Joseph Lieberman

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, on December 15, 2004, my office released a white paper entitled ``Data Dearth in Offshore Outsourcing: Policymaking Requires Facts.'' This white paper is closely linked to a previous white paper entitled ``Offshore Outsourcing and America's Competitive Edge: Losing Out in the High Technology R&D and Services Sectors.'' The latter was released by my office in May 2004. A summary of that report appeared in the Record on May 21, 2004. A key conclusion of the May paper was the absence of reliable data to measure and assess the offshore outsourcing phenomenon. We do not have good data on the offshoring problem, and the data we have are general in nature. Estimates vary widely on the number of jobs moving overseas, and the lack of reliable data contributes to incorrect conclusions about the impacts of offshore outsourcing, which can result in flawed policy responses. We need data to understand what we are facing so we can chart a sure and steady course for the future. There is enough anecdotal data about job losses to spark debate and, in some cases, result in policies which may provide a short-term fix but which do not produce longer term solutions to preserve U.S. innovation and ensure U.S. competitiveness. Comprehensive and balanced data on both job gains and job losses resulting from offshore outsourcing are essential. This data must be assembled by U.S. Federal Government agencies, including the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor, where data- gathering capabilities are extensive and research methodologies are transparent. The lack of data is critical because the issues raised in the May white paper are so important. The white paper was designed to stimulate a deeper review of the long-term implications for our policy responses and to change the terms of the debate on offshore outsourcing. The paper looked at rising global competition and the challenges posed to America's competitive advantage. Globalization is our current and future reality; there is no escaping it. The U.S. economy is inextricably linked to the rest of the world; our fortunes rise and fall depending on our performance with our trading partners and our competitors. Our strength and success with China, India, and other emerging markets is as important to future U.S. economic and national security as the competition with Japan and Europe was to U.S. growth over the last 50 years. The offshore outsourcing phenomenon is one of the challenging manifestations of globalization. The May white paper found that it was not just manufacturing jobs that are subject to global outsourcing--where 2.7 million jobs have disappeared since 2000--but service sector and high-end R&D jobs are also being hit by offshore outsourcing. And it is not just call centers, data entry facilities, and other entry-level service jobs that are impacted by offshore outsourcing. Higher skill professional jobs-- from engineering, computer chip design to nanotechnology R&D--are beginning to go overseas, and with these jobs, we may be losing key parts of the talent and technology which fueled the record growth and prosperity of the 1990s. Fundamental changes are facing us, as key components of our innovation infrastructure--knowledge, capital, labor, technology and facilities--are increasingly mobile. Offshore outsourcing of labor, capital, and technology not only hurts workers but threatens our knowledge-based economy. If engineering, design, R&D, and services follow manufacturing abroad, U.S. competitiveness is weakened, and our economic prosperity and national security are threatened. What is at stake is the ability of the United States to remain a global leader in innovation, to maintain good-paying jobs, and to expand our global market share. We must rethink long-term strategies on competitiveness, innovation, R&D, trade policy, and enforcement, as well as education and investments in human capital. However, we cannot begin to develop effective solutions until we have an understanding of the scope of the offshore outsourcing phenomenon. The need for data on offshore outsourcing is paramount. Lord Kelvin, the 19th century Belfast-born physicist said: When you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of the meager and unsatisfactory kind. That was in a May 3, 1883 lecture to the Institute of Civil Engineers. By improving U.S. Government data collection, we can ensure that our knowledge of offshore outsourcing is neither meager nor unsatisfactory, but informed and balanced. With improved data and analysis, we will build constructive and lasting solutions to address the challenges posed by offshore outsourcing. I would like to thank Sara E. Hagigh of my staff and Mary Jane Bolle of the Congressional Research Service for their hard work in researching and preparing this report. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have excerpts from the white paper printed in the Congressional Record. The material follows: Excerpt 1, Summary of White Paper The issue of offshore outsourcing has been at the center of many key political and public debates over the last few years. The term ``outsourcing'' has become part of our everyday lexicon, gracing the covers of news magazines, television broadcasts, and playing a central role in Congressional debates during an election year. Most Americans are aware of the issue of offshore outsourcing, but few of us have an understanding of the full dimensions of the problem. To develop a better understanding of offshore outsourcing, my office released a white paper in May 2004 entitled ``Offshore Outsourcing and America's Competitive Edge: Losing Out in the High Technology R&D and Services Sectors.'' The white paper found that it is not only manufacturing jobs that are being outsourced overseas, where 2.7 million jobs have disappeared since 2000. Offshore outsourcing has also begun to hit high- end services and R&D jobs, and there is evidence that it is not just call centers, data entry and other entry-level service jobs that are impacted by offshoring. We are beginning to send higher skill professional jobs overseas-- including engineering, computer chip design and nanotechnology R&D, and with these jobs, we may be losing the talent and technology that created the growth of the 1990s. The white paper concluded that offshore outsourcing of high- end services and R&D jobs could threaten our innovation infrastructure, and therefore our economic prosperity, and our national security. A key conclusion of the white paper was the absence of reliable data to measure and assess the offshore outsourcing phenomenon. Estimates vary widely on the number of jobs moving overseas, and the lack of reliable data contributes to incorrect conclusions about the impacts of offshore outsourcing. The result is flawed and ineffective policy responses. In order to develop effective policies to address the many facets of the offshore outsourcing challenge-- including investments in education and human capital, greater investments in Federal, industrial, and services R&D, and better enforcement of our trade agreements--we must have better, more reliable data. This paper provides a review and assessment of Federal data on offshore outsourcing: 1. It begins by identifying a series of questions that would produce useful data to measure offshore outsourcing. These questions address information about job ``losses'' as well as job ``gains'' from offshore outsourcing so we can arrive at a balanced assessment of the impacts of offshore outsourcing. 2. The report then surveys ten existing U.S. government data sets, from the Departments of Labor and Commerce, measuring aspects of offshore outsourcing. The report enumerates strengths and weaknesses of each of the ten data sets in measuring offshore outsourcing and identifies which federal agency data best answer the questions posed in Table 1 of the report--Useful Data to Measure Offshore Outsourcing. The report also contains Table 2 (Aspects of Offshore Outsourcing Potentially Measurable with Existing Data), Table 3 (Legislative Recommendations for Improving Federal Agency Data on Offshore Outsourcing), Appendix A (Federal Agency Data's Strengths and Weaknesses for Measuring Offshore Outsourcing) and Appendix B (Major U.S. trading partners). 3. Finally, the report makes five legislative recommendations for improving Federal agency data to provide a more useful measure of offshore outsourcing. The five recommendations (summarized in Table 3, Legislative Recommendations for Improving Federal Agency Data on Offshore Outsourcing) are: a. Extend the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program; b. Require the Office of Trade Adjustment Assistance to report data; c. Require Bureau of Labor Statistics to make changes to Mass Layoff data program; d. Require the Commerce Department to publish annual multipliers; and e. Link Bureau of Economic Analysis and Bureau of Labor Statistics data sets. This report represents a beginning, not the end. We must develop reliable and comprehensive data-gathering capabilities at U.S. government agencies to measure employment and economic effects of offshore outsourcing. Without a better understanding of the scope of the problem, effective policy solutions to offshore outsourcing cannot be developed. This is the fifth major white paper in a recent series on U.S. economic growth my office has released. The four previous papers are: 1. ``Offshore Outsourcing and America's Competitive Edge: Losing Out in the High Technology R&D and Services Sectors,'' May 11, 2004. 2. ``Making America Stronger: A Report with Legislative Recommendations on Restoration of U.S. Manufacturing,'' September 2003. 3. ``National Security Aspects of the Global Migration of the U.S. Semiconductor Industry,'' June 2003. 4. ``Broadband: A 21st Century Technology and Productivity Strategy,'' May 2002. Excerpt 2, Data We Would Like To Have: Useful Data To Measure Offshore Outsourcing In a perfect world, data on offshore outsourcing and its impact on the U.S. economy would be available to answer questions about job losses from offshore outsourcing and counterbalancing job gains. An assessment of the impact of offshore outsourcing on U.S. employment levels and the overall economy must balance both job gains and job losses. Table 1 on p. 12 sets out these questions together with short-hand answers on where the data can be found to respond to each question. This report will then analyze and assess all Federal agency data on offshore outsourcing. In prioritizing data needs, it would be most important to have data to answer the questions in Part A and Part B of Table 1--a total of 10 questions. Part A includes 6 questions on job losses from offshore outsourcing and Part B poses 4 questions on counterbalancing job gains. If data were available to answer all of the questions in Parts A and B in Table 1, the result would be a reasonably good picture of the positive and negative effects of offshore outsourcing on the U.S. economy, as well as on industries, States, and localities, and their workers. After data in Parts A and B are gathered, it would be useful to have the data in Part C of Table 1, which address 7 specific questions including the role of visa programs in offshoring operations and the impact of offshore outsourcing on career choices of U.S. students. Table 1 shows that almost no data are being made available at this time to provide answers to any of the questions in Table 1. Much of the data is either unpublished or not being collected. Some data relating to U.S. exports and U.S. foreign direct investment (both foreign and domestic) are gathered by the Department of Commerce, but for the more detailed questions relating to offshore outsourcing (listed in Part C of Table 1), no U.S. government agency collects the data. The unavailability of basic data to answer the questions in Parts A and B (job losses and job gains from offshore outsourcing) is in sharp contrast to the comprehensive data that