IS THE CIA'S REFUSAL TO COOPERATE WITH CONGRESSIONAL INQUIRIES A THREAT
TO EFFECTIVE OVERSIGHT OF THE OPERATIONS OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT?
=======================================================================
JOINT HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY,
FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND
INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS
and the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
VETERANS AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
of the
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 18, 2001
__________
Serial No. 107-59
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
78-230 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2002
____________________________________________________________________________
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpr.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512ÿ091800
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
STEPHEN HORN, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
BOB BARR, Georgia ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JIM TURNER, Texas
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DAVE WELDON, Florida WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida ------ ------
C.L. "BUTCH" OTTER, Idaho ------
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Tennessee (Independent)
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and
Intergovernmental Relations
STEPHEN HORN, California, Chairman
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
DOUG OSE, California PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
J. Russell George, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Darin Chidsey, Professional Staff Member
Scott Fagan, Clerk
David Rapallo, Minority Professional Staff Member
Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International
Relations
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York TOM LANTOS, California
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
DAVE WELDON, Florida ------ ------
C.L. "BUTCH" OTTER, Idaho ------ ------
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Lawrence J. Halloran, Staff Director and Counsel
Nicholas Palarino, Professional Staff Member
Jason Chung, Clerk
David McMillen, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on July 18, 2001.................................... 1
Statement of:
Eland, Ivan, director of Defense Policy Studies, Cato
Institute.................................................. 45
Hamilton, Lee H., director, Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars; director, Center on Congress at
Indiana University, and former Member of Congress from the
State of Indiana........................................... 24
Hinton, Henry L., Jr., Managing Director, Defense
Capabilities and Management, General Accounting Office..... 31
Smith, Colonel Daniel M., USA (Ret.), chief of research,
Center for Defense Information............................. 61
Woolsey, R. James, partner, Shea & Gardner, and former
Director, Central Intelligence Agency...................... 27
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Eland, Ivan, director of Defense Policy Studies, Cato
Institute, prepared statement of........................... 48
Hinton, Henry L., Jr., Managing Director, Defense
Capabilities and Management, General Accounting Office,
prepared statement of...................................... 33
Horn, Hon. Stephen, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California:
Letter dated July 7, 1994................................ 11
Letter dated July 17, 2001............................... 21
Prepared statement of.................................... 4
Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Connecticut, prepared statement of............ 8
Smith, Colonel Daniel M., USA (Ret.), chief of research,
Center for Defense Information, prepared statement of...... 63
IS THE CIA'S REFUSAL TO COOPERATE WITH CONGRESSIONAL INQUIRIES A THREAT
TO EFFECTIVE OVERSIGHT OF THE OPERATIONS OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT?
----------
WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, 2001
House of Representatives, Subcommittee on
Government Efficiency, Financial Management and
Intergovernmental Relations, joint with the
Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans
Affairs and International Relations, Committee
on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Stephen Horn and
Hon. Christopher Shays (chairmen of the subcommittees)
presiding.
Present for the Subcommittee on Government Efficiency,
Financial Management and Intergovernmental Relations:
Representatives Horn and Schakowsky.
Present for the Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans
Affairs and International Relations: Representatives Gilman,
Shays, Otter, Kucinich, Tierney, and Clay.
Staff present for the Subcommittee on Government
Efficiency, Financial Management and Intergovernmental
Relations: J. Russell George, staff director and chief counsel;
Henry Wray, senior counsel; Bonnie Heald, director of
communications; Darin Chidsey, professional staff member; Scott
Fagan, assistant to the committee; Fred Ephraim, Davidson
Hulfish, Fariha Khaliz, and Christopher Armato, interns.
Staff present for the Subcommittee on National Security,
Veterans Affairs and International Relations: R. Nicholas
Palarino, senior policy analyst; and Jason Chung, clerk.
Staff present for the minority: Michelle Ash and David
Rapallo, counsels; David McMillen, professional staff member;
and Jean Gosa and Earley Green, assistant clerks.
Mr. Horn. This subcommittee hearing will come to order.
James Madison once wrote, "A popular government without
popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a
prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both." President
Madison was correct in his belief that the Government's ability
to gather and provide reliable information to its people is
vital to the health and well-being of our Nation.
Today's hearing should not be necessary. However, it is
taking place because the Central Intelligence Agency has
refused to comply with the oversight efforts of the Committee
on Government Reform and its several subcommittees. In so
doing, the agency is assaulting Congress' constitutional
responsibility to oversee executive branch activities. The CIA
apparently believes that it is above that basic principle in
our Constitution. We don't agree.
This hearing stems from a recent and contemptuous act by
the Central Intelligence Agency during the Subcommittee on
Government Efficiency, Financial Management and
Intergovernmental Relations' examination of security plans and
policies to protect the Government's classified computer
systems. As part of that oversight effort, the subcommittee
requested the General Accounting Office to conduct a survey of
computer security policies at all executive branch departments
and agencies that maintain classified systems.
Every Federal agency except the Central Intelligence Agency
responded to the survey. Those responding included the National
Security Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office.
Initially, the CIA expressed concern about providing
sensitive information in a public forum. In an attempt to
accommodate that concern, the subcommittee agreed to allow the
agency to present that information in a classified executive
session. The CIA agreed and provided the subcommittee with the
name of an individual who would be able to testify at the
classified session. Then, only days before the session was to
take place, the CIA informed the subcommittee that it would not
participate regardless of the closed nature of the meeting.
In addition, members of the Central Intelligence Agency's
Legislative Affairs Office called representatives of the
National Security Agency and other witnesses who had agreed to
participate, suggesting that they were under no obligation to
testify before this subcommittee.
The CIA points to a recent change in the House rules as the
basis for not cooperating with congressional inquiries other
than those received from the Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence. The rule adopted by the 107th Congress provides
that the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence shall
review and study on a continuing basis the laws, programs and
activities of the intelligence community. In addition, the rule
provides that the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
shall review and study, on an exclusive basis, the sources and
methods of entities involved in intelligence gathering,
including the CIA, its Director, and the national foreign
intelligence program.
The rule is clear in stating that congressional oversight
of the CIA's, "sources and methods," falls exclusively to the
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. However, the
rule also provides that congressional oversight in the areas
other than, "sources and methods," is not to be limited to
the Intelligence Committee.
The Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial
Management and Intergovernmental Relations, which I chair, is
charged with overseeing the efficiency and financial management
of Federal agencies. It is also charged with the responsibility
of overseeing governmentwide computer security efforts. We're
not interested in pursuing issues that involve the CIA's
sources or methods of operation. We do not want to jeopardize
the security of this Nation or the safety of its intelligence
agents and operatives.
To the contrary, our examination of computer security
issues is part of the subcommittee's attempt to ensure that
this and other information is being adequately protected.
Surely, the CIA should not be exempted from such a
governmentwide effort.
Today, we want to examine how the agency's lack of
cooperation affects Congress' ability to oversee the activities
of the executive branch departments and agencies. In addition,
we want to examine whether the Central Intelligence Agency is
thwarting the Government's separation of powers between
legislative and executive branches by its attempted
interpretation of a rule of the House of Representatives.
Finally, we want to examine the Central Intelligence Agency's
arrogant attempt here to undermine congressional oversight
activities involving other agencies within the intelligence
community.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Stephen Horn follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8230.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8230.002
Mr. Horn. We now will swear in the witnesses, and we have
Mr. Shays and we have Mr. Gilman--Mr. Gilman for an opening
statement.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Chairman Horn. I appreciate the
opportunity to appear today, and I want to thank the committee
for conducting this important review. I'm disappointed for the
need to hold these kinds of hearings. The CIA and other
elements of our Government's intelligence community hold a very
important place in our overall defense planning needs and
security needs. By their very nature elements of the
intelligence community occupy places of unusual trust on behalf
of our entire Nation. They have a special responsibility both
to properly safeguard the information that they handle and to
provide sufficient and appropriate information for oversight to
the Congress.
While I acknowledge that this is a difficult balancing act,
it is important that we protect the freedom and the openness of
our Nation, symbolically and literally the leader of the Free
World. That kind of responsibility requires accountability,
largely achieved through the checks and balances of our three
distinct and sometimes competing branches of government.
We look forward to hearing the testimony of our witnesses
who are here today. As needed, I want to work for an effective
system of oversight that both fully supports the principle of
free and open society and yet simultaneously fully protects the
elements of information from disclosure that would damage our
Nation's safety and security.
And I want particularly to welcome the former chairman of
our International Relations Committee, Congressman Lee
Hamilton, now Director of the Woodrow Wilson Center, and James
Woolsey, the former Director of the CIA, as well as our other
distinguished witnesses who are here today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. Well, we thank you.
And now I'll turn to our cochairman for this hearing, Mr.
Shays, the gentleman from Connecticut, who is the chairman of
the Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and
International Relations of the Government Reform Committee.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Chairman Horn.
Like you, the members of the National Security, Veterans
Affairs and International Relations Subcommittee would much
rather conduct a hearing about constructive oversight findings
than about obstructions to our oversight process. But when
faced with persistent, institutionalized agency resistance to
legitimate inquiries, we're compelled to reassert our
authority, under the Rules of the House, to review the
operation of government activities at all levels.
In 1994, the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA], adopted a
self-described "hard-line" approach to congressional
oversight inquiries, particularly General Accounting Office
[GAO], reviews not initiated by the Select Intelligence
Committees. The policy attempted to draw a bright-line between
sharing intelligence products with congressional committees and
submitting to any oversight which the agency believes will
compromise the sources and methods of intelligence gathering.
Based on that dated, distorted concept of oversight, CIA
refuses to discuss its approaches to governmentwide management
reforms and fiscal accountability practices. Other intelligence
agencies share information freely. Blinded by its own bright-
line, the CIA often stands alone in refusing routine
congressional requests for data, even going so far as
attempting to persuade other agencies to resist as well.
