgets of each of the 15 constituent agencies.
The Governmental Affairs Committee decided that we could respond and
respect the public's right to know by putting out the bottom line
number. That means X billion dollars. No details about what goes to
what agency or certainly not what goes to what program or what
personnel. But we were not ready to order the disclosure of the
intelligence agency budget specifically, and we asked the national
intelligence director to come back to us with a study.
That is a good balance. The Senator from Alaska would prohibit public
disclosures of the bottom line. The public has a right to know at least
that. One thing they might conclude from that is that we are not
spending enough on intelligence in the war on terrorism as compared to
other things we are spending on.
We worked hard on this. It is balanced. It respects the right to
know. The families of people lost on 9/11 oppose this amendment, as I
do.
I move to table and I ask for the yeas and nays.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I would also point out that if we do not
disclose the top line, the result is the intelligence budget is still
funded through the Department of Defense. So if we are trying to give
the national intelligence director real budget authority, we have to
disclose that top line. We are not disclosing the top line of the CIA,
the DIA, the NSA; it is only the aggregate figure for the entire
national intelligence budget. Otherwise we are not reforming the
process. The funding will have to go through the Department of Defense.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I send a modification to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is so modified.
The amendment (No. 3903), as modified, is as follows:
amendment no. 3903 as modified
On page 115, strike lines 15 through 25 and insert the
following:
(a) Study on Disclosure of Aggregate Amount of
Appropriations Requested.--The National Intelligence Director
shall conduct a study to assess the advisability of
disclosing to the public the aggregate amount of
appropriations requested in the budget of the President for
each fiscal year for the National Intelligence Program.
On page 116, line 1, strike ``(c)'' and insert ``(b)''.
On page 116, strike lines 21 through 23, and insert the
following:
(c) Report.--Not later than 180 days after the effective
date of this section, the National Intelligence Director
shall submit to Congress a report on the results of the
studies carried out under subsections (a) and (b).
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I move to table the amendment and ask for the yeas and
nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. I announce that the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe)
is necessarily absent.
I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from
Oklahoma (Mr. Inhofe) would vote ``aye.''
Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Akaka), the
Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Corzine), the Senator from North Carolina
(Mr. Edwards), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Graham), the Senator from
South Carolina (Mr. Hollings), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr.
Kennedy), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) are
necessarily absent.
The result was announced--yeas 55, nays 37, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 196 Leg.]
YEAS--55
Alexander
Baucus
Bayh
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Breaux
Cantwell
Carper
Chafee
Clinton
Coleman
Collins
Cornyn
Daschle
Dayton
DeWine
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Ensign
Feingold
Feinstein
Graham (SC)
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Harkin
Jeffords
Johnson
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Lott
McCain
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Santorum
Sarbanes
Schumer
Snowe
Specter
Stabenow
Sununu
Voinovich
Wyden
NAYS--37
Allard
Allen
Bennett
Bond
Brownback
Bunning
Burns
Byrd
Campbell
Chambliss
Cochran
Conrad
Craig
Crapo
Dole
Domenici
Enzi
Fitzgerald
Frist
Hatch
Hutchison
Inouye
Kyl
Lugar
McConnell
Miller
Murkowski
Nelson (NE)
Nickles
Roberts
Sessions
Shelby
Smith
Stevens
Talent
Thomas
Warner
NOT VOTING--8
Akaka
Corzine
Edwards
Graham (FL)
Hollings
Inhofe
Kennedy
Kerry
The motion was agreed to.
Mr. STEVENS. Parliamentary inquiry.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cornyn). The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. STEVENS. If I give notice of reconsideration of that vote, what
happens under the cloture vote as set for tomorrow?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. If the vote is reconsidered, the amendment
will be pending.
Mr. STEVENS. I give notice of reconsideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I regret seriously I was unable to make
my statement in full. I was not notified of this time limit when I left
on Friday. I came back and found it. The statement of my amendment
there was not a statement of my amendment. It was a statement in
opposition to my amendment. I was unable to tell the Senate that the
statement of policy of the President of the United States supports this
amendment. I think the Senate should reconsider tomorrow and think
again about this amendment.
Is there a time limit on me right now?
Mr. LIEBERMAN addressed the Chair.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I have the floor. Is there a time limit?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair advises the Senator that he cannot
move to reconsider as he did not vote on the prevailing side.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I move to reconsider the vote. I was on the prevailing
side.
Ms. COLLINS. I move to lay that motion on the table.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question then is on agreeing to the motion
to table.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, is that debatable?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is not debatable.
The question is on agreeing to the motion to table.
The motion is agreed to.
Mr. STEVENS. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion to reconsider is laid upon the
table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
[...]
