Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

First, I want to say thank you to Chairman Nunes. This Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 is our third major piece of legislation together, and it once again demonstrates the fruits of our commitment to bipartisanship.

We also have our difference of opinion from time to time, and on this bill, we have some differences. But I know that as long as we continue to work together, there is no end to the good that we can accomplish.

Through our cyber bill and our surveillance reform bill, we have been guided by two core principles: first, that national security is truly the security of the entire Nation and all Americans; second, that national security can and must coexist with privacy and civil liberties. I believe the bill today largely furthers these principles as well.

The IAA funds, equips, and sets the priorities for the U.S. intelligence community; and it is a crucial vehicle by which Congress provides oversight of the IC and ensures that U.S. intelligence professionals and intelligence programs have the funds and authorities they need to keep us safe, as well as our allies and partners.

As the annual IAA provides hundreds of pages of detailed guidance, strict authorizations, and precise limitations, it is also the single most important means by which Congress conducts its oversight of the intelligence community.

As in past years, this year's IAA is a carefully considered bill and the result of thoughtful oversight.

The Fiscal Year 2016 IAA funds the intelligence community at about 1 percent below the President's budget request and about 7 percent above last year's enacted budget level.

The bill makes cuts to less-effective programs, adds money to underfunded programs, and requires intelligence agencies to regularly inform Congress of their activities, ensuring funds are spent responsibly and lawfully.

Notably, the bill today holds, or ``fences,'' significant amounts of money to make sure Congress' direction is followed to the letter and on time.

I want to highlight just a few particular aspects of the bill. It continues the committee's longstanding emphasis on counterintelligence and security reforms. It also continues to support our overhead architecture by funding our most critical space programs, investing in space protection and resiliency, preserving investments in cutting-edge technologies, and enhancing oversight of contracting and procurement practices.

It also promotes enhancements to our foreign partner capabilities, which are critical to multiplying the reach and impact of our own intelligence efforts. It enhances human intelligence, or HUMINT, capabilities, which are often the key to understanding and predicting global events.

It provides resources to safeguard vulnerable signals intelligence, or SIGINT, collection while enhancing oversight of these and other sources of intelligence. It emphasizes collection to monitor and ensure compliance with treaties and potential international agreements. It greatly enhances oversight of Defense special operation forces activities worldwide.

The bill also incorporates some excellent provisions championed by the Democratic members of the Intelligence Committee, as well as the Republican members.

In particular, I want to highlight Mr. Himes' provision to enhance the quality of metrics we receive to enable more thorough oversight; Ms. Sewell's multiple provisions to enhance diversity within the intelligence community; Mr. Carson's provisions to better understand FBI resource allocation against domestic and foreign threats and the role of the FBI and DNI in countering violent extremism, particularly in minors; Ms. Speier's provision to provide greater human rights oversight of the IC's relationship with certain foreign partners; Mr. Quigley's provision regarding intelligence support to Ukraine; and Mr. Swalwell's provision to ensure that Department of Energy National Labs can work with State and local government recipients of homeland security grants.

All this said, while I believe the bill largely reflects sound choices, I am concerned that it uses the overseas contingency operations--or OCO--funding as a way to evade the sequestration levels mandated by the ill-conceived Budget Control Act.

Again, I largely support the funding levels and the programs which the IAA authorizes, but I cannot endorse how it has funded them. We need to be serious and thoughtful about the budget and undo sequestration--not just employ accounting tricks to evade its levels only for defense and national security-related items.

Even some domestic programs and agencies that contribute to our homeland security cannot qualify for OCO dollars, while vital programs like our children's education and our social services are left to languish.

Instead of arbitrary, across-the-board cuts, let's do what this bill does substantively: make cuts to some areas and add money to others in a deliberate, well thought out manner. It is time to forthrightly deal with sequestration for all of our national priorities, not just for defense.

I am also opposed to provisions in this bill which would tie the hands of the administration and prevent the orderly transfer of detainees from the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. These restrictions have never been included in prior versions of the IAA, and there is no reason to introduce them into the IAA process now.