The CIA position that congressional oversight jurisdiction
is limited to the Select Intelligence Committees is not
supported by the law, is not supported by House Rules and is
not supported by sound public policy. National security will be
enhanced, not undermined, by the full exercise of congressional
oversight authority.
We have no interest in examining the sources and methods of
intelligence gathering and analysis. But we do have a keen
interest in how effectively and efficiently the CIA and other
intelligence agencies manage human capital, manage fiscal
resources and meet statutory program objectives. The bottom
line: The source of all CIA funding is the American taxpayer
and the methods of management efficiency and accountability
must be within the purview of this and other committees of
Congress.
Symptomatic of the CIA's misguided perception of its
responsibilities to Congress, the agency would not even
cooperate this morning by providing a witness to discuss why
they won't cooperate. I find that outrageous.
But we do welcome a panel of most distinguished witnesses
to discuss the indispensability of broad-based and far-reaching
oversight of the intelligence community. Every one of our
witnesses is very qualified to speak on this subject, and I, as
the chairman of the National Security, Veterans Affairs and
International Relations Subcommittee, am grateful to each and
every one of you for being here and regret deeply the lack of
cooperation of the CIA in even responding to basic questions
about cooperation.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8230.003
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8230.004
Mr. Horn. I thank the gentleman. And I put in, following
his remarks, two documents from the Central Intelligence
Agency. The first is dated July 7, 1994, a memorandum for the
Director of Central Intelligence. It's from Stanley M.
Moskowitz, the Director of Congressional Affairs, and the
subject is the Director of Central Intelligence Affirmation of
Policy for Dealing With the General Accounting Office.
Now, as we know, they are the arm of Congress for
investigations, programmatic auditing; and they act for
Congress, they act for these committees and other
subcommittees.
[The information referred to follows:]
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8230.012
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8230.013
Mr. Horn. The next document is from George A. Tenet,
Director of Central Intelligence, to Stephen Horn, chairman,
Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and
Intergovernmental Relations, and that's dated July 17, 2001.
[The letter referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8230.014
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8230.015
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8230.016
Mr. Horn. We will now swear in the witnesses, and I share
Mr. Shays' and Mr. Gilman's feeling that we have an excellent
panel here today, and we're thankful that you know a lot of the
history of the CIA and both of you have shown great expertise
in serving our Nation and also to working with Congress. So if
you will stand and raise your right hands, and the staff behind
for GAO.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Horn. The clerk will note that all have affirmed, or
said yes; and now we will start with--first one, a friend
certainly of everybody in the Congress and that's the Honorable
Lee Hamilton, who was for very many years chairman of the
International Relations Committee, is now Director of the
Woodrow Wilson Center, and was former chairman, House Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence.
Mr. Hamilton.
STATEMENT OF LEE H. HAMILTON, DIRECTOR, WOODROW WILSON
INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS; DIRECTOR, CENTER ON CONGRESS
AT INDIANA UNIVERSITY, AND FORMER MEMBER OF CONGRESS FROM THE
STATE OF INDIANA
Mr. Hamilton. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Shays, Mr.
Gilman. It's a pleasure to be with you.
I always thought it was a little easier to sit up there and
ask the questions than it is to sit down here and answer them,
and I'm quite confident of that this morning, but I'm very
pleased to be with you. Let me make a few opening comments
about the way I approach the question that the chairman has
raised, and Mr. Gilman and Mr. Shays.
First of all, I think we all agree that good intelligence
is essential for the security of the country. U.S. policy has
to be based on the most accurate information available, and on
correct prediction insofar as that is possible. Good
intelligence does not guarantee good policy, but bad or poor
intelligence almost certainly guarantees bad policy.
A Nation without intelligence is like a person without eyes
and ears. Good intelligence is essential.
Second, the tasks that we assign to the intelligence
community today are simply overwhelming--enormous, varied,
expanding. The old proverb says that only a fool would make a
prediction, especially about the future. But the problem, of
course, is that we ask the CIA to make not just one, but
hundreds of predictions, every week; and we want them to be as
accurate as possible. And the toughest thing in the world to
predict is intentions, and we ask the CIA to predict that all
of the time.
I believe that our intelligence capabilities are very
good--always room for improvement. I believe that the people
who work at our intelligence agencies are highly talented and
dedicated people. Jim Woolsey was an outstanding Director of
the CIA, but he represents many hundreds, thousands of others
who do marvelous work for the country.
I support the greater openness on the part of the
intelligence community. I think the intelligence community
should be forthcoming in making available information on its
work and the role that it plays in shaping U.S. policy.
Let me just say a word about the importance of oversight by
the Congress of the intelligence community. My view, I gather
your view, is that the intelligence community needs very
strong, very vigorous, independent oversight; and the Congress
is the only body that can really give independent oversight of
the executive branch under our current laws, structures and
practices.
The intelligence community is enormously large. It's very
complicated and it is hugely expensive. In this town,
information is power and the intelligence community has
tremendous power to influence policy.
Intelligence is an area of great temptation for a
President. Presidents can be tempted, I should say, to
manipulate intelligence to influence the policy debate. I think
oftentimes the executive sees intelligence as a tool to make
policy look good, rather than a tool for making good policy.
Presidents often resort to the intelligence information they
have, to the CIA, for covert actions when they're frustrated by
obstacles to their policies. So Congress, in a sense, stands
between the President and the misuse of intelligence by the
intelligence community and by the executive branch.
The congressional role in oversight--I'll get down to that
more specifically--is limited, but extremely important for some
of the reasons I have suggested. Unlike other Federal issues,
Federal agencies, the intelligence community does not receive
the kind of close scrutiny independent of the President that
almost every other policy does.
There's very little media coverage of the intelligence
community. There are very few academic studies of the
intelligence community. There are no, or at least not a large
number of lobbying groups for the intelligence community. Most
of the meetings they have occur in secret, without public input
and isolated from most Members of Congress.
There is an Inspector General of the CIA. There is a
Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Those are appointed by the
President, not independent of the President.
And intelligence is a very arcane business.
So I think oversight is very important. If the Congress
fails to identify the problems in intelligence, they may go
unspotted. And while they have been a very good agency in many
respects, the CIA over a period of years has also been a very
troubled agency.
At one point, not long ago I think, they had five Directors
in 7 years. You can't possibly manage that shop over there with
five Directors in 7 years. It's just too big and too
complicated.
The intelligence community has not, I can assure you, come
easily to the idea of congressional oversight, but I believe
they have come to that; and that's an important fact.
Now, as I understand the law today--and it's quite
extraordinary really that you have this massive intelligence
community and yet you do not have any fundamental charter or
law. We've tried to draft a charter for the intelligence
community several times and never succeeded, but there are a
number of pieces of legislation. There are a lot of rules and
practices that have been put into place over the period of the
last few decades that set the framework, if you would, for
oversight of the intelligence community.
The law provides that the executive keep the House and
Senate intelligence community committees fully and currently
informed of intelligence activities, and that judgment, as to
whether it's fully informed or currently informed, is a
judgment the Congress has to make, not the intelligence
community. The law provides that illegal and failed activity be
reported in a timely way and, of course, it has a special
provision with regard to covert actions.
It's an extremely difficult problem of oversight because
the intelligence committees are given legislative,
investigative, and authorization authority over the
intelligence community. They have exclusive jurisdiction of the
CIA, but they share jurisdiction with other agencies, for
example, the Department of Defense and NSA, DIA, State, Energy.
So it's a very complex pattern that you have over oversight of
the intelligence community.
There are a lot of benefits from oversight. I don't think I
need to go into that, because I know very well the chairman's
position on that. The Congress conducts that oversight, of
course, through the budget process. I think the great task is
to strike a balance between the need to ensure accountability
and the intelligence community's need to gather and protect
information.
It's the balance between oversight and secrecy. It is not
an easy task. You will never get it right completely, but you
have to keep working at it. And sometimes the Congress is a
partner of the intelligence community, sometimes it's a critic,
sometimes it's an advocate for the intelligence community,
sometimes it's a watchdog; and those roles are very hard to
keep in balance.
My view--and I'll conclude with this, Mr. Chairman--is that
the Congress has to get information it needs from the
intelligence community. Congress should be the judge of that.
We have in place today a structure that has been developed over
a period of decades really, where the information from the CIA
is provided to the intelligence committees. Then the
intelligence committees must decide how that information is
made available to other Members of the Congress.
This system doesn't work perfectly, but my judgment is, it
works reasonably well. And I do feel it is possible there may
be a better way to do it, but we ought not to go to another way
in an ad hoc manner by this subcommittee or that subcommittee
or this committee or that committee demanding information from
the CIA.
If you really want to change the way you do oversight of
the intelligence community, then it has to be approached, it
seems to me, in a very coherent, comprehensive way to change
the structure that was put in place over the past few decades--
a structure of law, a structure of precedent, a structure of
practice.
And the question of sharing intelligence information
outside of the intelligence committees to other members is
always a very sensitive question in this institution and one
that has created tensions as long as I can recall.
So the bottom line is that I think the system that we have
certainly calls out for improvement. It's working reasonably
well, but be careful not to throw it out unless you have
something to put in its place that has been carefully,
comprehensively, coherently thought about.
Mr. Horn. Thank you very much. We appreciate the wisdom you
had during the Congress and after Congress.
We now have the Honorable James Woolsey, who was a former
Director of the CIA from 1993 to 1996 and was, again, highly
respected here in both parties for his openness and his
willingness to relate to people. Thank you very much.
STATEMENT OF R. JAMES WOOLSEY, PARTNER, SHEA & GARDNER, AND
FORMER DIRECTOR, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Mr. Woolsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
inviting me today.
I was Director of Central Intelligence for 2 years early in
the Clinton administration. I also, however, in an earlier
incarnation, was General Counsel of the Senate Armed Services
Committee for 3 years. So I have seen this issue from both
Capitol Hill and the executive branch; and the views,
obviously, that I express today are only those of a private
citizen and lawyer who got out the rule book and looked at it
and tried to decide what he thought. And I thank you for
inviting me.