were available to answer similar questions related to Mexico and Canada under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). These data were available between 1994 and 2003 but are no longer being published. Excerpt 3, Recommendations The next section outlines five legislative recommendations that might be taken to produce data that would offer some estimates of the extent and nature of offshore outsourcing. These recommendations range from amending existing legislation to increasing Federal agency reporting requirements. recommendation 1: extend the trade adjustment assistance (taa) program One recommendation is to extend the TAA program to cover two groups of workers not presently covered who lose their jobs to offshore outsourcing: a) all service sector workers; and b) workers producing ``articles'' who are currently not covered under Sec. 113 of Title I of the Trade Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-210). Sec. 113 provides TAA benefits to workers if they lose their jobs due to shifts in production to certain countries, primarily countries with which the United States has a trade agreement or a trade preference program (see footnote 29 for a list of these 72 countries). On the first issue of covering all displaced service sector workers, there are a number of benefits in making this change to the legislation authorizing the TAA program. Aside from issues of equality in having the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program cover all workers who lose their jobs to offshore outsourcing, extending the program would result in data covering virtually the complete range of jobs lost to offshore outsourcing. From these data, analysts could estimate the effects of offshore outsourcing on the Nation as a whole, on individual industries, and on States and localities. One drawback of expanding the TAA program to provide benefits to services workers whose jobs are lost to offshore outsourcing is that the program would cost more. No estimate has been made on additional costs to the TAA program resulting from covering services workers who lose their jobs due to offshore outsourcing. Legislation has been introduced in the 108th Congress to extend the TAA program to cover service sector workers. Senator Lieberman co-sponsored ``The Services Workers Fairness Act'' (S. 2143), introduced by Senator Durbin, to ensure that services workers losing their jobs to offshoring are eligible for TAA benefits. Senator Lieberman also supported an amendment to the Senate version of the Foreign Sales Corporation-Extraterritorial Income Act bill (S. 1637) introduced by Senators Wyden, Coleman, and Rockefeller to extend the TAA program to cover services workers. While the amendment failed to pass, Congress must continue efforts to extend TAA benefits to all Americans who lose their jobs due to offshoring, including services workers. The second change to the TAA program would extend the TAA program to cover workers producing articles whose job relocates to any country. This provision was included in the Senate-passed version of the TAA reauthorization, included in the Trade Act of 2002, however it was yielded in the Conference committee [See Trade Act of 2002, Conference Report 107-624, July 26, 2002, p. 122.]. Under existing law, TAA benefits go to workers who lose jobs when their firms have shifted production to a country which: a) has a free trade agreement with the United States; b) is a beneficiary country under the Andean Trade Preference Act, the African Growth and Opportunity Act, or the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act; or c) is likely to be an increase in imports to the United States of articles like or directly competitive with those the job loser produced. (Sec. 113, P.L. 107-210). A review of the Department of Labor-Employment and Training Agency's website on the TAA program shows that there are 72 countries that meet these requirements for shifts in production (see footnote 29 of this report for the list of countries). Yet, there are 148 members of the World Trade Organization, and important trading partners and key outsourcing destinations--like China and India--are not on the list for shifts in production. This is a significant limitation in the TAA program. At a minimum, the list of eligible countries for production shifts should be expanded to include all WTO members--currently 148 countries. recommendation 2: require the office of trade adjustment assistance to report data A second recommendation is to require the Office of Trade Adjustment Assistance to report data which it is already collecting on applications for TAA certification. A database for such reported data could include the following categories of information for certified workers: Name of company, location of business, products produced and North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) industry code, place to which production has shifted, or from which new imports are being sourced, reason for the offshore outsourcing (imports or production shift) and number of workers affected. Publishing data of this type would not be new for the TAA Office. Under the NAFTA-TAA program the office made available data on certifications: a) By number of workers affected; b) by industry code; c) by State and locality of the job losers; and d) by country source of the job loss (i.e., the country which was the source of imports or the target of the production shift). These data are potentially the best, most complete data available because: a) They are a direct count of the estimated number of workers potentially affected by the various offshore outsourcing events; and b) they are required, not voluntary, on the part of applicants for certification. Despite these benefits, TAA data are an imperfect measure of the total jobs lost to offshore outsourcing. They do not measure service-producing jobs outsourced offshore (with a few minor exceptions), and they do not measure all goods- producing jobs outsourced offshore. Other imperfections are that: a) They measure potential, not actual job loss, some of which may not actually have occurred; and b) they fail to measure tertiary jobs lost (e.g., independent service sector jobs which support goods-production operations outsourced offshore, such as those in stores in areas hit by closures). recommendation 3: require bls to make changes in mass layoff data program Three requirements could improve data being reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on the Extended Mass Layoffs Associated with Domestic and Overseas Relocations Survey: 1) Reduce survey size to businesses with 25 layoffs; 2) disaggregate (separate into component parts) data on movement of work; and 3) report data annually instead of quarterly. (1) Reduce Survey Size to Businesses With 25 Layoffs. The Extended Mass Layoff Survey, which contains a question on movement of work, could be conducted on businesses which lay off 25 or more workers instead of businesses which lay off 50 or more workers as is currently the case. A reduction in the size of the companies surveyed would capture more layoff events and increase the share of offshore outsourcing instances reported. BLS officials estimate that expanding the Mass Layoff Survey to layoffs of 25 workers or more would allow the program to identify more than double the number of potential layoff events requiring a telephone interview. BLS officials estimate that such an expansion in the MLS survey program will require $3.3 million in additional funds, including 3 full time equivalent employees. Of this total, $2.7 million would go to States for the MLS employer interview and related activity. The remaining $600,000 would support BLS data collection, analysis, and publication activities. Reducing the size of the business surveyed in the Extended Mass Layoff Survey does not alter the weaknesses of such data and survey methods, namely that the survey is voluntary and the quality of results depends on who in the organization responds to the survey and their knowledge of the causes of jobs going offshore. BLS officials also raised concerns about extra reporting burdens by reducing the size of business surveyed. (2) Disaggregate Data on Movement of Work. BLS could be required to disaggregate (separate into component parts) and report separately detailed data on the two categories of ``movement of work''--movement of work to another location inside the United States versus movement of work to another location outside the United States. Detailed data to be reported could include distribution of layoffs by industry or region of the country affected by the layoff. Many believe that disaggregating the data is the only way to make the data on movement of work useful. In its current form, data on offshore outsourcing are imbedded in data on movement of work within the United States, thus the data are not useful for measuring offshore outsourcing except for a few summary numbers. Even with greater data disaggregation, the Extended Mass Layoff Survey remains voluntary. It is widely believed that companies are reluctant to reveal data on offshore outsourcing, although BLS reports a better than 90 percent response rate in the Extended Mass Layoff Survey in each of the first three quarters of 2004. As previously noted, the quality of survey responses depends on the company contact person who may not readily have answers about whether the ``movement of work'' is to an offshore location or to another location in the United States. Companies will likely argue that providing this level of detail presents additional burdens, both from a personnel and a financial point of view. (3) Report Data Annually. The Department of Labor-Bureau of Labor Statistics could be required to report the Extended Mass Layoff Survey data annually instead of quarterly. Annual reporting would enable more detail to be published, since privacy rules prohibit the reporting of survey data which represents a sample size of fewer than three businesses. Annual reporting of data would not solve the survey's limitations, namely that reporting is voluntary, results depend on who responds to the survey, and the additional reporting burdens placed on businesses. However, we could gain very helpful data if this recommendation was implemented. Recommendation 4: Require DOC to Publish Annual Multipliers The Department of Commerce should be required to publish annual ``multipliers'' showing for goods and services separately and combined, the number of jobs supporting a billion dollars worth of exports in each category. The product of the multipliers and the value of exports can then yield an estimate of the total number of U.S. jobs producing for export. Comparing the number of workers producing for export across years yields an estimate of job ``gains'' from exports over time. These job gain estimates could provide an important context for estimates of job losses and are necessary to provide a full assessment of the effects of offshore outsourcing. Some updating of the model used to prepare the job gains from trade estimates would likely be required in order to produce these data on an annual basis. Recommendation 5: Link BEA and BLS Data Sets The Department of Commerce-Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Department of Labor-Bureau of Labor Statistics should be required to link their data sets, which could provide synergies. BEA could link its data on multinational corporations with relevant BLS data--including occupational data and movement of work data in the Extended Mass Layoff Survey. Both BEA and BLS would be required to be transparent regarding their data collection methodologies. While there may be some value in sharing data and identifying greater detail on wages, occupation and skill level of jobs going overseas, there is no certainty that providing these data links will improve the quality of data on offshore outsourcing. Such data linkages may be more valuable after BEA and BLS improve their individual agency's data collection on offshore outsourcing, by implementing the recommendations in this report and any other suggestions to be developed. However, data linkages could provide important additional perspectives. Excerpt 4, Conclusion If all of these legislative recommendations are followed, Congress would have available more accurate data on the phenomenon of offshore outsourcing. This could include better estimates of how many jobs--both goods-producing jobs and services producing jobs--are being outsourced to other countries. From the Trade Adjustment Assistance database, that would be equivalent to the data available between 1994 and 2002 under NAFTA. Data would be available for the United States as a whole and by State, on how many jobs were being ``lost'' by industry, by city, by cause (imports or production shifts), and by country to which jobs were being transferred. Congress would also have available estimates on U.S. jobs ``created'' to balance jobs lost to offshore outsourcing. These new jobs would represent U.S. jobs supporting new exports and U.S. jobs supported by new foreign direct investment in the United States. These data, providing U.S. government estimates of the magnitude of job ``losses'' from offshore outsourcing and counterbalancing job ``gains'' from new exports and foreign direct investment in the United States, could assist Congress in making a variety of informed policy decisions. In a narrower sense, these policy decisions would help displaced workers become employed in new jobs or help critical U.S. industries maintain a presence in the United States. In a broader sense, the data would help Congress make more informed decisions which could affect both the short-range and long-term economic health and welfare of the United States, its industries, and its citizens.