The bill goes even further than restricting transfer of detainees to the United States and includes a new provision which restricts transfers to ``combat zones,'' a term that is so broad as to include allies and partners such as Jordan.

As I have long said, keeping the Guantanamo prison serves as a recruitment tool for militants, undercuts our relationships with our allies, and undermines our international standing.

With that said, the bill, as a whole, is largely a strong product, and I appreciate the close partnership we have enjoyed with the chairman in working on it. But, unfortunately, I cannot support the bill so long as it includes these Guantanamo restrictions and employs the OCO budget gimmick at the expense of our domestic spending priorities.

I look forward to a robust amendment process today, and I am committed to working with the chairman, the Senate, the administration, the other committees of jurisdiction, and all Members of Congress to make critical improvements to the bill as it moves forward, and to resolve the issues to keep alive the string of consecutive signed IAAs.

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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The Intelligence Authorization Act is the vehicle by which we ensure that U.S. intelligence professionals and programs have the funds and the authorities that they need. It is the single most important means by which Congress can conduct its oversight. We need to pass this legislation, just as the committee has done over the last several years.

It is my hope that as the legislation moves forward, we will be able to dispose of the Guantanamo provisions--I will have an amendment to address that in a few minutes--and that we can also resolve the issues regarding the overseas contingency account. I look forward to working with my colleague as the bill moves forward to address those issues.

I want to join the chairman in saluting the members of the intelligence community--the men and women who do such an extraordinary job for us each and every day. They have our sincerest gratitude and full appreciation for their dedication, their patriotism, and their unparalleled skills. I also want to thank again our chairman for his leadership, his commitment to bipartisanship, and his determination to do what is right. I want to thank our colleagues on the committee, who have done an extraordinary job in helping to put this bill together.

I also want to join the chairman in thanking our wonderful staff on our side of the aisle. I want to thank Carly Blake, Linda Cohen, Allison Getty, Robert Minehart, Amanda Rogers Thorpe, Rheanne Wirkkala, as well as Patrick Boland and our shared technical and security staff, including Kristin Jepson, Brandon Smith, and Kevin Klein. We have an extraordinary team on the committee. It is a great pleasure to serve and work with each and every one of them.

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Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank Mr. Israel, Mr. Lamborn, and Ms. Graham for this very important amendment and issue.

This will call for a report on our adversaries' use of tunnels and an update on our collaboration with international partners in ways to detect and defeat tunnels.

All of us remember the fear that set in, in much of southern Israel last summer, as Hamas militants used a complex network of tunnels to attack Israeli soldiers from the Gaza Strip. This was not the first use of tunnels by Hamas. Cross-border tunnels were used in the capture of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006.

In addition to using them against military targets, Israel has uncovered evidence that the tunnels are being prepared for large-scale attacks against Israeli civilians.

Tunnels are not just a problem for Israel. For decades, the North Korean military has also been digging tunnels under the DMZ to facilitate infiltration of South Korea.

According to press reports, four tunnels from the north have been found in all, although none since 1990. The South Korean Defense Ministry believes there may be 20 in all, and they could pose a mortal threat to Koreans and American service personnel in the region.

I strongly support the amendment and urge my colleagues to do the same.

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Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the gentleman, and I thank him for his excellent amendment and support in the intelligence process.

With each passing day, we are learning more about the cyber breach at the Office of Personnel Management. The volume of personal information lost during these events is of tremendous concern. Mr. Israel's amendment will help us better inform Congress on the effectiveness of the government's collaborative efforts to defend against future cyber events.

I thank my colleagues for their work on it, and I urge support of Mr. Israel's amendment.

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Mr. SCHIFF. I thank my colleague from New York (Mr. Crowley) for yielding and for his work on this amendment. I am very happy to support it.

Diversity and language skills are critical to national security. Together, they allow the intelligence community to reach its potential and expand its reach, its access, as well as its understanding.

This amendment would further both goals by providing better language-learning opportunities to students of Hispanic-Serving Institutions. I am very proud to support this amendment and urge my colleagues to do the same.