This current issue apparently arose from the question of
how this committee could investigate and assess and conduct
oversight in connection with the cyberthreat to our government
computers; and I would say, first of all, that I can think of
no overall issue that is more substantively important to the
Government right now than this. It is something that is of
absolutely vital importance.
It's an area that I've been working on for some time as a
private lawyer. I think such issues as whether fire walls, for
example, can effectively protect computers is of extraordinary
importance. I don't believe they're very effective, and I think
that this committee's assessment of the best ways for
government computers and government networks to be protected
would be extremely important.
This procedural question of exactly how and under what
circumstances what information should be provided to committees
of the Congress other than the House and Senate Select
Committees--the Permanent Select Committee and the Select
Committee and the two Appropriations Committees is also an
important and rather difficult one.
First of all, let me say, when I was Director of Central
Intelligence, I certainly did not neglect the Congress; and I
don't know any Director, really, who can or should. Congress
was in session 185 days in calendar 1993, my first year as
Director, and I had 195 appointments on the Hill that year, 10
more than the days Congress was in session, so on average, I
was up here more than once a day. At one point, for example, I
sat beside one of my analysts for 29 hours, before a number of
different committees, because his judgment about Haiti had been
called into question; and we answered questions from a large
number of individual Congressmen, mainly Senators, on precisely
what type of judgments we had made about President Aristide and
why.
Any Director of Central Intelligence should spend a good
deal of time on the Hill, and he owes not just his two
oversight committees and two appropriations committees, but the
Congress as a whole, I think, what information he can provide
and what help he can provide from the intelligence community.
Now, it's my understanding that a few weeks ago Larry
Gershwin, an extraordinarily able national intelligence
officer, testified on cyberthreat trends and U.S. network
security before, I believe it was, the Joint Economic
Committee. Now, this is, of course, the principal way in which
the CIA provides information to the Congress; it provides
intelligence product. And it is an issue, it seems to me, what
the words of the House rules mean with respect to what other
information is provided to congressional committees.
Rule 10, and in it clause 11, does say, as the chairman
noted at the beginning, that nothing in this clause, clause 11,
restricts other committees such as this one from reviewing
intelligence activities or intelligence products. But I think
one has to note that this right is circumscribed, at least as I
read the rules, by a provision in clause 3, not clause 11,
which limits exclusively to the House Permanent Select
Committee the right to oversee sources and methods.
The way I read those two clauses is that the exclusive
right to oversee sources and methods essentially trumps the
right of other committees to review intelligence activities or
products. So, in my mind, this whole issue comes down to the
question of what is a "method of the CIA" in clause 3, it is
a method of the entity, the CIA, that is at issue.
Now, some of my colleagues this morning have read this
limitation, this word "method" in a quite limited way. Mr.
Eland, in his prepared testimony, on pages 8 and 9, says that
the CIA's method of protecting its own computers should be
regarded no differently by the Congress than its assessment of
the foreign threat. And Colonel Smith limits methods to
collection methods, that is, whether one is taking photographs
or reading lips, for example.
I don't read "methods of the CIA" that narrowly. I must
say, it seems to me that the method by which the CIA protects
its computers from intrusion is a method of the CIA.
Now, I fully agree it is up to the House to decide how to
interpret its own rules, but I understand the House Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence has a different view than this
committee with respect to the breadth, or lack thereof, of the
meaning of the word "method."
Now, let me say why I believe briefing on the foreign
threat, as Mr. Gershwin did before the Joint Economic
Committee, rather than reviewing the CIA's method of
maintaining its own computer security, is an understandable way
for the Congress to operate. If one takes the members of the
House Permanent Select Committee and the Senate Select
Committee and of the two Appropriations Subcommittees for
Defense, which cover intelligence, one has 72 Members of the
Congress and 80 staff members, that's 152 people on the Hill
who today are charged with intelligence oversight. Those 72
Members constitute 13 percent of the entire membership of the
Congress.
If one adds this committee's and its parallel committee in
the other body, Senate Governmental Affairs members and staff,
one adds 58 Members and 193 staff members to the total that
would be engaged in overseeing the CIA. That's now a total of
403 people on Capitol Hill, and would constitute 24 percent of
the Members of the House and Senate.
There are at least two other committees that have an
understandable interest in overseeing some aspect of what the
CIA does, House International Relations and Senate Foreign
Relations and House and Senate Armed Services. If one adds the
149 members of those committees and the 219 staff members, one
gets an added 368 individuals who would be involved in
overseeing the CIA.
That would be a total of some 760-770 individuals on
Capitol Hill, and if you deduct the Members who are on more
than one of those committees, the way my numbers came out is
that you would end up with 49.5 percent of the Members of
Congress, one-half of the Members of Congress involved in
overseeing the CIA if the Government Reform, Government
Affairs, International Relations, Armed Services, as well as
the Intelligence Committees and Appropriations Committees were
involved.
Now, there may be some way, there may be some structure
whereby a change in the process could be worked out and
whereby, as former Chairman Hamilton said, a reform, a
systematic reform of the whole process should be undertaken. I
don't write off that possibility, but I must say that if one
goes at this piecemeal and looks to just each individual
committee or subcommittee in Government Reform, Government
Affairs, International Relations, Foreign Relations, Armed
Services that may have some understandable interest, and if one
interprets the word "method" quite narrowly, so that pretty
much anything that the CIA does other than a collection source
or a collection method is subject to oversight from the other
committees of the Congress, you are on a track to having half
of the Members of the Congress and some 760 people on Capitol
Hill engaged in CIA oversight.
I do not think that would be wise.
So I would identify myself with Chairman Hamilton's closing
words, that I believe the current system works reasonably well
and that it should only be reformed if it is reformed in some
systematic and thorough and overall way, rather than piecemeal.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members.
Mr. Shays. Thank you Mr. Woolsey.
Mr. Hinton, I think what we'll do is wait for Mr. Horn to
come back. He left early so we could continue the flow, but I
think what we'll do is, we'll go and vote.
So we'll recess for a second, but as soon as he gets back
he'll start with you. Thank you. So we stand in recess.
[Recess.]
Mr. Horn. The recess is over. If you don't mind Mr.
Woolsey, I heard you put a few details in the record here and I
may be, I'd just like it for my benefit to get a repeat on
that.
Mr. Woolsey. Surely. Do you mean now?
Mr. Horn. Sure.
Mr. Woolsey. I said several things but let me focus on two.
One was that although this is a difficult and complicated
issue, and I fully understand the substantive reasons behind
the committee's interest in this very important area, I think
we come down to a reading of the House rules.
And as I read them, and as I said, this is nothing more
than a private citizen's reading. The authority for other
committees to review intelligence activities and products are
the words in clause 11 of rule 10; and nothing in this clause,
i.e., clause 11, as the rule states, restricts nonintelligence
committees from reviewing intelligence activities and products.
But the exclusive basis for the House Permanent Select
Committee's jurisdiction over reviewing sources and methods of
the CIA occurs in clause 3, not clause 11, and the way I read
that interaction is that their exclusive basis with respect to
sources and methods essentially trumps the provisions in clause
11.
So the question comes, what is a "method?" If an
intelligence method is relatively limited, if it is as limited
as Colonel Smith says in his testimony that he limits it
essentially to collection methods, that is, whether you are
learning something through photographs or through lip reading;
and Mr. Eland says on pages 8 and 9 of his testimony that there
should be no difference between the CIA's way or method of
protecting its own computers, then the threat--that is, both of
those--should be fully reviewable by other committees.
I must say, I read the word "method" more broadly. I
believe that it is entirely plausible to contend that a
"method of the CIA" includes its method of protecting its
data; and under that reading, the way I would read it is that
the House Permanent Select Committee's jurisdiction is
exclusive with respect to the agency's methods.
Now, I agreed with Chairman Hamilton with respect to any
reform needing to be--of the process or the oversight process
needing to be an overall, systematic reform rather than
something that is done piecemeal; and my illustration on that
was the following: If one takes the House Permanent Select
Committee and the House Appropriations Subcommittee that deals
with intelligence together with the sister committees in the
other body, you have 72 Members and 80 staff members who are
involved in intelligence oversight, now 152 people, and those
72 Members are 13 percent of the membership of the Congress.
If one adds the members and the staff of the House
Government Reform Committee and Senate Governmental Affairs,
you get up to 403 people and 24 percent of the Members of the
Congress; and if one adds in the members and staff of House
International Relations and Senate Foreign Relations and House
and Senate Armed Services, which I think have a plausible claim
to being interested in perhaps some oversight responsibility
for the intelligence community, under a broad reading you get
up to right at 50 percent of the Members of the Congress and
about 760 individuals, not counting the GAO if it gets into the
business, who are involved in overseeing the CIA.
And I think those numbers suggest that one should move
toward an oversight role for other committees only as part of
some overall evaluation rather than a piecemeal step, because,
I for one, don't see a way to draw a line between this
subcommittee's responsibilities and other committees of
Government Reform or Senate Governmental Affairs, or for that
matter, many of the interests of House International Relations,
Senate Foreign Relations and the Armed Services Committees.
So, anyway, those were the main points, I think, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Horn. Well, thank you very much.
We'll now proceed with the third witness, Mr. Hinton. Henry
Hinton is the Managing Director of Defense Capabilities and
Management of the General Accounting Office. The General
Accounting Office works for the Congress of the United States
and is a creature of the Congress, and we give a lot of
assignments to them on many aspects in the executive branch.
And we welcome you here today.
STATEMENT OF HENRY L. HINTON, JR., MANAGING DIRECTOR, DEFENSE
CAPABILITIES AND MANAGEMENT, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE
Mr. Hinton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm pleased to be here
to discuss the subject of GAO access to information at the CIA.
I will focus my comments this morning on our authority to
review CIA programs and the status of our access to CIA
information.
On the subject of authority, as with all Federal programs,
Congress has given us broad authority to evaluate CIA programs.
In reality, however, we face both legal and practical
limitations on our ability to review these programs. For
example, we have no access to certain CIA unvouchered accounts,
that is, expenditures of a confidential or emergency nature
that are accounted for solely on the certification of the
Director.