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to join with Chairman Collins in recommending the adoption of this conference report on the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 which, of course, implements the key recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission Report. I begin by thanking Senator Collins for her extraordinary leadership in this effort. In the 16 years I have been here--and it is self- evident to the Presiding Officer and others that I am much the senior of Senator Collins--I have never had a better legislative experience. This task came to us quickly. There was an enormous amount of work to do. As I said yesterday, it was a long and winding road we walked down, but we ended up where we needed to be and where the Nation needed us to be, and it simply could not have happened without Susan Collins' leadership. She has an extraordinary sense of purpose and principle. She understands the difference between right and wrong and, in a legislative context, perhaps, the difference between better and worse because that is often where we are. She is a persistent and very effective negotiator, knows when to hold them and when to fold them. She is a wonderful person--I think maybe I should be that explicit-- and that doesn't hurt around here, either, because it gains the confidence of the people who work with her. Part of her being a great person is her great sense of humor which got us through some of our darker moments. I was thinking one of the great moments in the process was when we decided, late in the process, that the original title we gave to the central position we created, the National Intelligence Director, would have the acronym NID. It doesn't resonate the strength that we wanted. Some member of our conference with an inferior sense of humor said it would lead to a lot of ``NIDpicking.'' A lot of laughter led to the change of the title to the Director of National Intelligence, the DNI. You can feel the force radiating. We laughed a lot about that and about a lot of other things. It is a familiar saying in public service and life, and certainly in campaigns, that victory has a thousand parents and defeat is an orphan. This is a victory for the American people. Many people have a right, here in the Senate, on the 9/11 Commission, the families of the 9/11 victims, the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States--so many people can say, and we might say: Without their involvement this would not have happened. But nobody, really, can say that more or feel that more than Senator Susan Collins of Maine. I thank her very much for her friendship, for her partnership, for her leadership here, and I, too, look forward to working with you in many similar collaborations in the years ahead. Before I get to the substance of the bill, I do want to say something about the process here. As we end the 108th session of Congress, unfortunately a session that was very often polarized and partisan, it is really great--besides the specifics of this accomplishment that is so critical to our national security--that we have ended it with a bipartisan, nonpartisan triumph. It ought to send a message to the American people, and perhaps just as important to us here, that we are capable of doing this. When the chips are down, we are capable of getting together across party lines and doing what is right for the country. That, ultimately, is why we all came here. That gives us the greatest satisfaction and, incidentally, it is probably the smartest and most productive thing we can do politically as well. This simply would not have happened in the Senate without the chairman of the committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and ultimately the chairman of the conference, Senator Collins, setting exactly that tone. I thank Peter Hoekstra on the House side, Jane Harman, and all the members of the conference committee for all they contributed. This legislation is a testament to the courage and persistence of the families of the victims of September 11. Their personal sacrifices, transformed into a steadfast devotion to see this bill to passage, will help make the rest of America safer. This bill was conceived in the memory of their husbands and wives, their sons and daughters, their mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters, and simply would not have been possible without the constancy of effort and the increasingly sophisticated advocacy by the surviving family members. I thank them. We have worked hard for this historic agreement because we believe, quite simply, that the security of our Nation depends on it. There were various times at which people in this Chamber and the other body said we were moving too quickly; what was the cause for haste? I can tell you it didn't seem we were moving too quickly to Senator Collins and me. But what was the cause for our haste? Our enemies, our terrorist enemies, al-Qaida and their ilk, are not waiting, as we know. They are here. They are planning. We are at peril. Accordingly, we approached this task with a real sense of urgency, a grave and growing sense of urgency because we know we face a clear and present danger from terrorists. The bill before us today is a landmark achievement because, as others have said and will say throughout the day, for the first time in over half a century we are going to modernize our national intelligence structure to meet the new challenges we face in today's world. With this bill, we recognize we can no longer keep the American people safe simply by projecting military force abroad. The world has changed. Our terrorist enemies today make no distinction between soldiers and civilians, between foreign and domestic locations when they attack us. To defeat them, we must have the best possible intelligence about their plans before they strike so we can stop them before they strike. This legislation moves us toward that goal significantly by transforming our intelligence community from a Cold-War model--and after all, it was at the outset of the Cold War that the current structure was conceived--a Cold-War model that shared information only if there was a need to know, to a 21st-century model that will share information to maximize the intelligence community's substantial resources and expertise and, yes, guarantee greater returns for the billions and billions of dollars of taxpayer money that are invested in intelligence to protect the American people. The 9/11 Commission supports our compromise. Chairman Kean and Vice Chairman Hamilton said in a statement: We believe this is a good bill and a strong bill. We believe it will make our country safer and more secure. They support this compromise because it implements the Commission's key recommendations to establish that DNI and a National Counterterrorism Center that will improve coordination and collaboration, as the Commission puts it, ``to forge unity of effort'' between the 15 intelligence agencies scattered throughout the Government, and to ensure that, unlike up until now, someone is genuinely in charge. I said to a business executive in my home State this morning, talking about this bill, explaining why I couldn't be with him today at a meeting in Connecticut, that if anybody in business really got inside and looked at how we are spending the billions of dollars we do on intelligence, they--well, they wouldn't believe it because no one is in charge. The Commission indicted the status quo of America's intelligence community. The 9/11 Commission report is an indictment of the status quo. Those who pick and try to look for loopholes in this reform have to remember that the status quo failed to protect the American people on 9/11 and it has failed in different ways to provide us with the quality, accuracy and reliability of intelligence that we need. Vice Chairman Hamilton memorably told our committee in our hearings on this Commission report: A critical theme that emerged throughout our inquiry was the difficulty of answering the question: Who's in charge? Who ensures that agencies pool resources, avoid duplication and plan jointly? Who oversees the massive integration and unity of effort to keep America safe? Too often [the 9/11 Commission said] the answer is no one. The fact is, below the level of the President no one has been in charge of overseeing the entire intelligence community and its multibillion-dollar budget. Today, as testimony before our committee validated, no one is clearly in charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. No one has had the authority to knit together the efforts of the 15 disparate agencies working on intelligence for the American people, and, therefore, no one has ultimately been accountable for the deadly mistakes that have been made. This legislation changes all of that, putting a clear command structure in place so that in the future the puzzle pieces will be put together, the dots will be connected, and so, I hope, pray, and believe, we will never have to suffer through another attack like the one we did suffer through, and still do, on September 11, 2001. I wish to briefly discuss some of the key provisions, starting with intelligence reform. Under our current intelligence structure, the CIA Director has to perform three jobs: acting as the President's principal intelligence adviser, overseeing the intelligence community as a whole, and directing the CIA. The 9/11 Commission reported what many had said before: The tasks are simply too much to expect of any one person. So we have created a Presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed Director of National Intelligence, who will lead the national intelligence community but be separate from the Director of the CIA. The DNI will be the President's principal intelligence adviser and will focus exclusively on breaking down those barriers that have obstructed information sharing and professional collaboration in the public interest. With the CIA Director in charge of daily CIA operations, the DNI will be able to forge that unity of effort which we need to better protect the American people. The DNI will exercise significant budget authority over the intelligence community both in the development and the execution of the budget, and he