Hearing of the Subcommittee on Intelligence Community Management of the House Intelligence Committee - "Management Issues in Intelligence Community"
HEARING OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT OF THE HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE
SUBJECT: "MANAGEMENT ISSUES IN INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY"
CHAIRED BY: REP. ANNA ESHOO (D-CA)
WITNESS: EDWARD MAGUIRE, INSPECTOR GENERAL, OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE
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REP. ESHOO: (In progress) -- will be called to order. I want to welcome the IG, Mr. Maguire. This is your last day as the IG, and I want to acknowledge not so much the last day, but all of the days that you have served and served so well. We are not only grateful to you but the country is grateful to you because we have a deep and profound respect for the work that the IG does, and I think that you have more than lived up to that.
This is our subcommittee's first hearing in the 111th Congress, and I particularly want to welcome Congresswoman Myrick as the ranking member of our subcommittee. I look forward to working with her, and continue the working relationship that the entire subcommittee enjoyed in the last Congress with Congressman Darrell Issa. So welcome, Sue. We're really pleased that you are taking this on.
I'd also like to welcome the distinguished chairman of the full committee, Mr. Reyes, who's not going to be able to stay with us because he has an Armed Services Committee meeting. Although the other new members are not here, I still want to mention their names: Congressman Roy Blunt and Michael Conaway and also our colleagues Alcee Hastings, Jan Schakowsky and Patrick Murphy are members of this subcommittee. Congressman Holt may not be joining us because there has been a death of the mother of Congressman Pascrell from New Jersey. But he still may make it.
So this morning we're going to hear from Edward Maguire, the inspector general of the ODNI. Last November his office issued a report on the, quote, "critical leadership and management challenges currently facing the DNI as leader of the intelligence community, and as head of the office of the ODNI." The report covers a wide range of shortcomings at the ODNI. In particular, it addresses the failures of past DNIs to provide enough attention to integrating and managing the community.
The subcommittee knows that the management challenges facing the new DNI are enormous. The criticisms in the report are structural, not partisan. Now we have a new director who can take a fresh look at these issues. And I am optimistic that Director Blair will be able to meet the challenge of being the president's chief intelligence officer, and make real progress in managing the community. This hearing will allow us to establish a baseline for his tenure.
In the 110th Congress, we held hearings on Director McConnell's 100-day and 500-day plans to implement reforms mandated by the IRTPA, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, as well as on some of the specific reform areas, principally the security clearance process. We all have a great interest in that, including the chairman has a great commitment to it.
We have been repeatedly disappointed by the lack of clarity in the role of the DNI. The Intelligence Reform Act was enacted to create a single individual to lead the intelligence community with authorities for managing the budget, personnel, and tasking of the national intelligence program. These authorities should allow the Director of National Intelligence to establish a common mission, coordinate, agency efforts, and intelligence.
I for one don't believe that the vision laid out in the reform act has been met. We still don't have a clear definition of the DNI's role nor a clear view of how the agencies should work together. While each agency performs a unique role, this individuality need not prevent common sharing of information, managing personnel, nor acquiring systems. As the testimony of our witness will show, previous DNIs were unable to state clearly what their mission was. While we've had many well-meaning people working hard to coordinate the intelligence community, often these efforts were at cross-purposes with other parts of the organization.
According to the IG's report, the DNI faces five major challenges -- changes: strengthening leadership and governance, accelerating progress and driving IC information sharing, removing impediments to IC collaboration and integration, improving financial management and acquisition oversight, and resolving major legal issues.
I believe this report is really a particularly appropriate place for us to begin the subcommittee's oversight for this Congress especially for the new members of the subcommittee. It identifies the community-wide challenges that remain over four years after the enactment of the reform act, and it raises the same criticism that led Congress to the act -- to enacting the act in the first place.
Finally, let me say that we will offer Director Blair -- of course we will offer him the opportunity to respond to these criticisms and give him the opportunity to tell Congress how he plans to address them. I'm confident that he understands the seriousness of the challenge before him, and I look -- and we all look forward to hearing his answers.
And before we turn to our witnesses, I'd like to recognize Congressman Myrick for any remarks she would like to make.
REPRESENTATIVE SUE MYRICK (R-NC): Thank you. Is this on here? I'm not used to this mike.
(Laughter.)
REP. ESHOO: Right. There are different systems in different places.
REP. MYRICK: Thank you, Madame Chairwoman. I do appreciate your kind words. And especially welcome to you, Mr. Maguire; we appreciate you being here. This is an issue of course that is very important to all of us. I'm new to the committee, but the issue is not new to me. I've shared some of the same frustrations, and I know that the report covers a time prior to the current director coming on board. But I hope and I think the rest of us hope that that is not going to be any reason that he won't take over and try and move on some of your recommendations.
The office, as we note from your report, says that there's still not a clear mission from ODNI, and this is one of the things that's concerned a lot of us who haven't been on this committee for some time because four years after it was established, the employees themselves, as you say, are voicing confusion about the lines of authority, lack of transparency, and poor internal communication. So I guess the question that I ask is that, you know, if the head doesn't know what the body is doing, how can the body be expected to follow; you know, its leadership comes from the top.
The committee I know in the past has criticized the growth in staff and budget, and in the past two authorization bills, voted to cut both on a bipartisan basis. But despite this, the first two directors continue to grow and amass scarce intelligent resources for itself. And now through your report we learn the growth has been without direction or purpose.
Instead of the lean coordinated body Congress envisioned ODNI to be when it passed IRTPA, we got fat, layer upon layer of bloated bureaucracy at the top of the community, which I've got to say from those of us who were outside the intelligence committee, that was one of the concerns we had from the very beginning in creating, you know, another government bureaucracy in effect.
Your report states as one of its noteworthy findings, IC agencies complained that the ODNI sends duplicate tasking and conflicting messages to the IC thereby undermining the ODNI's credibility and feeling assertions that the ODNI is just an additional layer of bureaucracy.
You also note in your report the finding of the WMD commission that no shortcomings of the intelligence community has received more attention since September 11th attacks and the failure to share information. Well, the information sharing and collaboration are really critically important to myself as a member of the committee and I know to other members of the committee, so we're sure that it's going to work together. And that's one of the things I want to focus on during my time here.
But I'm pleased that your report has made -- says there has been some improvements in information sharing, including new tools for the dissemination of information and creation of virtual work environments to improve analytic efforts. I note, however, there's still room for significant improvement. Much has been made of the IC's move from need-to-know to responsibility to share, yet we learn from your report that compartmentalization of information continues to be an impediment through IC analysis. And I'm sure you would agree that it doesn't do any good to connect the dots if you don't connect the dots, and that's one of the things that you pointed out.
And it's disappointing so many years after 9/11 personal relationships are still driving this IC information sharing. So, you know, in your opinion, what should this subcommittee and the full committee be pushing to break down the barriers to communication in the intelligence community? And if you could update us on any findings or information you've garnered on the status and implementation of Intelligence Community Directive 501, which establishes IC rules for access and dissemination of intelligence, that would be appreciated too.
And shedding some additional light on the stove-piping that's taken place, stove-piping of information, its impact on collaboration, I'm interested in that. Also, what recommendations would you make to improve collaboration between the community and law-enforcement organizations, all the while being mindful of the need to protect our citizens', you know, civil liberties.
For the sake of time, you go through so many issues, and I'm not going to continue to go on, but I would like to hear thoughts on the challenges to the intelligent community management caused by having IC elements report to both ODNI and another government agency, such as Department of Defense, Homeland Security, or State. Can the DNI effectively lead the IC when he in fact has to share management of so many of its parts?
So you've got a really -- you've given us an illuminating read into the challenges that the community faces, and I appreciate very much what you've put together in the report, and look forward to hearing your testimony.
