Background
Except for minor changes, S.
372, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, is
identical to last year’s proposed legislation, S. 3237, which was
favorably reported by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on May 25,
2006, but not taken up by the full Senate for consideration during the 109th
Congress. Changes include revisions in dates and other administrative
revisions as well as technical corrections outlined in S. Rpt.
110-2, accompanying S. 372.
Summary
S. 372, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal
Year 2007, would authorize appropriations for the Director of National
Intelligence (DNI) and the U.S.
government’s 16 intelligence agencies and entities. The budgetary details
of the legislation are included in a classified annex, which provides a
classified schedule of authorizations and classified directions to the
intelligence community regarding critical issues from the budget review as well
as other oversight responsibilities of the Intelligence Committee.
In order to enhance public
accountability and improve congressional oversight of national intelligence
activities, the bill would require public disclosure of the overall annual
budget request, authorization, and appropriation for the entire intelligence
community and revise notification procedures to ensure that the intelligence
community is providing timely information to congressional intelligence
committees. The bill also includes a provision increasing the penalties
for the disclosure of the identity of undercover intelligence officers, and it
requires reports on the operation of clandestine prisons and the implementation
of the Detainee Treatment Act.
The legislation also
includes a provision that would require that the appointments of the Directors
of the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the
National Geospatial Intelligence Agency be confirmed by the Senate.
Further, S. 372 would create a National Space
Intelligence Center.
Managers’
amendment. Chairman
Rockefeller and Vice Chairman Bond will offer a managers’ amendment when the
legislation comes to the floor. That amendment strikes Section 310, which
would authorize a pilot program allowing exceptions to the Privacy Act.
It eliminates language requiring a study of the effects of declassifying agency
level intelligence budgets, makes modifications to the section on congressional
notifications, and deletes the requirement to report the exact location of
clandestine detention facilities.
Major Provisions
Title
I – Intelligence Activities
Authorization
of appropriations. The
bill would authorize funding for the DNI as well as intelligence-related
activities for U.S. government departments, agencies, and other entities,
including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence
Agency (DIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Geospatial
Intelligence Agency (NGA), the National Reconnaissance Office (NRA), the
intelligence capabilities of the military services (including the Army, Navy,
Air Force and Coast Guard), as well as the intelligence components of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Departments of State, Justice,
Treasury, Energy, and Homeland Security, and the Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA).
Classified
schedule of authorizations and incorporation of classified annex. The
legislation states that the details of the authorized appropriation amounts and
ceilings provided under Title I are contained in a classified Schedule of
Authorizations, which must be made available to the Senate and House Committees
on Appropriations and to the President. The bill also would incorporate
into the law the Classified Annex of the Committee Report and calls on the
Executive Branch to comply fully with any directed transfers, temporary
limitations on use, or other limitations or instructions contained in the Annex
of the Report. The classified annex is available for review by all Senators
in room S-407 of the Capitol throughout consideration of the bill or in the
Committee spaces, Hart 211, at any time.
Intelligence Community
Management Account (CMA). The
bill would authorize $648.9 million for the CMA of the Director of National
Intelligence and would authorize 1,575 full time
personnel within the CMA.
Disclosure
of the national intelligence budget. S. 372 includes a provision that would require the President to disclose the
overall annual budget request and also would require Congress to disclose the
aggregate amount of funds authorized to be appropriated and the aggregate
amount appropriated for the National Intelligence Program. The bill, as
reported by the Committee, instructs the DNI to conduct a study on the advisability
of publicly disclosing the aggregate amount of funding requested, authorized,
and appropriated for each of the 16 entities of the Intelligence
Community. It would require that the report be submitted within 180 days
of the bill’s enactment. The managers’ amendment would delete the study
but maintain the requirement for disclosing the aggregate number.
Ensuring
timely congressional access to information from the Intelligence Community. The bill includes provisions that would revise
certain procedural requirements for members of Congress to gain access, through
intelligence committees and other committees of jurisdiction, to intelligence
reports, assessments, estimates, legal opinions, and other intelligence
information. It states that the intelligence community must provide to
the intelligence committees any existing intelligence documents or
information requested by the Chairman or Vice Chairman of these
committees. The provision would not apply to requests for new documents
or information.
Title
II – Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability System
CIA
Retirement and Disability Fund.
The bill would authorize $256.4 million in spending for this fund.
Title
III – Intelligence and General Intelligence Community Matters
Improved
congressional notifications regarding intelligence activities of the U.S. government. S. 372 would amend requirements for notifications to Congress under the National
Security Act of 1947. This provision would clarify that all
members of congressional intelligence committees (not just the four members
of the House and Senate leadership and the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the
House and Senate Intelligence Committee) must receive briefings on
intelligence. It would require that, in the event that the DNI or the
head of an element of the intelligence community does not provide to all
Members the notification required under the Act, all Members will be provided
notification of this fact. The current bill language also requires a
summary of the intelligence activity or covert action to assess its legality,
benefits, costs, and advisability. The managers’ amendment changes this
to require a statement of the reasons for the limited notification and a
description of the main features of the activity covered by the
notification. Further, the bill would require that any change to a covert
action finding under Section 503 of the National Security Act be
reported to the committees, modifying the existing requirement to report any
“significant” change.
Increased
penalties for the disclosure of undercover intelligence officers and agents. The legislation includes a provision that
would increase the criminal penalties for individuals with authorized access to
classified information who intentionally disclose any
information identifying a covert agent. It would increase the maximum
sentence for disclosure from 10 years to 15 years. The bill also would
increase the maximum sentence from 5 years to 10 years for disclosure by an
individual who “as a result of having authorized access to classified
information, learns the identity of a covert agent.”
