Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011

Floor Speech

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Ms. WATERS. I thank the gentleman.

My amendment requires the inspector general of the intelligence community to report to Congress on racial and ethnic diversity in the intelligence community.

A diverse workforce is essential to intelligence work. People from a variety of backgrounds bring a variety of perspectives to the table to understand the world in which we live. A diverse workforce provides intelligence agencies critical insights into different cultures around the world, where information about potential threats to our national security is being collected and analyzed.

Many leading intelligence officials understand the importance of a diverse workforce. The Web site of the Central Intelligence Agency includes the following statement:

``In order for the CIA to meet our mission of protecting our national security interests, we need to employ a workforce as diverse as America itself, the most diverse Nation on Earth. Diversity reflects the unique ways we vary as intelligence officers. Our nationality, race, ethnicity, gender, age, language, culture, sexual orientation, education, values, beliefs, abilities, and disabilities. These assorted attributes create different demographic, functional, and intellectual views which are so vital to our innovation, agility, collection, and analysis.''

And I really do think that says it all.

Unfortunately, there is virtually no data available to Congress and the public regarding the degree of racial and ethnic diversity in the intelligence community. The most recent publicly available report that discusses this subject is a 1996 report by the Government Accountability Office on personnel practices at intelligence agencies, which focused on equal employment opportunity practices.

The report concluded that intelligence agencies have workforce diversity programs, but results lag far behind other Federal agencies. This report was written more than 5 years before the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and 15 years before the death of Osama bin Laden. Needless to say, both the intelligence community and the world in which it operates have changed tremendously since then.

My amendment states that, within 180 days after the enactment of the bill, the inspector general shall submit to Congress a report on the degree to which racial and ethnic minorities in the United States are employed in professional positions in the intelligence community and barriers to the recruitment and retention of additional racial and ethnic minorities in these position. The amendment requires that the report be submitted in unclassified form, but allows the inspector general to include a classified annex.

It is long past time for Congress to reevaluate the diversity of the intelligence community workforce, and I urge my colleagues to support my amendment.

Again, I thank the gentleman, Mr. Ruppersberger, for yielding.

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