REP. ESHOO: Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, would you like to say something?
REPRESENTATIVE SILVESTRE REYES (D-TX): Well, let me just add my thanks and congratulations since you're going to be leaving the IG. And thank you for the work that you've done. And some of the observations that are included in your report have long been issues that our committee has been concerned about. So we're hoping that with the appointment of Admiral Blair of the DNI, I know in conversations I've had with him, he's got some specific ideas on how to I guess change and implement some of the recommendations you've made. So thank you both for your service and for this report. Thank you, Madame Chair.
REP. ESHOO: We've been joined by Mr. Hastings. Mr. Hastings?
REPRESENTATIVE ALCEE HASTINGS (D-FL): Thank you very much, Madame Chair. Thank you for holding this hearing. Mr. Maguire, I echo the sentiments of the chair in thanking you, and I have nothing further to add. Let's get on with it.
REP. ESHOO: All right. Why don't we begin? Mr. Maguire, you're on.
MR. MAGUIRE: Chairman Eshoo, Ranking Member Myrick, Chairman Reyes, Mr. Hastings, I am honored to be in front of you today to discuss intelligence community management challenges. I've submitted to the committee a report dated November 12, 2008, which you have, entitled, "Critical Intelligence Community Management Challenges," as my statement for the record.
This is the first time I've appeared before this subcommittee, therefore a word about my office. I started the ODNI Office of Inspector General in July of 2005 in the very early days of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Since then we have grown to a staff of 27 professionals. In light of our IC-wide leadership role, I've made a point of recruiting from all of the major elements of the IC, the CIA, Department of Defense Agencies, FBI, and the armed services. I have brought in individuals from other IG offices, auditors, investigators, inspectors, and lawyers, as well as people with hands-on experience in both military and civilian intelligence operations.
Our office differs from the usual IG office in that we address issues that cut across the entire IC rather than confining ourselves to one agency. This reflects the leadership role of the DNI himself, as set out in the IRTPA. Accordingly, my office has focused the bulk of our attention on the responsibilities imposed on the DNI by the IRTPA to integrate and improve the effectiveness of the national intelligence enterprise. I could cite three of some of the most prominent of these responsibilities, which are, one, maximizing information sharing; two, promoting the concept of joint duty; and three, overseeing the budget and acquisition process.
My office's first major project involved information sharing, specifically access to and dissemination of sensitive intelligence among units of the IC. Some of the recommendations we made in our report, which we issued in 2007, have now come to partial fruition with the promulgation of Intelligence Community Directive -- that's ICD -- 501, which was signed by the DNI this January. We plan to continue our work on IC-wide information sharing, which is among the most important of the DNI's responsibilities.
We are also currently access progress in the implementation of joint duty, and we have finished the first phase of our study of acquisition oversight and governance, and that will be coming shortly. We have joined forces for the ODNI chief financial officer to assist in the effort to achieve auditable financial statements for all IC agencies.
I chair the IC Inspector General Forum with the council of IGs from the intelligence agencies. Through that body we have done several joint projects leveraging on the resources of the various IG offices. Working together, we have jointly audited a number of multiagency problems and have facilitated the resolution of interagency issues.
Turning now to the report you have in front of you, "Critical Intelligence Community Management Challenges," in identifying the challenges, we gathered the management challenges papers prepared by most of the other ICIGs, and we looked for common themes and issues. We combined these with our own work and perspectives to give the DNI an IC-wide view of his most pressing management challenges. Management issues for the DNI are of much greater scope and magnitude than would be typical of a single agency since the ODNI is itself a management organization responsible for addressing a host of IC-wide challenges and leading the 16 other IC agencies. In fact, I think I would say that management is a core mission of the DNI.
Reading from the WMD Commission report, which was issued, well, four years ago yesterday, March 31, 2005, I quote, "The DNI's management responsibilities will be both critically important and exceedingly difficult. And there is a real risk that the obligation to provide current intelligence support to the president and senior policy-makers will reduce or eliminate the attention the DNI can devote to the painstaking long-term work of integrating and managing the community." That quote describes the DNI's dilemma because he was also made the chief advisor to the president and other policy-makers by IRTPA.
Indeed, much of the first two DNI's time and attention were focused on advising the president and senior leaders, and coordinating current intelligence. Our report seeks to focus attention on the DNI's IC management tasks, which were set forth in the IRTPA and with the subject of recommendations by the WMD commission.
Our management observations and recommendations were developed last fall. Progress has been made since then in many areas. For example, in the issuance of IC directives, which had been -- they went from sort of being a sprinkle to now a lot. And of course we have a new DNI and a new administration. Working on management challenges is fundamental to the IC enterprise. The work will be ongoing and continuous. As one challenge is met, another one will take its place.
Our report focuses on several main areas, as you indicated, Madame Chairman, where we believe that the DNI should concentrate leadership efforts -- not necessarily solve them tomorrow, but concentrate leadership efforts. And I believe that strong, focused and persistent leadership is going to be the only way that these goals could be met.
Number one, make sure that everyone working in the ODNI and the other agencies is absolutely clear about the ODNI's and the DNI's roles and responsibilities and those of the other agencies. You pointed that out; we've pointed it out. It's still fuzzy. Revised effective order 12333 covers these issues in a high-level fashion and covers them very well, but there are still plenty of ambiguities on the ground that require attention, and we continue to encounter them.
Number two, push forward on the urgent task of getting out comprehensive guidance on information sharing, a cornerstone, if not the cornerstone of the IRTPA. Progress has been made with the issuance of ICD501, but much more needs to be done. A solid IT platform is essential to this mission of information sharing. Some time was certainly lost over the last three years, but the ODNI is now currently working very hard on the IT issues. We should take note of A-Space, a collaborative analytic tool developed by the analysis division of ODNI.
Number three, keep up momentum on implementing joint duty. And as I will mention, we have -- we're doing a study currently on that, on how well it's going, whether it's understood, whether people are getting credit, whether there are jobs available. And that should be coming to fruition here soon.
Number four, strengthen the DNI's acquisition and procurement oversight and governance process. Again, we have a report coming out in a few weeks. I would say that it's generally good news that things are being done well from an oversight point of view but with areas for improvement.
Number five, lead the effort toward auditable financial statements for IC agencies. In this area the IC lags behind other branches of government. The ODNI focus has recently shifted from getting to auditability of financial statements to going back to redesigning the business processes and building effective information systems. That is probably necessary to build a foundation that can be audited, so I don't have a problem with that. But delays, delays, delays, and I think that strong senior -- very senior leadership and ownership are essential to finish this.
These issues tend to be done at a staff level. I think the top people need to own it and need to nag about this because among staffers it's very easy to agree, well, this is really complicated, why don't we look at it again next month, or give ourselves a break on the deadlines. You know, a leader who intends to have auditability is going to be putting a kind of pressure on the staffs that I think is, at this point, it's indispensable.
Now, number six. We did highlight in our report the WMD commission's call for the DNI to devote professional resources to the legal complexities and confusion that pervade the operations in the IC. Again, significant progress has been made with the FISA amendments act, the executive order 12333, the new attorney general guidelines. And notably, in all of these, the ODNI general counsel did play a very valuable role. So that's good. But again, the DNI has got to keep the pressure on them to keep doing that and to progressing it.
I guess our report is really -- the work we did in our report is really not so much a report card on specifics as it is a call to keep focus and pressure on these things which can't be solved in a day and are there and the ITPA told us to do it. So I would say to both the DNI and to the oversight committees, insist on deliverables and insist on deadlines. Then I think we're going to get something. And thank you, Madame Chairman.
REP. ESHOO: Thank you. (Off mike.)
