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House passes bill affecting 15 spy agencies { December 8 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/12/08/MNG59A8AFB1.DTLhttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/12/08/MNG59A8AFB1.DTL
House OKs intelligence bill
Measure creates new director to control 15 different spy agencies
- Dana Priest, Walter Pincus, Washington Post
Wednesday, December 8, 2004
Washington -- The House voted Tuesday to overhaul a national intelligence network that failed to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks, combining under one official control of 15 spy agencies, intensifying aviation and border security and allowing more wiretaps of suspected terrorists.
"We have come a long way toward taking steps that will ensure that we do not see another Sept. 11," said House Rules Chairman David Dreier, R-Covina (Los Angeles County). Now "we have in place a structure that will ensure that we have the intelligence capability to deal with conflicts on the ground wherever they exist."
The House voted 336-75 to send the Senate legislation to create a new national intelligence director, establish a counterterrorism center, set priorities for intelligence gathering and tighten U.S. borders. The measure would implement the biggest change to U.S. intelligence gathering and analysis since the creation of the CIA after World War II to deal with the newly emerging Cold War.
Some experts say it is not at all evident how, or even if, the changes will help America's spies obtain information and aid analysts in determining intentions of terrorists bent on striking again or worrisome states developing weapons of mass destruction.
The most significant changes target the top of the intelligence bureaucracy rather than the field officers, agents and intercept operators who actually do the work of recruiting spies, penetrating organizations or finding and disrupting plots in motion.
Proponents of the legislation, and their allies among the families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, had grown frustrated by the lack of accountability within intelligence agencies. That's why the bill designates a single person -- the new director of national intelligence -- accountable to the president and the American public.
But the new director is not directly in charge of any operations -- not covert actions, the CIA station chiefs around the world, the army of analysts whose job is to connect the dots or the operators of high-tech collection systems that contribute so much these days to finding and disrupting terrorist plans.
Nor will the new director have total control over the Defense Department collection agencies, mainly expensive satellite and eavesdropping systems, which provide three-quarters of the country's military and international intelligence.
There are other complications. The new intelligence director will have a competitor for the president's ear. The director of a new National Counterterrorism Center will be a presidential appointee who will report directly to the president on counterterrorist operations.
This new player is confounding to intelligence experts trying to see how all the new pieces fit together with the existing system and whether the changes will make anyone safer.
"Have they created a stronger, central, senior person in charge? It is not clear to me that they have," said Winston Wiley, a former senior CIA official and terrorism expert. "It's not that budgets and personnel are not important, but what's really important is directing, controlling and having access to the people who do the work. They created a person who doesn't have that."
The bill says the new director would "monitor the implementation and execution" of operations, a vague description that has perplexed intelligence officials scurrying to digest the legislation. He would have control over the national intelligence budget, but not the roughly 30 percent that covers military intelligence operations. That would remain primarily under the control of the Defense Department.
The new intelligence director also would be responsible for making sure each agency knows what the other agency knows and for setting and carrying out a list of intelligence priorities set initially by the president. The biggest targets of this restructured intelligence system -- al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents -- are stateless enemies who have proven illusive to the traps of traditional espionage tradecraft. Other major concerns most likely will be Iran, North Korea, China and Syria.
Proponents of the legislation argue that, even without direct control, the director of national intelligence sets the strategic priorities and then makes sure the individual departments are on track in pursuing them.
"He sets targeting priorities, has the budget power to direct agencies to obtain intelligence and to order the analysis" of priority groups, countries and issues, said one congressional official involved in writing the legislation.
Combined with the changes in human intelligence collection and analysis already underway at the CIA, Defense Department and other intelligence agencies after the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress' intent was to "complete the job that's been done piecemeal" by handing ultimate responsibility to one person, he said.
The Sept. 11 commission concluded that there had been serious lapses in coordination of U.S. intelligence leading up to the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon and that the current director of central intelligence, who also runs the CIA, is too focused on agency operations and does not exercise the authority needed to coordinate operations throughout the government.
Among the other provisions, the bill establishes an Intelligence Directorate at the FBI, and mandates training of a cadre of FBI agents dedicated to domestic intelligence. That idea is meant to address the fact that most FBI agents are trained to gather evidence relevant to making criminal cases, rather than information that might lead to uncovering terrorist plans.
The legislation funds a package of homeland security measures to bolster transportation safety and border security. For example, the bill calls for developing guidance for a biometric identification technology to screen foreign passengers and mandates a new airline passenger screening system.
It also mandates that the federal government -- in most cases the State Department -- undertake a host of measures to address the causes of terrorism abroad. Those measures will include creating a "democracy caucus" at the United Nations, increasing funding for rule-of-law and educational training in Afghanistan and Pakistan and expanding exchanges with the Muslim world.
Senior intelligence officials and even some legislators who supported the legislation are not sure how the long-delayed measure will work in practice.
"It's a black hole we're looking into," said one U.S. intelligence official.
"There are a lot of questions, and they are inevitably going to be resolved in practice," said a senior administration official who will be involved in melding the old and the new structures.
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Intelligence reform
Components of the intelligence reorganization bill:
-- Creates a new position, director of national intelligence, who will be the principal adviser to the president and coordinate the nation's spy agencies. The position will be above the CIA director.
-- Establishes a National Counterterrorism Center for planning intelligence missions and coordinating information on terror threats and responses.
-- Creates a Privacy and Civil Liberties Board to oversee privacy protections.
-- Establishes minimum standards for birth certificates and driver's licenses and improves security of Social Security cards.
-- Requires a national transportation security strategy, including advanced airline passenger prescreening and biometric identification systems.
-- Tightens baggage screening procedures and security in screening areas.
-- Authorizes money to improve air cargo security, and develops strategies to counter shoulder-fired, Stinger-type portable weapons.
-- Adds 2,000 Border Patrol agents and 800 immigration and customs agents every year for the next five years.
-- Strengthens visa application requirements.
-- Provides funds to combat money laundering and financial crimes.
-- Grants wiretapping and investigative authority to pursue "lone wolf" terrorists not affiliated with a terrorist group or state.
-- Recommends increased diplomacy in the Islamic world to combat spread of terrorism and promote democracy. Maintains financial aid to Pakistan and investment in Afghanistan.
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