SENATOR RICHARD C. SHELBY
DENOUNCES PRESIDENT CLINTON'S CAPITULATION TO MEDIA LOBBYING BLITZ
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Richard C. Shelby (R-AL), today criticized President Clinton for vetoing an Intelligence Authorization bill that White House officials had already agreed to support.
Sen. Shelby said, "After eight years of subordinating the national security to political concerns, the Clinton-Gore Administration is going out on a similar note, overruling its national security experts and vetoing legislation to deter and punish leakers of classified information.," Shelby stated "The Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, told the Committee that the Executive Branch ‘leaks like a sieve.' These leaks risk lives and endanger intelligence sources and methods - sources and methods that may not be there to warn of the next terrorist attack, crisis, or war."
President Clinton vetoed the Intelligence bill after a lobbying blitz from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, the Newspaper Association of America, the Radio-Television News Directors Association, and others.
Shelby criticized the President for placing media interests above national security equities, "this bill was the result of extensive consultations between the Intelligence Committee and the Department of Justice, and between the Department of Justice, the White House, and other agencies." Shelby said, "Perhaps I shouldn't be shocked that, a few days before a very tight election, the Clinton-Gore Administration reverses course in an attempt to placate an irrate press rather than stick up for the men and women of our Intelligence Community."
Section 304 of the Act would fill gaps in existing law by giving the Justice Department new authority to prosecute the knowing and willful unauthorized disclosure of classified information to a person not authorized to receive that information, and provides for penalties of fines up to $10,000 or three years in prison. While current law bars unauthorized disclosure of certain categories of information, for example, cryptographic or national defense information, many other sensitive intelligence and diplomatic secrets are not protected.
The leaks provision was first adopted in April as part of the Senate version of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001. The final version of the Intelligence bill was passed by both houses of Congress and endorsed by the Executive Office of the President in a Statement of Administration Policy. The President vetoed the bill on Saturday.
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