REPRESENTATIVE RUSH HOLT (D-NJ): I will. Actually I amend that. I would like to thank Inspector General McGuire for the service, for coming on what I believe is during his last week on the job. I thank you for the service and I thank you for asking the questions that you have asked.
REP. ESHOO: (Inaudible, off mike.) I think all of us have, judging on some of the opening statements, you've hit very clearly on the areas of deep concern to the subcommittee. While Rome wasn't built in a day, we are now down the road a bit on the ODNI and the reforms that the Act put into place.
Let me start out by asking you the following question about the delivery of the report. It was completed in November 2008. The committee received in January 2009. Why was it delayed?
MR. MCGUIRE: Well, we are -- in our dealings with the oversight committees, we are under the control of the DNI. If we prepare a report that we would like to have go up, that act has to be cleared by the DNI so-called front office. And that's how much time it took to get it up there.
REP. ESHOO: Isn't that amazing? That says something in and of itself, doesn't it? You don't have to answer that. And you didn't.
(Laughter.)
MR. MCGUIRE: I have to interject here that --
REP. ESHOO: There's a change of administration --
MR. MCGUIRE: Well, and I've also signed out a procedure that I intend to follow, which is reports of this nature will go to the DNI, 30 days later they will go to the Hill.
REP. ESHOO: Very good. We like --
MR. MCGUIRE: Extremely sensitive reports, say involving personal investigations and so forth, which we would consider not for general consumption, we'll deliver them to the DNI. If the committee would like to have them, they should ask the DNI.
REP. ESHOO: Now, the ODNI IG is not statutory.
MR. MCGUIRE: Correct.
REP. ESHOO: Do you think that that creates a problem? Do you that that's something that the subcommittee and the full committee should address? I mean, the office was established by the order of the first DNI, Mr. Negroponte, and that was early on in his tenure. And it could just as easily be disassembled. I'm not suggesting that anyone is saying that it could be. But because there isn't any statutory language that establishes it as such, do you think that creating the statutory IG or the ODNI would strengthen the ability of the individuals to perform their work and their oversight functions?
MR. MCGUIRE: The short answer is yes. But let me elaborate. The fact that the DNI can abolish the office means that my office is not deemed to be independent under the GAO Yellow Book audit rules because we are not independent vis-a-vis the DNI because he can put us out of business. That is a substantial weakness in our ability to do work. There are other things where I think statutory framework would help. It would certainly clarify the lines of communication with the oversight committees. There would be no more back and forth about that.
REP. ESHOO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. MCGUIRE: Hiring, compensation, budget authority, again, all of that today is under the control of the DNI and his staff. And it's been a bit of a struggle for us to get staffed up. The authorization act granted us 12 slots and $2 million.
We were unable to get that executed because a hiring freeze was imposed, and we're still only like 78 percent of our authorized strength. So I would imagine the statute would give an IG the authority to hire, to compensate and to spend their money.
Because of this freeze we have spent most of our funds, other than salary, most of our funds hiring contractors to do the projects that we're supposed to do. So that basically, you know, pretty much eliminates our ability to do certain kinds of travel, training, et cetera. So we're really kind of -- we're not independent as far as our own financial management is concerned.
REP. ESHOO: I think it's an area that the subcommittee is going to have to examine. I think it's an important area. If we don't, if we cannot, or somehow are hobbled in doing our oversight, then we're not doing our work. We can't accomplish our work. And central to that, I think, is the work of the IG. So thank you for pointing that out.
Let me ask you about the area that you mentioned in your testimony, and that is the management of the community, the overall management of the community, the DNI, which is enormous in and of itself. And then the responsibility of being the president's daily briefer. Can you walk us through that? Are there conflicts? Is there a better way for this to be done? Is it left up to essentially the personality of the individual and how they want to handle that? Does a concentration of one -- which is obviously key. It's usually the way the president starts his day out, with the PDP, and the overall management.
Can you comment on that and maybe instruct us as to -- well, tell us what you think of this.
MR. MCGUIRE: Well, if we go back to the IRTPA itself, the statute tags the DNI with being the principal adviser to the president, and with doing all these management things for the community. I think -- the hope was that somehow creating a DNI would solve the problem that the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, which was essentially the same problem, and I'm not sure that this made life any easier for them. But the difference is that I think it's much more soluble. I think the IRTPA put certain management responsibilities on the DNI's plate, and he is also supposed to be the adviser to the president.
Now, as the WMD commission report rather wisely pointed out, we don't want to take away at all from the DNI service to the president, but he could do this -- he doesn't have to do it personally every day, and that he could do this in more of an oversight type of capacity. I think it's inevitable that the DNI is simply going to be the person who faces off with the president and the major policy-makers, and foreign governments, and the press, and the Congress on all important matters. He is sought out, he basically can't say I'll only do that two hours a day. I think that's totally unrealistic. So he needs to continue to do that.
What has to be found is something within the DNI structure itself where you've got an official who owns management. I have not seen that so far, would be my recommendation. Each of the deputies has their own portfolio, whether it be analysis or collection, or acquisitions, which are a bit broader, finance, and issuance of policy. But all of those things, it's each just kind of pushing their own responsibilities and program.
What is really kind of missing is someone who owns the responsibility under the IRTPA in all of its aspects, whether it involves collection or whether it involves acquisitions, who owns this. That's the only way I can put it. I come from the private sector, so owning a responsibility makes sense to me. I think that they have to do something with this here.
In a way the creation of the ODNI was a little bit like -- sort of like a corporate merger. When you do that, many, many mergers fail. So typically a team is selected from each entity, taken away from their daily responsibilities -- think current intelligence -- and all they do is live and breathe making sure that the integration of the merger is a success and they're held accountable for that success.
I think most of the people are accountable for subject matter responsibilities and not for things that would all be under management. There are many directives out there. There are many descriptions of rules and responsibilities, but ultimately execution requires that somebody own getting it done. And this I think you need to own a broader portfolio than some of the subjects that are behind the organization chart of the DNI today.
REP. ESHOO: I recall so well being invited to a lovely, lovely dinner event, where two major corporations had merged and they were celebrating that. I was seated at the table of one of the CEOs that -- well, the CEO whose company had just acquired the other. And I asked him, what do you do with the cultures of these organizations? It's one thing to develop a chart and say this is what your responsibilities are. He said, ah, you put your finger on one of the most difficult things.
So each agency obviously has their own culture and I think your observations on --
MR. MCGUIRE: Excuse me, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have somebody in charge of dealing with cultures. This is part of the integration process.
REP. ESHOO: Have any of your recommendations been responded to?
MR. MCGUIRE: Yes. I got some --
REP. ESHOO: There's something in your pause.
MR. MCGUIRE: Sporadic -- well, my memory may not be as good as it used to be, so what you see, the dial up there, I don't deny it. There is pause here.
Yes, I've had responses on management challenges. The two diagnostics that we did, which you have, which really point out a lot of the confusion, they were done in the summer of '07 and delivered in the summer of '08, there's been no formal response to those, even though we had deadlines and requests for answers back. I don't think anybody disagreed with the findings, but nothing was done about it and no one came forward to join with us.
Now, I think to a degree that might be a lack of imagination on our part because other agencies, for example, have a formal process whereby IG recommendations are tracked. It's performed by management. So we are in negotiations now to see to it that these things don't just sit on somebody's desk and then nothing happens, that there will be resources dedicated by management.
REP. ESHOO: And then going back to my earlier question about a statute, would that help in the process that you just described?
MR. MCGUIRE: I think it would because they know it's going to go to Congress very soon. I think the statutory IGs, the community has adapted to the reality that it's all going to go to Congress, so they can't ignore it.
