Congressional Record: December 8, 2004 (Senate)
Page S11939-S12010
INTELLIGENCE REFORM AND TERRORISM PREVENTION ACT OF 2004--CONFERENCE
REPORT
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the Senate will
proceed to consideration of the conference report to accompany S. 2845
which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the
two Houses on the amendment of the House to the bill (S.
2845) to reform the intelligence community and the
intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the
United States Government, and for other purposes, having met,
have agreed that the Senate recede from its disagreement to
the amendment of the House and agree to the same with an
amendment, and the House agree to the same, signed by a
majority of the conferees on the part of both Houses.
(The conference report is printed in the House proceedings of the
Record of December 7, 2004.)
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
Mr. FRIST. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, in a discussion with the Democratic
leadership, we have come to an agreement that gives us a pretty good
template for the organization during the course of the day. This will
be useful, and I will ask unanimous consent shortly to allocate time
for the people who have come forward and said they would like to speak
prior to the vote.
As part of this, the managers will have time right before the vote--
up to 30 minutes, but probably that much time will not be used before
the vote--to add closing statements.
I ask unanimous consent that debate on the conference report be
limited to the list below:
Senator Collins will be controlling 45 minutes; Senator Lieberman, 45
minutes; Senator Byrd, 120 minutes, to begin at 12:30 p.m.; Senator
Stevens, 5 minutes; Senator Roberts, 10 minutes; Senator Rockefeller,
10 minutes; Senator Durbin, 15 minutes; Senator Warner, 30 minutes;
Senator Levin, 15 minutes; Senator Graham of Florida, 15 minutes;
Senator Coleman, 10 minutes; Senator Carper, 5 minutes; Senator
Specter, 20 minutes, and his comments will follow Senator Lieberman's
comments this morning.
I further ask that following the use or yielding back of the time,
the Senate proceed to a vote on the adoption of the conference report,
with no intervening action or debate.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I will ask a
couple of things: One, that the time for quorum calls run off of the
time equally against everybody. I suggest that those people who have
time come over and use it. Senator Byrd will be here at 12:30. That
time is locked in for 2 hours. I think this is fair and reasonable. I
will also ask the distinguished majority leader if we will be able to--
this vote is not close or controversial in any way, and nobody is
trying to do anything untoward. People on both sides may not be here at
whatever time the vote begins.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is the Senator asking that the time be
charged against all those who have time, or just against--
Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the quorum calls--when they
are in effect--be charged against everyone except Senator Byrd at
12:30. After 12:30, it would be charged against him also. So the time
during quorum calls I ask be charged against all speakers equally.
Otherwise, we are going to wind up with more people----
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Chair is constrained to ask the
Senator to modify that. The occupant of the Chair has asked for 5
minutes. That could entirely wipe out the amount of time I have
allocated to me.
Mr. REID. It would not if it is done on a proportionate basis. Well,
if the vote does not occur until 7 o'clock, I don't really care. I will
withdraw that request and we will let things fall where they may.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, for clarification, this is a plea to our
colleagues to be here and be speaking on the floor of the Senate. We
are trying to do an awful lot, so we can start the vote around 3
o'clock. It will likely finish around 5:15. In order to accomplish
that, we cannot be sitting in quorum calls. We need the people wishing
to speak to be here on time and to be available. Check with the
managers.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. May the Chair suggest that the time for
quorum calls be charged against the next person in line to speak and
put these speakers in order?
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, since we have not talked to each
individual, I don't want them necessarily to have to come in this
order. I think we can leave it with the understanding that we need
speakers here to work with the floor managers and to have no down time
over the course of the morning and, if so, we are going to ask people
to try to shorten their remarks.
[[Page S11940]]
Mr. REID. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President: If in fact we don't
lock in a time for the vote, and Senators decide not to come and speak,
we cannot have a vote until they finish their time; is that right?
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. I am informed that if one Senator does not
appear, or does not use his or her allocated time, that will not delay
the Senate from voting at the time specified.
Mr. REID. Well, so there is no confusion, it is my understanding this
adds up to about 3:45 this afternoon.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Chair is so warned by the
Parliamentarian not to have a debate with the Senator, but the Senator
is correct.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote occur
no later than 4 o'clock, and that it could occur more quickly if the
time is used up.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection to the leader's request
as modified?
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, for clarification, I will follow Senator
Lieberman for 20 minutes. So it is Senator Collins and Senator
Lieberman, and then I am up for 20 minutes?
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator is correct. The Chair's
understanding is that this becomes the order for Senators to speak.
Mr. FRIST. No, Mr. President. We have no specific order. The
unanimous consent request was granted that Senator Specter follow
Senator Lieberman, and that is the only specific request. The order,
otherwise, has not been determined. Senator Collins will speak, then
Senator Lieberman and Senator Specter.
Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object, Senator Durbin would like to
speak after Senator Specter.
The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection? Without objection, the
modified request is agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Graham of South Carolina). The Senator
from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, in New England, we have an old
expression: The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes us a
little longer.
The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 before
us today at times seemed to be an impossible goal. So it took us a
little bit longer. It has been a long and arduous journey to reach this
point today, but the extraordinary perseverance of the 9/11 Commission,
the families of the victims of the attacks on our country, the
conferees, our talented staff, our leaders, and, most of all, the
President of the United States brought us to this point today.
We would not be at this historic moment without the informed, strong,
and bipartisan leadership of my good friend, the Senator from
Connecticut, Mr. Lieberman. I am deeply grateful to him for his
leadership and for working in partnership with me.
When Senator Lieberman and I were first assigned this task by our
Senate leaders back in late July, we pledged to work together and to
recognize that when it comes to matters of national security, there is
no place for partisanship. We worked from the very beginning to forge a
bipartisan bill, and I am very pleased that the conference agreement we
bring before the Senate today is a bipartisan agreement. I am confident
that later today it will receive a strong bipartisan vote. But it was
Senator Lieberman's determination, his leadership, and his commitment
to this cause that made it possible. It has been a great pleasure to
work with him, and I look forward to many future collaborations.
I am also very proud of all of our colleagues on the Homeland
Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. They worked so hard. From
the very first hearing that we held in late July to the completion of
the conference agreement over the weekend, they were there every step
of the way. No leaders of a conference could ever have had more devoted
and dedicated conferees than Senator Lieberman and I had.
We were also fortunate to be blessed with an outstanding staff. Both
Senator Lieberman's staff, and my staff, headed by Michael Bopp, have
worked countless hours over the last 4\1/2\ months. They sacrificed
family vacations, and they have sacrificed a great deal of sleep. They
have been here night and day working because they so believed in this
legislation. We could not have done it without them.
On the House side, I want to thank Speaker Hastert. His chief of
staff devoted hundreds of hours to assisting in these negotiations.
Congressman Pete Hoekstra and Representative Jane Harman led the
conferees on the House side. They did outstanding work. They were
absolutely committed to the principle of crafting legislation that
would make America safer and more secure.
Throughout this process, President Bush has provided outstanding
leadership. I would say that without the help of the President of the
United States and his Vice President, we would not be here today. Their
intervention at critical points throughout the debate was absolutely
essential in helping us to forge the compromises that were necessary to
move this bill along.
We all owe a great debt to the members and the staff of the 9/11
Commission. I have worked very closely with the chairman and vice
chairman, Gov. Tom Kean and former Representative Lee Hamilton. The
work they did, their leadership, their investigations, their interviews
of 1,200 people in 10 countries provided a solid foundation for the
recommendations they made and for the reforms included in this bill.
I am very pleased that we have their endorsement. They said:
We believe this is a good bill and a strong bill. We
believe it will make our country safer and more secure. We
also believe that the essential elements of the Commission's
recommendations remain intact. We are of the firm view what
this conference report deserves the support of the House and
the Senate.
But, Mr. President, perhaps the greatest debt of all is owed to the
families of the 9/11 victims. In their profound loss, they found
courage and determination. Their knowledge has contributed greatly to
our debate, and their passion constantly reminded us of why we are here
and what is at stake. They never let us give up. They refused to let us
fail.
I am grateful to Senator Frist and Senator Daschle for assigning our
committee this important task. They showed great confidence in us, and
I am pleased we did not let them down.
This legislation addresses the alarming flaws in our national
intelligence structure that were so horribly and painfully exposed on
that black September morning more than 3 years ago. It does what nearly
a half century of studies and legislation calling for intelligence
reform failed to do. It is legislation whose time has finally come.
The legislation implements the major recommendations of the 9/11
Commission. We are rebuilding a structure that was designed for a
different enemy in a different time, a structure that was designed for
the Cold War and has not proved agile enough to deal with the threats
of the 21st century.
We have transformed that structure into one with the agility needed
to respond to international terrorism, rogue states, the proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction, and the other challenges and threats of
the 21st century.
The legislation reforms the intelligence community and it gives us
the tools to respond to threats of which we may not even be aware at
this point.
It is fitting that this legislation comes to a final vote during the
week when we pause to remember the events of December 7, 1941. Just as
the National Security Act of 1947 was passed to prevent another Pearl
Harbor, the Intelligence Reform Act will help us prevent another 9/11.
I am not saying that this legislation will prevent future terrorist
attacks, but it will increase the capabilities of the intelligence
community and help us improve the opportunity to better detect,
prevent, and, if necessary, respond to attacks on our country.
The four primary components of this legislation are the creation of a
director of national intelligence, the establishment of a national
counterterrorism center, the creation of a civil liberties board, and
strong information-sharing provisions. There are also many other
provisions in this bill that improve border security, that improve
transportation security, that set a new direction in our foreign
policy.
This is a comprehensive approach that embodies many--indeed, most--of
the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
The new director of national intelligence will be a strong position
with clear and effective authority to build
[[Page S11941]]
and execute the intelligence budget. The DNI will be a dramatic
improvement over the structure we have today. For the first time, we
will have, in the words of Secretary of State Colin Powell, an
empowered quarterback for our intelligence team.
To illustrate why this is important, why these authorities are
crucial, let us consider a passage from the 9/11 Commission Report. In
late 1998, it had become apparent to CIA Director George Tenet that al-
Qaida was a growing and deadly threat to the people of this country, so
on December 4 of that year, he issued a memorandum that said the
following:
We are at war. I want no resources or people spared in this
effort, either inside CIA or the Community.
Now, that is a pretty clear, concise, direct order from the head of
the intelligence community.
According to the Commission, the memorandum had virtually no impact.
One reason it had so little overall effect on mobilizing the resources
of the intelligence community is that the Director of the CIA, beyond
the direct control of the CIA, has very little authority over the
funding, the people, and the other resources in the intelligence
community. This legislation will ensure that in the future, when such a
clear, concise order is issued, it will mobilize and galvanize the
resources we can bring to bear.
The second important key component in this bill is the creation of
the National Counterterrorism Center. This will build on the good work
already being done by the Terrorist Threat Integration Center created
by the President through an Executive order. The NCTC will help
demolish the information stovepipes that the 9/11 Commission found and
it will replace them, it will turn them into conduits for information
sharing across the intelligence community. The NCTC will also conduct
strategic operational planning to coordinate the agencies that are
planning our response to al-Qaida and the other threats to our national
security.