or she will consult closely with the Secretary of Defense, the Director of the CIA, the head of the FBI, and other intelligence leaders on both funding and personnel issues. The DNI will have unprecedented authority in the implementation and execution of all funding under our national intelligence program. Our bill makes clear that the DNI will have the power to ``develop and determine'' the intelligence budget and that the Director of the Office of Management and Budget must apportion the national intelligence program funds at the ``exclusive direction'' of the DNI. The DNI is further responsible for managing the appropriations by ``directing the allotment and allocation'' of appropriations through the heads of Departments containing the elements of the intelligence community. Just to make sure there is no slow-walking in moving those funds forward, the Department comptrollers must then allot, allocate, reprogram, or transfer funds--in the words of the report--``in an expeditious manner.'' The DNI will have a major hand in the appointment of key officials across the intelligence community, thus elevating the authority of that position. He or she will recommend appointment of the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency to the President. The Secretary of Defense will have to obtain the DNI's concurrence in appointing the heads of the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. The Secretary will consult with the DNI before appointing the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. The Secretaries of the Departments of Energy, Homeland Security, Treasury, State, and the Attorney General will need the concurrence of the DNI to appoint the heads of intelligence agencies under their immediate jurisdiction and under the DNI's overall jurisdiction. That is real authority in this new office. The DNI will also have significantly expanded authority to transfer personnel and funds beyond those of the current DCI so that he or she may react quickly to changing threats and direct intelligence resources where they are needed. In addition to creating the DNI, this conference report will create-- as recommended by the Commission--the National Counterterrorism Center and a series of National Intelligence Centers to ensure that critical national security issues are addressed with maximum coordination and teamwork. This may well be the most significant process we have begun with this bill, the authority of DNI, but creating a model, and a model built on the most effective, modern corporate models of joint team efforts to deal with problems. But it really deals directly and grows out of the experience of the Pentagon post-Goldwater-Nichols, in joint warfare. This says when we have a critical national security problem the best way to deal with it will be to create a center to deal with it, a table at which every element of our Government involved in dealing with that problem is present so they can collect intelligence together, analyze it together, and then plan how to combat the problem. Specifically created in this bill, of course, is the National Counterterrorism Center which will seek to make ensure the disastrous disconnect between the FBI and the CIA that occurred prior to 9/11 will never occur again. It will develop plans, assign roles, and monitor the agencies' implementation of those plans in order to thwart the next terror attack. This is not a narrowly focused, constricted center. The Center's planning will be at the strategic level such as how do we best win the ``hearts and minds'' of the great majority of people in the Muslim world. It will be at the tactical level--for instance, how we are going to capture Osama bin Laden. The National Counterterrorism Center Director will be confirmed by the Senate and it will report to the Director of National Intelligence, and in some cases to the President himself. Let me talk about those other centers. This bill creates one other center to deal with a most pressing threat to our security; that is, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. This part of the bill was inserted as a result of the leadership of the majority leader, Senator Frist. It is an enormous step forward in dealing with the threat of WMD. These are the central structures of the intelligence reform, but our legislation goes beyond that. The 9/11 Commission documented that, in a period preceding September 11, 2001, potentially helpful information available to one part of the Government was not shared with others which could have used it. This legislation takes that direction from the Commission to heart and requires the President to establish a network of technologies and policies that will resolve conflicts between the need to share and the need to protect sources and methods. It will create and allow us to use the best technology to make sure we are sharing and culling and filtering and applying the vast amount of data we get from our intelligence networks most effectively. Beyond intelligence reform, this bill contains much more. In fact, the 9/11 Commission made 41 recommendations to protect our Nation from terrorism. In August, Senator McCain and I drafted legislation to address them all. I am pleased and proud to say I am grateful for the conferees, to the Senate, and to the House that most of those initiatives have become part of this conference report. For example, the 9/11 Commission observed that many of the actions necessary to protect us in the war against terror also involves a consolidation of governmental authority and the increased presence of government in our lives to protect us. In response, the Commission called for ``an enhanced system of checks and balances'' to protect the civil liberties that define us as Americans. In fact, this conference report creates a Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The Board will have two functions. First, to advise the President and Federal agencies at the front end of policymaking and, second, to conduct oversight at the back end, investigating and reviewing Government actions to determine whether executive branch officials are appropriately respecting the individual freedoms of the American people. The 9/11 Commission also recognized the futility of combating terrorism only by military means. Of course, we have been, and will continue, doing our best to capture and kill all the terrorists we can as soon as possible. But we understand that ultimately what is required to stop the growth of terrorism are initiatives of foreign policy, diplomacy, economics, and of politics. Our legislation--this conference report--includes many of the provisions recommended by the Commission which will do just that, including increased American foreign assistance to Afghanistan and a renewed U.S. commitment to Pakistan. It provides enabling authorities to help us win ``the struggle of ideas'' through the greater funding and use of much more imagination in American broadcasts to the Islamic world. It calls for broadening and growth of scholarships and exchange programs between the United States and the Muslim world, with students and faculty going back and forth. The bill also takes aggressive measures to prevent attacks, as well, by targeting terrorist travel, improving screening at entry and exit points, and securing identification documents. Our legislation requires secure identification for travel documents for all travel into the United States. This was a topic about which much was said and debated in the conference, and before, during, and after House adoption of this conference report yesterday. I guess the conferees, in their wisdom, decided some of the immigration reform in the House bill would have weighted the bill down and inhibited or prohibited its passage. It is urgently needed and we cannot afford to do that. We will get to that next year. Make no mistake, this conference report contains some tough antiterrorist law enforcement measures, and some tough immigration enforcement measure. It specifically implements the 9/11 Commission Report recommendation for the Federal Government to establish minimum standards for birth certificates, driver's licenses, and personal identification cards. Those provisions will help decrease fraud so terrorists are not able to hide their identity. They will not deprive the States of the right that States understandably want, to determine, not the form of the driver's license, but who is eligible to receive a driver's license within their States. Other measures in this conference report will go far to tighten border security. It will increase the number of border guards, immigration officers, and detention beds for those who are being held for legal action and other action to determine their immigration status and whether they should be deported. No longer will we have a case, as in the past, where a challenge is made to someone's immigration status but they are allowed to wander and disappear into the vastness of America. There will be thousands of new beds created, detention facilities, to hold those people while their cases are being reviewed. We added a provision allowing the Government to deport anyone who has received military training from a terrorist organization. The Government will also be able to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant for anyone engaging in terrorist activities even if they are not clearly connected to a specific terrorist organization. That is common sense, but it is not in the law now. To better safeguard the Nation's transportation networks, this legislation also requires the Department of Homeland Security to produce a national transportation strategy that evaluates the risks faced by all modes of transportation, not just aviation, and sets some clear priorities and deadlines for security needs. We also have included measures to help first responders, the hundreds of thousands of men and women, largely in uniform, some out, at the local and State levels. We want to help them obtain interoperable communications equipment so in a crisis they can talk with each other and work cooperatively. I have long believed if we are going to make sense of what happened on September 11 we need to look back honestly with clear eyes and honest hearts. The 9/11 Commission's extraordinary work enabled us to do just that. Its 587-page report did not close the book on September 11. It will never be closed. The legislation does not close the book on September 11. It will live alongside December 7 as a day that will live in infamy throughout American history and America's future. The work on this conference report and its adoption today will open a new chapter for a safer America. Chairman Kean has said: Our biggest weapon of defense is our intelligence system. If that doesn't work, our chances of being attacked are so much greater. So our major recommendation is to fix that intelligence system and do it as fast as possible. That is exactly what this historic legislation does. In this Congress, this President fulfills our constitutional duty to provide for the common defense of our Nation. I said before that many can claim to be parents of this victory. Members of both parties in Congress, leaders of both parties, bipartisan leadership in this Chamber certainly stood by Senator Collins and me all the way. This simply would not have happened without the support of the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, and their staffs, working hard and long to do something that institutions and government do not do easily, which is to change. If it was easy, the 20-some-odd attempts made in the last half century to reform our intelligence system would have worked, would have succeeded. They did not. This is about to succeed because of the effort that has been made across party lines in the national interests by everyone from the President of the United States to every single Member of Congress who worked hard on this measure. Maybe I should add another thank you. Maybe I should go from the President to our staffs. Senator Collins has said the legions of staff members on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the Capitol put their lives on hold and worked through nights and weekends for the cause of a safer America. I particularly thank Kevin Landy on my staff, whose work started with the legislation to create the 9/11 Commission-- that was a story in itself--and who has been single minded in his devotion to crafting this legislation in a way that was real and excellent. I also single out the work of Majority Staff Director Michael Bopp, and all of his team. Michael has terrific legislative skills and leadership abilities and has served the conference and the country extraordinarily well. On my staff I also thank my staff director Joyce Rechtschaffen, and Dave Barton, Mike Alexander, Raj De, Christine Healey, Holly Idelson, Beth Grossman, Larry Novey, Jason Yanussi, Kathy Seddon, Dave Berick, Mary Beth Schultz, Tim Profeta, Fred Downey, Andrew Weinshenk, and Donny Ray Williams, Leslie Phillips, Bill Bonvillian and Laurie Rubenstein. I could go on and on. Many other staffers of other Senators contributed much to this bill and I thank them. I would especially like to thank Marianne Upton and Joe Zogby from Senator Durbin's staff. And I particularly express my personal appreciation, in this and so many partnerships we have been involved in, to Senator John McCain of Arizona, and to his staff. We worked in close partnership to craft the legislation implementing the 9/11 Commission recommendations. Many provisions were adopted in the Senate and are integral parts of the conference report. I thank them all. I come back to the beginning to particularly thank my colleague and friend, our chairman, Senator Susan Collins of Maine. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record two documents from the 9/11 Public Discourse Project regarding driver's licenses and military chain of command.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Carper of Delaware be given 5 minutes to speak at an appropriate time of the time allotted to me.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. In drafting this legislation, we fully considered the finding of the 9/11 Commission that Senator Collins refers to, and we designed the bill to foster a shift away from a ``need-to-know'' culture of excessive secretiveness, toward a more integrated and open culture of ``need to share.'' The bill assigns key responsibilities to the DNI and to the President to achieve this shift in culture. The bill makes the DNI responsible for establishing guidelines for the intelligence community to ensure maximum availability of, and access to, intelligence information within the community, and to maximize the dissemination of intelligence consistent with protection of sources and methods. The legislation recognizes that there will sometimes be a tension between the need to share intelligence information and the need to protect intelligence sources and methods, and the DNI will be responsible for establishing policies and procedures to resolve any conflicts in this area. The DNI's guidelines are to foster a shift from a culture of undue secrecy by, among other things, allowing for dissemination of intelligence products at the lowest possible level of classification consistent with security needs--and in unclassified form to the extent possible. The President will be responsible for also establishing an information sharing environment for communicating terrorism information beyond the intelligence community. This program will facilitate the sharing of information among all appropriate Federal, State, local, and tribal entities and the private sector. To help shift from a culture of undue information protection that can impair our security efforts, the legislation instructs the President, among other things, to require a reduction in overclassification of information. The President will also issue guidelines to ensure that information is provided in its most shareable form, such as by using ``tearlines'' to separate data from the sources and methods by which the data is obtained.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I could not agree more. This legislation is designed to enable the Governmental and non-Governmental entities with security responsibilities to have access to the intelligence information they need to do their jobs. And the legislation will also enable and encourage the diffusion of information about terrorism to the American people. It has often been said that an informed citizenry is a bulwark against tyranny, but an informed citizenry is also a bulwark against terrorism. By fostering the diffusion of information, consistent with the need to secure intelligence sources and methods, the legislation should help enable the American people to have the information they need to make informed decisions about the threats our nation faces and the steps we must take to overcome those threats.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator from Florida for highlighting this important matter. As the Senator pointed out, since January 2003 DHS, through the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, has required commercial aircraft and commercial vessels to electronically transmit advance passenger and crewmember information in order to assist the Department in the effective inspection of passengers and crew. Currently, passenger vessels provide advanced passenger manifests both upon the original departure of the voyage and 24 to 96 hours before arrival into the United States. This provision will help streamline the process, by requiring the manifest data be compared against one consolidated, comprehensive terrorist database, and by requiring that the comparison be done prior to the departure of the vessel. The cruise industry will do its part by ensuring that complete and accurate data is collected as early as possible, and the Department of Homeland Security will work to ensure the comparison is done effectively and efficiently, and make every effort to not delay the departure of these vessels. We expect the cruise industry and the Department to work closely together on these issues throughout the rulemaking process.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. ``The recurring use of any part of the territory of the country as a sanctuary for terrorists or terrorist organizations'' is not the only factor the administration should take into account when making determinations of which nations are terrorist sponsors for the purposes of the Export Administration Act. It is just one of the appropriate factors to be taken into account when the Secretary exercises his discretion to determine whether the government of a country has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism. I understand from the State Department that other factors that the Secretary of State typically takes into account include: Whether the government of a country is furnishing arms, explosives or lethal substances to individuals, groups or organizations with the likelihood that they will be used in terrorist activities or whether a government is providing direct or indirect financial backing for terrorist activities.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I want to thank the distinguished manager for yielding to me, and the Senator from New Jersey for the excellent question. The general legal criteria for selecting such parties for inclusion in a negotiated rulemaking is described in the Negotiated Rulemaking Act. We have been told by many experts, including the 9/11 Commission, that we need to address every vulnerability to prevent any future attacks, and that we need to enlist the assistance of everyone who can contribute to protecting our homeland. So in this provision, we are really asking for experts and interested parties who can bring some productive ideas to the table to join us in developing these minimum Federal standards. Interested parties must also include groups or organizations presenting the interests of applicants for and holders of driver's licenses and personal identification cards, such as consumer organizations and organizations representing immigrants. It is important that the interests of these groups be considered.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator from New Hampshire for his inquiry. The Senator makes an important point in noting that the language of the conference report does not specify any particular group or organization to be included. However, I think a collaborative rulemaking process would be difficult to imagine without input from interested groups and organizations. And I believe the distinguished, chair of the committee would agree that this is the intention behind our language.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. The Senator from Maine has raised a very important part of our language that is worth emphasizing. Moreover, in making our country safer by tightening standards for identification documents, we must never trample on any individual's civil and due process rights. One of the standards we require for the rulemaking is for a State to confiscate a driver's license or identification card if any component or security feature of the license or identification card is compromised. It is important that this standard, as well as all of the standards, include procedures and requirements to protect the civil and due process rights of all individuals who apply for and hold driver's licenses and personal identification cards.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator from Illinois for pointing out this language in the conference report. I know that this is a complicated and emotional issue and one which the States are already dealing with on a State-by-State basis. I agree that the conference report language does not allow the minimum standards to directly or indirectly infringe on States' power to set eligibility criteria for who can obtain a driver's license or personal identification card.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator and agree with her statements. The National Intelligence Centers are a critical element in the transformation of the intelligence community into a 21st century enterprise. The 9/11 Commission stressed the role of the centers in the restructured intelligence community. The Commission's recommendation stems from the pre-9/11 and current situation in which no one below the DCI is responsible for how the CIA, the National Security Agency, and other intelligence agencies integrate their capabilities against specific intelligence targets. The centers will provide unified direction across the intelligence community to fulfill missions. They are analogous to the Defense Department's combatant commanders, who unify the military services' capabilities to perform missions and fight wars. The purpose of the National Intelligence Centers can be summed up in one word: ``jointness.'' Just as, in the military, the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 sought to integrate the military services' capabilities by strengthening the combatant commanders, so this legislation fosters greater jointness among the intelligence agencies. The centers are to be created within the Office of the DNI, which also will house the National Counterterrorism Center, the National Counter Proliferation Center, the National Intelligence Council, and other entities whose purpose is to integrate and unify the efforts of the various intelligence agencies to accomplish intelligence missions. Among their responsibilities, the centers will provide all-source analysis of intelligence, identify and propose to the DNI intelligence collection and analysis requirements, and have primary responsibility for net assessments and warnings. With their ability to harness the capabilities of entities across the Intelligence Community and create a unified effort, the centers will improve the intelligence community's ability to respond with speed and agility. Each center will be led by a director who will be appointed by the DNI and serve as the DNI's principal adviser in that center's area of responsibility. The center's director reports to the DNI. Each center will have a professional staff, including personnel transferred, assigned, or detailed from elements of the intelligence community as directed by the DNI. The centers will be administratively distinct from the intelligence agencies, just as the combatant commands are administratively distinct from the Military Services. This prevents a center from being subsumed within and dominated by a particular agency. I should add one point of clarification. The legislation calls on the DNI to explore creating an open source intelligence center to improve the collection and analysis of open source materials. This entity is different from the national intelligence centers, which are organized on geographic or transnational topics rather than functional topics like human or signals intelligence. This center would be like the agencies and entities in the intelligence community--like the CIA or the National Security Agency--that are organized to exploit particular collection disciplines.