REP. ESHOO: I'm going to stop my questioning. I may have gone over time. I'd like to ask Ms. Myrick if it would be all right to recognize Mr. Hastings, who has to leave. Is that all right?
REP. MYRICK: Of course.
REP. ESHOO: Thank you very much. Okay, so we'll --
REP. HASTINGS: Thank you very much.
REP. ESHOO: We've been joined by one of our new members. Welcome, Mr. Conaway.
Mr. Hastings.
REP. HASTINGS: Thank you, Madame Chair, and thank you, Ms. Myrick. I'm to chair the Florida delegation at 11:00 and it's our first meeting and we've got everybody from Florida coming to this area, so I deeply appreciate it.
Mr. McGuire, thank you again. I remember meeting you when you first were on the job, and I left the committee and came back in the interim of your being there.
My question goes more to how difficult has your job been in securing information?
At the time that we met, the limited time you had been on the job, you indicated that you thought that there was a fair amount of collaboration. But as I reflect on your report, and the questions that were just put to you by the chairlady, it seems as though you did the necessary deep dive and scrub, but you must have along the way met some serious resistance because nothing has been done on some very significant matters that you pointed out. Information-sharing. Interoperability. Just as a couple of for-examples.
And the one that really raises a big flag for me is a lack of understanding of legal issues. I find that at this juncture not -- your pointing it out is what needed to be done, but for there still to be no central line to say what a U.S. person is, or no central line to identify the meaning of FISA is troubling to me. Your response?
MR. MCGUIRE: Well, I guess it all comes back to leadership that will insist that people put their heads together and get these problems solved. Many of the problems end up in the hands of working groups, which is all fine and good, but working groups that don't have -- that aren't under intense management pressure to get certain jobs done by a certain time can kind of set their own agenda and set their own time frames. These are all very capable people working on these issues, but it's sort of like a lawyer without a client. Unless you've got an angry, impatient client telling you what he or she wants, it's unlikely that the product's going to be delivered in a timely fashion and meet certain requirements, to answer that part of it.
In terms of access to information, I can continue to say that in doing our work -- and we've done some very deep dives into -- not the management challenges. Those were not deep dives of the kind where we would go deeply into documentation, which we have done with the dissemination of compartmented information with geospatial intelligence, which is forthcoming, and the acquisition process. All of those are going to be rich with detail and substantiation. And we have encountered no resistance at all.
People actually kind of like to talk to us. I don't think there's any question about our authority to get it. We have not run into that so far, so I'm very happy with that. But in terms of getting engagement on major issues, I think it has to be structured with a little bit more persistent attention from the very top leadership. That's my sense of government.
I came from the private sector and my sense is that things really don't move in the government unless the top person is really ranting and raving about it, to pardon the expression. And that's all a very good thing.
REP. HASTINGS: I note with interest the use of the term "merger," and I can think of the number of organizations that I've participated in as a lawyer merging versus consolidation. And just leave that just as a thought, as we look back. But you've given us a lot to work with, and some opportunities that, as policy-makers, I think we can go forward.
Madame Chair, thank you, and Miss Myrick, thank you very much.
REP. MYRICK: Thank you.
REP. ESHOO: My contractors -- (inaudible, off mike).
MR. MAGUIRE: Mine? The ones that I have? They come from Booz Allen -- KPMG.
REP. ESHOO: (Inaudible.)
MR. MAGUIRE: And SCIC (sp), perhaps.
REP. ESHOO: Booz Allen stands out to me.
MR. MAGUIRE: Yes.
REP. ESHOO: Because the previous ODNI came from Booz Allen --
MR. MAGUIRE: Yes.
REP. ESHOO: -- and that's where he went back to.
MR. MAGUIRE: Yes.
REP. ESHOO: That's a convenient circle there.
REP. MYRICK: Thank you, Madame Chair -- I wanted to follow up. Anna had, you know, brought up the point about being advisor to the president, and also the responsibility as a manager of this community, which is a key area. And, again, I'm sorry you're leaving, because your thinking -- and the way you approach it from a business background -- I think is extremely important to how this all comes together, and so your suggestions are very well-taken.
But, you know, then I think: Are we making this more complicated? Because we've just recently expanded his- We gave him economics, and climate change is part of his responsibility. So, I mean, we're expanding the portfolio of management -- and then, you know, he doesn't have the time to do all this.
So are you actually saying that he should have somebody, in effect, under him, who would be a day-to-day -- you know, kick their fannies and make sure something gets done?
MR. MAGUIRE: Well, the ideal person for that is the principal deputy Director of National Intelligence, which is a statutory position. It's presidentially appointed and Senate confirmed. I think we really don't know what the potential of that position could be, or could have been, because our first principal deputy, General Hayden, was basically pulled off of that job quite early with a bunch of things. And then he went to become director of the CIA. And then that job was empty, and held by an acting for a year-and-a-half. And so I think that is an untested asset for management.
REP. MYRICK: And there's nobody there yet, right?
MR. MAGUIRE: Correct.
REP. MYRICK: That's still empty. Okay. Going back to the information-sharing -- I had a couple of questions. Does ICD-501 really address all your concerns about information-sharing? Do you think that covers it?
MR. MAGUIRE: It does a pretty good job. And I think rather than us attempting to evaluate what they did, we'll go out again in a year and see how it works. We're still waiting for a decision on what we call the sensitive review boards, which was a concept that we put out in our first report, that, perhaps, the best way to resolve the tension between collectors and analysts -- collectors want to keep it; analysts want to see it -- is to have representatives of the analytic community physically located in the big collection agency. So that some of it can be discussed at a working level, before it moves up to the various committees that adjudicate this.
I don't know how they're going to come out on that, but I would say- I would reserve any judgment on what they did. We made our recommendations; they did their directive -- let's see how it works.
REP. MYRICK: Going back to 501 again, there's certain information that can be excepted from the rules, but it really doesn't define that, from what I gather. Is that the case? And are they going to do that?
MR. MAGUIRE: Well, I think there are going to be drafting ambiguities. And I think we'll be in a position to talk about that, after we've seen whether they're a real problem, or just a -- (inaudible).
REP. MYRICK: Is it in process? I mean, are they doing that now -- working on it?
MR. MAGUIRE: I signed out in January. It should be. We're not studying it now --
REP. MYRICK: No, I know.
MR. MAGUIRE: -- from that perspective.
REP. MYRICK: I had another -- if I may, Madame Chair. Going back, again, to the information-sharing -- you kind of alluded to some of this. But your report talked about personal relationships, you know, being important in information-sharing. Do you feel, in any way, from what you gather, are analysts circumventing what they really should be doing, and using these personal relationships to get information?
And the second part of that is, do they really check the clearances of their counterparts? I mean, are we keeping those walls up, that are supposed to be there? I know this committee does that all the time, in a great way -- especially with staff and whatnot. Is that something that's a challenge or a problem?
MR. MAGUIRE: I haven't looked at that specifically. But the issues are, number one, that there's a very long culture of collectors being the people who decide whether anything goes out the door from their shop.
REP. MYRICK: Mm-hmm.
MR. MAGUIRE: That's engrained -- that's going for decades. Now, with the IRTPA, the responsibility to provide -- it's a very different tilt on things. And the IRTPA gave the DNI the authority and responsibility to promulgate rules and procedures relating to these very questions. So --
REP. MYRICK: Have they trained them? I mean, is there training going on to see that this is accomplished, from what you know?
MR. MAGUIRE: I don't know.
REP. MYRICK: You don't know.
MR. MAGUIRE: I don't know. I presume there would be, but I don't know.
REP. MYRICK: Well, I just had one more question on the IT platform. You said that, you know, when it was fully operational, it should work. When is it supposed to be fully operational? Do you have a feel? Or did you get any idea of when that's going to really happen? Because I know that's been an ongoing-forever issue.