Throughout the debate on this bill, in addition to improving the
ability of the intelligence agencies to cooperate and coordinate their
efforts, we have also been mindful of our troops fighting on the front
lines in the war against terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both
Senator Lieberman and I are privileged to serve on the Senate Armed
Services Committee. I contend that our current system has not always
served our troops well. It did not predict the insurgency that has cost
us so many lives in Iraq. We owe it to our troops on the battlefields,
as well as to our civilians at home, to improve the quality of
intelligence they receive, and I believe, as does Secretary Powell,
this bill will do just that.
I emphasize that nothing in this bill in any way hinders or impairs
military operations or readiness. To the contrary, I believe this
legislation will help improve the reliability and the quality of
intelligence provided to our troops.
Another important provision of this bill would implement the
recommendations of the 9/11 Commission by creating a civil liberties
board. As we increase the power of Government to deal with the threat
of terrorism, we must be mindful to preserve those freedoms that define
us as Americans. We would be handing the terrorists a victory if we
were to compromise the civil liberties Americans cherish. This board
will help make sure we strike the right balance.
Finally, other key provisions of this bill, for which Senator Durbin
deserves great credit, are provisions that will improve the sharing of
information across our intelligence agencies and throughout the Federal
Government. We know from the extensive review of the 9/11 Commission
that various agencies throughout our Government had pieces of the
puzzle that had it been assembled might have allowed them to prevent
the attacks on our country on 9/11. We need to make sure we have a
culture in our Government of assembling the pieces of that puzzle, of
sharing information. I believe the Counterterrorism Center, the
information-sharing provisions, and having a DNI will all improve and
remedy that problem.
The 9/11 Commission has told us repeatedly of the valiant and
talented men and women we have in our intelligence agencies, and I
salute their good work. I believe today that we will be giving them the
tools they need to be more effective. This legislation provides those
good people with a good structure.
Time, commitment, and perseverance have brought us this far. I urge
my colleagues to join us in completing the journey by giving this
landmark legislation an overwhelming vote later this afternoon. This
legislation will implement the most sweeping significant reforms of our
intelligence community in more than 50 years. The reforms are long
overdue, and they will help to make our Nation more secure.
I reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to join with Chairman Collins in
recommending the adoption of this conference report on the Intelligence
Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 which, of course,
implements the key recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission Report.
I begin by thanking Senator Collins for her extraordinary leadership
in this effort. In the 16 years I have been here--and it is self-
evident to the Presiding Officer and others that I am much the senior
of Senator Collins--I have never had a better legislative experience.
This task came to us quickly. There was an enormous amount of work to
do. As I said yesterday, it was a long and winding road we walked down,
but we ended up where we needed to be and where the Nation needed us to
be, and it simply could not have happened without Susan Collins'
leadership. She has an extraordinary sense of purpose and principle.
She understands the difference between right and wrong and, in a
legislative context, perhaps, the difference between better and worse
because that is often where we are. She is a persistent and very
effective negotiator, knows when to hold them and when to fold them.
She is a wonderful person--I think maybe I should be that explicit--
and that doesn't hurt around here, either, because it gains the
confidence of the people who work with her. Part of her being a great
person is her great sense of humor which got us through some of our
darker moments.
I was thinking one of the great moments in the process was when we
decided, late in the process, that the original title we gave to the
central position we created, the National Intelligence Director, would
have the acronym NID. It doesn't resonate the strength that we wanted.
Some member of our conference with an inferior sense of humor said it
would lead to a lot of ``NIDpicking.'' A lot of laughter led to the
change of the title to the Director of National Intelligence, the DNI.
You can feel the force radiating. We laughed a lot about that and about
a lot of other things.
It is a familiar saying in public service and life, and certainly in
campaigns, that victory has a thousand parents and defeat is an orphan.
This is a victory for the American people. Many people have a right,
here in the Senate, on the 9/11 Commission, the families of the 9/11
victims, the President of the United States, the Vice President of the
United States--so many people can say, and we might say: Without their
involvement this would not have happened. But nobody, really, can say
that more or feel that more than Senator Susan Collins of Maine. I
thank her very much for her friendship, for her partnership, for her
leadership here, and I, too, look forward to working with you in many
similar collaborations in the years ahead.
Before I get to the substance of the bill, I do want to say something
about the process here. As we end the 108th session of Congress,
unfortunately a session that was very often polarized and partisan, it
is really great--besides the specifics of this accomplishment that is
so critical to our national security--that we have ended it with a
bipartisan, nonpartisan triumph. It ought to send a message to the
American people, and perhaps just as important to us here, that we are
capable of doing this. When the chips are down, we are capable of
getting together across party lines and doing what is right for the
country. That, ultimately, is why we all came here. That gives us the
greatest satisfaction and,
[[Page S11942]]
incidentally, it is probably the smartest and most productive thing we
can do politically as well.
This simply would not have happened in the Senate without the
chairman of the committee on Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs, and ultimately the chairman of the conference, Senator
Collins, setting exactly that tone. I thank Peter Hoekstra on the House
side, Jane Harman, and all the members of the conference committee for
all they contributed.
This legislation is a testament to the courage and persistence of the
families of the victims of September 11. Their personal sacrifices,
transformed into a steadfast devotion to see this bill to passage, will
help make the rest of America safer. This bill was conceived in the
memory of their husbands and wives, their sons and daughters, their
mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters, and simply would not have
been possible without the constancy of effort and the increasingly
sophisticated advocacy by the surviving family members. I thank them.
We have worked hard for this historic agreement because we believe,
quite simply, that the security of our Nation depends on it. There were
various times at which people in this Chamber and the other body said
we were moving too quickly; what was the cause for haste? I can tell
you it didn't seem we were moving too quickly to Senator Collins and
me. But what was the cause for our haste? Our enemies, our terrorist
enemies, al-Qaida and their ilk, are not waiting, as we know. They are
here. They are planning. We are at peril. Accordingly, we approached
this task with a real sense of urgency, a grave and growing sense of
urgency because we know we face a clear and present danger from
terrorists.
The bill before us today is a landmark achievement because, as others
have said and will say throughout the day, for the first time in over
half a century we are going to modernize our national intelligence
structure to meet the new challenges we face in today's world. With
this bill, we recognize we can no longer keep the American people safe
simply by projecting military force abroad. The world has changed. Our
terrorist enemies today make no distinction between soldiers and
civilians, between foreign and domestic locations when they attack us.
To defeat them, we must have the best possible intelligence about their
plans before they strike so we can stop them before they strike.
This legislation moves us toward that goal significantly by
transforming our intelligence community from a Cold-War model--and
after all, it was at the outset of the Cold War that the current
structure was conceived--a Cold-War model that shared information only
if there was a need to know, to a 21st-century model that will share
information to maximize the intelligence community's substantial
resources and expertise and, yes, guarantee greater returns for the
billions and billions of dollars of taxpayer money that are invested in
intelligence to protect the American people.
The 9/11 Commission supports our compromise. Chairman Kean and Vice
Chairman Hamilton said in a statement:
We believe this is a good bill and a strong bill. We
believe it will make our country safer and more secure.
They support this compromise because it implements the Commission's
key recommendations to establish that DNI and a National
Counterterrorism Center that will improve coordination and
collaboration, as the Commission puts it, ``to forge unity of effort''
between the 15 intelligence agencies scattered throughout the
Government, and to ensure that, unlike up until now, someone is
genuinely in charge.
I said to a business executive in my home State this morning, talking
about this bill, explaining why I couldn't be with him today at a
meeting in Connecticut, that if anybody in business really got inside
and looked at how we are spending the billions of dollars we do on
intelligence, they--well, they wouldn't believe it because no one is in
charge.
The Commission indicted the status quo of America's intelligence
community. The 9/11 Commission report is an indictment of the status
quo. Those who pick and try to look for loopholes in this reform have
to remember that the status quo failed to protect the American people
on 9/11 and it has failed in different ways to provide us with the
quality, accuracy and reliability of intelligence that we need.
Vice Chairman Hamilton memorably told our committee in our hearings
on this Commission report:
A critical theme that emerged throughout our inquiry was
the difficulty of answering the question: Who's in charge?
Who ensures that agencies pool resources, avoid duplication
and plan jointly? Who oversees the massive integration and
unity of effort to keep America safe? Too often [the 9/11
Commission said] the answer is no one.
The fact is, below the level of the President no one has been in
charge of overseeing the entire intelligence community and its
multibillion-dollar budget. Today, as testimony before our committee
validated, no one is clearly in charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
No one has had the authority to knit together the efforts of the 15
disparate agencies working on intelligence for the American people,
and, therefore, no one has ultimately been accountable for the deadly
mistakes that have been made.
This legislation changes all of that, putting a clear command
structure in place so that in the future the puzzle pieces will be put
together, the dots will be connected, and so, I hope, pray, and
believe, we will never have to suffer through another attack like the
one we did suffer through, and still do, on September 11, 2001.
I wish to briefly discuss some of the key provisions, starting with
intelligence reform.
Under our current intelligence structure, the CIA Director has to
perform three jobs: acting as the President's principal intelligence
adviser, overseeing the intelligence community as a whole, and
directing the CIA. The 9/11 Commission reported what many had said
before: The tasks are simply too much to expect of any one person.
So we have created a Presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed
Director of National Intelligence, who will lead the national
intelligence community but be separate from the Director of the CIA.
The DNI will be the President's principal intelligence adviser and will
focus exclusively on breaking down those barriers that have obstructed
information sharing and professional collaboration in the public
interest. With the CIA Director in charge of daily CIA operations, the
DNI will be able to forge that unity of effort which we need to better
protect the American people.
The DNI will exercise significant budget authority over the
intelligence community both in the development and the execution of the
budget, and he or she will consult closely with the Secretary of
Defense, the Director of the CIA, the head of the FBI, and other
intelligence leaders on both funding and personnel issues.
The DNI will have unprecedented authority in the implementation and
execution of all funding under our national intelligence program.
Our bill makes clear that the DNI will have the power to ``develop
and determine'' the intelligence budget and that the Director of the
Office of Management and Budget must apportion the national
intelligence program funds at the ``exclusive direction'' of the DNI.
The DNI is further responsible for managing the appropriations by
``directing the allotment and allocation'' of appropriations through
the heads of Departments containing the elements of the intelligence
community. Just to make sure there is no slow-walking in moving those
funds forward, the Department comptrollers must then allot, allocate,
reprogram, or transfer funds--in the words of the report--``in an
expeditious manner.''
The DNI will have a major hand in the appointment of key officials
across the intelligence community, thus elevating the authority of that
position. He or she will recommend appointment of the Director of the
Central Intelligence Agency to the President. The Secretary of Defense
will have to obtain the DNI's concurrence in appointing the heads of
the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and
the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. The Secretary will consult
with the DNI before appointing the Director of the Defense Intelligence
Agency. The Secretaries of the Departments of Energy, Homeland
Security, Treasury, State, and the Attorney General will need the
concurrence of the DNI to appoint the heads of intelligence agencies
under their immediate jurisdiction and under the DNI's
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overall jurisdiction. That is real authority in this new office.
The DNI will also have significantly expanded authority to transfer
personnel and funds beyond those of the current DCI so that he or she
may react quickly to changing threats and direct intelligence resources
where they are needed.
In addition to creating the DNI, this conference report will create--
as recommended by the Commission--the National Counterterrorism Center
and a series of National Intelligence Centers to ensure that critical
national security issues are addressed with maximum coordination and
teamwork.