We cannot compel our access to foreign intel and
counterintelligence information. In addition, as a practical
matter, we are limited by the CIA's level of cooperation, which
has varied throughout the years. We have not actively audited
the CIA since the early 1960's, when we discontinued such work
because the CIA was not providing us with sufficient access to
information to perform our mission. The issue has arisen since
then, from time to time, as our work has required some level of
access to CIA programs and information.
Most recently, in 1994, the CIA Director sought to further
limit our audit work of intelligence programs, including those
at DOD. In doing so, the CIA has maintained that the Congress
intended the Select Intelligence Committees to be the exclusive
means of oversight of the CIA. This action by the CIA Director
has effectively precluded oversight by us. Given a lack of
requests from the Congress for us to do work in this area and
with our limited resources, we have made a conscious decision
not to pursue this issue.
On the subject of the status of our current access, today,
our dealings with the CIA are mostly limited to requesting
information that relates to governmentwide reviews or analyses
of threats to the U.S. national security on which the CIA might
have some information. The CIA either provides us with the
requested information, provides the information with some
restrictions or does not provide the information at all.
In general, we are most successful at getting access to CIA
information when we request threat assessments, and the CIA
does not perceive our audits or evaluations as oversight of its
activities. For example, in our review of chemical and
biological terrorist threats that we did for Chairman Shays, we
requested, and the CIA provided us, access into formation on
their threat assessments and access to the analysts that
prepared them.
On the other hand, for our review of classified computer
systems in the Federal Government, we requested basic
information on the number and nature of such systems. In this
case, and as you referred to in your opening statement, Mr.
Chairman, the CIA did not provide us the requested information,
claiming that they would not be able to participate in the
review because the type of information is under the purview of
the congressional entities charged with overseeing the
intelligence community.
My written statement has other examples in it.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, our access to CIA information
and programs has been limited by both legal and practical
factors. Today, our access is generally limited to obtaining
information on threat assessments when the CIA does not
perceive our audits as oversight of its activities. We foresee
no major change in our current access without substantial
support from Congress.
Congressional impetus for change would have to include the
support of the Intelligence Committees, who have generally not
requested GAO reviews or evaluations of CIA activities. With
such support, we could evaluate some of the basic management
functions at CIA that we now evaluate throughout the
Government.
That concludes my statement Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hinton follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Our next witness is Ivan Eland, director of
defense policy studies at the Cato Institute.
STATEMENT OF IVAN ELAND, DIRECTOR OF DEFENSE POLICY STUDIES,
CATO INSTITUTE
Mr. Eland. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and other members of the
committee. It's a pleasure to appear before the committee to
give my remarks on this vital topic.
As important as safeguarding sensitive intelligence
information is to the CIA, the intelligence community and the
executive branch, more paramount concerns exist in a
constitutional republic. Reacting to European monarchs who ran
foreign and military policy, often disastrously and with few
constraints imposed by their subjects, the founders of the
American Nation enshrined in the U.S. Constitution a vital role
for Congress, the arm of the people in foreign and national
security policy.
James Madison noted that experience showed that checks and
balances within the Government were needed to guard against the
Founders' greatest fear, the risky accumulation of power in one
branch of government. In short, Madison wrote, "Ambition must
be made to counteract ambition."
The checks and balances written into the Constitution,
which go to the heart of a constitutional republican form of
government, ensure that no branch of government can dominate
U.S. foreign and defense policy. Thus, Congress has vital
oversight responsibilities for executive branch agencies
involved in foreign affairs and national security, including
CIA and the intelligence community.
Even in a constitutional republic, however, some secrecy in
foreign affairs and defense is needed, obviously; but when
secrecy and accountability clash, which the presumption should
be with accountability, accountability should be especially
preferred in the lower external threat environment of a
postcold war world.
Unlike most other government entities, the intelligence
agencies get only limited scrutiny from the media, the public,
conflicting interest groups and the courts. Also, U.S.
Government secrets are not the exclusive property of the
executive branch. Congressional committees are entitled to, and
also have a duty to examine them to ensure that the secretive
intelligence community is acting in the interests of the people
it is supposed to be defending. Of course, we have well-known
instances where the intelligence agency did not act in this
fashion. For those reasons, congressional oversight by more
than just the small and too easily co-opted, in my opinion,
intelligence committees is especially vital.
However, in most cases accountability does not run afoul of
secrecy. In fact, in this case, the Government Reform Committee
is trying to ensure that the CIA's computer systems adequately
secure the sensitive information. In fact, in recent decades,
the trend has been to expand the circle of those responsible
for overseeing intelligence activities. The expansion of
oversight is even more appropriate now that the worldwide
Communist menace has collapsed.
To help guide the House committees in performing oversight,
the Rules of the House delineate special oversight functions
for various committees. In that part of the Rules, clause
(3)(1), the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, "shall
review and study on a continuing basis laws, programs and
activities of the intelligence community and shall review and
study on an exclusive basis the sources and methods," of
agencies of the intelligence community, including CIA.
The phrase "on an exclusive basis" is very telling
because the exclusive purview of the House Intelligence
Committees is restricted to examining sources and methods. By
implication, the other committees can study laws, programs and
activities of the intelligence community, for example, CIA
cybersecurity. If "sources and methods" is broadly read as
Mr. Woolsey states, then why is the "on an exclusive basis"
clause needed at all? The other committees can't review
anything under this interpretation anyway, because the CIA
method is all-encompassing.
My interpretation fits well with another passage in the
House Rules that specifically governs the Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence, clause 11(b)3. It says, "Nothing in
this clause shall be construed as prohibiting or otherwise
restricting authority of any other committee to study and
review an intelligence or intelligence-related activity to the
extent that such activity directly affects a matter otherwise
within the jurisdiction of that committee."
Once again, "sources and methods" is normally taken to
mean "collection." If "method" is read broadly, as Mr.
Woolsey states, why even put this clause in at all? Everything
is a method, and so other committees besides the Intelligence
Committees cannot review anything.
Those same House Rules give the Government Reform Committee
broad oversight over the operation of the executive branch
agencies. Clause 3(e) states, "The Committee on Government
Reform shall review and study on a continuing basis the
operation of government activities at all levels with a view to
determining their economy and efficiency." That's a pretty
broad purview.
So it's been very clear from the time of the creation of
the Intelligence Committees in the late 1970's that they did
not have exclusive jurisdiction over intelligence and
intelligence-related activities or access to intelligence
products; the mere name, Select Committee, indicates that. The
House Rules seem very clear on that point.
But if any dispute over internal House jurisdictions
occurs, it should be between the intelligence community and
another committee, not between the CIA and the other committee.
The CIA should allow congressional committees to interpret
rules made by their own Chamber, and in fact, maybe outside
experts ought to let the committees work this out as well.
In short, the CIA appears to have no basis for its refusal
to testify before the Government Reform Committee. The
Government Reform Committee's effort to investigate CIA's
cybersecurity seems to be well within its constitutional
responsibilities and its jurisdiction under the House Rules to
review government economy and efficiency.
Furthermore, as long as the committee refrains from
directly examining the CIA "sources and methods of
intelligence"--and I read this to be "collection," which is
unlikely in an investigation of the CIA's cybersecurity, the
committee seems to have a compelling case under the Rules for
examining the agency's intelligence activities and products
during its investigation.
That concludes my verbal statement. I'll be happy to answer
questions at the appropriate time.
Mr. Horn. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Eland follows:]
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Mr. Horn. Our last presenter before the Chair is Colonel
Daniel M. Smith, a West Point cadet who spent a lot of his time
in the Army on intelligence assignments. So we welcome you
here, Colonel Smith, and would appreciate any advice you wish
to give the committee.
STATEMENT OF COLONEL DANIEL M. SMITH, USA (RET.), CHIEF OF
RESEARCH, CENTER FOR DEFENSE INFORMATION
Colonel Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My remarks are
going to come from the perspective of an information gatherer,
a user of finished intelligence, and last but not least
important, as an ordinary citizen.
As a career military intelligence officer, I retain a bias
in favor of the need for the U.S. Government to keep secret
information that it deems might be helpful to an adversary or
competitor if that information became known. The Government
also has an interest in collecting information about other
nations and foreign individuals with a view toward
understanding, and if possible, influencing behavior of these
nations and individuals. How and on what basis these decisions
are made also is information that needs to be protected.
On the other hand, as a career citizen of the United
States, a status that preceded and postdated my military
service, I have a bias in favor of maximum openness in
government, including justification of actions taken or not
taken on behalf of myself and other citizens. Although there
are legitimate security reasons to withhold information from
the general public, such as sources and methods used to acquire
information on which decisions are based, the threshold for
withholding information from the elected representatives of the
people must be significantly higher than for the general
public. Otherwise, the Congress can never know for sure whether
it is carrying out its sworn duty to protect the public's
general welfare against potential government intrusion into
areas protected by the Constitution, and to properly allocate
resources among the various legitimate requirements of the
Nation in general and the intelligence agencies in particular.
This subcommittee can, I believe, exercise oversight in
intelligence activities from the standpoint of efficiency and
fiscal management without increasing the possibility that
sensitive information inadvertently will be revealed.
Considering the size of the intelligence community itself, I am
not overwhelmed by the possible numbers cited by Director
Woolsey of those with an interest in oversight of intelligence
activities.
While there is a legitimate security requirement to limit
the dissemination of sensitive information and material on a
need-to-know basis, such need-to-know restrictions must be
carefully evaluated to ensure they do not become an excuse to
withhold information arbitrarily or to conceal failures or even
misdeeds. Making information usable to different levels of
Government, and even to the public, by blending in as many
sources and methods as possible and screening out information
that could only come from restricted sources is a job of
professional intelligence analysts.
