Mr. Rockefeller: Mr. President, let me take this opportunity to extend my deep appreciation to my good friend, Senator Reid, for his very genuine persistence in pursuing this Intelligence authorization bill. He has worked hard, both as minority leader and as majority leader, to try to make this happen.
I suspect Senator Bond and I will have some fairly strong words to say in agreement about this because I think both of us are very dismayed that despite the very considerable efforts of Vice Chairman Bond and myself--we operate very closely together--to get agreement on this bill, there is still an objection to its consideration, as I understand.
It is almost inconceivable to me we are forced to come to this point of cloture and motions to proceed and all kinds of things on a national security bill. I do not understand that, where that comes from, why the motivation, how that happens.
In any event, we are talking about the authorization bill of the Intelligence Committee for 2007; and this is already the period for the 2008 authorization bill. It is inexcusable. From 1978 through 2004-- that is a long time, 1978 to 2004--every year, there was an authorization bill, like every year there is a military authorization, Armed Services authorization bill. It happens in all major committees. The Senate had an unbroken 27-year record of having authorization bills every single year. This year and the last year--and I think the preceding year--we did not.
It is very frustrating to the Senator from Missouri and myself. This should be considered, and is considered, must-pass legislation. It is in the national interest. We are in the middle of a war on terror. Our continued military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan calls for an analysis of what is going on in the intelligence community, putting it into authorization form so it can go on to be discussed and debated on the floor.
It is a matter of life and death. But we are being blocked again from considering a bill that provides the legislative roadmap for America's intelligence programs. America is not meant to work that way. Similar to the bills I have mentioned, you have to get authorization. It is done routinely. It is very puzzling.
Now, there are 16 separate provisions under our 2007 authorization bill--we are in the period for the 2008 authorization bill--enhancing and clarifying the authority of the Director of National Intelligence. These provisions include improvements to the way we approach and manage human intelligence, which the vice chairman and I feel very strongly about, information sharing, and the ability to manage intelligence community resources. Those are words with a great deal behind them.
I, like many of my colleagues, have been increasingly concerned about the seemingly endless stream of leaks of classified information. This bill includes provisions improving the authority of the Director of National Intelligence, whom we put in charge to look at matters such as these, and the Director of the CIA to protect intelligence sources and methods and a provision to increase the penalties for unauthorized disclosure of the identity of a covert agent.
The bill also contains numerous provisions intended to improve oversight of the intelligence community. We have not been doing that in the sense that we should, and Vice Chairman Bond and I worked very closely together on this issue. He is a ferocious pursuer of intelligence wherever he can find it, and he usually manages to bring it back with him. Section 408 will establish a statutory inspector general for the intelligence community. The DNI, the Director of National Intelligence, has used his power to create an IG, but the power to do so doesn't mean a requirement to do so. So we would strengthen that position in this legislation and make it more accountable to Congress.
Section 434 of the bill strengthens accountability and oversight of the technical intelligence agencies by providing a very important matter: that the heads of the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency are to be appointed by the President, as they have been but with the advice and consent of the Senate. That has not been the case. This is an enormous fountain of intelligence, and we think they ought to be responsive to the two Intelligence Committees in the Senate and the House.
My colleagues may be surprised that the head of an agency with as central a role in the intelligence community as the National Security Agency or an agency with the enormous budget of the National Reconnaissance Office is not appointed with Senate confirmation. It is really shocking. Whether it was an oversight or not, I have no idea, but it is wrong. Senator Mikulski pointed this out. This bill would correct that.
Section 108, cosponsored in committee last year by Senators Levin and Hagel, seeks to improve the timely flow of information to congressional intelligence committees. In other words, things can't be put off for a year or 2 years, 6 months or whatever. We try to enforce our view that we are an oversight group and we intend to be treated as such and we will not be treated in a lesser way. Similar language was included in the intelligence reform legislation that passed the Senate in 2004 and in S. 4, which passed the Senate last month.
There are requirements for the provision of specific information, including a report on the implementation of the Detainee Treatment Act and a separate report on the operation of clandestine detention facilities. These are not trivial matters, as the Presiding Officer understands, and they cannot be dealt with trivially by this body, and therefore we need this bill.
These provisions are all intended to improve our ability to make decisions leading to better intelligence for the military and policymakers. There is no reason the Senate cannot pass the bill and do so quickly so that we can conference with the House and do that quickly so that we can pass the bill, the authorization bill of 2007, here in April of 2007 and proceed on.