This may well be the most significant process we have begun with this
bill, the authority of DNI, but creating a model, and a model built on
the most effective, modern corporate models of joint team efforts to
deal with problems. But it really deals directly and grows out of the
experience of the Pentagon post-Goldwater-Nichols, in joint warfare.
This says when we have a critical national security problem the best
way to deal with it will be to create a center to deal with it, a table
at which every element of our Government involved in dealing with that
problem is present so they can collect intelligence together, analyze
it together, and then plan how to combat the problem.
Specifically created in this bill, of course, is the National
Counterterrorism Center which will seek to make ensure the disastrous
disconnect between the FBI and the CIA that occurred prior to 9/11 will
never occur again. It will develop plans, assign roles, and monitor the
agencies' implementation of those plans in order to thwart the next
terror attack.
This is not a narrowly focused, constricted center. The Center's
planning will be at the strategic level such as how do we best win the
``hearts and minds'' of the great majority of people in the Muslim
world. It will be at the tactical level--for instance, how we are going
to capture Osama bin Laden.
The National Counterterrorism Center Director will be confirmed by
the Senate and it will report to the Director of National Intelligence,
and in some cases to the President himself.
Let me talk about those other centers.
This bill creates one other center to deal with a most pressing
threat to our security; that is, the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction. This part of the bill was inserted as a result of the
leadership of the majority leader, Senator Frist. It is an enormous
step forward in dealing with the threat of WMD.
These are the central structures of the intelligence reform, but our
legislation goes beyond that. The 9/11 Commission documented that, in a
period preceding September 11, 2001, potentially helpful information
available to one part of the Government was not shared with others
which could have used it.
This legislation takes that direction from the Commission to heart
and requires the President to establish a network of technologies and
policies that will resolve conflicts between the need to share and the
need to protect sources and methods. It will create and allow us to use
the best technology to make sure we are sharing and culling and
filtering and applying the vast amount of data we get from our
intelligence networks most effectively.
Beyond intelligence reform, this bill contains much more. In fact,
the 9/11 Commission made 41 recommendations to protect our Nation from
terrorism. In August, Senator McCain and I drafted legislation to
address them all. I am pleased and proud to say I am grateful for the
conferees, to the Senate, and to the House that most of those
initiatives have become part of this conference report.
For example, the 9/11 Commission observed that many of the actions
necessary to protect us in the war against terror also involves a
consolidation of governmental authority and the increased presence of
government in our lives to protect us. In response, the Commission
called for ``an enhanced system of checks and balances'' to protect the
civil liberties that define us as Americans. In fact, this conference
report creates a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.
The Board will have two functions. First, to advise the President and
Federal agencies at the front end of policymaking and, second, to
conduct oversight at the back end, investigating and reviewing
Government actions to determine whether executive branch officials are
appropriately respecting the individual freedoms of the American
people.
The 9/11 Commission also recognized the futility of combating
terrorism only by military means. Of course, we have been, and will
continue, doing our best to capture and kill all the terrorists we can
as soon as possible. But we understand that ultimately what is required
to stop the growth of terrorism are initiatives of foreign policy,
diplomacy, economics, and of politics.
Our legislation--this conference report--includes many of the
provisions recommended by the Commission which will do just that,
including increased American foreign assistance to Afghanistan and a
renewed U.S. commitment to Pakistan. It provides enabling authorities
to help us win ``the struggle of ideas'' through the greater funding
and use of much more imagination in American broadcasts to the Islamic
world. It calls for broadening and growth of scholarships and exchange
programs between the United States and the Muslim world, with students
and faculty going back and forth.
The bill also takes aggressive measures to prevent attacks, as well,
by targeting terrorist travel, improving screening at entry and exit
points, and securing identification documents.
Our legislation requires secure identification for travel documents
for all travel into the United States. This was a topic about which
much was said and debated in the conference, and before, during, and
after House adoption of this conference report yesterday. I guess the
conferees, in their wisdom, decided some of the immigration reform in
the House bill would have weighted the bill down and inhibited or
prohibited its passage. It is urgently needed and we cannot afford to
do that. We will get to that next year.
Make no mistake, this conference report contains some tough
antiterrorist law enforcement measures, and some tough immigration
enforcement measure. It specifically implements the 9/11 Commission
Report recommendation for the Federal Government to establish minimum
standards for birth certificates, driver's licenses, and personal
identification cards. Those provisions will help decrease fraud so
terrorists are not able to hide their identity. They will not deprive
the States of the right that States understandably want, to determine,
not the form of the driver's license, but who is eligible to receive a
driver's license within their States.
Other measures in this conference report will go far to tighten
border security. It will increase the number of border guards,
immigration officers, and detention beds for those who are being held
for legal action and other action to determine their immigration status
and whether they should be deported. No longer will we have a case, as
in the past, where a challenge is made to someone's immigration status
but they are allowed to wander and disappear into the vastness of
America. There will be thousands of new beds created, detention
facilities, to hold those people while their cases are being reviewed.
We added a provision allowing the Government to deport anyone who has
received military training from a terrorist organization. The
Government will also be able to obtain a Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act warrant for anyone engaging in terrorist activities
even if they are not clearly connected to a specific terrorist
organization. That is common sense, but it is not in the law now.
To better safeguard the Nation's transportation networks, this
legislation also requires the Department of Homeland Security to
produce a national transportation strategy that evaluates the risks
faced by all modes of transportation, not just aviation, and sets some
clear priorities and deadlines for security needs.
We also have included measures to help first responders, the hundreds
of thousands of men and women, largely in uniform, some out, at the
local and State levels. We want to help them obtain interoperable
communications equipment so in a crisis they can talk with each other
and work cooperatively.
I have long believed if we are going to make sense of what happened
on
[[Page S11944]]
September 11 we need to look back honestly with clear eyes and honest
hearts. The 9/11 Commission's extraordinary work enabled us to do just
that. Its 587-page report did not close the book on September 11. It
will never be closed. The legislation does not close the book on
September 11. It will live alongside December 7 as a day that will live
in infamy throughout American history and America's future.
The work on this conference report and its adoption today will open a
new chapter for a safer America. Chairman Kean has said:
Our biggest weapon of defense is our intelligence system.
If that doesn't work, our chances of being attacked are so
much greater. So our major recommendation is to fix that
intelligence system and do it as fast as possible.
That is exactly what this historic legislation does.
In this Congress, this President fulfills our constitutional duty to
provide for the common defense of our Nation. I said before that many
can claim to be parents of this victory. Members of both parties in
Congress, leaders of both parties, bipartisan leadership in this
Chamber certainly stood by Senator Collins and me all the way. This
simply would not have happened without the support of the President of
the United States, the Vice President of the United States, and their
staffs, working hard and long to do something that institutions and
government do not do easily, which is to change. If it was easy, the
20-some-odd attempts made in the last half century to reform our
intelligence system would have worked, would have succeeded. They did
not.
This is about to succeed because of the effort that has been made
across party lines in the national interests by everyone from the
President of the United States to every single Member of Congress who
worked hard on this measure.
Maybe I should add another thank you. Maybe I should go from the
President to our staffs. Senator Collins has said the legions of staff
members on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the Capitol put
their lives on hold and worked through nights and weekends for the
cause of a safer America. I particularly thank Kevin Landy on my staff,
whose work started with the legislation to create the 9/11 Commission--
that was a story in itself--and who has been single minded in his
devotion to crafting this legislation in a way that was real and
excellent. I also single out the work of Majority Staff Director
Michael Bopp, and all of his team. Michael has terrific legislative
skills and leadership abilities and has served the conference and the
country extraordinarily well. On my staff I also thank my staff
director Joyce Rechtschaffen, and Dave Barton, Mike Alexander, Raj De,
Christine Healey, Holly Idelson, Beth Grossman, Larry Novey, Jason
Yanussi, Kathy Seddon, Dave Berick, Mary Beth Schultz, Tim Profeta,
Fred Downey, Andrew Weinshenk, and Donny Ray Williams, Leslie Phillips,
Bill Bonvillian and Laurie Rubenstein. I could go on and on. Many other
staffers of other Senators contributed much to this bill and I thank
them. I would especially like to thank Marianne Upton and Joe Zogby
from Senator Durbin's staff. And I particularly express my personal
appreciation, in this and so many partnerships we have been involved
in, to Senator John McCain of Arizona, and to his staff. We worked in
close partnership to craft the legislation implementing the 9/11
Commission recommendations. Many provisions were adopted in the Senate
and are integral parts of the conference report. I thank them all.
I come back to the beginning to particularly thank my colleague and
friend, our chairman, Senator Susan Collins of Maine.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record two documents
from the 9/11 Public Discourse Project regarding driver's licenses and
military chain of command.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Fact Sheet: Driver's Licenses, 9/11, and Intelligence Reform
What happened in the 9/11 plot
The hijackers obtained 13 driver's licenses (two of which
were duplicates) and 21 USA or State-issued identification
cards (usually used for showing residence in the U.S. or a
State).
The driver's licenses themselves were all legal, that is,
they were not forged. But they were not all legally obtained.
Seven hijackers used fraudulent means (false statements of
residency) to acquire legitimate identifications in Virginia.
Their fraud in obtaining driver's licenses did not arise
from them being undocumented aliens. All the hijackers
entered the United States with proper immigration documents,
but several had committed fraudulent acts to get them.
One hijacker who obtained a driver's license when he was in
status was out of status on 9/11. Another hijacker whose
documents clearly showed that he was out of status and had
overstayed his 30-day visitor's visa did not seek or obtain a
driver's license. He used his passport to prove
identification and board the aircraft.
Based on what we learned in the 9/11 story, we recommended
stronger immigration enforcement to catch terrorists who were
exploiting weaknesses in America's border security. We
recommended greater attention to terrorist travel tactics and
information sharing about such travel.
We also recommended strong Federal standards for the
issuance of birth certificates and other sources of
identification, such as driver's licenses, to avoid the
identity fraud that terrorists can exploit.
We did not make any recommendations to State governments
about which individuals should or should not be issued a
driver's license.
Specifically, we did not make any recommendation about
licenses for undocumented aliens. That issue did not arise in
our investigation, as all hijackers entered the United States
with documentation (often fraudulent) that appeared lawful to
immigration inspectors. They were therefore ``legal
immigrants'' at the time they received their driver's
licenses.
What the pending Conference Report (following the Commission's
recommendations) would require
The establishment of new standards to ensure the integrity
of the three basic documents Americans use to establish their
identity-birth certificates; State-issued driver's licenses
and i.d. cards; and social security cards.
New standards to ensure that the applicant for the identity
document is actually the person the applicant claims to be;
and improvements to the physical security of the document.
States would receive grants to assist them in implementing
the new standards.
What H.R. 10 requires
H.R. 10 requires that before issuing a driver's license a
State would need to verify that each applicant:
Is a citizen of the United States;
Is an alien lawfully admitted to permanent residence status
in the U.S.;
Has conditional permanent residence status in the U.S.;
Has a valid, unexpired nonimmigrant visa or nonimmigrant
visa status for entry into the U.S.; or
Has a pending application for adjustment of status to that
of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the
U.S. (There are additional requirements but these are the key
ones).
Only citizens and permanent residents could receive
driver's licenses; all others with documentation would have
temporary driver's licenses issued for the length of visa
stay or not more than one year if there is no definite end to
the period of authorized stay. Undocumented aliens could not
receive licenses.