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I agree with the Senator's statements. I would like to elaborate on the CIA's role under this legislation. With respect to the CIA, the 9/11 Commission stressed that the DNI should no longer be responsible for managing the day-to-day activities of the CIA. The legislation has been very carefully crafted to ensure that the Director of the CIA is subordinate to and reports to the new DNI only, and not directly to the President, but that the DNI does not manage the CIA's daily activities. This situation is similar to how a CEO runs a company composed of various business divisions. The CEO is the undisputed head but focuses on high-level issues of strategy, policy, personnel, and budgets rather than getting involved in the daily workings of any single business division. Likewise, the DNI should not manage the CIA and other intelligence agencies. No CEO would run a company that way, nor should the DNI manage the Intelligence Community that way. To emphasize that the DNI is no longer the head of the CIA, the legislation stipulates that the Office of the DNI--which houses the centers and other entities designed to unify and integrate agencies' capabilities--cannot be co-located with any other element of the intelligence community after October 1, 2008. This provision ensures that the DNI is not put in the inherently conflicted position of being both the CEO of the intelligence community and closely aligned with one of the subsidiary elements simultaneously. The Senator from Maine previously stated that the DNI, not the CIA Director, is the President's principal intelligence advisor and is responsible for briefing the President or preparing the President's daily brief. The CIA Director is subordinate to and reports to the DNI only, and not directly to the President, both regarding intelligence activities and covert action. The CIA Director should concentrate on ensuring that the Central Intelligence Agency transforms its human intelligence and special activities capabilities to meet the difficult challenges of the 21st century. The CIA Director should also ensure that the Central Intelligence Agency trains analysts of the highest caliber for deployment to the centers and that whatever analysis is conducted by the CIA in-house--which would primarily be on topics for which there is no center--is done with the greatest independence, clearest objectivity, and best tradecraft. I would like to discuss for a moment the CIA Director's salary. Under current law, the DCI is paid at Executive Schedule Level II pursuant to section 5313 of title 5, United States Code. The legislation places the DNI at Executive Schedule Level I but does not delete the reference to the DCI at Executive Level II. Section 1081(b) of the legislation makes clear that any reference to the DCI in the DCI's capacity as the head of the CIA in any law, regulation, document, paper, or other record of the United States shall be deemed a reference to the CIA Director. After passage of this legislation, the provision in current law that states that the DCI is paid at Executive Schedule Level II will therefore refer to the CIA Director.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank and agree with the Senator. This reform legislation will benefit our troops in the field, as well as better protect our citizens at home. The 9/11 Commission found that the U.S. intelligence agencies are still organized to counter yesterday's challenges, not today's threats. During the Cold War, the enemy was well-known, and our intelligence was appropriately focused on determining its capabilities. We could tolerate then a stove-piped intelligence system where the FBI's intelligence efforts were separate and disconnected from overseas and military intelligence because our enemies were not attacking us from within our borders. We could tolerate then a separate overseas intelligence system run by the CIA because there was no clear reason to integrate foreign military and domestic intelligence. We could tolerate then a separate military intelligence system because we faced a military force comparable to our own, using conventional tactics against us, different from the threats we faced at home. In the war on terror, all that has changed. The threat has become asymmetrical, meaning a weaker enemy attacks a stronger force at its points of vulnerability. That's how al-Qaeda operates, working in the shadows, attacking us on all fronts: domestic, overseas, civilian and military. The cold fact is that the killing zone has expanded. This requires a much more integrated and more agile intelligence apparatus. It requires someone in charge with the authority to force disparate agencies to share information, to determine overall priorities, and to make sure we maximize the return on our enormous investment in intelligence so that we will be successful at thwarting an enemy determined to kill civilians as well as military combatants. A modernized intelligence community will help us better protect both our citizens and our soldiers. Reforms that help achieve greater ``unity of effort,'' as the 9/11 Commission put it, will clearly benefit our troops in the field because information critical to their safety and success could just as easily come from the CIA or the FBI as from the Pentagon's own intelligence systems. Similarly, the vital clues to stop the next attack on our own soil could come from the National Security Agency or the other national intelligence agencies within the Department of Defense. Fully connecting all these pieces is now critical to our total security effort. But as the 9/11 Commission showed in its powerful report, we will not succeed if there is no one in charge who is able to forge unity among all of our intelligence agencies. A fundamental lesson of bureaucracy is that there will be no coordination at the working levels if there is no unified authority at the top. And there will be no real unified authority in the intelligence community unless a Director of National Intelligence has significant authority over budgets and people. Our troops battling in Iraqi streets must have, in real time, not simply traditional military intelligence on the force levels they face, but CIA-developed intelligence on the nature and identity of the al Qaeda and insurgent combatants firing at them.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank the Senator from Maine. The 9/11 Commission's recommendation for a National Counterterrorism Center, NCTC, arises from two main findings. First in keeping with the Commission's general finding regarding the intelligence community, the intelligence agencies are not fully integrated in their efforts against terrorism. No one below the DCI has responsibility, accountability, and authority for the counterterrorism mission. Second, counterterrorism requires an integrated Executive branch-wide effort in which departments and agencies beyond intelligence must work together on a tactical level, with agility, and a rapid pace--like a network--but today ``stovepipes'' still dominate the Executive branch. Although departments and agencies are cooperating at unprecedented levels, the Commission concluded that such cooperation is more confederative than truly joint and integrated. To remedy these two problems, the Commission proposed that the NCTC be responsible for both joint counterterrorism intelligence and joint counterterrorism operational planning. The legislation creates the NCTC along the lines of the Commission's model. Per the Commission's recommendation, the NCTC director is a Deputy Secretary-equivalent and with a dual line of reporting: (1) to the DNI regarding the NCTC's budget and programs and concerning intelligence matters, and (2) to the President regarding Executive branch-wide planning. This arrangement reflects the nature of the NCTC's mission, which is both to integrate intelligence--for which the DNI is the ultimate authority--and to conduct Executive branch-wide planning--which is beyond the DNI's jurisdiction. As per the Commission's proposal, the NCTC will have two directorates to reflect its dual mission. The NCTC's Directorate of Intelligence will in essence be the national intelligence center for counterterrorism, but the NCTC will be more than just a strengthened TTIC. The NCTC will transcend the TTIC because the NCTC will clearly be preeminent in the intelligence community for counterterrorist analysis, will propose collection requirements to the DNI and otherwise integrate the intelligence community's capabilities, and will attract the best professionals from across the intelligence community. The tasks of this directorate are similar to those of any national intelligence center: integrating the activities of intelligence agencies such as the CIA and the National Security Agency; performing all-source analysis on transnational terrorism; being the repository for intelligence on transnational terrorism; conducting net assessment matching terrorist capabilities and intentions with U.S. vulnerabilities and countermeasures; and warning about potential threats. Some observers question whether the NCTC will absorb all the counterterrorism analysts from across the intelligence community. However, those who question whether the NCTC would drain our precious supply of analysts actually prove the case for the NCTC--because there are so few analysts, we need to centralize this precious resource rather than dissipate them across the intelligence community. And the same reasoning applies to the National Counterproliferation Center and the National Intelligence Centers as well. The NCTC's second directorate is for Strategic Operational Planning. This directorate would conduct strategic operational planning for the entire Executive branch--ranging from the combat commands, to the State Department, to the FBI's Counterterrorism Division to the Department of Health and Human Services to the CIA. Witnesses at the Committee on Governmental Affairs hearing on August 26, 2004, argued that interagency operational planning is already taking place organically and thus there is no need for the NCTC. Yet the witnesses could only identify planning processes within their organizations in which representatives from other agencies were involved, not a single truly joint planning process across the Executive branch. The military had a process--but so did then-DCI George Tenet, who had a daily counterterrorism meeting. And the multitude of joint planning processes drain personnel, time, and resources. Moreover, the lack of a central coordinating mechanism provides no safety net for an issue falling through the cracks when each agency--viewing it through a stovepipe--misses the issue's overall significance. There should be only one interagency strategic operational planning process, run by the NCTC, for counterterrorism. The Commission