I will close by saying: I would remind my colleagues that we are at war in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and we are at war in scores--or potentially at war in scores of countries around the world where al- Qaida is strong and growing, or groups such as the Taliban or others are growing. We can't have delay. This is an important bill. I encourage my colleagues to vote for the motion to invoke cloture and allow this process to move forward.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The Presiding Officer: The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
Mr. Bond: Mr. President, I wholeheartedly join with my new chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Rockefeller, in urging our colleagues to work constructively with us in reestablishing congressional oversight of our intelligence community.
More than 30 years ago, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was formed to address a serious problem, and that problem was previously a complete lack of congressional oversight of the U.S. intelligence operations. The attacks of September 11, 2001, and the findings of the 9/11 Commission confirmed that congressional oversight of intelligence was still seriously lacking in many areas.
With the painful lessons of 9/11 in mind and the threats laid out by Chairman Rockefeller, it is more important than ever that we perform our oversight role. Unfortunately, the last Congress failed to see an intelligence authorization bill pass the Senate, although Chairman Roberts and Vice Chairman Rockefeller tried hard to pass one. There were political reasons--neither side of the aisle was blameless in that regard--but it did not happen.
When Senator McConnell asked me to be vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee for this session of Congress, I wrote a letter with suggestions to the chairman on the priorities, and at the top of the list was passing the fiscal year 2007 Intelligence Authorization Act. Chairman Rockefeller and I strongly agreed that if we were to be able to conduct constructive oversight and make our suggestions and our requests and demands known, we would have to pass this bill. We have to pass authorization bills. We have been in agreement on that matter since the beginning.
We have a managers' amendment we will be describing in more detail which we will offer which addresses some of the serious concerns other Members and I have had for some time, and I would ask anybody who has concerns about the underlying bill to look at the managers' amendment, which I think addresses most, if not all, of the serious concerns that might be raised.
We have to reassert our oversight. Now, there may be some officials in the executive branch who prefer a lack of congressional oversight. I sure understand their positions. If I were running an agency, I wouldn't want to have Congress looking over my shoulder. But that is not how the system works. We have a responsibility to provide the funding and oversee how they are carrying out their duties, and I suggest this bill will give us the power to do so and ensure constructive accountability. One of the most significant means of providing such accountability is authorizing the appropriations for the intelligence community's national intelligence program, or NIP. For that reason, the authorization of the appropriations section in this bill may be its most important section.
Is this bill perfect? No. There is no such thing as perfect legislation--I have never seen one, and I don't expect to see one--but we all get an opportunity and will have an opportunity to vote to improve it.
The bill, as reported, is largely the same bill as last year and contains many provisions sought by intelligence community agencies to help them in their job. For example, the bill provides the Director of National Intelligence with additional authorities to improve information access across the intelligence community. So there can no longer be stovepipes of information not shared among the agencies collecting it. The DNI is given full access to human intelligence and the authority to improve access and coordination across the community.
Nearly half of the provisions contained in this bill were requested by the intelligence community for fiscal year 2006 and 2007. We are in the process of receiving the IC request for 2008, as it clears OMB. When we pass this bill, we will have addressed 23 of the 31 cleared provisions that are contained in the IC's fiscal 2008 request.
There is also included an example of where our committee wants to take some initiative. The bill creates within the office of the DNI a National Space Intelligence Center--or we may call it an office--to address intelligence collections related to our space assets or threats to the United States from space. The need for this office was emphasized recently by the successful antisatellite weapons test by the People's Republic of China. Creating this new office or center is an example of the forward-leaning oversight that corrects a present deficiency within the IC.
It is time the Senate reassert its constitutional role in oversight. Does the process have warts? As I said, of course it does, but it is a critical component of our national security.
I urge all Senators to work with us constructively to pass the bill. We look forward to hearing from both sides on the amendments they have, and maybe we will be able to clear many of them and get this bill passed. We ask that Members bring those amendments to us as soon as possible.
Again, I strongly urge and request my colleagues who recognize that intelligence is so important in this global war on terror declared on us by al-Qaida and radical Islamists--not a war we started but a war they started, that can only be countered by good intelligence--help us get to the process of improving our intelligence community and our intelligence performance.
Mr. President, I thank my colleague for his leadership, I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
The Presiding Officer: The Republican leader is recognized.