MR. MAGUIRE: And we don't know.
REP. MYRICK: You don't know.
MR. MAGUIRE: We don't know.
REP. MYRICK: And, again, that comes from management from the top pushing, and making sure this all gets done.
MR. MAGUIRE: It's the people -- when they're finished, it'll be finished. So the question is --
REP. MYRICK: When's it finished?
MR. MAGUIRE: -- should pressure be brought from the outside on that? Some people are doing an excellent job -- don't want to deny them that.
REP. MYRICK: Well, that's always the way. I mean, you pick some good people.
MR. MAGUIRE: Yeah, but it's been a while.
REP. MYRICK: It's been more than a while. I think -- again, I'm new to the committee, but I've been watching it from the outside. Thank you, Madame Chair. I'll yield back.
REP. ESHOO: (Off mike.)
REP. HOLT: Thank you, Madame Chair. Thank you for holding this hearing; thank you for pushing to make this report available, so that we could conduct a hearing on it. And, again, thank you, Mr. Maguire, for your good work. And I- Maybe you're pleased to be relieved, but I wish you were continuing.
First of all, let me ask Mr. Maguire, or staff, if it's okay to quote in this open hearing from the report? It is -- all right, fine. Which gets to one of my basic questions of: Why in the world should it not be okay to quote from this report?
This is not available for general distribution yet. Is that correct? Public distribution -- your report.
MR. MAGUIRE: It's unclassified. I --
REP. HOLT: It is unclassified.
REP. ESHOO: As of this morning.
REP. HOLT: As of this morning. Okay. Good, good -- thank you. Thank you, Madame Chair. (Chuckles.) All right -- good. Because this is- I think you raise such important questions that I think -- and have such important findings -- that I think this should be considered widely.
When you report that there's no standard for information retrieval; lack of interoperability of systems; declining confidence of the employees; a lack of understanding by the employees of mission, role and responsibility and lines of authority; that agencies rely on personal contacts, rather than systematic regulations for acquiring information; and you imply, if you don't actually say, that there's lack of clarity on the law by the- In other words, you say something or other -- that ensuring that the IC is complying with the laws is a significant challenge. Mr. Hastings also focused on that point.
Let me ask if that means that you have reason to believe that there may be some people not following the law?
MR. MAGUIRE: Well, we get those cases when we get them, and we refer them.
REP. HOLT: Okay. Do you think it is widespread, this misunderstanding of the law? Regardless of whether they're actually following the law.
MR. MAGUIRE: Oh, oh, oh. Well, that -- no, that --
REP. HOLT: Do you think misunderstanding the law is widespread?
MR. MAGUIRE: Actually, that -- the confusion about the law is not an original opinion of ours. The WMD commission devoted probably two pages to saying that so much- it's so complicated, and legal opinions about what the law means are often used to trump action. And there are inconsistencies. And they went on to say that, very often, understandings about the law are determined by committees -- which they referred to as the lowest common denominator. In other words, the most cautious.
So they were basically saying -- they weren't, you know, citing chapter and verse, and they weren't saying, this is wrong and this is right. They were saying: Here's a wonderful opportunity for the DNI, who will have an office of general counsel, to start to get arms around these issues, and try to achieve some consistency.
I mean, we did a study early, early on, involving how the notion of U.S. persons was understood and applied in the field among a number of agencies. And I think, first of all, you know, you can have a very clear law, but it's got to be communicated in that same form down the line -- to people who are on the front lines, as it were.
REP. HOLT: If I may interrupt as you're making that statement, when you say that there's a need to ensure that the IC is complying with the laws, you're not just repeating what the WMD group was saying. These are some additional findings of your own.
MR. MAGUIRE: No. Compliance with the law --
REP. HOLT: Is that right?
MR. MAGUIRE: -- is absolute.
I mean, that's what the IRTPA says -- that, in addition to all of his other responsibilities, the DNI shall ensure compliance with the law.
REP. HOLT: But what I'm asking is whether this lack of clarity on the law is- You're just restating what others have found. You said it's not an original finding. Are you just restating what others have found, or did you find --
MR. MAGUIRE: Well, no. We did some interviews and research out in the field -- FBI and others -- and there was a divergence even within an agency about what certain terms mean and how you apply them. And that's probably not something that you- That's so training-based, I'm not sure we can necessarily resolve that.
But one of the major issues was the attorney-general guidelines, as they applied to the FBI. And it was felt -- and these have been revised as of December. It was felt that those were making life for agents in the field difficult.
REP. HOLT: Will there be further rounds of questioning? Good. Thank you, Madame Chair.
REP. ESHOO: (Off mike.)
REP. CONAWAY: Thank you, Madame Chair.
REP. ESHOO: (Off mike.)
REPRESENTATIVE MICHAEL CONAWAY (R-TX): Good to be here. Mr. Maguire, thank you for your service -- appreciate that. I'm a CPA by profession, so I come at this --
REP. ESHOO: (Off mike.)
REP. CONAWAY: The green light's on.
REP. ESHOO: The green light's on?
REP. CONAWAY: The green light's on. So, anyway, thank you very much. Forgive me if you're already answered this: Has your replacement been named?
MR. MAGUIRE: Yes.
REP. CONAWAY: Okay. It mentions in our questions to ask that the current DNIG is non-statutorily positioned.
MR. MAGUIRE: That's right.
REP. CONAWAY: So it's at the discretion of the DNI as to whether or not they want one.
MR. MAGUIRE: Yes.
REP. CONAWAY: Okay. Did that hamper your ability to do your job?
MR. MAGUIRE: No.
REP. CONAWAY: Would it have been better to have had it statutorily set?
MR. MAGUIRE: Well, at this point, having a statutory structure would make a huge difference to our independence. As you probably know, an inspector-general office that can be abolished --
REP. CONAWAY: Right.
MR. MAGUIRE: -- by the director of the agency is deemed not to be independent under the GAO Yellow Book for audits. We're simply not independent, by definition.
REP. CONAWAY: Sure.
MR. MAGUIRE: So to have a truly independent IG, you first- It seems to me you have to have -- the office has to be permanent; set up by statute; and not at the discretion of the DNI. Whether he would do it or not is really irrelevant.
REP. CONAWAY: Sure. I agree that it ought to be statutorily defined. You mentioned in your testimony that there's a series of ICD's, or intelligence-community directives, that are in the pipeline?
MR. MAGUIRE: Yes.
REP. CONAWAY: Hung up for whatever valid reason or not valid reason. And then we've added executive order 1233 to that, and the required instructions and directions there. What's the overall timeline that you see happening, versus one that, in your collective background, it ought to be on? What kind of a timeline should it be on, to get those fleshed out?
MR. MAGUIRE: Well, those two things -- first of all, we would not know the timelines. That depends on the people working on it and they might make, well, end of the year or something along those lines. But we don't have any independent assessment that we can give you about when these things are really going to be coming out.
Now, the 12333 exercise did consume a lot of the talent that would otherwise have been writing the intelligence community directives, which are -- that's a core function of the DNI, is to write these directives, to craft them and write them and get them out. It's been on the slow side. There are some things that have -- some important issues, like definitions in geospatial intelligence, that have been hanging around for a while. But they did -- they've gotten some important ones out recently, so in fairness to them.
REP. CONAWAY: Yeah. Is that a lack of a top-down push, or just a decision to say, oh, we've got limited resources and we need to --
MR. MAGUIRE: If the top person wanted to get it --
REP. CONAWAY: It could be done quicker.
MR. MAGUIRE: -- it will come out faster.
REP. CONAWAY: Okay, okay.
