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| Statement by Congresswoman Heather Wilson on NSA Electronic Surveillance |
February 08, 2006 |
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Washington, DC – Congresswoman Heather Wilson, Chair of the House Technical and Tactical Intelligence Subcommittee of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, today released the following statement regarding NSA electronic surveillance:
“On December 18th, 2005 I wrote to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales asking to be fully informed about the NSA program reported by the New York Times and acknowledged by the President. My request covered all electronic surveillance conducted without a court order within the United States since September 11, 2001.
I also asked to be fully informed on what are called “minimization” procedures and mechanisms in place and reviews conducted to ensure full compliance with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and other laws protecting the privacy of U.S. persons.
I also wrote to the President on January 11, 2006 on this same matter.
I chair the House Intelligence Subcommittee that oversees the National Security Agency. Until today, only the Chairman of the full committee, Pete Hoekstra, and the ranking member of the full committee, Jane Harman, have been briefed on this program. The Speaker of the House and Mrs. Pelosi have also been briefed. Late this morning, the Administration agreed to provide more detailed information about the program to the full Intelligence Committee.
I had serious concerns and questions about this program when it was initially reported. Those concerns grew in recent days as the Attorney General answered questions and did not answer others in the Senate.
The House Intelligence Committee as a whole has to be briefed into this program and fully informed by the Administration on exactly what is being done. We must conduct a complete review of this program. There are serious questions that need answers, and we are starting to get those answers. That could not be done by the Chairman and the Ranking member alone, and the Administration’s decision to do so is the right thing to do.
The FISA statute does allow the President and the Congressional leadership to agree on procedures that would limit information on some programs to a handful of members – the so-called Gang of Eight. These procedures are not written down and are really a matter of practice and negotiation between successive Presidents and Congresses. There are reasons to limit some information to an even smaller set of people than the intelligence committees.
At the same time, the Administration regularly and systematically briefs Intelligence Committee members about highly classified programs which, if compromised, could cause tremendous damage to national security.
The members of the Intelligence Committee are serious people committed to protecting this country and its secrets. Most of us have some background in national security matters. After 11 years in the Air Force, I served on the National Security Council Staff in the first Bush White House. I’ve had a security clearance of some form or another for all but about three years since I was 17 years old.
I have spent enough time in the world of intelligence to know that it is very common for published reports in this field to be inaccurate. That’s not intentional; it’s just the nature of covering secrets. The inaccuracies cannot be corrected by the people who run the programs.
Effective oversight has to start with the facts. The facts must come from the National Security Agency, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence.
In the war on terrorism, I believe Congress and the President share the same goal: to keep Americans safe and free. All of us remember where we were on that cool September morning and all of us share the same resolve to make sure that we never endure a day like that again.
While we share the same goal, the duties of the Congress and the President under the Constitution are different.
The President is the commander in chief of the armed forces. He executes the laws, administers programs and conducts our foreign affairs.
The Congress makes the laws. We oversee their implementation and authorize the creation of agencies, departments and programs. We regulate the armed forces, and appropriate the money.
This system of divided power with checks and balances is derived from our Constitution, but woven into our civic life and it has done exactly what our founding fathers intended it to do: it has kept us free.
The men who wrote our Constitution were quite familiar with armed conflict. Even in time of war, they feared a strong executive with a standing army that might erode the precious liberties that they had risked everything to secure. Our Constitution with divided powers operates in war and in peace.
When the Congress authorizes the President to used force against an enemy, we are not relinquishing our powers under the Constitution, we are exercising them.
Our system of government can be frustrating for Presidents, for Legislators and for the citizens we represent who believe strongly that they are right and just want to get something important done. But it is a remarkable framework that has allowed a small outpost of colonies to grow into the most powerful and most free nation in the world.
The House Intelligence Committee has a special responsibility to our colleagues in the Congress and to our country. The Intelligence Committee oversees our government’s most secret agencies.
America spies on its enemies. We want to know their capabilities, their plans and their intentions – most of which our enemies are trying to keep secret from us. The Intelligence Committee authorizes the tools to gather and analyze secrets. Of necessity, we do most of our work in secret.
I believe the time has come to review and update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
FISA was passed in 1978. That was four years before IBM put the first desk top computer on the market. In June of 1978 I graduated from High School and entered the Air Force Academy. We were the last class to be issued slide rules for math and the first class to get handheld calculators. Telephones were connected to walls. Long distance calls were expensive and the words “internet” and “cell phone” didn’t even exist.
The law has lagged behind the pace of technology. The House Intelligence Committee and my subcommittee will evaluate and review FISA. Based on this work, we will develop legislation to update our foreign intelligence surveillance laws to keep pace with the communications technologies of the twenty-first century while protecting the civil liberties of Americans.”
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