Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009

INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2009 -- (House of Representatives - July 16, 2008)

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Mr. THOMPSON of California. I want to thank both Chairman Reyes and Ranking Member Hoekstra for their leadership and making sure we had a good bipartisan bill that benefits the people of this great country, the staff that worked so hard to make this happen on both sides of the aisle, and, in particular, the ranking member of my subcommittee, Mr. Rogers, for working together to make this a good bill.

Human intelligence, or HUMINT, is one of the most difficult but effective means of understanding our adversaries' plans and intentions. This bill adds funds improve HUMINT collection on counterterrorism and other critical national security challenges. It also adds HUMINT resources for global challenges, such as the political and humanitarian crisis in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The events unfolding in those regions demonstrate that we must always have the resources to understand these threats.

The information we collect, however, is only useful if analysts translate it into actionable intelligence for policymakers and law enforcement. For that reason, this bill provides resources to improve intelligence analysis across the entire intelligence community. It also authorizes additional personnel to support State and local law enforcement so they can better address the challenges of border security, counterterrorism and infrastructure protection.

And the bill also calls for fiscal restraint. As Mr. Rogers mentioned, since its creation in 2004, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has grown into a bloated bureaucracy that hinders, rather than facilitates, intelligence complexes and analysis. This bill adds an amendment that Mr. Rogers and I introduced in committee that prevents further growth in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, this legislation provides critical intelligence resources for our troops and strengthens oversight of intelligence support to the military. Many of us have visited our troops in Iraq, and we have seen firsthand that good intelligence saves American lives on the battlefield.

This bill will greatly improve our intelligence capabilities and enhance our national security. I urge all my colleagues to support it.

In closing, I too want to add my name to those who are very appreciative and thankful for our friends, Mr. Everett and Mr. Cramer, who did a great job on the committee. They were a pleasure to work for, they are fine Americans, and we are going to miss them.

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