Judging how well they are doing and whether priorities and
expenditures are in line with the perceived threats is the job
of Congress, and for that, Congress needs to have access and to
hear from--in executive session if necessary--knowledgeable
representatives of U.S. intelligence agencies.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Colonel Smith follows:]
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Mr. Horn. We'll now have the opening statement of my
colleague, the ranking minority member of the Subcommittee on
Government Efficiency, Financial Management and
Intergovernmental Relations, Ms. Schakowsky.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you
and Mr. Shays for convening today's hearing to highlight some
of the examples of roadblocks that the CIA has put up to
necessary and effective congressional oversight. It's really an
honor for me to be here with this expert panel, and I wanted to
say, particularly to Mr. Hamilton, somebody I've admired for a
very long time, I appreciated all of your informed testimony.
I am sure for each member here there's at least one story
of frustration with the CIA and its unwillingness to cooperate.
In the wake of the April 20th shoot-down of an American
missionary plane over Peru and the killing of American citizens
on board, members on both sides of the aisle were shocked when
the CIA did not show up for a hearing of the Criminal Justice,
Drug Policy and Human Resources Subcommittee to review
circumstances that were leading to that tragedy.
Having a particular concern with the fact that private
military personnel, under contract with the CIA, were
responsible for providing the information that led to the
shoot-down, I called the CIA to ask some questions. After
numerous calls that I made personally, as well as my staff,
someone from the agency finally called to inform me that I
would not be provided with any information and that the agency
would neither confirm nor deny any involvement.
As a Member of Congress with responsibility for voting on
whether to allow such programs to exist and a member of the
House's oversight committee, I was mystified and outraged. An
American citizen and her infant daughter were killed, the
United States played a prominent role, and now we have an
agency telling Congress to mind its own business. This is our
business, and I think we need to demand some answers.
So I share your frustration, Mr. Chairman, and urge you to
work with Chairman Burton to subpoena the information you have
requested. I'm still waiting to hear from the CIA about the
details of the shoot-down over Peru and believe the committee
should also subpoena all audio- and videotapes, transcripts and
other materials pertaining to the shoot-down of the missionary
plane.
The need for greater CIA compliance with inquiries and
investigations is exemplified by their failure to even follow
the most basic principles of law. Not only does the CIA refuse
to recognize the rights of Congress, the agency often does not
comply with laws that protect the public. In 1998, Amnesty
International filed a Freedom of Information Act request with
the CIA, seeking information about possible U.S. links to the
Colombian military group, Los Pepes.
The FOIA request was not answered until a little over a
month ago--1998 till a month ago--after Amnesty International
had found no other alternative but to file suit. Under the
terms of the FOIA law, every U.S. agency has an obligation to
respond within 10 days. It took the CIA 3 years, numerous press
reports and a hugely successful book on the subject, and a
lawsuit to say they could neither, "confirm nor deny the
existence or nonexistence of records." Incidentally, what
Amnesty International is trying to uncover, information about
drug trafficking terrorists that may have colluded with U.S.
agencies to carry out an assassination, should be at the
forefront of every Member's concern.
In the fall of last year, I circulated a letter that was
sent to President Clinton, asking for an investigation into
these disturbing allegations. I realize it sounds more like a
movie plot than real life, but unfortunately, this story line
has come to characterize the way the agency is perceived by the
public and the Congress.
It is difficult to stand behind an agency that refuses to
cooperate and seems to thrive on the practice of stonewalling,
so I appreciate very much the suggestions that you've made of
more comprehensive approaches and look forward to working with
the chairman, both chairmen, to resolve some of the concerns
that we have. Thank you.
Mr. Horn. I thank the lady from Illinois.
Now I am going to start in with some questions with Mr.
Hamilton. You mentioned independent oversight, and it's my
understanding that the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence staff includes a number of current and former CIA
personnel. I understand how this can be important to certain
aspects of the committee's duties, but could this close
relationship hinder the committee's ability to conduct
independent oversight?
Mr. Hamilton. Mr. Chairman, I think there is always a great
deal of suspicion toward the Central Intelligence Agency,
certainly by the American public, but also Members of the House
who are not members of the committee. And I think it's the
responsibility of the House Permanent Select Committee to, No.
1, do everything they can to conduct extremely rigorous,
vigorous oversight of the Central Intelligence Agency, hold
their feet to the fire, make them report on incidents like the
Peru airplane incident, in very great detail.
Now, the problem has always been to what extent does the
select committee share information with other members, and,
quite frankly, that's a part of oversight that has never been
worked out very well; and it's an internal matter, it seems to
me, that has to be worked on and resolved. I think the
Intelligence Committee needs to be responsive to Members of
Congress who are not members of the Intelligence Committee. You
raised the question kind of an incestuous relationship, I
guess, between staff and the Intelligence Community. To some
extent that may exist, but I think there also are a good many
staffers there that are quite independent of it.
Let me emphasize again how important I think that
independence is, because the President has the Foreign
Intelligence Board. He appoints all those members. Very rarely
in my experience will that Board step forward and say, Mr.
President, the CIA, or some other aspects of our Intelligence
Community, is out of bounds. The only independent oversight
that this massive Intelligence Community gets is the Congress,
and so it is important that oversight be done very rigorously
and that it not fall prey to what the chairman is asking here,
that it become co-opted by the Intelligence Community. You have
to keep working at that. I mean it's something you just have to
keep working at.
Incidentally, that's one reason you have a limitation on
the terms of the members of the House Select Committee, the
argument being that if you have a permanent membership, that
relationship becomes too cozy.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Woolsey, during your tenure, did the CIA
provide detailees to the congressional Intelligence Committees,
and what was their role?
Mr. Woolsey. I remember one to the Senate committee that
was requested by the Senate, but I don't remember any others.
I'd have to go back and look, Mr. Chairman, but I don't recall
more than one at this point.
Mr. Horn. Do you recall any other Directors before your
position that did that?
Mr. Woolsey. I don't know. I got the impression that it was
done from time to time but wasn't all that common. I don't
remember retired CIA members, officers who were on the
committees when I was Director, except, again, one. There might
have been more, but certainly most of the staffers were not
either detailees or former CIA.
Mr. Hamilton. Mr. Chairman, if I may just observe, an awful
lot of the work of the Intelligence Committee is highly
technical, and you do need on the staff of that committee
people who have detailed knowledge of satellites and all kinds
of technological miracles. You don't pick that up on the
street. You get it from people that have worked in that area.
And so the problem that you raise, I think, is a real one. The
flip side of it is that the committee has to have staff that
can go head to head with the Intelligence Community experts on
all of their technology.
Mr. Horn. Would that be your policy also, Mr. Woolsey?
Mr. Woolsey. Yes, Mr. Chairman. It's up to the committee
chairman who he picks. I've been out of the CIA for 6\1/2\
years. I've testified before both committees, and my experience
has been that the occasional staff member who has background in
the Intelligence Community, whether it's CIA or otherwise, his
loyalty is owed to the chairman of the committee. Also they
have always been vigorous in their questioning and the like.
Mr. Horn. And you believe you had close relationships with
the detailees? Did either your staff director or you sort of
keep track of them?
Mr. Woolsey. You mean when I was Director?
Mr. Horn. Right.
Mr. Woolsey. I don't remember who they were, and I
certainly didn't keep close track of them. My relations were
with the chairman, the members, and occasionally with staff.
And I had with my two House committee chairmen, Congressman
Glickman and Appropriations Subcommittee chairman, Congressman
Murtha, excellent relations with them and the staff. That
didn't mean that they didn't question me vigorously, but we got
along fine.
On the Senate side I got along fine with my appropriations
chairman, Senator Inouye. The Senate Select Committee chairman,
Senator DeConcini, and I were another matter. But what gave an
overall cast to my relations with the four committees I dealt
with was not the former status of any of the staff members, but
it was dealings with the chairman and the ranking member.
Mr. Horn. Did either one of you use the General Accounting
Office to conduct reviews in terms of the work of the
committee?
Mr. Hamilton. Mr. Chairman, my recollection is we did not
use the General Accounting Office for reasons that I think Mr.
Hinton made pretty clear. They just don't feel they have the
authority to examine it in great detail; so it was not a useful
arm for us.
Mr. Woolsey. And back in the days when I was general
counsel of Senate Armed Services, Mr. Chairman, which was the
early seventies, which was pre-Intelligence Committee days,
there were only probably three or four staff members in the
Senate who were cleared into the CIA and National
Reconnaissance Office programs, and we did not use the GAO at
all on those programs.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Hinton, is there any record that GAO has
contributed to a lot of these oversight groups in terms of CIA?
Has it been solely fiscal or----
Mr. Hinton. Well, back in the late fifties and early
sixties, Mr. Chairman, we were looking at financial matters,
and then we began to expand into some program areas; however,
we were not able to get sufficient access to complete our
mission, and as we had discussions with the CIA, and at that
time it was the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee,
we stopped doing work, and with the concurrence of the chairman
of the House Armed Services Committee, who at that time had
jurisdiction over the Intelligence area.
Mr. Horn. When did CIA have an Inspector General as part of
its----
Mr. Hinton. My recollection is that it was in 1989 when the
statute was passed, I believe, 1989.
Mr. Woolsey. I think the CIA had an Inspector General
before then but after 1989 it was subject to the statutory
requirement of all these various independent reporting
obligations to the Congress and the like.
Mr. Horn. Did you find that was a useful office when you
were Director?
Mr. Woolsey. Sometimes.
Mr. Horn. In terms of what they did, did they look at
management processes or just fiscal matters?
Mr. Woolsey. Both. I even had them review my own office's
operation.
Mr. Horn. And you felt they did a good job or----
Mr. Woolsey. Sometimes.
Mr. Horn. Sometimes. You're being very cautious here.
Mr. Woolsey. Yeah. I have a "on the one hand" this other
and that view of my Inspector General during those years, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Horn. And that's the Truman thing about economists.
Mr. Woolsey. Yes.
Mr. Horn. On the other hand, on the other hand, so forth.
Do you think that the current organization has other
experts that can look at management? And of course that is what
our interest is. We are not interested in methods and
Intelligence people. We are interested simply in "is the place
put together so it can achieve its mission?" In the case of
computers that have been classified, we had that whole problem
in the Y2K thing, and we finally got some of the information.
