House panel steamed at CIA’s lack of cooperation

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency declined to testify before a joint committee hearing Wednesday that explored the agency's lack of responsiveness to congressional inquiries from outside the House and Senate intelligence committees. Rep. Stephen Horn, R-Calif., chairman of the Subcommittee on Government Efficiency, Financial Management and Intergovernmental Relations, held Wednesday's joint hearing with the International Relations Committee in response to what he termed a "contemptuous act" by the CIA. The CIA refused to respond to a General Accounting Office survey of computer security policies at all of the government's classified computer systems. Horn's subcommittee commissioned the survey. "Every federal agency except the CIA responded to the survey," Horn said. The subcommittee agreed to allow the CIA to respond in a closed executive session, but the agency reneged on its promise to show up just days before the meeting was to take place, Horn said. The CIA has pointed to a recent change in House rules as the basis for not cooperating with congressional inquiries other than those received from the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Horn said. The rule states that oversight of the CIA's "sources and methods" falls exclusively to the House and Senate intelligence committees. Horn argued that his subcommittee also has jurisdiction over the CIA because it is charged with overseeing governmentwide computer security efforts. "Our examination of the computer security issues is part of the subcommittee's attempt to ensure that this and other information is being adequately protected," Horn explained. "Surely, the CIA should not be exempted from such a governmentwide effort." But CIA Director George Tenet declined to answer this and other questions the subcommittee offered. He sent a letter saying neither he nor any other CIA representative would testify at the hearing. "Tell me why I shouldn't be outraged that the CIA would not even come here today to at least argue the merits of why they shouldn't respond to our inquiry?" said Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., chairman of the International Relations Committee. "I just think it's an affirmation of them almost sticking their finger in our eye." According to former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., who served as chairman of the intelligence committee during the 1980s, the new rule that Congress created put the CIA in a bind. "The chairman of the [intelligence committee] has told him not to come and the chairman of this committee has told him to come," said Hamilton. Hamilton said that the current oversight arrangement worked well enough, but that agencies other than the intelligence committee should hold the CIA's feet to the fire nonetheless. Committee member Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., also expressed frustration with the agency's refusal to provide information when asked to appear before the subcommittee. "This is our business and I demand some answers," she said. "It is difficult to stand behind an agency that refuses to cooperate and seems to thrive on a practice of stonewalling." In his letter, Tenet said he believed the CIA has been responsive to and cooperative with Congress, within the structure for congressional oversight of the agency. "Every year CIA provides many hundreds of briefings and reports and responds to questions from committees and individual members," Tenet wrote. "Indeed, since I became [director], the intensity of CIA's interaction with the Congress has grown as has the amount and timeliness of sensitive information that is passed to our House and Senate oversight committees." Other witnesses testified that the CIA was using its secretive methods as an excuse to avoid accountability. "Congressional oversight by more than just the small and too easily co-opted intelligence committees is vital," said Ivan Eland, director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. "Hearings closed to the public can be used if the information to be discussed is too sensitive for an open airing."