Observations
It is important to have national standards on driver's
licenses, passports and other identification documents.
There is no doubt hijackers used State-issued documents to
get through a lot of checkpoints. For this reason, we believe
Federal minimum standards for such State-issued documents are
important.
Whether illegal aliens should be able to get driver's
licenses is a valid question for debate.
The debate over this issue ought not to hang up the
hundreds of provisions in the conference report that would
strengthen intelligence, improve information sharing,
strengthen transportation and border security, improve
American foreign policy, and support first responders.
We would also note that if the hijackers presented visa
documentation that appeared valid to DMV officials (as they
apparently did), they would still have been issued temporary
driver's licenses for the duration of their visa, under the
provisions in the House bill.
____
Fact Sheet: The Conference Report and Intelligence Support for Military
Operations
1. the proposed reforms do not change the chain of command for control
of national intelligence assets
The warfighter today can call upon real-time intelligence
support from the military services (like the Air Force), from
his joint forces command (like CENTCOM), and from national
agencies (like the signals intelligence analyzed by NSA).
The bill does not affect support relationships between
combat units and military services (like the Air Force).
The bill does not affect support relationships between
combat units and the joint
[[Page S11945]]
forces command to which they are assigned (like CENTCOM). It
would not affect CENTCOM's management of the assets assigned
to that command. So, for example, the bill would have no
effect at all on the support relationship between the soldier
in the field and a JSTARS aircraft or Predator UAV assigned
to CENTCOM's intelligence component, its J-2.
Assets, like satellites, that are run by national agencies
are managed for the benefit of the whole US government. That
is why these are called ``national'' agencies. The chain of
command for operational decisions about those assets
therefore goes outside of DOD under the status quo.
Under President Bush's executive order (August 2004), DCI
Goss has the duty to set the requirements and priorities for
collection by these agencies. The DCI also has the authority
to ``resolve conflicts in the tasking of national collection
assets. . . .''
Under the conference report these same authorities simply
move from the DCI to the DNI, for ``resolving conflicts in
collection requirements and in the tasking of national
collection assets of the elements of the intelligence
community.''
At the operational level, the job of getting national
assets in support of the warfighter is managed by the unified
combatant commands with the help of the Joint Staff's J-2 and
the J-2's National Military Joint Intelligence Center.
None of the current practices for the allocation of
national assets would change as the focal point for national
coordination moves from the DCI to the DNI.
2. the specific concerns articulated by jcs chairman general myers in
his letter of october 21st were addressed in the conference report
General Myers' letter of October 21st (attached) did not
register any concerns about the chain of command in
operational intelligence support for the warfighter.
General Myers focused only on budget matters, where he
specifically requested that:
(a) ``the budgets of the combat support agencies should
come up from the agencies through the Secretary of Defense to
the National Intelligence Director''; and
(b) ``it is likewise important that the appropriations are
passed from the National Intelligence Director through the
Department to the combat support agencies.''
This latter point, on ``this vital flow,'' is the one--the
only one--singled out for a ``recommendation that this
critical provision be preserved in the conference.''
It was.
VVIn the conference report, the appropriations do not go to
the National Intelligence Director. The appropriations for
national intelligence go through the heads of the relevant
departments.
With the help of OMB, the DNI can direct allotment or
allocation of these funds, but the flow of funds goes through
the department to (in DOD's case) the combat support
agencies:
``Department comptrollers or appropriate budget execution
officers shall allot, allocate, reprogram, or transfer funds
appropriated for the National Intelligence Program in an
expeditious manner.''
Thus the conference report accepted the recommendation of
General Myers for how to direct the flow of funds.
Even on the issue of budget preparation, the conference
report addressed the concern raised by General Myers.
In the conference report, the budgets from the combat
support agencies come up through the Secretary of Defense. If
the combat support agencies are not national intelligence
agencies and are covered under the appropriations for joint
military intelligence or for tactical intelligence and
related activities, the proposed DNI participates with the
Secretary of Defense in developing the final budget for them.
For these combat support agencies the authority of the
Secretary of Defense remains exactly as it is now.
If the combat support agencies are also national
intelligence agencies (which is the case for the National
Security Agency, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency,
and the National Reconnaissance Office), the proposed DNI
would develop and determine the national intelligence program
budget ``based on budget proposals provided . . . by the
heads of agencies and organizations within the intelligence
community and the heads of their respective departments and,
as appropriate, after obtaining the advice of the Joint
Intelligence Community Council.''
Thus, in the conference report, the Secretary of Defense
has input into budget preparation for these national agencies
both directly and through his participation in the proposed
Joint Intelligence Community Council.
3. the commission considered dod concerns in the preparation of its
recommendations
Commissioners and Commission staff discussed DOD concerns
about intelligence reorganization with Secretary Rumsfeld,
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Cambone, Director
of the National Security Agency General Hayden, the Director
of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency General
Clapper, and many others. General Hayden and General Clapper
have spent their careers in providing military intelligence
support for the warfighter.
Commissioners and/or Commission staff made three
investigative visits to HQ Central Command and HQ Special
Operations Command. They interviewed officers at HQ Northern
Command and HQ Joint Special Operations Command. They
interviewed users of intelligence in the field, in
Afghanistan and Pakistan.
4. a better structure enables better management
The Commission never took the view that reorganization
solves all problems. A better structure enables better
management.
Numerous specific management reforms are needed, in areas
such as human intelligence collection; common standards for
information technology and network capabilities; more
efficient use of available experts; improved language skills;
standardized processing of raw intelligence; and better all-
source analysis.
What we found is that these and other management reforms
falter in an unmanageable intelligence community. A better
structure makes it more likely that such urgent management
reforms will succeed.
____
Appendix: Letter From Gen. Richard Myers to HASC Chairman Hunter
Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff,
Washington, DC, October 21, 2004.
Hon. Duncan Hunter,
Chairman, Armed Services Committee, House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: As we discussed during our recent
telephone conversation, I know that you and the conferees are
discussing intelligence reform and the intelligence budget
process. This is a vitally important subject as we look at
the effectiveness of the intelligence provided by our combat
support agencies. It is my belief that the responsibilities
of the Secretary of Defense for the operation of these
agencies, including budget preparation and execution, should
be addressed as the conferees proceed to a final bill. In
this regard the budgets of the combat support agencies should
come up from the agencies through the Secretary of Defense to
the National Intelligence Director, ensuring that required
warfighting capabilities are accommodated and rationalized
and ensuring that the Secretary meets his obligations. For
appropriations, it is likewise important that the
appropriations are passed from the National Intelligence
Director through the Department to the combat support
agencies. It is my understanding that the House bill
maintains this vital flow through the Secretary of Defense to
the combat support agencies. It is my recommendation that
this critical provision be preserved in the conference.
The combat support agencies provide critical combat
intelligence capabilities important to the day to day
operations of our armed forces, including, of course, combat
operations. Establishing the budget process in this manner
would allow the combat support agencies to continue their
outstanding support to the warfighters, our on-going
counterterrorism efforts, and the men and women of our
nation's armed forces serving in harm's way.
Sincerely,
Richard B. Myers,
Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, before the Senator from Pennsylvania is
recognized, I have a unanimous consent request.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent Senator McCain be allocated 5
minutes of my time at some point during the debate today.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I will be putting into the record a list
of the Senate conferees because each of them contributed in
extraordinary ways to this bill. I will be making comments about some
of them and their particular contributions later in the debate today.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Carper of
Delaware be given 5 minutes to speak at an appropriate time of the time
allotted to me.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I begin by congratulating the chairman,
Senator Collins, and the ranking member, Senator Lieberman, for their
extraordinary leadership in the beginning of the legislative process
which has culminated in where we are today and their steadfast
determination in pursuit of this bill throughout many arduous months.
Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman took up at the direction of the
majority leader and the Democratic leader in structuring hearings which
began at the end of July of this year immediately after the Democratic
National Convention. They proceeded in August in an unprecedented way
where the regular schedules were interrupted, a difficult thing to do
in a campaign year. They reconvened the Governmental Affairs Committee
on which
[[Page S11946]]
I served and the committee members were advised of schedules--difficult
to do in a campaign season when many Members are up for reelection--but
the legislative objective was of paramount importance and the committee
responded and the committee pursued the hearings and came up with the
legislation.
I believe what we have here is really a battlefield victory over the
Department of Defense. The essential issue has long been a turf
struggle, and I think we have taken a short step, but a significant
one, in the legislation which is presented in the conference report
today.
I do not think we should overstate where we have come, but I think,
at the same time, we need to recognize we have stepped significantly
forward, albeit a single step, as a result of the insistence of the
President of the United States who deserves commendation for his
leadership in the final stages of this matter to bring the legislation
where it is today.
Where we have had a good bit of discussion on the issue of chain of
command, I think realistically that has been more smoke than substance.
But, at any rate, the key participants in the House of Representatives
were satisfied so the bill did come to a vote in the House, and the
Senate is ready to take the matter up today.
A great deal of credit is obviously due to the families of the 9/11
victims in their insistence that the 9/11 Commission be formed. And
then great credit is due to the 9/11 Commission itself in structuring a
report, which was filed in July, and then putting considerable pressure
to have their report enacted.
I think, to repeat, the realities are that the final legislation is
short of where the 9/11 Commission would like to have gone either with
respect to budget control or with respect to day-to-day operations, but
in the tortuous process of making changes in the intelligence
community, the 9/11 Commission has been a catalyst here in a very
important way.
It became apparent, when 9/11 occurred, that had there been proper
coordination among the intelligence agencies that 9/11 might well have
been prevented. There was that FBI report out of Phoenix about the
suspicious character who was interested in learning how to fly a plane,
not concerned about takeoffs or landings. That FBI report never got to
the proper line in FBI headquarters in Washington.
Then, the CIA knew about the two al-Qaida operatives in Kuala Lumpur,
but that information was never transmitted to the Immigration and
Naturalization Service. It was not in the INS computers. Those al-Qaida
operatives got into the United States and were two of the pilots on 9/
11.
Then there was the FBI report out of Minneapolis with Special Agent
Colleen Rowley, who wrote a 13-page, single-spaced report which finally
received public attention, finally came to the attention of the key
officials of the FBI.
The Judiciary Committee held hearings in June of 2002, and there was
surprise and consternation that the appropriate test under the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act had not been applied. Had that material
been known and had we been able to pick up the trail of Zacarias
Moussaoui at an early date, again the case was building that 9/11 might
well have been prevented, had these facts come to the attention of the
appropriate authorities and been collated and put all under one
umbrella.
So the need was imperative for revision and reform of the national
intelligence system.
I had seen this need when I chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee
back in the 104th Congress. At that time I introduced S. 1718, which
contained very material changes in the national intelligence community.
I will not put that legislation in the Record at this time. I have done
so on prior debates. But it was apparent at that time there needed to
be a revision of the national intelligence community. While the
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency had paper authority, he did
not have budgetary authority or day-to-day control sufficient to really
put all of the intelligence operations under one umbrella.
Following 9/11, after the report from Colleen Rowley came to light in
June of 2002, the administration agreed there should be a new
Department of Homeland Security. Senator Lieberman and I introduced S.