MR. MAGUIRE: A resource question, also. I mean, look at the Internal Revenue Service. One of their --
REP. CONAWAY: I try not to. I did it for 30-plus years.
MR. MAGUIRE: -- cranking out those regulations and interpretations and rulings. I mean, they've got a lot of resources dedicated to that.
REP. CONAWAY: Yeah, and a big backlog.
MR. MAGUIRE: Since that's what it takes.
REP. CONAWAY: Sure. When I read through 12333 -- whatever the appropriate insider buzzwords are for this deal -- and it says the DNI shall do this and this and this and this specifically, I put my audit hat on and I think, well how does the DNI know that he or she has done those things. Is the role of a statutory IG one who would take that executive order and say all right, we're going to create an audit program, for lack of a better phrase, that says this is what should be done. And we're going to look to see that it has been done, and if it hasn't, you'll bring forth recommendations -- is that --
MR. MAGUIRE: Yeah, we could do that.
REP. CONAWAY: Should you do that?
MR. MAGUIRE: Well --
REP. CONAWAY: Since you're leaving and you're going to hand it off to the new guy, you could commit him to anything.
MR. MAGUIRE: Yes, but when you think about management, they really should be able to build a plan with to-dos and follow up on it and make sure that it gets done in a timely manner, rather than having the IGs go in -- and very often, an IG report will say, well, they didn't do this and they didn't do that and they didn't implement the recommendation we said in the last report. That's a sad way to do business; I think the way to do business is to have forceful management that, you know, it's do or die -- insists --
REP. CONAWAY: Well, but even with forceful management, you still have to have an audit report that's --
MR. MAGUIRE: Yeah, but then our work would be true audit, rather than trying to get it done.
REP. CONAWAY: Right, okay, okay. I understand the difference between those two. Thank you, Madame Chairman.
REP. ESHOO: Thank you -- (inaudible, off mike). And just for the record, I have one question. Members, in both the fiscal year '08 and fiscal year '09 authorization bills, we did insert language in terms of a statute relative to the IG for the ODNI. In '08, the president vetoed the legislation. It was tangled up in the interrogation issues. And '09, we didn't have a bill.
But I think that this is something that we need to go back to, and I see that there's a strong bipartisan interest. I raised the same issues as you did, Mr. Conaway, and I'm glad that you did because it sets it down once again. So I just thought that I would mention that. So -- now, let's see -- Mr. Holt.
REP. HOLT: It's probably Ms. Myrick's turn, although I'll be happy to take the microphone if --
REP. ESHOO: Well, we went to Mr. Conaway, so now we're back -- yeah, to our side. Then we'll go to Ms. Myrick.
REP. HOLT: Okay, thank you. Thank you.
REP. ESHOO: If I've messed it up, I apologize, but there are just a few of us and this is -- this is not casual, but it's a comfortable -- right, thank you. (Chuckles.)
REP. HOLT: Yes, and there should be enough time for us to get through here. You know, just to continue on listing some of the findings, directives stalled for more than two years, the collectors control and limit the data that are essential -- in your words -- essential for analysis, that in sum, the intelligence community appears to be managed by the DNI only by the consent of the agencies. You know, directives stalled for greater than two years, and now we have the DNI returning to a management consulting firm? (Chuckles.)
Let me look at, more, some of the legal issues and some of the FISA-related issues that you raise. You say that the DNI has made substantial efforts to improve the FISA process. And yet, there is, evidently, a great need -- well, maybe I'm overstating it -- at least a need for enhanced training. And you also say there's a need to resolve issues regarding the inclusion of FISA-derived identifiers in the National Crime Information Center. Could you talk about those two things? What do you mean that there's a need for enhanced training in the FISA process? And what do you mean about the need to resolve issues regarding inclusion of FISA-derived identifiers?
MR. MAGUIRE: We have put these issues into the hands of the FISA working group, which is sponsored by the ODNI. And I would say that I'm -- we're going to rely on them to do -- to address these issues that we raised. Certainly, training on anything this complicated is absolutely, absolutely key, because if the people, in the first instance, don't really have a handle on how to do things, it's going to slow down --
REP. HOLT: I mean, can you say a little bit more about why you think training is needed? Did you see -- you know, without going into -- this is an open hearing; without going into classified matters, did you see slip-ups?
MR. MAGUIRE: We are aware of instances where inadequate paperwork was coming up out of the FBI, was reaching the Justice Department -- questions back and forth and corrections that had to be made, which slowed it down. I mean, logically, if the people who had first initiated the paperwork had been more up-to-speed on exactly what would be required to take one of these applications through to the FISA court, it would have moved -- it would have cut numbers of days off of the process. And the only way you can reach that is by getting -- either by putting the talent down there or training up the people there, I mean.
REP. HOLT: Were you or your people able to gain access to the process that was carried out under the FISA law to look at how the collection is done and whether, step-by-step, that complied with the law that we debated so painfully here -- repeatedly and painfully -- here on the Hill?
MR. MAGUIRE: Well, as I say, we made ourselves familiar with it to see whether there was an issue worth talking about, because this is really not in our lane.
REP. HOLT: Why is it not in your lane?
MR. MAGUIRE: Because we look at -- well, we look at processes, not law. And we've got lawyers who are working on this and should be making the necessary improvements.
REP. HOLT: Well, but the process is surely -- I mean, this is a matter of process as well, it seems to me. So it does seem, to me, to be in your lane, that even if -- because of the complications of this legislation, that even if there are legal transgressions, you need to look at it also, because that's a process transgression, it seems to me.
MR. MAGUIRE: That is correct. I would say we started on that, we reached a certain point and we turned over our views to the working panel. One could reopen it.
REP. HOLT: I mean, because this is -- because the FISA process is necessarily interagency -- now, DOJ, which is not part of the IC, but it does involve the DOJ, it involves the FBI, it involves collection agencies -- it seems to me that does really come under your purview -- or the DNI's purview, I mean. And therefore, the DNI, as the person who's supposed to see that the procedures are followed, interagency, should be looking at this and you should be reviewing it.
MR. MAGUIRE: Yes, yes, yes.
REP. HOLT: And do you think you did review it thoroughly? Do you think it needs further thorough review?
MR. MAGUIRE: We did a certain amount -- identified issues fundamentally. How efficiently is this running? Could it be improved? And we reached no conclusions. We turned it over to the FISA working group, who are people that are intimately familiar with the FISA process. And we can always check in with them again to see if they've -- see how they've done.
REP. HOLT: Thank you. Thank you, Madame Chair.
REP. ESHOO: (Inaudible, off mike.)
MR. MAGUIRE: It is -- representatives.
REP. ESHOO: (Inaudible, off mike.)
MR. MAGUIRE: It's staff from the DNI, including individuals who had been detailed to the DNI from the Department of Justice. And then I think we also have currently serving -- do we have currently serving Department of Justice and -- it's a combination -- okay.
REP. HOLT: (Inaudible, off mike.)
MR. MAGUIRE: Well, from the Department of Justice --
REP. HOLT: Is that reasonable -- (inaudible, off mike).
MR. MAGUIRE: Can we get back to you on this? This is -- this goes into a depth that I really can't speak to by myself.
REP. ESHOO: Ms. Myrick?
REP. MYRICK: Going back to the collaboration issue, again, of the agencies working together, are there any good models that you saw, of agencies, and who are they? Like, who's the best, who's the worst? Can you give me some definition there?
MR. MAGUIRE: Well, this is all highly impressionistic. We have not formally found that certain agencies are working very well together -- it would be a tough standard to define. NCTC appears to be quite a success story. It's well-run. They co-locate professionals from a variety of agencies. They have outreach. So they're a mixed agency, so that -- I mean, the first step toward collaboration is to get two people in the room, and they have really done this in a very big way.
