Intelligence bill to broaden congressional oversight of executive power

Congress also passed a bill that gives it more oversight over the intelligence community. The legislation requires the president to brief more legislators on top-secret intelligence, and actions such as covert operations. The Senate unanimously passed the bill earlier this week, the House passed it yesterday and Obama is expected to sign it into law. But as FSRN’s Jacob Fenston reports, some think Congress still needs more oversight.

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The Intelligence Authorization Bill sent to President Obama was a compromise. House Democrats wanted to wrest more control from the executive branch. In an earlier version, all members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees would have had to be briefed on sensitive intelligence. Some 40 lawmakers. In the compromise, the full committees will be told only general information about spying programs.

REP. STENY HOYER: This is a major step to strengthen our national security.

Majority leader Steny Hoyer before the vote Wednesday. He said the intelligence community deserves Congress’s support, but also needs its direction:

HOYER: In a democracy, we have recognized in a bipartisan way that intelligence is critical, but in a free and open society it is also important that the
peoples’ representatives have meaningful oversight.

REP. MIKE ROGERS: This bill is a disappointment. This bill is really offensive.”

Republican Congressmember Mike Rogers, of Michigan.

ROGERS: There is more political cover in this bill than there is cover for the United States. This bill protects the Speaker of the House, but it doesn’t protect the CIA officers that all of us asked to do dangerous things around the world.

The bill gives the Government Accountability Office more power to investigate the intelligence community. It also creates a new inspector general, and declassifies budget requests. But many Republicans, like Mac Thornberry of Texas, wanted the bill to address hot-button issues like Guantanamo and Miranda rights for terror suspects.

REP. MAC THORNBERRY: I think what is particularly unfortunate is what this bill does not do. This bill does nothing to prevent Guantanamo detainees from being brought to
the mainland of the United States. This bill does nothing about foreign terrorists being told they have the right to remain silent.

The American Civil Liberties Union applauded the bill. The ACLU’s Michele Richardson says it will keep both Congress and the Executive Branch more accountable.

MICHELE RICHARDSON: It’s almost silly to think that for the past ten years the executive branch was able to pull aside a member of Congress in a hallway and in two
minutes tell them, "Hey, by the way, I wanted to tell you we have a new spying program," and let that be the beginning and the end of the conversation between the two branches. That won’t happen any more.

The administration will now have to submit written findings to Congress, providing a paper trail of who knew what, when. Richardson says that required reporting could be enough to stop controversial programs.

RICHARDSON: Warrentless wiretapping or waterboarding, any of those programs in the past probably would have been stopped, or at least would have been mitigated if there had been this type of required reporting in the past.

Richardson says while this bill is a step in the right direction--she says ideally, all intelligence committee members, and other lawmakers--should have full access to the information.

Others disagree, saying if more people know about these these programs there’s a higher risk for sensitive information to be leaked, jeopardizing national security. The Wall Street Journal opined that telling the full committees would be, quote, “the equivalent of broadcasting it over a sound truck on the National Mall.”

Mark Lowenthal, who now runs the Intelligence and Security Academy, has worked in both the CIA, where he was assistant director, and Congress, where he was staff director for the House Intelligence Committee.

MARK LOWENTHAL: I’ve worked for the Congress, and I’ve worked for the executive branch. One of the biggest lies in Washington is that Congress leaks like a sieve.
Ninety-five percent of all the leaks in Washington come out of the executive branch in every administration. Congress leaks maybe five percent of the time. So this idea that suddenly you’re putting more information at risk, I don’t buy.

It’s been almost six years since Congress passed an Intelligence Authorization bill. This one passed the House 244 to 181.

Jacob Fenston, FSRN, Washington.