1534, 30 days after 9/11, on October 11 of the year 2001. The hearings
were held and there was considerable debate, and the legislation
languished and had a lot of opposition. It finally came to the Senate
floor in the fall of 2002. Then, as what frequently happens, the House
passed a bill and left town, leaving us with the option of either
taking their bill in October of 2002, which was an election year, or
putting the matter over, which would have gone to spring.
At that time, Senator Lieberman and I made an effort to give the new
Secretary of Homeland Security authority to direct--not to task or not
to ask or not to request but to direct--the other intelligence
agencies. It seemed to us when you were creating a new Department that
this was the time to make some fundamental changes in the national
intelligence structure. But the administration was opposed.
I talked to Secretary Ridge, Vice President Cheney, and I talked to
the President, and there was opposition, as concerns had been expressed
to putting any agency or any instrumentality or any unit between the
CIA and the President. It seemed to me--and I made this argument--that
would not have been the case. But we were unable to make that
modification. That is where the status of the record lay, until the
9/11 Commission came into operation and filed its report in July of
this year.
Immediately thereafter, Senator McCain, Senator Lieberman, Senator
Bayh, and I introduced a bill which tracked what the 9/11 Commission
wanted done. When the Governmental Affairs Committee took up the issue,
with the hearings in July and August, it seemed to me we needed a bill
which gave a great deal more authority to the National Intelligence
Director than where the committee was heading, and I introduced S.
2811, which gave the National Intelligence Director authority. I am not
going to make that bill a part of the Record. It has already been made
a part of the Record in prior debates.
The committee report did not give the National Intelligence Director
day-by-day authority, which, as I say, I thought it should have. I
offered an amendment which had cosponsors, including the former
chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Shelby; the
present chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Roberts; and
many others who had very extensive experience on the intelligence
structure for the country. I offered that amendment on the floor, and
it was defeated by a vote of 78 to 19, so that the National
Intelligence Director in the Senate legislation was not given day-to-
day operation.
It was my thought then, and continues to be my thought, that if we
raised the bar a little higher, perhaps in the negotiations--as we
know, as a practical matter, in a House/Senate conference there are
compromises--we might have ended up with a stronger Director than we
have at the present time. In the course of the negotiations with the
House, the budgetary control was not maintained.
So what we have today is a step forward. But there is a great deal
more, in my judgment, of which the National Intelligence Director needs
to have effective control over in the national intelligence community.
But again, this is a step forward, not a big step but a significant
step, and it is something upon which we can build.
It would be a colossal mistake to reject this bill with the thought
of going back to the drawing board next year to begin again what we
have accomplished, putting us on another plateau from which we can
work.
We have in this legislation significant improvements on
transportation security, on terrorist travel and effective screening,
on border protection, immigration and visa matters, on terrorism
prevention. We do have those areas of very significant improvement.
I believe that Congress is going to have a big job of oversight now,
to see precisely what is done by the new National Intelligence
Director. We have changed our Senate procedures to make permanent the
Intelligence Committee so there will be some institutional knowledge
there without the shift on 8-year terms. I served 8 years on the
Intelligence Committee and had an opportunity to chair the committee
[[Page S11947]]
in the 104th Congress. That continuity will be very important.
On the Appropriations Committee on which I serve, we have structured
a new intelligence subcommittee. In the line of seniority, I may have
the opportunity to chair that subcommittee. That is something I am
thinking about. I am reluctant to give up the subcommittee on Labor,
Health, Human Services, and Education, but when we move forward from
this point on the restructuring of the national intelligence community,
this is a very significant period and is something to which I am giving
personal consideration.
The creation of the new National Counterterrorism Center is a
significant step forward. That has been an outgrowth of the mistake
recognized by the intelligence community from
9/11. That had been in process, and this legislation takes a very
important step beyond what is in existence at the present time, putting
it into a statutory form. I have conferred with the top officials of
the FBI, and the Judiciary Committee has oversight over the FBI. This
is something which requires very substantial oversight.
It is my hope, depending on how the Judiciary Committee is structured
next year, that this is something which the Judiciary Committee can
accomplish. But the Intelligence Committee and the Governmental Affairs
Committee and perhaps other relevant committees, Armed Services
Committee, will have a big job in not resting on our laurels on
legislation which will be enacted today. We ought not to take too much
solace in laurels, although though it is justifiable to some extent.
But there is a great deal more which needs to be done to see to it that
there is the kind of coordination and that we have made a successful
attack on the cultures of concealment which are present in the
intelligence community.
I have seen that culture of concealment from the work that I have
done on the Judiciary Committee on oversight for the past 24 years. I
saw that culture of concealment in the Central Intelligence Agency in
the 8 years I was on the Intelligence Committee. It may be that what
has happened with the events of 9/11 and with the pressure of the 9/11
Commission, with the legislation on the Department of Homeland
Security, that the intelligence community has been sensitized, perhaps
even more than sensitized, perhaps more accurately stated, bludgeoned
by congressional criticism and by public criticism over their failures
to coordinate intelligence activities which, had they been coordinated,
9/11 might have been prevented.
In conclusion--the two most popular words in every speech--I urge my
colleagues to adopt this legislation. I further urge my colleagues in
both this body, the Senate, and the House to be vigilant, to pursue
oversight, to see to it that the ultimate objective of coordination and
centralized direction is obtained with this legislation as a
significant starting point.
Far from perfect, it nonetheless provides a valuable foundation for
future legislation and puts us on the path to meaningful intelligence
reform. As such, I believe it is preferable to act now on a finite
number of matters that can be accomplished immediately. Any attempt in
the future to enact intelligence reform legislation from scratch,
especially reform of intelligence budget matters, will be subject to
the bitter turf battles involving the self-protection of entrenched
bureaucratic prerogatives that have characterized this and past efforts
at reform. And while the contentious issues of State driver's license
standards and refugee asylum must be addressed, it is far better to do
so in the context of hearings and additional input from interested
parties. But simply starting over in the next Congress will likely
accomplish little, if anything. Passage of this legislation--which
includes a statutory requirement for the issuance of Presidential
guidelines assuring that the statutory responsibilities of the heads of
various departments of our government will not be abrogated--will
provide a legislative base for Congress to build upon, while preserving
the requisite military chain of command.
Valuable preliminary objectives have been accomplished in this
legislation, consistent with the recommendations of the 9/11
Commission. This legislation creates a Presidential-appointed, Senate
confirmed director of national intelligence, DNI, who, while not
serving as the head of CIA, will 1. oversee national intelligence and
provide all-source analysis on specific subjects of interest across the
U.S. government, and plan intelligence operations for the whole
government on major problems such as counterterrorism; 2. manage the
national intelligence program and oversee the agencies that contribute
to it; and 3. ``manage and direct'' the tasking of collection and
analysis. The legislation also will establish a national
counterterrorism center, with a Senate-confirmed director, for
developing joint counterterrorism plans covering key missions,
objectives to be achieved, tasks to be performed, interagency
coordination of operational activities, and the assignment of roles and
responsibilities in the consolidated counterterrorism mission. Also,
under this bill the President must establish a national
counterproliferation center which, as envisioned by the provision's
sponsor, Majority Leader Frist, implements a key recommendation of my
1999 Commission to Assess the Organization of the Federal Government to
Combat the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. And the
legislation will enable the implementation of other policy objectives
that I have favored such as expansion of the electromagnetic spectrum
to enhance first responder interoperability, deployment and use of
explosives detection equipment at airport screening checkpoints,
improved watch lists for passenger prescreening, improved border
security, including an increase in full-time border patrol agents and
detention beds, an increase in criminal penalties for alien smuggling,
and for those who seek to use weapons of mass destruction, an increase
in the number of serious criminal offenses designated as ``Federal
crimes of terrorism,'' improvements in financial crime enforcement and
terror financing abatement, authority to use our Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act powers against ``lone wolf' terrorists, authorization
to share grand jury information about terrorist threats with State and
local officials, and development of a national strategy on terrorist
travel and travel documents.
Many crucial objectives were not achieved, however. The budget
execution authority deemed essential for the DNI to exercise genuine
control over the intelligence community has been removed from the bill,
so that the appropriation for the national intelligence program does
not go directly to the DNI, and the DNI does not have authority to
direct the allocation of funds to the various elements of the
intelligence community. Further, the top line budget figure for the
national intelligence program will be kept secret, and thus
intelligence spending will remain unaccountable to the American people.
The DNI is left with the power to ``develop and determine'' the
national intelligence program budget, which is effectively the same
authority that the current DCI is given over the National Foreign
Intelligence Program budget by executive order. Also, personnel and
transfer authority has been further diluted in this final legislation.
Specifically, while the DNI can move intelligence community funds in
their year of execution, the heads of the intelligence community
agencies will have a right of refusal over any reprogramming or
transfer exceeding 5 percent of their agency's aggregate budget, or
exceeding $150 million, or involving the termination of an acquisition
program, e.g., satellite procurement. Personnel transfer is also
tightly circumscribed and can be accomplished only with the approval of
the Office of Management and Budget.
Beyond budget and transfer authority, the new DNI has not been
granted authority that approximates what I consider to be the
appropriate level of operational control over the various elements of
the intelligence community. The DNI also does not have, as the 9/11
Commission recommended, ``hire and fire'' authority over senior
intelligence community officials, but rather has the right of
concurrence in the hiring of senior intelligence community officials
and the right to be consulted in the appointment of the head of DIA.
Nor does the DNI control information infrastructure standards.
I also believe that the failure to include a statutory inspector
general weakens the oversight of the new DNI
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and thus raises additional privacy and civil liberties concerns.
Finally, the legislation sets up an inadequate structure within which
the DNI must operate. I had initially proposed that the DNI serve as
the head of an independent agency, or department, and the final Senate
bill arrived at a similar ``National Intelligence Authority'' to house
the office of the DNI and the national counterterrorism center.
Contrary to the concepts conceived in the Senate, the NCTC and the
DNI's officers under this legislation will be housed within the office
of the DNI. In other words, there is no power base from which the DNI
can operate. He will have no ``troops'' other than those that filter
through the NCTC and the office, and no actual authority with which to
influence, direct, or control intelligence community entities and
personnel.
These shortcomings must be addressed in future legislation if we are
to have an intelligence apparatus that can be effective against 21st
century threats, while protecting constitutional rights.
It will not be easy, however, to overcome the ingrained bureaucratic
tendencies to protect turf and the status quo. It has recently been
reported that the Department of Defense fought extremely hard during
the conference committee negotiations to further reduce the powers that
would be accorded to the DNI. My experience in attempting to enhance
the budget and operational authority of the Director of Central
Intelligence in 1996 led me to the conclusion that the same turf
battles existing prior to 9/11 would endure during the process of
formulating this most recent attempt at intelligence reform.
Unfortunately, this is precisely what has occurred this year and, like
in 1996, the Pentagon has successfully attenuated intelligence reform
legislation.
Thus, while we have gained marginal advantages over current law and
practice in this legislation, the conference report in its totality
should be viewed as the basis for building upon the powers of the DNI
in future legislation. Conversely, if we reject this bill, it is ``back
to the drawing board'' when we reconvene with an entirely new set of
priorities to tackle in the next Congress. This delay will allow reform
opponents the time and renewed vigor to marshal their resources in
opposition to changing the status quo. It is far less likely that we
will accomplish anything meaningful on intelligence reform next year if
we must start from scratch, lacking the momentum of the 9/11 report and
without the pressure of the congressional and presidential elections.