has analogized this directorate to the J-3 Directorate of Operations of the Joint Staff, which works for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. J-3 does planning for operations conducted by the combatant commands. However, because the Chairman is not in the Defense chain of command, J-3 has no operational authority to enforce its plans on the combatant commands. The Chairman's stature gives J-3's plans a certain amount of persuasive authority, but J-3 has no direct authority over the combatant commands. As the Commission has stated explicitly, and as reflected in this legislation, the NCTC's Directorate of Strategic Operational Planning has no operational authority. Accordingly, the NCTC would not interfere with the military chain of command. I would like to discuss in-depth the definition of strategic operational planning. Some observers have advocated confining the NCTC's operational planning function to high-level strategic issues, such as fashioning an Executive branch-wide strategy for winning Muslim ``hearts and minds''--leaving more tactical planning to the agencies individually. An Executive branch-wide ``hearts and minds'' strategy would fall within the NCTC's purview, but the NCTC must reach below that strategic level in order to have the impact envisioned by the Commission and this legislation. The legislation defines strategic operational planning to include ``the mission, objectives to be achieved, tasks to be performed, interagency coordination of operational activities, and the assignment of roles and responsibilities.'' Examples of missions include destroying a particular terrorist group or preventing a terrorist group from forming in a particular area in the first place. Objectives to be achieved include dismantling a terrorist group's infrastructure and logistics, collapsing its financial network, or swaying its sympathizers to withdraw support. Tasks include recruiting a particular terrorist, mapping a terrorist group's network of sympathizers, or destroying a group's training camp. Examples of interagency coordination of operational activities include the hand-off from the CIA to the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI of tracking a terrorist as that terrorist enters the United States, or the coordination between CIA and special operations forces when operating against a terrorist sanctuary abroad. With respect to the assignment of roles and responsibilities, the NCTC will not dictate to each department or agency which personnel or capabilities to utilize, unless the selection of the personnel or capabilities directly impact the mission such as a risk calculation or likely collateral damage. Perhaps the best example of an issue for strategic operational planning is the hunt for Osama bin Laden. There is no policy dispute about the objective; all departments and agencies agree. But the mission inherently cuts across the Executive branch: Intelligence agencies must find bin Laden's whereabouts, diplomats must pressure countries to cooperate, public diplomacy must persuade his sympathizers to turn him in, and special operations forces must raid suspected sanctuaries. Some of the action is longer-term, such as using diplomatic and economic pressure to win countries' cooperation. Some of the action is very short-term. For example, the NCTC would recommend to the CIA and the Defense Department's Special Operations Command, SOCOM, whether to infiltrate or raid a sanctuary; indeed, one can imagine a situation in which the CIA recommends infiltrating while SOCOM recommends raiding, and now the only independent interagency body that can help resolve the issue is the National Security Council staff. If SOCOM objected, then the legislation's provision for the resolution of disputes would apply. If the CIA and SOCOM accepted the NCTC's plan, the NCTC would not dictate how the department or agency performed the mission, i.e., how the CIA infiltrated the group or SOCOM executed the raid. An analogy for strategic operational planning is like lanes in a highway, each lane symbolizing an agency's expertise (e.g., special operations, espionage, and law enforcement). The NCTC will not tell each agency how to drive in its lane. But effective counterterrorism requires choosing which lane--meaning which type of activity, and thus which agency, to utilize in a particular situation. The NCTC would select the lane but would have no authority to order an agency to drive. Returning to the discussion of the DNI's authorities, I note that the new DNI will take on a number of additional duties and responsibilities beyond what the DCI has today. I would ask my friend from Maine, how will the new DNI manage the new community functions that he or she will need to direct as head of the intelligence community?

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I wish to call attention to an important part of this legislation--the provision in section 1016 on information sharing. The effective use of information, from all available sources, is essential to the fight against terrorism. The 9/11 Commission, in fact, concluded that the biggest impediment to all-source analysis, and to a great likelihood of ``connecting the dots,'' is the resistance to information sharing. As the commission documented, in the period preceding September 11, 2001, there were instances o potentially helpful information that was available but that no person knew to ask for; information that was distributed only in compartmented channels; and information that was requested but could not be shared. As a result of its findings, the commission urged that a new approach to information sharing be developed that would help move from a ``need- to-know'' culture of information protection to a ``need-to-share'' culture of integration. Noting that no single agency could develop a meaningful information sharing system on its own, the commission recommended a new, government-wide approach, based on the conceptual model of the Systemwide Homeland Analysis and Resource Exchange SHARE Network proposed by a task force of leading professionals assembled by the Markle Foundation. This legislation puts the commission's information sharing recommendations in place, requiring that the President establish a new, government-wide Information Sharing Environment ISE to share information among federal, State, local and tribal entities, and, where appropriate, with the private sector which owns or controls much of the nation's critical infrastructure)--in a manner consistent with national security and with the protection of privacy and civil liberties.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Another important aspect of this provision is the mechanisms it puts in place to ensure that this new approach to information sharing actually gets implemented. We have known for some time now about the critical importance of information sharing in the fight against terrorism. But translating generalized calls for improved information sharing into a working, fundamentally changed system requires hard and sustained work. To help ensure that this ambitious new effort will succeed, and that the ISE is actually implemented as envisioned, the legislation provides for a staged development process, with periodic reporting and the promise of significant and sustained Congressional oversight. The first benchmark in the ISE development process is 180 days after enactment: by this date, a review must be conducted of current agency capabilities; in addition, a description of the technological, legal and policy issues presented by the creation of the ISE, and how they will be addressed, must be submitted to the President and Congress. Within 270 days of enactment, the President is required to issue guidelines for acquiring, accessing, sharing, and using information, and, in consultation with the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board established in section 1061 of the legislation, guidelines to protect privacy and civil liberties in the development and use of the ISE. These two sets of guidelines are critical in defining the framework of the ISE, and their issuance will provide an important opportunity for Congress to evaluate the proposed direction of the ISE. Within a year, a detailed implementation plan for the ISE, including budget estimates and proposed performance measures, must be submitted to Congress, which will provide for a further opportunity for Congressional evaluation. Finally, in 2 years, and annually thereafter, the President must submit a report to Congress on the state of the ISE and of information sharing across the Federal Government.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, among its other significant provisions, the bill before the Senate, S. 2845, establishes a new Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Waging the war on terror has required that the federal government take steps that consolidate governmental authority and increase the government's presence in our lives. As the 9/11 Commission observed, this shift of power and authority to the government, while necessary, calls for ``an enhanced system of checks and balances to protect the precious liberties that are vital to our way of life.'' Following the commission's recommendation on this point, this bill creates, for the first time, a Board that can look across the federal government and ensure that liberty concerns are appropriately considered in the policies and practices of the executive branch.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I agree with the Senator from Maine that the board will have the tools necessary to carry out its purpose. In its advice role, the board has a broad mandate to review and provide advice to the President and to federal agencies on proposed policies, whether or not codified formally in regulations, and on the implementation of new and existing laws, regulations and policies, in order to ensure that privacy and civil liberties are appropriately considered. Following a related 9/11 Commission recommendation, the board is further specifically directed, when providing advice to executive branch officials on proposals to retain or enhance particular governmental powers, to consider whether the need for those powers have been balanced against the need to protect civil liberties and privacy and whether there are adequate guidelines and supervision to ensure that the use of the power is properly confined and that privacy and civil liberties are protected. Although the board has no authority to veto or delay executive branch actions, executive branch officials are expected to routinely consult with the board, and the board to routinely review and provide input, on the development and implementation of policies intended to protect the Nation a against terrorism; indeed, a suggestion in conference negotiations that would have limited the board to providing advice only when requested by the head of an agency was specifically rejected. It is our intention that the board become an institutionalized voice that ensures that privacy and civil liberties concerns are always considered and, where appropriate incorporated, in policy making. With respect to its oversight role, the board has broad authority to review and investigate executive branch actions, whether limited to a single agency or involving interagency policies, to determine whether the government is appropriately protecting privacy and civil liberties. To carry out this function effectively, the board has been given investigative powers similar to those of a government-wide inspector general. Specifically, the and is to have access to all relevant documents and materials in the executive branch, including classified information, and to all relevant federal officials to interview them and take statements. Departments and agencies, moreover, are required to cooperate with the board: if the board believes information or assistance has been unreasonably refused, it is to notify the relevant agency or department head, who, unless