Mr. Woolsey. First of all, the Inspector General's Office
does now do this sort of thing routinely, look at management
practices for different parts of the Agency. And I think from
what I've heard from Mr. Tenet, he's quite pleased with the
operation of his Inspector General's Office now.
Second, the President has, I believe, asked Mr. Tenet and
also the White House, I think, operating through the
President's Foreign intelligence Advisory Board which I believe
will be headed by General Skowcroft, to do two management
reviews of the Intelligence Community as a whole, including the
CIA, and I think those are underway.
And finally, the current No. 3 official at the CIA, who
actually manages in a day-to-day sense the Agency, Buzzy
Krongard, formerly the chief executive officer of Alex Brown
and a very experienced executive, is someone that I think Mr.
Tenet looks to for management advice about the operation of the
Agency.
So my judgment from the outside, and I'm not in this in any
detail, would be that currently they are, from both the outside
and the inside, reasonably well equipped to look at management
issues.
Mr. Hamilton. Mr. Chairman, my view is that the question
you raise on efficiency, it's an area that the Intelligence
Committees over a period of time have not paid very much
attention to. The whole question of cost effectiveness, we
spend billions and billions of dollars on Intelligence--we all
know the figure roughly, I don't know whether it's public or
classified so I won't use it--but billions of dollars, and
there's very little attention given to cost effectiveness.
The real key in Intelligence is are the right people
getting the right information at the right time? That's the
key. It doesn't matter how much intelligence you've got. If the
commander on the ground is threatened with a car bomb, if he
doesn't have the information he needs, your Intelligence is not
worth a thing. And I think sometimes we get so captivated with
the technology of the collection of intelligence that we take
the position, the more the better.
The real question is not necessarily the amount of data
that you've got. You've got to analyze that data, and then
you've got to get it to the right people at the right time for
it to be effective. I don't think the Intelligence Committees,
and I don't mean in any way to criticize the President's
Intelligence Committees because I don't know that much, but
over a period of years we simply have not spent enough time on
efficiency and cost effectiveness, and to that point I very
much concur with your view.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Woolsey, any comments on that?
Mr. Woolsey. Well, the Director of Central Intelligence
really is charged with doing this on a day-to-day basis, and
one major aspect of what I call the needs process which--
because I hate the word "requirements." I think it has a lot
of the wrong connotations for what one should request and
appropriate funds for. Part of the needs process that I
instituted had a lot to do with making and trying to
institutionalize some of the kinds of judgments that Chairman
Hamilton suggested.
One of the types of things it tends to point out when you
do an end-to-end look on a lot of intelligence product, from
collection to its getting to the consumer, is that there are
roadblocks of the sort he discussed. One very well-known one is
translators. It doesn't do a great deal of good to accumulate a
huge amount of data and material in Arabic if you're not
willing to hire and train the number of Arabic speakers and
readers necessary to make sure you're going through it on a
reasonable and timely basis, and some of those types of things
do jump out at one if one does a review of the needs during the
budget process systematically, and that's the way I tried to do
it. I don't know how it's been done since.
Mr. Horn. To your knowledge, are CIA's employees able to
report allegations of mismanagement or crimes of authorities
outside of the CIA, or is there a process inside the CIA where
a Director can depend on either a certain group or whatever to
see that these things are taken care of?
Mr. Woolsey. Inside the CIA they have access, of course, to
the Inspector General. They would have access if he's running
the place right, to the Director himself. And they certainly
have access to the Oversight Committees of the House and
Senate. I think that from the point of view of being able to
report malfeasance or nonfeasance or just to complain about
one's job, that system at least as of early 1995, from my point
of view, worked reasonably well.
Mr. Horn. Now, did you use GAO for help on any of this?
Mr. Woolsey. No, Mr. Chairman, we did not. We operated with
our own Inspector General. And with respect to the audit
function, the Senate staff has a separate staff that does
audit, and in the House it's my understanding they have several
members of the staff that do it, although they don't call it a
separate section of the committee.
Mr. Horn. I see my co-chairman, Mr. Shays and others. I do
want you to have some question time here. OK, go ahead, Ms.
Schakowsky.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to state
first that I'm a rookie when it comes to these intelligence
questions, and probably the questions that I will ask reflect
those that perhaps ordinary citizens would be asking more than
someone who has an expertise in this area of intelligence
gathering and the rules of the game.
I'm wondering, Mr. Chairman, if I could ask you a question
first. I feel that our committee has been disrespected to some
degree by the CIA in ignoring your request to appear and in
ignoring your questions; and while I think we have certainly
heard helpful testimony, I'm just wondering why you made a
decision, or if you did, to not subpoena the CIA to come. Could
you have and, if so, can we maybe in the future?
Mr. Horn. Well, we leave that to Chairman Burton. He has
that authority as chairman of the full committee.
Ms. Schakowsky. I see. There's a threshold question on this
issue of secrecy. Who and how are decisions made about what
will be classified and what will not, what is important for the
public to understand and what is not? It seems to me that
questions about computer security certainly are public policy
questions, and I don't know--Mr. Woolsey or others may
disagree, that seems to me an obviously appropriate thing.
When we asked questions about the incident in Peru, not
sources and methods but other kinds of questions, these seem
appropriate for our committee and for the American people to
hear. Chairman Burton said, "why is this information about
whether or not the CIA hired private contractors classified?"
Why shouldn't everybody understand what their taxpayer dollars
are going for?
So, how are those decisions made, and then in what way can
we appropriately question that threshold decision? Anyone can
answer.
Mr. Hamilton. Those decisions are made on the basis of
officials of government that the Congress has given the power
to classify information. You have given power to the Secretary
of Defense or the Secretary of State to classify information.
The Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense do not sit
there daily going through stacks of paper marking "Secret" on
them. What do they do? They delegate that power. And they
delegate it to literally hundreds and hundreds of people in
this town, who have the authority derived from the secretaries
to classify information. And we classify, in my judgment, way
more information than we should, and it becomes almost
impossible to declassify the information.
But it is a power that is derivative, of course, from the
President, but the secretaries have the power to classify
information, and many of them have it, many of them delegate it
to hundreds of people. There are scores and scores of people in
a Department of Defense and the Department of State who
classify information. And the whole system operates so that the
incentive for the person classifying, the safe incentive, is to
classify it "Secret" because you won't get into any trouble.
The problem becomes if you don't classify something you should
have, then you can get into trouble.
So the incentives are to classify. As a result we have
warehouses of secret information today, huge volumes of
secrecy.
Mr. Woolsey. Could I add a second to that?
Ms. Schakowsky. Absolutely.
Mr. Woolsey. The question of classification is a separate
question from whether something is a CIA method or not.
Presumably, if I am wrong, for example, and Mr. Eland is right,
"method" should be read as narrowly as he and Colonel Smith
say and it only refers to collection, and that therefore the
way the CIA protects its data is not a method and therefore
this committee would have jurisdiction to hold hearings on it,
I would certainly hope that this committee, if it held such
hearings, it would hold executive session hearings, because
even though this is a matter of important public policy, I
trust we don't want to let Saddam Hussein or Russian hackers
know how the CIA protects its data.
So this committee I would assume on something of that
sensitivity would, if it dealt with those issues, would deal
with them in a classified way. There are many very important
matters of public policy that are classified--whether to buy
one type of satellite or another--that the Government and
indeed the Congress deal with routinely.
But I just wanted to say that I think there's a difference
between whether something is classified or not, on the one
hand, and I agree with former Congressman Hamilton that in a
lot of cases things are overclassified. But that's a separate
question from the one that is before us here about which
committee has jurisdiction over understanding for the Congress
how the CIA protects its data and its computers.
Ms. Schakowsky. Yes, Mr. Eland.
Mr. Eland. Yeah. I'd like to make a couple comments on
this. I agree with the other two speakers that we have much too
much classified information, and I think that has several ill
effects. The first one is it undermines the whole system and
then you get people saying, well, this is classified; but, you
know, it's not really classified, so I can leak it to the press
or whatever. So if we only hold the things that we need to hold
secret, then I think everybody recognizes that is--you know,
I'm saying Secret, Classified, you know, whatever level.
The other thing is I think a lot of times the executive
branch uses classification to limit access to various programs.
The Reagan administration put a lot of defense programs in the
special access category which requires special compartments to
limit the congressional inquiry that could be done on them.
Also, I think throughout this whole hearing there's been
this assumption, and I think on the part of the CIA and maybe
even some people in Congress, that the Congress is a bigger
leak than the executive branch, and I don't think historically
that is true. I think the biggest leaks have come out of the
executive branch. Officials, for one political purpose or
another, leak information. So I really don't think that the
implication is if more congressional committees get involved in
this that we're going to have secrets all over the place, as
Mr. Woolsey was saying. It's just not true. I mean the----
Ms. Schakowsky. That's kind of a second question: What's a
secret and what isn't a secret in general? And then once
something is legitimately a secret, who gets access to that
information, what you're referring to now, and that there may
be more in Congress who are entitled to that information.
But you also brought up a question of the press. My short
experience--I'm in my second term of Congress--has been that I
have learned more information from reading the New York Times
or the Washington Post than I have in any classified briefings,
and certainly more information in regards to this Peruvian
incident and the use of private contractors.
Does anybody feel that there is a certain responsibility of
the CIA or others to explain to Members of Congress information
that has appeared in the press about activities which----
Mr. Hamilton. I think under the present regime the way it
would operate is an incident occurs, you want to know more
about that, you're entitled to know more about it. The CIA has
the information or maybe the DOD has the information. The way
it would operate today is that they would give that information
to the House Select Committee on Intelligence. That's their
responsibility. They are fulfilling their obligation under the
law when they report to the Intelligence Committees fully and
currently on any inquiry.