I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we gather today in the Senate for an
historic occasion. What we are about to consider is a conference report
on the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. In
about 250 written pages, we will literally rewrite the laws governing
the intelligence community of America.
This is an historic moment. It is rare, if ever, that the Congress
rises to the occasion as it has with this legislation. It is rare, if
ever, that we can find a bipartisan consensus on an item of such
controversy. Yet we have achieved it. The National Security
Intelligence Reform Act will make America safer. It will force our
Government to modernize the way we collect and use intelligence.
This legislation was born from the tragedy of 9/11 and the
determination of the victims' families that their loved ones would not
have died in vain. These courageous survivors are the reason this
congressional effort could not and did not fail. In their grief, many
people tend to withdraw, to say that they will mourn in private. These
victims' families, after a period of mourning, decided to step forward
and to lead our country and our Government toward a safer America.
Their dedication and their determination have resulted in this
document.
The bipartisan 9/11 Commission gave us an excellent blueprint, a
sense of urgency, and a constant reminder that we had to rise above our
partisan differences. We all know about this report. It is so well
known and so well read. It was even nominated as one of the great
literary works. That is rare for a Government publication, but it
deserved that nomination because it is well written, well thought out,
well prepared. Governor Kean of New Jersey, Congressman Lee Hamilton of
Indiana put together an extraordinary panel of Democrats and
Republicans who brought us this report. And this report was our
blueprint, as we sat down to write this historic legislation.
My personal contributions to this bill were in two specific areas.
After three years of effort, we finally broke through the technical and
bureaucratic obstacles to information sharing among our intelligence
agencies by adopting a proposal which I suggested for a new government-
wide approach, one with clear goals and clear authority to reach the
goals. And for the first time, at the suggestion of the 9/11
Commission, we added to our intelligence efforts a privacy and civil
liberties board which was crafted to ensure that we do not pay for our
security with our freedoms. Let me salute those who made this possible,
particularly on the Senate side.
Senator Susan Collins, chairman of the Governmental Affairs
Committee, has really been an extraordinary leader. She is a close
friend. We have worked on so many things together. I knew she would
rise to the occasion, but I didn't know that she would have the
endurance and the determination to bring it to this day. I watched as
the conference committee drove on and on, day after day, hour after
hour, week after week, month after month--many times appearing to
disintegrate before our eyes. She never quit. She just kept pushing
forward. She did it not just with a determination, but with such a
unique understanding of what was in this conference report. She would
dismiss critics in a moment if they misstated what was within the
report. She knew it cover to cover. She was well prepared.
Had Senator Collins been doing this alone, she might not have
achieved her goal. Standing by her side throughout was Senator Joe
Lieberman of Connecticut. Joe is my colleague in the Senate, a good
friend, and a great Senator. I think what he did with Susan Collins was
to demonstrate to America what Congress can do, that we can rise to the
occasion, that we can put aside partisanship and have a genuine, honest
discussion for the good of this country. That dynamic duo of Senator
Susan Collins of Maine and Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, on our
side of the Rotunda, were the guiding force.
I want to say a word about Congresswoman Jane Harman and Congressman
Peter Hoekstra who, on the other side of the Rotunda, on the House
Intelligence Committee, did an extraordinary job as well.
They would be the first to add that they could not have achieved any
of this without extraordinary staff contributions. On my own staff, I
salute Marianne Upton, who has put in more hours than you could
possibly imagine, doing around-the-clock sessions, preparing different
portions of this bill; Joe Zogby, an attorney on my staff who really
carried the banner many times on issues of civil rights and civil
liberties, oftentimes a lonely battle, not always successful but with a
real determination and extraordinary skill that he brought to the
Senate; and Shannon Smith, a member of my staff who looked at this bill
from the perspective of defense issues and foreign policy issues. Those
three, from my point of view, made my presence felt, even when there
were times I could not be in conference committee meetings.
The path that led us to this point has not been without obstacles. We
had to make major compromises in order to move the legislation forward.
But this conference report proves that Congress could work in a
bipartisan manner to bring together strength and wisdom and produce
this significant bill.
Many people recall what happened on 9/11 and where they were when
they learned of the tragedy. I remember. Everybody listening remembers.
We also remember that late in the evening, after that sad and worrisome
day, the Members of Congress, on a bipartisan basis, gathered on the
steps outside and together sang God Bless America. How many times as I
went through Illinois and across this country people would say: That
was a good thing. We were sure glad you did it, to put aside your
differences and to stand together.
[[Page S11949]]
That day was a precursor of this day because this day we will stand
together again. There will be a vote today that will be a bipartisan
vote, and it will be a clear and definitive victory for the passage of
this legislation.
Let me speak to two or three areas that were of particular
importance. First, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The
9/11 Commission realized that one of the problems we have is when we
give Government enough power to protect us, occasionally it
overreaches. That has happened in virtually every war and in every
period when there was a threat to our national security. Abraham
Lincoln, who I believe to have been our greatest President, suspended
habeas corpus during the Civil War. There were those who said he went
too far in usurping the Constitution. During the period of World War I,
when there was concern, we had the Espionage and Sedition Acts, which
some believe was an overstepping of governmental authority. In World
War II, Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave personal approval to the
Japanese internment camps, where innocent Americans were, in fact,
jailed and imprisoned when they had done nothing wrong, just for fear
that they might. In the Cold War, with our fear of the Soviet Union, we
went into the McCarthy era, questioning the patriotism of good
Americans, destroying lives and careers in the process. During the
Vietnam war, J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI compiled a list of suspects
across America. The President compiled an enemies list.
This list goes on and on. It tells us that as we try to be safe,
sometimes we go too far. The 9/11 Commission said we need to put into
place something that is unique, has never existed in history. This
Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board will make certain they keep
an eye on Government activity, make sure it doesn't violate privacy or
civil liberties. I agree with the Commission when the Commission said
to us ``the choice between security and liberty is a false choice.'' I
believe, the Commission believes, we can be both safe and free.
We can protect the lives of Americans, and we can also protect their
liberties. That is what the Board is setting out to do.
As Governor Kean said in answer to a question I asked, this Board
should be ``disinterested'' and it should not be speaking for the
Government. It should be independent in its oversight of the Government
and its activities. This Board will have the authority to obtain
information, to ensure the Government is respecting our privacy and
civil liberties. If someone outside of the Government refuses to
provide needed information, the Attorney General will have authority to
subpoena it.
There is an exception for the National Intelligence Director and the
Attorney General to withhold information in the interest of national
security. That is understandable, but members of the Board and the
Board's staff will have high-level security clearances, so we expect
that it will only rarely, if ever, be necessary to invoke this national
security exception.
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board will be required to
report to Congress about its work on an annual basis. These reports, to
the greatest extent possible, will be unclassified so we can all look
at the activities of our Government when it comes to respecting privacy
and civil liberties. This transparency will keep us informed. The
bright sunlight will shine on these activities when it doesn't
compromise national security. This Board will ensure that as we fight
the war on terrorism, we will respect the precious liberties that are
the foundation of our society.
The second area I worked in that I think may turn out to have
historic importance relates to information sharing. When the 9/11
Commission Report came out a little over 135 days ago, they kept
referring to one basic theme. This is what the report said:
The biggest impediment to all source analysis--to a greater
likelihood of connecting the dots--is the human or systemic
resistance to sharing information.
I have really focused on this since
9/11. So many colleagues looked at different aspects of the challenge
created by that terrible day. When I looked at information sharing, the
first thing I did was turn to the FBI, the premier law enforcement
agency in America, the top of the heap, the best and brightest when it
comes to law enforcement. I asked the basic question: Tell me about the
computers at the FBI headquarters on September 11, 2001.
Do you know what I learned? Just three years ago, if you looked at
the computers at the FBI, you found computers with no e-mail capacity,
no access to the Internet, no mechanism for word/name search matching,
and no capacity for the electronic transmission of photographs. Anyone
listening--particularly younger people--have to shake their heads and
say: Senator, they could have gone down to the local computer store and
bought a basic computer that had all of this capacity.
What happened? Why did the FBI fall so far behind in technology? What
happened was, in their vanity and in their bureaucratic protectionism,
they said: We don't need to go to other firms creating computers. The
FBI will create its own computer system.
They did and what a mess it was. On September 11, 2001, the
technological capability of the FBI was virtually nonexistent when it
came to computers. That is hard to imagine, isn't it?
As I spoke to every level that I could of Government leadership,
including Vice President Cheney; Attorney General Ashcroft; FBI
Director Mueller, every one of them conceded that this was an obvious
problem. Let me tell you something else. We asked the FBI and the
Border Patrol to establish a common fingerprint database.
That makes sense, doesn't it? If we are going to bank all the
fingerprints of suspects around America, wouldn't the Border Patrol
want to have an integrated network of fingerprints they could check
against the FBI base?
Let me tell you where we are on that. For more than six years, we
have been trying to achieve this. For more than six years, we have been
trying to get two agencies of Government to cooperate in comparing
fingerprints. Earlier this year, the inspector general of the Justice
Department reported it would take at least four more years to combine
the systems.
I am sure a lot of people following this debate are saying: He has to
be exaggerating. Why would it take ten years to reach the point that
the fingerprints collected by one agency of the Federal Government
could be compared to the fingerprint database of another agency?
It is a fact. It has to do with two things. First, it has to do with
equipment. It has to do with technology. And second, it has to do with
a mindset of cooperation rather than exclusion.
That is what led me to this whole issue of information sharing. I
tried to encourage a debate on this issue when we created the
Department of Homeland Security. I said to my colleagues on both sides
of the aisle: It is great for us to talk about a new department
bringing together all these agencies, but if they do not have
compatible computer databases and the will to share, then we are going
to lose out when it comes to information gathering.
I did not win that debate when we created the Department of Homeland
Security, but I am happy to tell you that we have won the debate when
it comes to this bill.
It is distressing to read chapter 8 of the 9/11 Commission's report
entitled ``The System was Blinking Red.'' It is hard to make sense out
of the information-sharing breakdowns before September 11.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 10 additional
minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. DURBIN. On July 10, 2001, an FBI agent in the Phoenix field
office sent a memo to FBI headquarters and to two agents on the
international terrorism squads in the New York field office advising of
the ``possibility of a coordinated effort by Osama bin Laden'' to send
students to the U.S. to attend civil aviation schools--the famous
Phoenix memo.
This Phoenix memo went into the system and virtually disappeared. On
its face, this memo was fair warning. This memo was a flare that went
off, climbed into the sky, and flashed a warning of danger, and no one
noticed. This was July 10, 2001. The Phoenix memo went forward, and it
disappeared in the sky without even notification.
[[Page S11950]]
The notice was there. Something needed to be done, but no one
responded within the FBI or in the other appropriate agencies.
As we learned, the Phoenix memo was not an alert about suicide
pilots. We learned the author was more concerned about a Pan Am 103
scenario. The fact is, whether they are talking about the Phoenix memo
or what led up to the intelligence investigation involving Zacarias
Moussaoui, we did not have a sharing of information among agencies that
might have protected America and the 3,000 victims on September 11.