Again, I thank my friend from New York (Mr. Crowley) as well as my other colleagues who worked with him on this amendment. I urge passage.

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Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the work of my colleagues from Massachusetts and from Texas. This is a superb amendment that will help us track foreign fighters, and I am proud to support it.

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Mr. SCHIFF. I thank my colleague from Massachusetts, who has been an active and important voice on national security since he joined the Congress several years ago. In particular, he has worked to ensure that we maintain a strong focus on information sharing across agencies.

One of the key lessons we learned from 9/11 is the need to tear down stovepipes and to ensure that inappropriate barriers to information sharing across agencies never reappear.

The gentleman from Massachusetts' amendment seeks to maintain our vigilance on this issue and would require the FBI to report to Congress on its information-sharing progress.

As a fellow native Bostonian, I am very pleased to see my colleague do such great work. I want to thank him for his commitment to the issue. And I am very happy to support the amendment.

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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, my amendment would strike the sections of the bill which would undermine the administration's ability to close the prison at Guantanamo by transferring the remaining detainees to the United States for further disposition of their cases or to third countries that agree to accept them, secure them, and monitor them.

I am grateful that my colleague from Washington, Adam Smith, ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, has joined me in urging the House to make this important change to the bill.

Every day that it remains open, the prison at Guantanamo Bay damages the United States. Because there are other, better options for the prosecution and detention of these inmates, we are not safer for Guantanamo's existence. In fact, it makes us more vulnerable by drawing new recruits to the jihad.

The Congress, the administration, and the military can work together to find a solution that protects our people even as we maintain our principles and devotion to the rule of law.

Under the provisions included in this bill, the administration would be barred from transferring Guantanamo detainees to a ``war zone.''

While I agree that it would be foolhardy to seek to send a detainee to Yemen while that country is immersed in civil war, the definition of ``war zone'' used here is derived from the U.S. Tax Code and is extremely broad, ruling out countries like Jordan, for example, that have either successfully resettled and monitored former detainees or demonstrated a genuine commitment to doing so.

These provisions also prevent the administration from transferring Guantanamo detainees to the United States for further proceedings under the military commissions process or for trial in an article III court.

The Department of Justice and our courts have proven themselves time and time again to be more than capable of handling the toughest terrorism cases and doing so in a way that ennobles us and sets an example to the world that a great nation can both safeguard its people and the rule of law.

As a practical matter, our civilian courts have proven much more adept at handling these cases than the military commissions process has. In fact, this past Friday, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, one of the most important appellate courts in the Nation, further struck down the legality of commission charges, so narrowing the jurisdiction of the military commissions themselves that any utility as an alternative to article III courts has been called into further question.

And while Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his fellow Guantanamo terrorists still await their date with justice, a host of others--including Richard Reid, the shoe bomber; and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber; and Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber--have been tried, convicted, and sent to ADX Florence, the toughest prison in America. They are gone, and they are not coming back.

The inclusion of these provisions is the first time that restrictions related to Guantanamo have been included in the Intelligence Authorization Act, and I believe that alone sets an unfortunate precedent that could undermine what has been a largely bipartisan effort. These provisions are unnecessary and unwise, and they do not belong in this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I urge the House to reconsider these provisions, to trust in American justice, diplomacy, and the best military advice, and to give the administration a means to shutter a prison that both shames us and perpetuates the threat to the Nation.

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Mr. SCHIFF. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to urge support for this amendment. This is one of the few areas of disagreement between the chairman and myself. When we look at how we are progressing or the lack of more progress in our struggle against ISIS and al Qaeda in places like Syria and Iraq, we are often tempted to consider those that we take off the battlefield as a metric of our success--we have eliminated so many combatants from the battlefield. But of course that number in isolation means very little. And the challenge is that with every one we take off the battlefield, there are new foreign fighters coming onto the battlefield.

The recruitment of those additional fighters uses a variety of images and issues to attract people to join the jihad. One of the issues that is continually used as recruiting propaganda is the presence of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. This is a recruitment vehicle for the jihadis. It is a rallying cry for the jihadis.