Now, the question of how the Intelligence Committee shares
that information with nonmembers of the Intelligence Committee
is an internal question that you have to resolve. As a member,
you have the right to go to the Intelligence Committee and say
I want to know what you know about that information. My
recollection is--and this procedure may have been changed--is
that the committee then votes on whether or not that
information is made available to you. I don't recall, frankly,
very often it coming to a vote. I can recall some instances of
it.
In other words, in most every instance, an arrangement is
worked out so that the Member seeking the information can get
it.
Now, that's only part of the problem. The other part of the
problem is once you get it, what can you do with it? You cannot
go public with it if it is classified information, unless you
do it on the floor of the House; and you can say anything you
want to on the floor of the House and you're protected. But
there are very strong practical constraints against you from
doing that.
So the question becomes how you get this flow of
information from the Intelligence Committee to the other
Members of the House, and it's been very difficult to work out
over a period of time. In the end, if a Member is insistent, he
or she can get that information but cannot necessarily use it
publicly.
Mr. Horn. Mr. Tierney.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the members
of the panel for your testimony and enlightenment today.
Mr. Hinton, reading your testimony and listening to you, I
have to tell you I was going to say "annoyed," but I will say
"concerned," for lack of a better word, because of the CIA's
actions. You raised two examples, both involving national
intelligence estimates, and they are, I think to everybody's
understanding, the Intelligence Community's best analysis of
the likelihood of different kinds of threats; right?
The first example, you said the CIA was cooperative when it
came to discussing the national intelligence estimates
involving chemical and biological threats. On the national--in
the NIE for missile threats, however, you said that the CIA
refused even to meet with you. Can you explain the difference
in their attitude between those two?
Mr. Hinton. I think a lot of that has to do with the issue
and what the questions were that we were asking and how they
saw the oversight process play out. On the latter, we were
seeking information about process, and they saw that falling in
within their determination that this was subject to the
exclusive oversight of the select committees. Therefore, they
did not share the information with us.
Mr. Tierney. Did you only ask questions about process, or
did you also----
Mr. Hinton. In that case, that was objectives that we were
trying to look at on that job.
Mr. Tierney. Now, we're all aware that the President
proposed huge new missile defense programs. Apparently the more
we read, we find out he wants to talk about land, sea, air, and
now even space systems. It can cost who knows how many hundreds
of billions of dollars by the time he gets through this
adventure. I think we risk alienating our allies, we risk some
instability issues internationally, and this is a threat that
many prominent critics claim does not exist at all or certainly
is being greatly exaggerated.
If you can't even get a meeting with the CIA to discuss
this threat assessment on this issue, how is Congress going to
be expected to analyze the President's proposal with respect to
national issues of defense and to determine whether or not it
properly addresses that threat?
Mr. Hinton. I think that's going to have to be a shared
responsibility among the Armed Services, the Appropriations,
and the Intelligence Committees to pursue that.
Mr. Tierney. It is your feeling that this committee,
particularly the Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans
Affairs and International Relations, the Government Reform
Committee, doesn't have any ability under its responsibilities
to look at the economy and efficiency of weapon systems?
Mr. Hinton. I think that this committee will probably have
to work closely with these other committees in seeking that
information.
Mr. Tierney. You raised an issue in your testimony also
about the CIA actually not only failing or refusing to meet
with you, but actually actively encouraging other agencies not
to cooperate with you; is that right?
Mr. Hinton. Yes.
Mr. Tierney. What other agencies were you trying to receive
comment from that the CIA interfered with?
Mr. Hinton. I think in that case, it was DIA and NSA that
we were told that the CIA had asked them not to cooperate with
us, and State.
Mr. Tierney. I find that a little bit appalling, very much
appalling. Given the history of the missile defense debate and
the way its gone in this country and the huge waste of money up
until this point in time, I don't think that this is the way we
ought to proceed.
Mr. Chairman, I would strongly urge that the committee
investigate this matter further; that we ask Mr. Hinton, if he
can, to please provide us with the names of the CIA employees
that refused to discuss the missile threat with his office.
Could you do that, Mr. Hinton?
Mr. Hinton. We have the information of who we asked it of.
Mr. Horn. If I might just interject a minute, and I'll go
back because, before Mr. Hamilton has to leave, I wanted to
have my co-chair ask any questions he has.
Mr. Tierney. I just want to wrap-up two questions and he
can go all he wants on this. The second thing I want to ask is
the names of the employees that tried to tell agencies not to
cooperate with you. Do you have those, Mr. Hinton?
Mr. Hinton. I don't know that we do, but we'll check, sir.
I'll give you what we have. Generally when we have requests, we
go through their Office of Congressional Affairs to get things
lined up, and they are generally the messenger coming back. I
don't know who they got their direction from, but I can give
you whatever details our documents have.
Mr. Tierney. If we could also have notes or interview
summaries from your office regarding both of those issues, I
would appreciate that. And, Mr. Chairman, I would just ask that
those materials be made a part of the record.
Mr. Horn. Without objection, it will be part of the record
at this point.
The gentleman from Connecticut and the co-chairman of this
hearing.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. It's nice to have all of you here.
Mr. Woolsey, I do want to say, with no disrespect, you
commented on the statements of other people in your opening
statement, but they didn't have the--I don't think had your
opening statement to be able to comment on it.
Mr. Woolsey. I did not--I was not asked to submit a written
opening statement, Mr. Shays, and I talked from notes that I
put together this morning.
Mr. Shays. I'm just trying to make the point to you. It's a
small point.
Mr. Woolsey. Well, Mr. Eland has twice mischaracterized
what I said, and if we want to get into this, I'd be delighted
to----
Mr. Shays. I'm just making a point that in your opening
statement you commented on the opening statements of others,
and they didn't get the opportunity to comment on the opening
statement of yours because they didn't see it, and you've
explained why.
Mr. Woolsey. Well, but Mr. Eland did comment on my opening
statement in his remarks, and he mischaracterized twice what I
said. So I'll be glad to get into this if it's important.
Mr. Shays. No. After you made the opening statement, he
didn't have your opening statement to look at. I'm just making
a point----
Mr. Woolsey. That's correct, because I didn't write one
out. I wasn't asked to by----
Mr. Shays. I have a sense that you want the last word. I
have just made a point and you've made a point. I'm just making
a point that the other gentlemen introduced an opening
statement and they did not have the ability to see an opening
statement of yours, and you did have an opportunity to comment
on the opening statement of theirs, and that's the only point I
made.
I'd like to know, Mr. Woolsey, why I shouldn't be outraged
or at least unhappy that the CIA wouldn't at least come here to
explain why they believe on merit they shouldn't have to
respond to this committee on other issues? I mean we have you
here, and I'm grateful you're here, because otherwise their
argument wouldn't be made except in a tangential way. So under
what basis--if you were Director, under what basis would you
not at least allow someone to explain the logic of why they
don't think they should cooperate with these two committees?
Mr. Woolsey. Well, I would think generally, Mr. Chairman,
that it would be a good idea to show up and explain. I must
say, however, I wrote yesterday or 2 days ago to the chairman
because I hadn't seen a formal invitation. I'd only spoken with
the staff on one occasion until 2 days ago; and then when I got
it, the subject of the hearing, quote, The effect of the CIA's
unwillingness to Cooperate with most congressional inquiries on
Congress' ability to conduct oversight, is, if I may say so,
from my perspective a somewhat argumentative statement of the
issue. And were I George Tenet, I think I might come back and
say we do not refuse to cooperate with most congressional
inquiries. We, as the CIA, submit a lot of information to the
Congress: briefings, daily; several briefings daily on our
product, on the substance, on the output of the Intelligence
Community.
What is at issue here is oversight of what I believe is
reasonably characterized as a CIA method. And Mr. Eland and
others say no, it's not a method, it's an activity. But
that's----
Mr. Shays. If you weren't here--I am just making the point
that if you weren't here, the position wouldn't even be
presented to Members of the Congress as to why they shouldn't
participate, and I just think----
Mr. Hamilton. Mr. Shays----
Mr. Shays. And I want to get right to you, Mr. Hamilton. I
just think it is an affirmation of almost sticking their finger
in our eye. I mean the least they could have done was to be
here, and it seems dumb to me.
Mr. Hamilton.
Mr. Hamilton. I can appreciate your point, but you have to
see the Director of Central Intelligence's problem. His problem
is that the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence has told him not to come. The chairman of this
subcommittee has told him to come. Now he's got to make a
choice.
Mr. Shays. And the question I----
Mr. Hamilton. His responsibility under the law is to keep
the House and Senate Intelligence Committees currently and
fully informed. I'm not----
Mr. Shays. Let me just explain another part of that story,
though. You're not certain, nor am I, that he didn't request
that the chairman tell him not to come. You don't know, nor do
I. But we do know this: We do know the CIA tells other
intelligence committees not to cooperate, which leads to my
next question. Why is it OK for other intelligence committees
to cooperate but not the Agency?
Mr. Hamilton. Well, I'm not here to defend the Central
Intelligence Director. He can do that himself. But I think it's
important for you to see that he's caught in a bind that the
Congress has created. You've created this problem for him.
Mr. Shays. No, that's not true.
Mr. Hamilton. That is true.
Mr. Shays. No. No. In general terms we might have that
argument. Whether or not to explain why it's important for him
not to only cooperate with the Intelligence Committee, it could
be something that he could explain. And I make the point to
you, because I know for a fact that the Agency has told other
intelligence committees not to cooperate.
Mr. Woolsey. Other intelligence agencies of the executive
branch?
Mr. Shays. Of the executive branch, and told them not to
come and testify before our committees, and they have. They've
cooperated. And it gets to my point, and I want to know why the
CIA shouldn't cooperate and why others do cooperate. And I
throw it open to you, to either of you. Tell me why.
Mr. Hamilton. Well, I don't want to try to speak for the
Director. I can certainly understand your frustration, and it
just exemplifies the problem that exists between the Congress
and the Intelligence Community.
Mr. Shays. Let's get to my real question. My real question
is simply to understand if we are talking about sources and
methods, and we respect sources and methods with other
intelligence agencies, there are 13 of them, and we don't have
cooperation with 1. We have cooperation with 12. Why do the
others accept that we can recognize that sources and methods--
it shouldn't be the issue, but on other things they should
cooperate. Why is the CIA separate?