And I think they have good relations with their counterparts, which would be FBI, DHS. They draw on most of the agencies in preparing the counterterrorism information. So I would say that that was -- and they also set up a group within the NCTC that has outreach to state and local, to help find out what -- in what form would intelligence coming out, from the federal level, be useful to state and local.
CIA and FBI's relationship, which, you know, historically, from the days of Donovan and J. Edgar Hoover, has been contentious from time to time, and then when you had the espionage cases of Ames and Hanssen, there was a fair amount of bad feeling between them. I would say all of that is improving significantly. There have been transfers -- exchanges -- of fairly high professionals, and that always produces a good result.
I mean, we had a CIA intelligence expert over at the FBI in a senior position for quite a while. FBI people are up in the CIA doing counterespionage. So I would say that, in general, all of that is -- that there are some very good stories.
REP. MYRICK: Is that due to the directors themselves being willing to work together?
MR. MAGUIRE: You know, that's a good question. I think part of it is just grassroots --
REP. MYRICK: It's happening with the people who are on the ground and in the back rather than at the top, yeah.
MR. MAGUIRE: I think there's plenty of it at the top, but my sense is that the people down the line have accepted the notion of working together. I mean, this is preached by leadership.
REP. MYRICK: I have another question about the financial management. You said that the IC's consolidating financial management of the CIA and several other agencies into two systems. When do you expect that to be achieved? I mean, are we looking at the same challenges with all the IT stuff with this, too. I mean, is this another one that's who knows when?
MR. MAGUIRE: I don't know when. I don't know when.
REP. MYRICK: Does anybody?
MR. MAGUIRE: There are certain deadlines. The SSCI wrote to Director Blair, saying we want to have stuff by -- certain stuff by December of '09. The auditability -- originally, the auditability timeline that was presented by the DNI up here was 2012 for full, qualified audit opinions on the financial statements from all of the agencies. Now that they're going to do what we call business-process restructuring, that's going to move those dates out. The people have not come up with a new deferred date, yet.
REP. MYRICK: Oh, that's just real nice.
MR. MAGUIRE: Well, I think you'll find that the SSCI letter --
REP. MYRICK: Well, yeah, it sounds like, again, this is another area where there needs to be some, in effect, pressure put on from above to make it happen.
MR. MAGUIRE: Somebody big needs to say, I insist on this.
REP. MYRICK: Thank you. Thank you, Madame Chair.
MR. MAGUIRE: And even saying it's not enough; it's got to be enforced up and down the chain, because you know, historically, you can understand that systems and finance are not the normal areas of activity for leaders in the intelligence community. They lead because they know intelligence. This is a very different discipline. And there, for a while, when the money was flowing, you know, mission comes first, balancing the checkbook wasn't quite as important, but now it is, because the money isn't as available.
And anyway, other agencies committed and have gotten out auditable financial statements for a number of years now, and the intelligence community just seems to be having a very hard time crossing that line. But we -- the ODNI, the CFO and we -- we kind of can't do this work, but we're supporting it and assisting them in any way that we can.
REP. ESHOO: Well, this is Mr. Conaway's area of expertise, so hopefully, he can help us with it. (Laughter.) We're going to count on his leadership on this issue. Let me ask you, Mr. Maguire, when your report was complete, did you have the opportunity to sit down with the DNI to walk through this, or is it something that is --
MR. MAGUIRE: I sent it to him with a cover note.
REP. ESHOO: Uh-huh, but no meeting with the person?
MR. MAGUIRE: Correct, correct.
REP. ESHOO: I see. And that's with the new DNI, or the previous?
MR. MAGUIRE: The old one. No, because we issued this under the old DNI. The new DNI says fine, go up and brief the committee.
REP. ESHOO: Mm-hmm. The entire committee, House committee -- HPSCI -- had, on a bipartisan, obviously, bipartisan basis, when I say the entire committee -- had very strong sensibilities about the size -- the overall size of the organization, the cost of it, et cetera, et cetera. And that wasn't just a stand-alone issue; it sprung out of our concern of a collaborative effort, the lack of, you know, the closing down of the stovepipes -- essentially, the scenario that allowed 9/11 to happen.
What would you instruct us about that size of the organization? I think sometimes, with all due respect, we get stuck on numbers. But our dissatisfaction and our frustration was really what surfaced as a result of those numbers -- that we didn't hear a clear mission, that it wasn't clear to the committee that the old structure was being taken apart with a new one being put back together. Is that sensibility, do you think, on target, relative to the committee?
MR. MAGUIRE: Well, you're spending the money; what are you getting for it? Has anyone -- I mean, what is your baseline here? Is it the IRTPA? Probably is.
REP. ESHOO: It has to be. That's the law.
MR. MAGUIRE: It has to be. So is the organization -- and I don't know the answer to this, but if I were to look at it, if I were in your shoes, I would say, first, let's establish what the fundamental mandates -- and there are a number of them -- in the IRTPA are. And then I would say, does the organization and directionality of the ODNI organization, as it's been put together, is it designed to accomplish what we consider to be -- what the Congress intended to be -- the objectives to be achieved here?
Have they got their resources aligned to execute? And that's really the basic, fundamental question.
And then, I suppose, there's a certain amount of prioritization of how many of the resources do you put on information-sharing, how many do you put on joint duty, et cetera -- I mean, just a big -- just take a 10,000-foot view here.
And then I think you would start to get a sense of how the money is being -- whether the money is being spent and how much of it and whether the people who are doing it are the right people to do it. It always comes back to that. We have a lot -- as I said -- a lot of subject matter -- deep subject-matter experts. But this is a management organization; it's not a retail.
They have certain responsibilities not to be denied. They are responsible for rounding up intelligence and all sorts of things of that order but, do we have the strength that we need in finance and acquisitions? Those are going pretty well. I don't feel that it's a heavily overstaffed -- just when you consider the breadth of the mandate. I often found in the private sector when a client complained about a bill, it wasn't the actual size of the bill, but it was the quality of the services.
So if the jobs were being done to your satisfaction -- if you felt it was properly aligned, I doubt that you'd have trouble with 600 or so core people, because the centers I think are different, that the NCTC and CIX, NCPC, et cetera have to be -- I think they have to be kind of -- I think they are doing very concrete jobs. And I would be reluctant to say that they are overstaffed.
REP. ESHOO: I think we share that view. On the issue of IT, where would you place that now in terms of progress?
MR. MAGUIRE: I don't know, that's --
REP. ESHOO: I mean it's so essential to the operation.
MR. MAGUIRE: It is, it is. I would --
REP. ESHOO: And if there really is going to be integration, then you have to have --
MR. MAGUIRE: It may be your most pressing management challenge. I mean there won't be information sharing if we don't get this right.
REP. ESHOO: Exactly, exactly.
MR. MAGUIRE: There won't be acquisition; there won't be rigor with resources if we can't get that right. And the enterprise itself is not going to run optimally if we can't get that right. I think that's your number one. I'm just thinking out loud here. This is not -- I have no formal finding to that fact.
REP. ESHOO: It's most helpful to us.
MR. MAGUIRE: We have no formal finding to that effect, but it's big, and a lot of time was lost, I have to say. There were some missteps.
REP. ESHOO: Well, you've certainly given us a road map. Mr. Conaway, would you like to ask some more questions? Take one.
REP. CONAWAY: Let me have one more round then I've got to leave as well. How many of the IC agencies are audited now? Are any of them -- have had audited financial service?
MR. MAGUIRE: Oh, they are all audited, the questions is whether they can get a -- (inaudible, cross talk) -- opinion.
REP. CONAWAY: They have unqualified -- (inaudible, cross talk) -- how many unqualified -- (inaudible, cross talk).
