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| Hill Divide Widens on Intelligence Reform Bill | |
| 2004-09-25 | |
| excerpted to cover the actual differences of opinion. But the bills will clash on several key points, these sources say, especially regarding powers afforded to federal law enforcement agencies and the military. A top Republican House aide, speaking on background because his bosses will roll out their bill today, said it will contain two provisions omitted from the Senate measure and opposed by civil liberties groups. One would allow federal agents to obtain secret warrants for "lone wolf" suspects not connected with a terrorist group or nation. The other would make it easier for agents to charge people with providing "material support" to suspected terrorist groups, even if, for example, they attended a training camp but never acted on their training. Rep. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, denounced the proposals, saying they go beyond the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission. John recommends that we hold off on proactive items until they are approved by the commission that follows the next attack.
Some GOP lawmakers said Democrats face a dilemma: Vote for a bill they find objectionable or risk being labeled soft on terrorism. "If they want to make it an election issue, fine," Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) said. "When you have them over a barrel, you have them over a barrel." Even if both chambers agree on a bill, it is unclear how it would be implemented while conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan continue. An administration official noted that Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) has just been confirmed as CIA director without a firm signal that he is President Bush's choice to be the new national intelligence director. "He has just got the job and it may shortly be eliminated," the official said. "Major shifts in the structure of a body as massive as the U.S. intelligence community . . . create massive turbulence and morale problems, and can often take years to fully sort out new systems and make them effective," said Anthony S. Cordesman, an intelligence expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Meanwhile, some prominent former officials continue to criticize the Senate bill, which would place the intelligence director at the head of a new national intelligence authority that is to be separate from the CIA and other intelligence agencies. "If he is the principal intelligence adviser to the president and has no bureaucracy working immediately for him, he will be lost," former secretary of state George P. Shultz said. The Senate bill would bar the office of the intelligence director from being located within the CIA or other elements of the intelligence community. White House-drafted legislation, which House leaders adopted in part, would create the director's office within the executive branch. The White House's proposal would leave it all but certain that the director would be based at the George Herbert Walker Bush Intelligence Center, where the CIA is headquartered. | |
| Posted by:Super Hose |
| #1 "If they want to make it an election issue, fine," Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) said. "When you have them over a barrel, you have them over a barrel." Sorry, but this issue is beyond partisanship. We want to be effective at countering terrorism, and we want to avoid trampling on the people's rights. If the two parties try to game this issue, then it's about time the people started demanding a third party. |
| Posted by: lex 2004-09-25 9:13:58 PM |