For well over two years, I have urged that we do something profound
and historic. I thought about the Manhattan Project. That was a
project, if you recall, that dates back to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Prior to that attack, Franklin Roosevelt had his atomic project that
was looking into this new scientific research when it came to use of
the atom. It was moving along at a snail's pace, and then came December
7, 1941. On that date, the President said we were shifting into a new
approach. We want to know if we can use this new research in science to
create atomic bombs, weapons that we may need in this war.
He shelved the commission that had been working on it and created a
new group under the head of GEN Leslie Groves. GEN Leslie Groves, who
was involved in the Army Corps of Engineers, dubbed it the Manhattan
Project. What the general said was we are going to break all the rules.
We are going to have Government leadership to develop this atom bomb,
but we are going to turn to the academic side, the universities doing
research, and we are going to turn to private business, and we are
going to create what this country needs to defend itself. And we did.
The Manhattan Project met its goal and produced the bombs that ended
the Second World War.
I thought we needed something very similar when it comes to
information sharing and technology in fighting this war on terrorism.
This bill moves us in that direction. It creates an environment for us
to have computers that communicate with one another, databases that can
work with one another, information that can be shared. But all of the
good words in this bill mean little or nothing if there is not the will
in these agencies to make it happen, not only the person supervising
this new environment, but each person who is involved at each agency to
share this information and to make certain that we do not protect turf
at the expense of protecting America.
Let me address one aspect of this bill--a bill which I am happy to
support and will vote for--that is troubling to me. It is an aspect of
the bill where we lost a provision in the conference which I think is
very important.
That is a provision that was added in the Senate relative to the
detention and humane treatment of captured terrorists. A provision in
the Senate bill, which passed 96 to 2, addressed it. Unfortunately, the
House Republican conferees insisted the provision be removed from the
final version of the bill, so the bill is silent.
This is especially serious from my point of view because of the poor
track record over the last several years when it comes to the use of
torture.
In a January 2002 memo to the President, White House Counsel Alberto
Gonzales concluded that the Geneva Conventions, which have guided us
for decades when it comes to the humane treatment of prisoners, in the
words of Mr. Gonzales were ``quaint'' and ``obsolete.''
In August 2002, the Justice Department sent a memo to Mr. Gonzales in
which they adopted a new, very restrictive definition of torture. They
stated that physical abuse only rises to the level of torture if it
involves ``intense pain or suffering of the kind that is equivalent to
the pain that would be associated with serious physical injury so
severe that death, organ failure, or permanent damage resulting in a
loss of significant body function will likely result.''
They also concluded that the torture statute, which makes torture a
crime, did not apply to interrogations conducted under the President's
Commander-in-Chief authority.
Under our Constitution, the President does not have the authority to
make his own laws by creating a new definition of torture, and he
cannot choose which laws he will obey. There is no wartime exception to
our Constitution.
In November 2002, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld approved the use of
coercive interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay. These included
removal of clothing, using dogs to intimidate detainees, sensory
deprivation, and placing detainees in painful physical conditions.
According to a recent Red Cross report, the use of these techniques has
grown ``more refined and repressive'' and constitutes torture.
There are so many unanswered questions about the administration's
position on the use of torture. Mr. Gonzales said, ``We categorically
reject any connection'' between the administration's torture memos and
the abuses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and elsewhere. But how can
the administration reject these connections when the torture techniques
that they approved for use in Guantanamo were being used in Abu Ghraib
and elsewhere in Iraq?
Mr. Gonzales was recently nominated to be the Attorney General. I
look forward to getting to the bottom of this issue when he comes
before the Judiciary Committee in January.
The 9/11 Commission correctly concluded that the Iraqi prisoner abuse
scandal has negatively affected our ability to combat terrorism. They
wrote:
Allegations that the United States abused prisoners in its
custody make it harder to build the diplomatic, political,
and military alliances the government will need.
As a result, the Commission recommended that the U.S. develop
policies to ensure that captured terrorists are treated humanely. That
is exactly what we did in the Senate bill. In fact, the Senate
provision is similar to an amendment which I offered to the Department
of Defense authorization bill requiring that the Department issue
policies to ensure that they will not engage in torture or cruel,
inhumane, or degrading treatment, a standard embodied in our
Constitution and in numerous international agreements.
The Senate intelligence reform bill would have simply extended these
requirements to the intelligence community. What possible basis could
the House conferees have had for opposing this provision, turning its
back on the Geneva Convention's basic standards that we have held in
this country for decades?
I think what we have here, unfortunately, is a decision by the
conferees to be less than explicit about America's commitment. We need
to make certain that we stand by standards which America has preached
to the world for decades, that we realize we are not just not talking
about detainees captured by our Government, but the potential treatment
of Americans and American soldiers facing detention.
For us to remove this provision from this new bill is troublesome to
me.
I think the intelligence community should be held to the same
standards as the Department of Defense, and taking this language out of
the bill will make that very difficult to monitor, as I hoped we would
be able to do.
As the 9/11 Commission report admonishes, we have to think more
imaginatively to protect America and use information in a more sensible
and thoughtful way. Intelligence is the first line of defense against
terrorism. With this legislation, our intelligence gathering, analysis,
and application will be significantly improved. No agency can do it
alone. Collective vigilance requires mutual cooperation and not just
within the executive branch. We need to do our part on Capitol Hill.
Congress needs to be part of this new concerted effort. I am ready to
work with administration officials to make this happen. I salute
President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Speaker Hastert, and many other
Republican leaders who stepped up to make certain they did their part
to pass this legislation.
As we have done on the Senate side, we have demonstrated that this
kind of bipartisan cooperation makes America a safer place.
Finally, thanks to the decision of my colleagues on the Senate
Democratic side, I step into the capacity of the Senate whip, the
assistant Senate leader, in a few days. As a result of that, I will
have new responsibilities on the floor and more demands on my time. It
was necessary for me to step aside from
[[Page S11951]]
my service on the Governmental Affairs Committee, which I really
enjoyed during the period I have been in the Senate.
I am glad the last action of the committee was the passage of this
important legislation. I think a lot of work that was put in in that
committee paid off with the passage of it. I am going to miss this
committee. I wanted to make certain that whoever would fill that slot
would have the time to dedicate to its important work of protecting
America.
I thank Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Susan Collins, as
well as Senator Lieberman, for all of the kindness they have extended
to me during my period on the committee. I hope I will be able to
continue to help them in my new capacity as the Democratic whip of the
Senate.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Illinois for his
comments. He has been an extraordinarily active member of the
Governmental Affairs Committee. He has contributed to so many different
investigations. Whether it was our review of mental health services for
children or the food safety investigation, he has always been front and
center in the committee's deliberations, as he has been with this
intelligence reform bill. We will miss very much having him as a member
of the committee, but I am grateful for his past service, and we hope
he will return to the committee some day.
I know that two of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Committee members are waiting to speak, so I will not prolong. I will
talk more about my conferees, my wonderful, able group of conferees,
later.
I ask unanimous consent that Senator Carper be recognized next. He
has already reserved time under the time agreement; to be followed by
Senator Coleman, who has already reserved time under the time
agreement; to be followed by the chairman of the Intelligence
Committee, Senator Roberts, who similarly has reserved time. Two out of
the three of these individuals were conferees on the bill. Two of the
three also are members of the Governmental Affairs Committee. Each of
them has played a significant role in bringing us to where we are
today, and I am grateful for their support and involvement.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Delaware.
Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I say to our chairwoman of the committee,
Senator Collins, a heartfelt thank-you for the leadership and
persistence that she and my good friend Joe Lieberman have demonstrated
to get us to this day.
I also say to the President, thanks for using some of that political
capital. You picked up a little bit last month, and I am pleased you
have decided to invest a little bit of it in a worthwhile cause.
I plan to vote for this bill. I was privileged to be a member of the
committee in the Senate that developed the proposal under which this
bill is based, and we are happy to be here for this day.
To the members of the 9/11 Commission who have worked hard for about
18 months, their staff, a lot of folks who lost loved ones who provided
the impetus, really the wind beneath the wings for the Commission and
really for this effort, I say just a heartfelt thank-you for their
efforts, and I hope they are pleased with where we are today.
Is this proposal perfect? No. Few of mine are. Is it better? You bet
it is. It is a real improvement.
Back in 1947, the year I was born, the CIA was born as well. The
intelligence structure that was created around the CIA and Cold-War
years that followed was a structure that was designed to enable us to
win the war against communism, the Cold War. That war is over. We won
that war. We have a new war that we are fighting today, and it is a war
against terrorism.
Just as the one approach worked well for many years--our intelligence
apparatus worked well for many years against communism--it does not
necessarily mean it is going to work well against terrorism. In fact,
it has not.
When I was a naval flight officer, when I was not flying in a P-3
airplane, one of my ground jobs was to be the air intelligence officer
on the ground, briefing other crews for their missions. We had a crew
over here that was flying a top-secret mission, needed information
about it, and then another group over here with the same clearance that
did not fly that same mission. We did not brief the crew that was not
going to fly the mission. There was a need to know. If they had a need
to know, we provided the information for them. If they did not have a
need to know, we did not provide it for them. It worked well in naval
aviation. It did not work so well when it came to sharing information
across 15 different intelligence agencies on information about
terrorism.
We had one agency that knew there were bad guys around the world who
wanted to come here and hurt us. We had another agency that knew the
names of the people who actually came in and actually could have said
that these were some of those bad guys. We had another agency that knew
folks were being trained to fly in airplanes, not to land them, not to
take them off but to literally fly them straight and level. Among those
15 different agencies, I call them stovepipes, they had the information
but they never talked. At least they did not talk enough. We did not
put it together.
People talked about connecting the dots. That is exactly what did not
happen. So we were not talking; we were not sharing information. There
was a need-to-know mentality that existed and has existed for a long
time with respect to our agencies. It has to change. This bill is going
to change it.
Another problem we had, nobody was in charge. There was nobody to
assess accountability and say you were accountable for not letting this
happen. With this provision, we are going to have a powerful person put
in place, nominated by the President, selected by the President. It has
to be an extraordinary individual, somebody smart, somebody who enjoys
the confidence of both sides of the aisle, somebody who will enjoy the
confidence of the intelligence community, somebody who will be willing
to work real hard. I am sure that person is out there. My hope is the
President will find him. My hope is we will confirm that person.
Some people say this is not a perfect bill; there are some provisions
they do not like maybe with respect to our borders, maybe with respect
to immigration, maybe with respect to the rights and prerogatives of
the military and making sure they are still in a position to be strong
and provide the intelligence that is needed when it is needed to our
battlefield soldiers.
This is not a constitutional amendment. This is not something that is
in concrete. This is a bill. It is a bill that has been hard fought and
a compromise has been well won, but it is not forever. To the extent we
go forward and we find that changes need to be made, we can make them,
and we should.
In conclusion, we have been working at this stuff for a long time.
People have known the system was broke for a long time. We have had any
number of recommendations and studies that said, fix this system and
this is how to do it. We have not done it. Today we have the
opportunity to change it and to take a real step in the right
direction. We would be foolish not to. I am happy to say we are
not foolish. We are doing the right thing. It is time to seize the day,
and that is exactly what we are going to do.
My thanks again to all those who have worked so hard to get us to
this point.
I yield back my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, will the Senator from Minnesota yield for a
unanimous consent request, unless there was someone else who was in
order here? I wonder if we could set up an order following the Senator
from Minnesota, the Senator from Kansas be recognized, and then I be
recognized following the Senator from Kansas.