MR. MAGUIRE: The big -- well, DOD cannot get an opinion. And none of the subagencies like DIA, NSA, NGA. NRO is very close to having an audit opinion from an outside audit firm.
REP. CONAWAY: Is that -- rather than walking them through one by one, is that information available to the committee? Could you give that to us -- which ones are and which ones aren't?
MR. MAGUIRE: Yeah, I think they are.
REP. CONAWAY: I'm actually a little bit embarrassed that, based on my background, I haven't been more insistent that we make this an issue.
REP. ESHOO: Well, you've just started. But you're going to be our point man now. You are hereby anointed our point man on this -- seriously.
REP. CONAWAY: I don't know if you'd -- that we do ask each director that we either -- either in closed session or whatever -- where do you stand on your audited financial statements.
REP. ESHOO: You're absolutely right.
MR. MAGUIRE: Some of the staff has worked this vigorously -- like Chris Wright (ph) and --
REP. CONAWAY: Well, we'll start pitching in from -- I don't know who you were referring to by somebody big needs to do it, but wherever we are on that pecking order, we'll pitch in to do that. So again, Mr. Maguire, thank you for your long -- (inaudible, cross talk).
MR. MAGUIRE: I can answer the question you asked me very early on, which is whether we would audit compliance execution of the 12333 obligations. I'm informed that we do have -- we would not call it an audit, but an inspection, in our work plan. That will be coming up. We're designing the inspection plan for that and we'll be executing it possibly next year.
REP. CONAWAY: That's encouraging -- the sooner the better. Thank you.
REP. ESHOO: Rush?
REP. HOLT: On that last comment, it comes as a surprise to me that there even partial audits in the agencies, and I look forward to getting, for the record, this information about what is done currently. Let me follow on one of your other findings which has to do with the so-called problems you identify that are created by lack of consistent understanding of the rules with regard to U.S. persons.
You called for an expedited approval of some common rules. Do you know whether that has been done since your report of last fall -- since this report was --
MR. MAGUIRE: I think that true commonality is probably unachievable here, but that each of the agencies' rules for dealing with U.S. persons have been drafted and are now in the hands of the Justice Department because it's the attorney general that has the final say on all of this.
REP. HOLT: Say a little bit more about why you think it's needed -- why common -- if you say common rules can't be achieved, which is what I thought I just heard you say, why are you asking for finalization of common rules? I mean maybe you should back up a little bit and explain what is the problem that you were addressing here and why the recommendation to get as much commonality as is possible was made.
MR. MAGUIRE: Well, that came from the WMD commission, and they -- I think they felt that it was not a very good way to do business if the definition of U.S. persons was different, say, in one agency versus another and that U.S. persons is, of course, a threshold definition to determine what rules are going to apply to specific intelligence that's collected. So that was the WMD. The DNI established a working group to go to work on this -- primarily lawyers.
And we --
REP. HOLT: And has that working group completed its work? Is that what these rules that are awaiting finalization come from?
MR. MAGUIRE: We think they -- (inaudible, cross talk) -- have.
REP. HOLT: You think they have completed them.
MR. MAGUIRE: Yes. The absolute identity of the rules obviously is not achievable, but common notions of what a U.S. person is, is a worthy goal.
REP. HOLT: I would like to think so.
MR. MAGUIRE: Yes, that's a worthy goal. It's not that the rules all be the same but that the notion -- the definition of a U.S. person, since it is a threshold that --
REP. HOLT: Sure, collectors and different agencies collect in different ways, analysts in different agencies analyze for different things.
MR. MAGUIRE: So the working group --
REP. HOLT: Nevertheless, some commonality about the relationship -- I mean, this gets at the heart of the relationship between the intelligence community and the United States of America, it seems to me.
MR. MAGUIRE: Yeah, so we -- after we had done some work for them, we somewhat disengaged from the process on the expectation that the working group would continue this work. And they have represented to us that they have done this and they have presented it to the Justice Department. It's not completely done yet, it will continue to be worked on. But I think it's entirely fair to ask them what they've come up with, remind them of the WMD commission --
REP. HOLT: And whom do we ask?
MR. MAGUIRE: You would ask the DNI General Council. How are you doing on all of these things?
REP. HOLT: Okay, if I may, just one other quick question. Did you have a separate report on acquisition procedures?
MR. MAGUIRE: That's coming -- that will be forthcoming in a few weeks. I --
REP. HOLT: Okay, so this is something that was completed under your watch, is in the process of being --
MR. MAGUIRE: Yes, that was started last September. The phase one is completed; I'll be signing that report the end of this week.
REP. HOLT: And this was looking at multiple agencies.
MR. MAGUIRE: Hasn't -- this, yeah. Well, first it's looking at the ODNI oversight process, the responsibilities being exercised under the IRTPA and seeing how well they are doing there. So that report will be going to the DNI and should be making its way to you.
REP. HOLT: I look forward to it eagerly.
MR. MAGUIRE: Yes, we think it's quite a good report. It's not -- it's pretty good news, but there's obviously many ways in which it could be -- it all goes to governance, decision-making, making decisions about very expensive programs and getting it right early on rather than reaching the point where you've either got to poor more money into it or kill it. I mean that -- sort of in layman's terms is what we would like -- that's, you know, one of the recommendations, is you've got to pull these critical decisions earlier in the process -- before you are really, really committed. And then there are a number of other things that go on that we think could be tightened up.
REP. HOLT: Thank you very much, Mr. Maguire, and thank you again for what you've done. Madame Chair, if -- I would like to ask that the subcommittee bring in appropriate people from the ODNI to look at some of these specific points raised, because as you've alluded to, we have some major decisions to make, actually, in the coming weeks about the extent to which we should revisit the major legislation -- whether the ODNI should be reorganized, whether some of the problems identified come from growth that is too rapid -- all sorts of questions that our colleagues on the full committee have raised from time to time over the last four years or so. So I thank you for beginning this -- what I hope will be a series of hearings. Thank you.
REP. ESHOO: Well, I fully agree. And I think that we would not do justice to the work that Mr. Maguire has done unless we do exactly what you described. So we will -- we will do a series. I just leaned over and shared with our ranking member the following: Every day, I ask myself this question: God forbid if we are hit again, the question that I would be asking, what was it that we did not do? What was it that wasn't followed up on? What was it that was either left out of the law or left unattended to that would have allowed something to happen? So these are really profound issues.
This is not some dusty report by, you know, an IG's activity and something to keep us busy to have hearings with. This all goes back to, in a very simple but profound way, how we protect our country. And we can't ever, ever lose sight of that. I appreciate the very, very fine questions that members have asked and I want to thank our staff. I think that you all know that I have a liking for and a preference for public hearings. But that requires more work on the part of our staff.
We can go to where we usually go to and everything is already set up there. But when we have a public hearing, they have to do a lot more to get the room set up and the equipment and all of that. So I want to call out their names and thank them -- on both sides of the aisle. They work as a great team and I have a great deal of respect for them. Certainly -- I'm just going to use first names: Mika (ph), Shamal (ph), Ashley (ph), Josh and Diane.
So thank you to each one of you for what you've done to help make this happen today and Mr. Maguire, thank you for your magnificent public service. We all have a great deal of regard for you and we appreciate not only the work that was put into this report -- your steadfastness -- but also how you have expressed all this to us. It is so digestible and you have made it that much easier for us to not only understand and comprehend, but help to create a pathway forward on what the subcommittee can do.
So we thank you, we wish you well. I hope our paths will cross many, many times in the future. You are a fine person and you have done beautiful work for the American people, and we salute you for that. So with that, we will close the hearing. And to the audience that is here, thank you for being here with us as well. It wouldn't be as much fun, I guess, if we looked out and the room were empty. So thank you.
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