Mr. Hamilton. Well, your original question was why did the
Director choose not to appear.
Mr. Shays. And----
Mr. Hamilton. I can't answer for the Director, obviously,
but I think I do see his problem.
Mr. Shays. I understand that. You see his problem, but now
I'm on to the next question.
Why is it that of 13 intelligence agencies, 1 basically
doesn't cooperate, the other 12 recognize that we respect the
sources and methods as an issue that shouldn't be discussed,
but there are other issues.
And the reason why I am here today, I will tell you, if
there is any person that the Intelligence Community should
respect, it's Mr. Horn and his efforts to deal with
efficiencies. It's one of the most boring darn subjects in the
world, and he's made more headway than anyone else. And so I
just want to understand that question.
Mr. Hamilton, I know you have to leave, so I----
Mr. Hamilton. I do. I apologize. Mr. Chairman, may I just
make a concluding comment, if I may? I think the questions have
brought out the difficulties of this relationship. I've been a
little uneasy here this morning because the approach taken to
this question, in my judgment, has become too legalistic. This
is not a question that can be resolved by the interpretation of
section 11(b)(4), section 11(a)(1), or (3)(a). If you want to
get yourself into a position of not solving the problem, that's
the way to do it in my view.
This is a huge, hugely difficult matter. On the one hand,
how do you have a strong Intelligence Community that, by
definition, has to operate secretly and confidentially or they
cannot do their job? On the other hand, in a representative
democracy, how do you get accountability of that kind of an
operation? That's the overall problem here. I think it's hugely
difficult.
The questions that Mr. Shays and others have operating
simply bring out some of these difficulties, and I don't think
there's a simple answer to that. My testimony was that the
arrangement that we have today is far from perfect, but it
works reasonably well. But it's quite obvious from your
questions, it doesn't work, there are plenty of problems with
it.
Thank you for looking into this. Thank you for letting me
come for a few minutes to be with you.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Hamilton.
Mr. Hamilton. I appreciate what you're doing.
Mr. Shays. I would love to ask Mr. Hinton a question. Thank
you very much.
Mr. Horn. I would just like to make a comment on the way
I've been thinking. Why, with such a friendly group as this,
the Director hasn't taken his wooden chair here that says
"Director of CIA" at the table. And I think maybe we need a
better ergonomic chair to give the Director, and I'm weighing
those two facts there. So, since I was one of the few that
voted for ergonomics around this----
Mr. Shays. Mr. Hamilton, I have tremendous respect for you,
and I appreciate you being here. I do want to ask Mr. Hinton
the question. You work with other intelligence agencies, do you
get cooperation from other intelligence agencies?
Mr. Hinton. Yes, sir. And it's varied over the years. We
did significant work up through the 1980's and the early
1990's. In 1994, the door started closing on us, and it was a
memo that the Director of the CIA signed in July 1994 which in
effect shut us out of most all of the intelligence work,
related work, that we had been doing through the years, and
also for some of the key clients up on the Hill, and also that
work that we were doing without discretionary resources.
Now, this wasn't directly looking at the CIA. I mentioned
that in 1962 we stopped the work that we were actively doing at
the CIA, but we were working in the other aspects of the
Intelligence Community, looking at the national foreign
intelligence program, tactical intelligence, some of the
systems that were being procured. Our work in that area has
essentially dried up.
Mr. Shays. Let me ask you this. We found that the
intelligence agencies have been cooperative with our committee,
National Security, Veterans Affairs and International
Relations. Are you saying that none of the agencies now are
cooperating with GAO?
Mr. Hinton. No, I'm not saying that, sir. Where I am on
that, it depends on what we are asking to do. You know, if we
go out and seek out information around intelligence product
like threat assessments, we find that we enjoy very good
access.
Mr. Shays. Right.
Mr. Hinton. However, when we get into looking at particular
programs to do the typical evaluations that we do elsewhere in
the government, we are being challenged considerably now, given
the guidance that came about in 1994 under that directive.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Eland or Colonel Smith, do you care to make
any comments on these questions?
Mr. Eland. Well, I used to work for GAO in the late 1980's,
and I was monitoring on the frontlines, intelligence agencies,
and my knowledge is dated--excuse me--pre-1984, but I found
that the CIA was the only agency that we didn't actually get to
go to. We had a site out at NSA. They gave us access. We looked
at some even more sensitive intelligence-collecting entities of
the U.S. Government which gave us much more access than the
CIA.
The CIA has always been a problem, and I think we need to
separate this discussion from the Intelligence Community and
the intelligence information from the CIA. The CIA is the
problem here, in my view.
Mr. Shays. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Horn. Let me just say again. Perhaps you weren't here
when I put this memorandum in the record. It's a memorandum for
Director of Central Intelligence, dated July 7, 1994, via
Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, the Executive
Director, the Executive Director for Intelligence Community
Affairs, from Stanley M. Moskowitz, Director of Congressional
Affairs.
And here's the blow. Subject: Director of Central
Intelligence Affirmation of Policy for Dealing With the General
Accounting Office. And it's a clear plan on, you know, you guys
are just wasting your time and you're wasting our time and so
forth. I regard that as arrogant. And what you noted there, the
word was "pipe down" and "sat on" and everything else. They
just didn't want to see what you were looking at.
And all we care about, in fact, is computer security which
is a major problem in the free world. I've talked to four Prime
Ministers about it, and they know right now that they've got a
problem in their economy where people are going and lousing up
their computers, which means people could be out of work and
everything else. So----
Mr. Hinton. Mr. Chairman----
Mr. Horn [continuing]. I want to put this, again without
objection, in the record.
Mr. Hinton. Mr. Chairman, one thing I'd add to that,
without sustained congressional support for us to do work today
and to include that on behalf of the select committees, we are
essentially not doing any of the work that we used to do.
Mr. Horn. Do you want to comment, Ms. Schakowsky?
Ms. Schakowsky. I just wanted to comment on the fact that I
think the problem is not entirely unique to the CIA.
Congressman Tierney led an effort to pry loose a report from
the Pentagon regarding the critical report by Phillip Coyle on
the missile defense program, and it was promised in this very
room that it would be turned over, and it wasn't. And finally
after a lot of work it finally happened.
But let me just ask one question of Mr. Woolsey, if you
would indulge me, Mr. Chairman. If you broadly define a method,
and looking back on the laws that govern the release of this
kind of information, the dissemination of it, what would you
define as appropriate? Is there any reason why the CIA Director
would come here and talk to us about anything?
Mr. Woolsey. Absolutely, Congresswoman. Certainly a
product. The two areas at issue here are product and
activities. The product of the Intelligence Community is not a
method. Sources and methods are used in putting together an
intelligence product such as a national intelligence estimate
or any other estimate. And as long as sources and methods are
effectively dealt with at the appropriate level of
classification, intelligence products are provided to the
Congress all the time, several times a day, a lot of committees
of the Congress.
I testified before the Science Committee, I testified
before Senate Governmental Affairs, I testified before
International Relations, Senate Foreign Relations, sometimes in
classified settings, sometimes in unclassified. And I'm sure
that intelligence briefings products are provided to individual
members of this committee and as far as I know, if the--Mr.
Gershwin's briefing, for example, on the cyberthreat that he
gave to the Joint Economic Committee--I can't speak for him--
I'm sure that would be available, too.
So products are not at issue. What is at issue is
activities; is essentially, if I read the rule right, and I
think I am reading it correctly with respect to the exclusive
authority of the House Permanent Select Committee over methods,
the question is when is an activity not a method? Are there
some activities of the Intelligence Community that are not
exclusively methods under the jurisdiction of the House
Permanent Select Committee?
To me, a method is something that has a certain regularity
and procedure to it, and I think there's room here for this
committee and the House Permanent Select Committee to have a
dialog and work out some areas in which some things might be
able to be provided here. I'm not saying that would not be the
case. But certainly intelligence products, whether about
ballistic missile threats or anything else, are available to
all Members of the Congress, and briefings occur at committees
in both bodies all the time from the CIA.
Mr. Horn. I just have one last question, Mr. Woolsey.
During your recent appearance on C-Span you stated the number
of the employees of the CIA is classified. Why is this
information so important to keep secret?
Mr. Woolsey. Well, the overall total for the Intelligence
Community was declassified for a couple of years, back several
years ago, and now it's become classified again. The
subordinate parts of that budget can relatively easily, not
completely, but relatively easily, be calculated from manpower
count. And so people generally have avoided declassifying not
only the subordinate parts of the intelligence budget, but also
the head counts of the agencies, because you can crosswalk
relatively easily from one to the other.
I might say this is not a very well kept secret, Mr.
Chairman, and it's not something that I think any government
official ought to fall on his sword over. But the overall
intelligence budget was declassified and the reason I was
concerned about that when I was Director was I was afraid we
would end up having smaller and smaller chunks of the overall
intelligence budget made public and CIA head count would be one
further step along that path.
Mr. Horn. Well, let me thank you, all of you, for the
testimony you've given, and we appreciate it. And I want to
thank the staff on both the majority and the minority: J.
Russell George, staff director/chief counsel, behind me; and
Henry Wray, senior counsel; and then Bonnie Heald is director
of communications down there; and then the professional staff
member for this particular hearing is Darin Chidsey, who is to
my left; and Scott Fagan, assistant to the committee.
And then we have a wealth of interns: Fred Ephraim;
Davidson Hulfish; Fariha Khaliq; Christopher Armato; Samantha
Archey. And from the National Security, Veterans Affairs and
International Relations Subcommittee, Nicholas Palarino, senior
policy analyst; and Jason Chung, clerk; and Lawrence Halloran,
staff director. Minority staff, David McMillan, professional
staff; and Jean Gosa, clerk.
Our court reporters today are Melinda Walker and Lori
Chetakian. And with that, we're adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:59 a.m., the joint subcommittee was
adjourned.]