Ms. COLLINS. That is fine.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is
so ordered.
The Senator from Minnesota.
Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, I serve on the Governmental Affairs
Committee. I served on the conference committee that helped draft this
bill, and I am going to be very proud to vote for this bill this
afternoon.
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I wish to start and end by thanking the chair, Senator Collins, for
her incredible leadership. This was not easy to do. When we left around
Thanksgiving, there were a lot of folks who said this would not happen,
that it could not be done. We had people who had some very strong
opinions about a wide range of issues, and there were differences.
Leadership makes a difference. The leadership of Chairman Collins
made a difference. The leadership of Ranking Member Lieberman made a
difference.
I will also note, I am sure before we finally vote on this the
chairman will talk about staff. But I see Michael Bopp, who is the
staff director and chief counsel of the Governmental Affairs Committee.
Staff worked very hard. They did an extraordinary job. We were on
break, weren't around, but folks were working day and night over
holidays to give us this opportunity to get it done. I do want to
compliment Mr. Bopp and all of the staff, on a bipartisan basis,
including my own staff who worked so hard. America should thank them
because this bill is good for America. This bill makes America safer.
As I look back on the opportunities I had in my first session of
Congress, the 108th, I believe the passage of this bill is the most
significant thing this Congress has done. We have made America safer.
There are a lot of important achievements--Medicare reform, tax cuts--
but in the end you can't have economic security without national
security. Americans cannot live if they live in fear. The threat of
terrorist attack is the greatest threat that faces America, and we have
now taken substantial steps in making America safer. We make us safer,
as I said before, by the creation of a Director of National
Intelligence, a single person whom we can say is in charge.
I was struck during the hearings by my understanding of the statement
of George Tenet that a few years before
9/11, he made a statement, sent out an e-mail, that we were at war with
al-Qaida, but a lot of folks didn't know the war was happening. The CIA
didn't talk to the FBI and the Defense Department was not coordinated
with the CIA to the degree it needed to be for us to be as safe as we
should be. This bill addresses that by creating a Director of National
Intelligence to advise the President, to be the go-to person, the
person we know is in charge. It then creates a National
Counterterrorism Center so we can bring the best and brightest together
to make America safer.
This bill is not the same bill the Senate passed, but it is a good
one. At the beginning of our efforts way back in June, Senator Carper,
from Delaware, shared the credo that one of his constituents lived by:
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. I believe we
have done that in this bill.
This bill implements both of the 9/11 Commission's most important
recommendations. It creates a Director of National Intelligence to
oversee and coordinate the effort in the intelligence community. A
central problem the Commission identified was that prior to 9/11, no
one was in charge of our intelligence operations. We have taken care of
that problem.
It is important to note a lot of people were doing a lot of things
and doing good things, but they were not sharing information, they were
not coordinating efforts to the degree we needed. We had this concept
that has been talked about on the Senate floor of silos, folks working
in their own areas, doing a good job. But the reality is, to be
effective, you can't work in a silo, you can't work in isolation; you
have to work together so all the activities of all those involved in
intelligence reflect similar priorities.
We have corrected that now. The DNI is in charge of intelligence. He
has the power to shape the intelligence community over time. He can
implement joint policies on personnel, training, information systems,
and communications. The DNI also has a National Counterterrorism Center
to lead our counterterrorism efforts. The Center will contain the best
and brightest the Government has. Merely by creating these two new
entities we take an important step forward. This is not about more
bureaucracy; this is about more effective, focused, targeted efforts to
improve the safety of America, to improve our intelligence efforts. It
is a base upon which we can continue to move forward.
Like all legislation, this bill represents a compromise. On
intelligence reform, we agreed to many of the provisions in the House
bill. We gave the Department of Defense more of a say in how funds are
allocated after Congress appropriates them. We agreed to keep the total
amount of money spent on intelligence classified. But the House, in
turn, has agreed to respond to many of our concerns with the rest of
their original language.
This bill makes important reforms in immigration and law enforcement
powers but omits the most controversial sections included in the House
bill, and I believe that is wise. We need to address the issue of
immigration reform. It is a critical issue. But we cannot allow our
efforts to improve intelligence, we cannot allow our efforts to improve
security to get pushed aside, to somehow get held up because we have
not had the kind of debate and analysis and scrutiny we need to have in
both Chambers on the important issue of immigration reform.
9/11 was a horrible tragedy. We saw the face of evil. We learned the
desperate measures people will take to stamp out our way of life. But
we have seen and we have learned. From learning--I want to stress
this--in this process we had extensive hearings. We moved forward
quickly, but we didn't rush to judgment. The Senator from Kansas,
Senator Roberts, who chairs the Intelligence Committee, has been part
of our discussions. He noted there have been decades of efforts to
reform intelligence. We had a base to build upon, but we had not moved
forward until today, and we have moved forward building on so much of
what has been done in the past and building on a record, which we heard
about from folks who headed the CIA, doing operations work today.
There was a very extensive analysis of what the needs are. We looked
at the work of the Commission, the families of the victims, the history
of intelligence reform, and we made a difference today. For that,
Chairman Collins, Ranking Member Lieberman, and all involved--and the
President of the United States--should be proud. The President of the
United States played a tremendous role in getting this done.
One final point before I yield the floor. When we talk about
intelligence reform, we do talk about the big things. We talk about
creating a Director of National Intelligence and the National
Counterintelligence Center. But I also want to take a moment to talk
about what this bill does for the rest of us, some of the folks at the
local level.
I come from Minnesota. It is a small State, located on our border
with Canada. But, like her northern neighbors such as Maine, Minnesota
can be a gateway for many of the goods and people crossing by boat,
car, plane, and train. They may end up in Chicago or San Francisco or
New York, but many come in through the border States. Homeland security
starts with border security.
This bill recognizes that. It understands that when it comes to
border security, it is going to be folks at the local level, not folks
at the Federal level, who are going to be the first on the scene. That
is why this bill contains a provision to ensure that State and local
officials will be part of an integrated command system so first
responders can communicate with each other. Communication and teamwork
go hand in hand, and thanks to this bill, if we face another 9/11,
local, State, and Federal officials will not only be ready but will be
able to work as a team.
This bill also understands that border security takes resources and
manpower by providing an additional 10,000 agents over 5 years to
protect U.S. borders and unmanned aerial vehicles to monitor our border
with Canada. This is good news for America and good news for places
such as International Falls, MN.
International Falls is just a small town in Minnesota, but because of
its location, this city is among the 50 busiest gateways in this
country, admitting many hundreds of thousands of men and women through
it into this country each year. I went there this August to see what
was going on and to talk with people directly responsible for our
border security, people like
[[Page S11953]]
Paul Nevanen, director of Koochiching County's Economic Development
Authority, and Glen Schroeder, the chief agent in charge of border
patrol. People like Paul and Glen highlighted the difficulties they had
just communicating with their Federal counterparts and the difficulty
of adequately screening entry of people into the United States without
proper technology and resources. After talking with the people at
International Falls, I came back to Washington and fought hard for our
folks on the border. This bill reflects that hard work. It gives them
the resources and manpower necessary to support and secure our border.
This is a good bill. I am going to vote for it with a great sense of
pride. There are some who may say we could walk away from this bill and
hope for something better next year. That would be irresponsible. This
bill makes America safer. Passage of intelligence reform will only
become more difficult as time passes--unless, God forbid, there is
another terrorist attack. In that case, of course, there will be
another call for reform. But I submit that Congress will have failed in
its duty to the American people if it waits until then to do anything.
We don't have to wait. We have a great bill before us. We have been
provided with great leadership from Chairman Collins, from the ranking
member, and the President's efforts. I applaud all of them. As I said
before, I look forward to voting for this bill.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. President, it is my understanding that I have
allotted to me 10 minutes. I had originally understood it was 15. I ask
the distinguished chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee if she
could yield me 5 minutes out of her time, which I know is precious,
thus making it 15?
Ms. COLLINS. I am happy to yield to the distinguished chairman of the
Intelligence Committee 5 additional minutes from my time. It is my
understanding that the ranking member of the committee, the vice
chairman of the committee, is also seeking some additional time.
In between, however, Senator Levin has set a schedule to speak. I
appreciate the order amongst Members. I will also be happy to yield 5
minutes from Senator Lieberman's time to Senator Rockefeller.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Kansas is recognized for 15 minutes.
Mr. ROBERTS. I thank the Presiding Officer, and I thank the chairman.
Mr. President, one day after the 62nd anniversary of the attack on
Pearl Harbor, and 3 years and 82 days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks
on our country, we will now pass the National Security Intelligence
Reform Act of 2004.
I rise in strong support of this conference report which is a
remarkable first step in our goal to strengthen and improve our
Nation's intelligence capabilities.
My colleagues, we should start--and others have said this, and it is
certainly true--by recognizing Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman
and their staff for their efforts to get a bill which will have a
positive impact on our intelligence community. They have put in a
tremendous amount of hard slugging, sometimes very contentious and very
difficult work, and overtime, since they began this effort back as of
the 1st of August. I thank them. Together, we will have made a positive
difference in behalf of our national security.
I would also like to thank President Bush for his instrumental
efforts in getting this conference report moving. Without his
leadership, this reform would still be in the midst of a turf and issue
gridlock. The President knows that national security demands
intelligence reform and that the status quo is not an option. So I
thank the President for weighing in.
All one had to do is listen to the debate on this bill in the other
body yesterday to understand that this bill by necessity is a
compromise. When you compromise you do not get everything you want. In
my case--and in the view of many who serve on the Senate Intelligence
Committee--it does not do everything that I believe is necessary to
clearly streamline the structure of our intelligence community. It is
no secret that I believe we should have gone farther.
It is perplexing to me and a paradox of enormous irony that after the
9/11 investigation by both the Senate and House Intelligence
Committees, after our Senate committee's WMD report, after the findings
of the 9/11 Commission, after the report of the President's WMD
commission, and after all of the hearings we have held within the
appropriate committees and the Senate Intelligence Committee--we have
held over 200 hearings this session, 60 percent more than the previous
session of Congress--after all of this, and the knowledge of the
attacks on the Khobar Towers, the USS Cole, and the embassy bombings,
9/11, terror attacks all over the world that we know are connected,
that still some believe we do not need comprehensive reform or have or
will vote against this legislation because they believe it is a rush to
judgment or that the legislation did not include what they deem their
top national security priority.
In this regard, some have argued that this bill will interrupt the
military chain of command or prevent the men and women of the armed
services from receiving crucial intelligence information. Certainly
these arguments should not be ignored. But in the end, this legislation
does very little to modify the chains of command within the
intelligence community.
The tactical intelligence elements of the U.S. Government remain
clearly and explicitly under the command of the Secretary of Defense.
The leadership construct for national intelligence assets remains
largely unchanged. The Director of National Intelligence remains
primarily a budget and policy leader for national intelligence assets.
Undoubtedly, the Director's budget and policy authorities are
strengthened. But day-to-day operational control of our national
intelligence collection agencies remains dispersed. The Central
Intelligence Agency will now be led by an independent Director. The
Secretary of Defense retains the operational control of the National
Security Agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and the
National Reconnaissance Office.
Note the word of all three agencies, ``national.''
These are not only combat support agencies, but national policy
assets.
I cannot see how the existing chains of command have been serio