The closure of this prison will not end the threat from ISIS or al Qaeda. There will be other efforts to recruit. But why give them this recruitment tool when there are other, better ways that these people can be incarcerated? Why give them this recruitment vehicle when there are ways that we can secure the people at Guantanamo Bay, prosecute the people at Guantanamo Bay, uphold our highest standards and the rule of law, and remove at least one part the jihadi social media and other propaganda campaign?

Mr. Chairman, I think it is in our national security interest to do so. I would urge support for the amendment.

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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to thank the gentleman from Florida and the gentlewoman from Alabama, both HPSCI colleagues, for their amendment, and I am happy to support it.

This amendment furthers two important goals: first, to ensure that academic programs that should serve as a resource to the government--in this case, the National Science Foundation's CyberCorps Scholarship for Service--actually do result in a good number of students choosing employment within the intelligence community; and second, to deepen the bench of our cyber defenders.

As a recent series of serious cyber breaches has demonstrated, it is an imperative for the protection of this Nation's workforce, privacy, and sensitive intelligence that we strengthen the IC's cyber cadre with our best and brightest. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is a fine addition to the gentleman's and the gentlewoman's other initiatives already represented in the bill, particularly those that advance diversity in the intelligence community.

Again, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank my colleagues for their work. I urge support for this bipartisan amendment.

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Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

We expect timely briefs on all major cyber attacks, but in this case, I agree, we need to require specific reporting and briefing on the impacts of the recent OPM breach. We need to learn far more about how hackers accessed the systems, what they obtained, and how we can prevent this from happening again. In addition, this will help us understand the impact to the intelligence community.

Mr. Chairman, as I have said before, our public and private networks are not sufficiently secure, and they are a regular target for cyber attacks. We must do everything we can to shore them up, and we must do so now.

I want to thank my colleague for his work, and I urge support of his amendment.

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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentlemen from Ohio, Alabama, and New York for their amendment, which I am proud to support.

This amendment requires the Director of National Intelligence to provide an assessment on funding of political parties and NGOs in the former Soviet states and countries in Europe by the Russian Federation and its security and intelligence services.

Over the past few years, we have witnessed a number of highly visible, aggressive actions by Russia, particularly in Ukraine; but Moscow's efforts to destabilize its neighbors are also subtler and more nefarious. Russia is sponsoring and funding political parties to groom the next generation of puppets which they can control from Moscow.

We must better understand what they are doing, even if what they are doing is very deep behind the scenes; so long as sources and methods are properly protected, I support this effort.

Again, I want to thank my colleagues for their work, and I urge support of the amendment.

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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman and my good friend from California for his amendment, which I am very happy to support.

An important role of Congress and of this bill is to ensure that our intelligence agencies protect sensitive information and protect taxpayer dollars.

This amendment supports both of these goals by requiring that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence report to Congress on its continuous evaluation process for security clearances and to compare those processes to those the Department of Defense uses. This comparative study will help identify places where we may be able to make improvements and save money.

I want to thank Mr. Farr for his amendment and his diligence.

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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentlewoman from Arizona for her amendment, as well as the gentleman from Pennsylvania. I am proud to support it.

Behind ISIL's rapid and dangerous rise are its many sources of illicit funding. This amendment expresses the conviction of Congress that the intelligence community should dedicate resources to finding and eliminating those revenue sources and that the IC must report on its effort to do so.

Again, I want to thank both of my colleagues for their leadership on this issue, and I urge strong support of their amendment.

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Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chair, working with international partners is an essential element of the IC's mission to understand the global threat environment, as well as the political, social, and economic trends around the world.

For nearly 70 years, Israel has been a close friend and ally, as well as a vital source of intelligence about the world's most volatile region. In recent years, India, the world's largest democracy, has upgraded its bilateral relationships with both the United States and Israel. Given India's complex relationship with both Pakistan and China, exploring the potential for enhanced trilateral intelligence cooperation is very much in our interest.

Mr. Crowley's amendment to direct the DNI to report to Congress on the potential for intelligence sharing is timely, and I urge the House to support it.

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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the gentleman from South Carolina for his important amendment.

