As of this writing, the House of Representatives has passed the intelligence reform bill, and it seems to be on track for easy passage in the Senate. President Bush has said he will sign it if it crosses his desk, having gone so far as to apply mild pressure on House Republicans who were obstructing the bill.
I still can’t decided whether or not the bill’s likely passage is a good thing.
On the one hand, having actually sat down and read the 9/11 Commission’s report, I can say with some assurance that this country’s intelligence gathering and analysis processes are a mess, and its level of preparedness for events such as a the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington was fairly pathetic.
On the other hand, there are a number of good reasons that intelligence has not been shared between the various agencies that gather and process it. When intelligence agencies have been able to freely share information amongst themselves and with law enforcement, these powers have been routinely abused for political purposes; there’s no reason to think these problems won’t happen again. Another major reason intelligence has not been shared among agencies is that they all want to defend their own turf and power. We have already seen with this bill that the Pentagon has refused to give up control of its information gathering apparatus, and this refusal has been accepted and written into the legislation. These turf battles aren’t going to stop without major and fundametal restructuring of the government’s intelligence-gathering framework.
I also have to wonder what else is hidden in this bill, either through the unintended consequences of otherwise well-intentioned provisions or through deliberate obfuscation and deception.
UPDATE: Speaking of hidden bits in the bill, I just ran across a link to this LA Times article in Kevin Drum’s Washington Monthly blog, which describes a group of Democrats’ objections to one particular mystery provision.