Intelligence Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Madam Chair, I rise today in strong support of this legislation. It has been five long years since an intelligence authorization bill was last signed into law, and each new revelation about the conduct of the previous administration testifies to the need for effective congressional oversight of the intelligence community.

This bill also provides an opportunity to move beyond questions of misconduct and abuse to address the longer-term challenges of improving our intelligence capabilities, making them responsive to cyber-security and other new threats, and ensuring that they are accountable to Congress and the American public.

I'd like to highlight two aspects of the bill on which I have worked in recent years (along with colleagues such as Ms. Schakowsky and Mr. Holt), and which I believe are important steps toward improving the effectiveness of our intelligence operations.

First, the bill contains several provisions dealing with the use of private contractors by the intelligence community, which by some reports has come to consume nearly half of the annual intelligence budget.

It would require a comprehensive report on the number and cost of contractors employed by the intelligence community and the extent of their use for intelligence collection, analysis, and other covert activities including detention and interrogation.

It also explicitly prohibits the use of contractors for the interrogation of detainees, codifying a prohibition that the CIA itself has already adopted.

Both of these measures are based on my Transparency and Accountability in Intelligence Contracting Act (H.R. 963), and both were approved by the House in the last intelligence authorization bill but were not signed into law.

Secondly, the bill lays a foundation for making the practice of interrogation more effective, professional, and ethical.

I have worked closely with Subcommittee Chairman Mike Thompson in crafting a section of this bill based on H.R. 591, my comprehensive interrogation and detention reform bill.

Our provision would require the DNI to report to Congress on:

The quality and value of existing scientific research on interrogation;

The state of interrogation training within the intelligence community, including its ethical component;

Efforts to enhance career paths for interrogation specialists; and

The effectiveness of existing processes for studying and implementing best practices.

These and other key provisions of this bill are only a start, but they represent an important first step toward improving the effectiveness and accountability of our intelligence community, and ensuring that the necessary measures we take to protect our country do not come at the cost of our fundamental values.

Finally, I feel compelled to add that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are claiming that this bill--and this Administration--somehow do not appreciate the threat our nation is facing have clearly neither read the text of this legislation nor given the issue much serious thought. Rather than holding up military commissions at Guantanamo Bay as a panacea for all of our ills, we should be confronting the threats we face squarely, soberly, and with vigilant attention to questions of effectiveness and ethicality--which is exactly what this bill does.

I thank Chairman Reyes, Ranking Member Hoekstra, and the members of their committee for their leadership and their continued attention to these vital issues, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

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