Rogers: Intelligence Bill Fails to Keep America Secure

Press Release

Rogers: Intelligence Bill Fails to Keep America Secure

U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, MI-08, said Intelligence Authorization legislation voted on in the House today fails to provide the resources necessary to protect America.

"Intelligence gathering is crucial to keeping America safe as we face the growing threat of terrorism, yet this legislation fails to provide the resources we need to support strong, effective intelligence operations," said Rogers, Ranking Member on the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Terrorism and Counterterrorism.

Rogers said the measure:

* Fails to provide adequate resources for human intelligence collection;
* Fails to eliminate wasteful earmarks that divert resources away from intelligence agencies;
* Fails to provide a long-term fix for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act;
* Fails to restrain the growing bureaucracy in the office of the Director of National Intelligence; and,
* Diverts significant amount of intelligence resources to fund global warming studies.

"You can't shortchange America's intelligence gathering ability and expect to keep our nation secure," Rogers said. "We ought to be strengthening our intelligence ability, not going backward to the bad policies of the 1990s that put our entire nation at risk for tragedies like 9/11.

"You can bet that al Qaeda and other terrorists are not cutting back resources for intelligence operations. The last thing we should be doing is reducing our ability to track terrorists and prevent attacks on American cities and citizens."

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