There is a limit to how effective a defensive cyber strategy can be because, while we have to defend everything at all times, our adversaries get to attack everywhere and need to be successful only once, so we need to create a more effective deterrent, which this amendment will help further.

It would require that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence report to Congress on how we measure cyber attacks so that we can know how best to respond once we are attacked or to communicate in advance how we would respond if we were attacked. Measuring the scale and effects of cyber attacks is no easy task, especially as we must factor in second and third order effects.

I want to thank Mr. Wilson for his amendment. I am proud to support it.

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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentlemen from Texas and Massachusetts for their amendment, which I am proud to support.

The trafficking of wildlife by terrorist organizations is an important issue, not only because it threatens to wipe out elephants, rhinos, and tigers, but also because it could threaten our national security. The World Wildlife Fund estimates that the amount of money generated by wildlife trafficking trade reaches into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and much of this goes to fund terrorists, including The Lord's Resistance Army, al-Shabaab, and Boko Haram. That is money going into the coffers of those who every day seek to harm us and others.

We must put our intelligence professionals to the task. We must understand from beginning to end how terrorists acquire, transfer, and profit from wildlife trafficking. This is the first step to putting an end to it.

Again, I want to thank my colleagues for offering this amendment. I urge support.

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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, social media, like any other form of communication, can be exploited by bad actors for nefarious purposes. While we are lucky to live in a time of remarkable innovation that brings us closer to one another no matter what our geographical distance may be, our adversaries use the same tools to spread hateful and dangerous messages across the globe.

I, therefore, support this amendment that calls on the intelligence community to provide Congress with greater information about how terrorist organizations use social media for fundraising, radicalization, and recruitment. Armed with that knowledge, we are more capable of stopping them.

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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, it is critical that the United States continue to refine and implement a comprehensive and aggressive strategy to counter ISIL, al Qaeda, and their affiliates, but that responsibility does not lie with the Director of National Intelligence. The DNI's job is to ensure that our national leadership, who do generate our counterterrorism strategy, have the timeliest, most germane, and detailed information to be sure our strategy will be successful.

Mr. Poe's amendment misclassifies that responsibility and misconstrues the important role of the Director of National Intelligence. Our intelligence community must be free to collect and assess intelligence outside of the scope of political decisions to be sure their analysis remains impartial and objective.

So, reluctantly, I must oppose this amendment and urge my colleagues to do the same.

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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, with respect to my colleague, we have a strategy with respect to defeating al Qaeda and ISIL, with respect to the war in Syria and Iraq. It is a comprehensive strategy and, frankly, it is a difficult strategy to implement. It is a strategy that involves cutting off terrorism financing. It is a strategy that involves cutting off the flow of foreign fighters into Syria and Iraq. It is a strategy that involves drying up the resources, the propaganda, the attacking of the recruitment mechanism of ISIS. It is a strategy that involves enlisting the support of our partners in the region and within the Islamic world to combat the perversion of their faith that is used to recruit people to this jihad. It is a strategy that is also military in character, that employs our air assets, that seeks to train and assist Iraqi forces. So we have a strategy. It is comprehensive, and it is tough.

While I recognize that there is frustration that many of my colleagues have that our strategy has thus far not borne more success--and I share that frustration--I have yet to hear any of my colleagues offer an alternative. It is one thing to bash the administration because you don't like the strategy; it is another to ignore the fact that we have a strategy or to propose improvements to it.

But the subject matter of this amendment is whether the top intelligence official in the country should be charged with the responsibility of developing the policy to defeat ISIS, and I think it is rather his responsibility to make sure that the policymakers in Congress and the administration have the very best intelligence to inform those decisions.

We see, frankly, this misunderstanding of the role of the intelligence community many times even in our committee when committee members will ask witnesses from the intelligence community to state policy positions on how they think certain policies should be implemented when that is really not their responsibility.

Here, much as I concur with the need to perfect our strategy, improve our strategy, and the execution of that strategy, I don't believe that this is something that we should lay at the feet of the Director of National Intelligence.

I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment.

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