Pilot
program on disclosure of records under the Privacy Act. The
bill would create a three-year pilot program to examine narrow intelligence
exceptions to the Privacy Act to allow information sharing between
intelligence agencies. The managers’ amendment strikes this provision in
its entirety.
DNI
report on compliance with the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005. S. 372 would require the DNI to submit a classified report no later than May
1, 2007 to congressional intelligence committees on all measures taken by the
Office of the DNI and by any element of the intelligence community on
compliance with two provisions of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005.
Specifically, the report would detail compliance on the bill’s provision
prohibiting cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and the
provision ensuring the protection against civil or criminal liability for United
States Government personnel who had engaged in officially authorized
interrogations that were determined to be lawful at the time.
Report on clandestine
detention facilities for individuals captured in the Global War on Terrorism. The legislation would require the DNI to
submit a classified report to members of the congressional intelligence
committees, which would provide full accounting of each clandestine prison or
detention facility currently or formerly operated by the U.S.
government, at which detainees in the “Global War on Terrorism” are or have
been held. Requirements of the report include: the size of each prison or
facility; its disposition, if no longer operated by the U.S. government; plans for ultimate disposition
of detainees; a description of interrogation procedures currently and
previously used; and whether those procedures comply or complied with United States
obligations under the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against
Torture. The bill as reported would require the report to include the
location of each facility. The managers’ amendment deletes this
requirement.
Title
IV – Matters Relating to Elements of the Intelligence Community
Authorities
of the Office of the DNI on intelligence sharing. The
bill would authorize the DNI to use National Intelligence Program funds to
quickly address needs that arise in intelligence information access or sharing
capabilities. It also would grant the DNI authority to provide funds to
non-National Intelligence Program activities to address critical gaps in
intelligence information sharing or access. Further, S. 372
includes provisions that would grant the DNI the authority to delegate the
authority to protect intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure
to the Deputy Directors of National Intelligence or the Chief Information
Officer of the Intelligence Community and to ensure the dissemination of human
intelligence to appropriately cleared analysts and officers throughout the
intelligence community.
DNI
authority regarding the transfer and reprogramming of intelligence funding. S. 372 would grant the DNI the authority to approve interagency financing of
national intelligence centers and other entities established by the DNI and to
pool resources from intelligence community and non-intelligence community
agencies to finance national intelligence centers to address identified
intelligence matters. These new authorities are intended to provide the
DNI with the necessary flexibility to coordinate the intelligence community
response to an emerging threat.
Inspector
General of the intelligence community. The bill would establish in law an Inspector General of the
intelligence community within the Office of the DNI, to be appointed by the
President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to review programs of the
intelligence community and the relationships among the elements of the
community, and to report to the DNI and to Congress. The DNI currently
has an administratively established Inspector General.
National Space
Intelligence Center. The legislation would create a National Space Intelligence
Center to coordinate all
collection, analysis, and dissemination of intelligence related to space as
well as participate in intelligence community analyses of requirements for
space systems.
Director
and Deputy Director of the CIA.
The bill would establish the position of Deputy Director of the CIA, which
would be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, to ensure
that, in the event of a vacancy in the position of the Director, a Deputy, who
has the confidence of the President and Congress, is available immediately to
assume the leadership of that critical agency. The legislation also would
require that both the Director and Deputy Director be appointed “from civilian
life.”
Enhanced
protection of CIA intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized
disclosure. The bill
would provide the Director of the CIA with the authority to protect CIA
intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure, consistent with
direction from the President and DNI. Currently, this authority is only
held by the DNI.
Senate
confirmation of heads of certain components of the Intelligence Community. The legislation would require that the directors
of the NSA, NGA, and NRO (currently appointed by the President) be nominated by
the President and confirmed by the advice and consent of the Senate, in order
to enhance congressional oversight of the intelligence community.
National
security missions of the National Geo-Spatial Intelligence Agency.
S. 372 includes a provision which
adds a new national security mission responsibility to the NGA. With this
mission, the NGA would be required, as directed by the NGA, to “analyze,
disseminate, and incorporate Geospatial Intelligence, likenesses, videos, or
presentations produced by ground-based platforms, including handheld or
clandestine photography taken by or on behalf of human intelligence agency
taken by or on behalf of human intelligence collection organizations or
available as open-source information.”
Legislative History
On January 17, 2007, the
Senate Select Intelligence Committee approved S. 372, the Intelligence
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, by a vote of 12-3. On
February 8, 2007, the Senate Armed Services Committee favorably reported S.
372, without amendment.
For the past two years, the
Senate has failed to enact an intelligence authorization bill. On April
26, 2006, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5020, the Intelligence
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. The Senate Select Committee
on Intelligence favorably reported its version of the bill, S. 3237, on
May 25, 2006, which the Senate Armed Services Committee favorably reported
(without any recommended changes) on June 21, 2006. However, as occurred
with the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006, the Senate
did not proceed to consideration of either the House or Committee-passed bill
during the 109th Congress.
Fiscal Year 2006 was the
first year since the establishment of the House and Senate Intelligence
Committees in 1978 and 1979 that Congress did not enact an intelligence
authorization bill.
Statement of Administration Policy
On April 26, 2006, the Bush
Administration issued a Statement of Administration Policy (SAP) for the House
version of the bill considered in the 109th Congress, H.R. 5020.
The Statement can be accessed on the Office of Management and Budget’s website:
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/legislative/sap/109-2/hr5020sap-h.pdf).
At the time of publication,
no SAP has been issued for S. 372, the Intelligence Authorization Act
for Fiscal Year 2007.
Possible Amendments
The
DPC will distribute information on possible amendments as it becomes available.
