Intelligence Authorization

On December 13, 2007, the House passed the final Intelligence Authorization for Fiscal Year 2008, H.R. 2082.  The bill authorizes the largest amount for intelligence programs ever authorized - containing numerous provisions to improve the effectiveness of intelligence programs and agencies. It also includes an amendment that extends to U.S. intelligence agencies and personnel the current prohibitions in the Army Field Manual against torture. President Bush vetoed this bill on March 8, 2008.

The bill authorizes a classified amount for 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA, the National Security Agency, and the Defense Intelligence Agency, and for other intelligence-related activities of the federal government. 

Unlike the 109th Congress, this new Democratic-led Congress is determined to get the intelligence authorization bill enacted into law.  The previous Congress failed to get the FY 2006 and the FY 2007 Intelligence Authorization bills enacted into law.  In both 2005 and 2006, the House passed an authorization bill, but the Senate never did. This year, the new Democratic-led Congress is determined to get the intelligence authorization bill enacted into law.

The legislation includes key investments to improve the effectiveness of intelligence programs and activities:

• Adds significant funding for Advanced Research and Development to help the intelligence community maintain its technical edge, and includes funds to pursue research into Global Climate Change.
• Fully funds activities to accelerate key global counterterrorism activities, including increased funding for efforts to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda leadership, and for operations targeted at the Taliban and other terrorist organizations.
• Adds funds to improve the training and education of linguists, analysts and human intelligence collectors.
• Funds accelerated integration of ground processing and exploitation of imagery collected from commercial and national sensors.
• Withholds a significant amount of supplemental funding related to the Administration’s recently-announced Cyber Initiative pending further investigation by the Congress into its legal and technical underpinnings.

• Both the military and the intelligence community should only use interrogation techniques that fall within the Army Field Manual, which prohibits torture.  (Currently, the Army Field Manual only applies to interrogations by the military.)
• It is necessary to have clear guidelines on what interrogation techniques are allowed, and what are not allowed.  That is what the Army Field Manual does.  It specifically authorizes 19 interrogation techniques and specifically prohibits 8 techniques – including waterboarding, forced nudity, denial of food and water, and beatings.
• The reason to use the Army Field Manual is because it works.  General David Petraeus has recently written that the Army Field Manual works “effectively” in getting information. 
  

• Creates a statutory, Senate-confirmed Intelligence Community Inspector General with the authority to inspect, audit and investigate activities across the intelligence community.
• Requires Senate confirmation for Directors of the National Security Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office.
• Requires the CIA Inspector General to conduct an audit of covert action programs no less than once every three years.
• Requires the Administration to provide the intelligence committees with a full list of all special access programs.
• Requires semi-annual intelligence reports to Congress on the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea.

• Reduces excessive levels of funding for contractors.
• Requires the DNI to provide the intelligence committees with an annual report on instances of contractors committing waste, fraud and abuse, failing to perform on a contract; or violating the law; and that contains a review of contractor accountability mechanisms.

• Fund information-sharing initiatives across the federal government.
• Conduct accountability reviews.
• Adjust compensation for critical positions.
• Delegate DNI authorities to protect sources and methods to the Chief Information Officer.