the information cannot lawfully be provided to the board, is to ensure compliance with the request. The bill provides an exception to the requirement that an agency comply with a board request for information only in cases where the DNI in consultation with the Attorney General, determines that withholding information from the board is necessary to protect the national security interests of the United States or where the Attorney General determines that withholding the information is necessary to protect ongoing sensitive law enforcement or counterterrorism operations. In light of the fact that board members must in any event have appropriate clearances to see classified information, as well as the expected nature of the board's work, we anticipate that these exceptions will rarely need to be invoked. In addition to getting information from the executive branch, the board may also request information and assistance from State, local and tribal officials, and it may request documents or testimony from others outside the executive branch, including private parties who may have relevant information, such as former federal employees and government contractors. Although the board does not itself have the authority to subpoena documents from private parties, if the card is unable to obtain relevant information from a nongovernmental party, it may refer the matter to the Attorney General, who may take such action as appropriate to ensure compliance, including the use of compulsory process. I would also like to note that although the board's jurisdiction is not intended to extend beyond matters related to efforts to protect the Nation against terrorism--to, for example, claims that the IRS is not adequately protecting the confidentiality of tax returns--it is our intent its jurisdiction be interpreted inclusively, to reach, for example, laws that were originally adopted to protect against terrorism, but may now have been turned towards other purposes.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. I would also like to point out that the bill encourages federal departments and agencies involved in law enforcement and anti-terror functions to designate an agency official to serve as a privacy and civil liberties officer. Such officers, modeled on similar officers at the Department of Homeland Security and newly created in the Office of the DNI, can play an important role in providing day-to- day advice and insights on civil liberties and privacy matters and conducting internal reviews. Because such officers would be highly knowledgeable about their own agencies, they could augment the role of the board and help address issues early on. The role of such officers would be distinct from those of the new chief privacy officers created in the Omnibus Appropriations bill. Those officers would be largely responsible for focusing on informational privacy issues and not responsible for addressing broader civil liberties concerns.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Madam President, I thank the Chair. Senator McCain is on the way. While Senator Snowe is in the Chamber and is the Presiding Officer, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire for the extraordinary contributions he made to this bill and to the conference both on what used to be the Governmental Affairs Committee--I suppose it still is-- and now the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, particularly on the conference. Senator Sununu was an extraordinarily important member, very steadfast in support of genuine reform, and very skillful as a legislator, both within the Senate conference and without, on the occasional missions on which he would be dispatched to the other body where, I gather from the record, he previously served and still has some people listen to him when he goes over there. The Senator from New Hampshire should feel the great pride and gratitude of the Senator from Maine and this Senator for all he contributed to this historical decision. I yield to Senator Collins.

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank my friend, the Senator from Arizona, for his kind words. I was just thinking, as I was listening to Senator McCain, he is known as a straight talker, but he is also a great doer. When he sees something that is wrong, and nobody is doing anything about it, you are just not going to stop him until he gets it right. When he sees a need that is unmet, you are just not going to stop him until he figures out how to convince our Government to meet it. In this case, within a month after September 11, 2001, John McCain and I were together somewhere and he raised the subject that there ought to be an independent, nonpartisan investigation of how this outrageous attack on the United States by Islamist terrorists could have happened and what we can do to make sure, to the best of our God- given ability, it never happens again. We put the bill together in a commission. We had opposition. Every step was tough, but ultimately it was adopted and filled brilliantly by a group of citizens. Both parties rose to the occasion and presented a report that was a scathing indictment of the status quo, an intelligence community without anybody in charge, where people with information in the FBI, CIA, and other agencies were not sharing it with each other, and the gnawing conclusion that if the intelligence community had been better organized and the dots had been connected, we could have prevented September 11 from happening. John McCain and I welcomed that report which came out at the end of July. We began to work together to draft into legislation all of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. He was persistent in driving to put those out there. His staff and mine worked very hard. We did so right after Labor Day. I am pleased to say, once again, as a result of the persistence and patriotism of the Senator from Arizona, most of the contents of that original legislation are in this conference report. Not just the establishment of the Director of National Intelligence and the counterterrorism Center but a remarkable host of constructive and progressive recommendations from the 9/11 Commission, which, frankly, most of the country does not even know about yet, which I believe and have confidence they will feel good about as they find out about them because they go not just to transportation security, not just for aviation, but for all modes, for border security, civil liberties, and privacy. In an age of terrorism, when the Government will have to be more actively involved in our lives, we want to protect the freedom that defines us as Americans. There is a very progressive, farsighted section which says ultimately we are going to do everything we can, hopefully with the assistance of a greatly improved and organized intelligence community--and do everything we can to capture and kill the terrorists themselves--but ultimately we are going to win this war on terrorism by draining the swamps of poverty and tyranny and totalitarianism in which the terrorism has grown. We recommend and now put, with the force of law, aggressive steps for outreach to the Muslim world. We call for economic development in the Muslim world, for the extension of freedom's range in the Muslim world, for the increase of exchange programs--students, faculties, others--between the United States and predominantly Muslim countries, which is the ultimate hope for a secure future. So I thank the Senator from Arizona for his kind words, and I return them to him. I hope it does not hurt his reputation, but in addition to being a straight talker, he is a great doer as well. Mr. President, as the Senate stands poised now to adopt this 9/11 Commission recommendation bill, I believe we are at the brink of a turning point in our governmental history. It reflects the turning point that occurred, tragically, outrageously, on September 11, when we were attacked by 19 Islamist terrorists who, as someone else has said, hated us more than they loved their own lives, and so they killed themselves to express that hatred and took with them 3,000 innocent Americans. With this vote, we in Congress are saying that one era in our history, in our national security history, has ended and another one has begun when we search for better and different ways to protect ourselves from our sworn enemies. We are changing from one national security strategy to another, from a Cold-War strategy to a strategy fit to bring us to victory in a war against terrorism. Our purpose in this legislation all along, from its drafting through its hearings, through the extensive negotiations and now with its passage, was to advance a new vision of how to protect the American people in an unfortunately new world with different dangers, where our enemies don't distinguish between soldiers and citizens or foreign and domestic military targets. The brilliant work of the 9/11 Commission informed us that a lack of what they called the unity of effort, strong leadership, accountable leadership, allowed good intelligence to slip through our grasp, enabling the terrorists of September 11 to evade our defenses. I have said before and I will say it again--it is a homely analogy or metaphor--the American intelligence community today is like a very good football team with great players but no quarterback. This bipartisan proposal we are about to vote on will create a quarterback, a strong quarterback. It will upend the status quo which failed us on September 11 and on other occasions in our recent history by reorganizing many of our intelligence agencies to create a unified command and control structure so that one person, the new Director of National Intelligence, will be in charge and accountable for the Nation's intelligence operations. When somebody asks in the future, ``Who is in charge?'' the question will not be met with the same blank stares and nonanswers that greeted the 9/11 Commission when they asked that question. The answer will be, ``the DNI is in charge,'' the Director of National Intelligence, is in charge and responsible. That, we are confident, will make this Nation and its people safer. The urgency of our times has demanded prompt action, but it has not been so prompt as to negate thoughtful consideration of just about every sentence and word in this conference report; prompt because we are, after all, a nation at war. A war like none other we have ever fought, a war in which we must maximize our resources, begin anew to meet our enemy and defeat them and find better ways to utilize the enormously capable human intelligence assets we have and the extraordinary technological assets we have as well to transform our ability to defend ourselves. It never hurts to quote Sun Tzu, the classic Chinese strategist of war, who said: If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle . . . but if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. The American people know themselves. We know our strengths. We know our purpose. We know our principles. As a result of this bill, I am confident we will better know our enemy and, therefore, have much less cause for fear. I want to say a final word about the families, the survivors of September 11, because they truly were our inspiration throughout this journey to reform. They insisted on the creation of a 9/11 commission and they insisted that its recommendations be acted upon by Congress and supported by the President. That is exactly what has happened, across party lines, across Chambers, the executive branch and legislative branch, working together. This is an accomplishment which everyone here involved, and those involved at the White House, can celebrate. But ultimately it is a victory for the American people and particularly for these survivors of 9/11. Their self-sacrificing courage brings us to this historic moment of reform. I said before, the American people know themselves. If you want to know the American people, meet the families and friends of those we lost on September 11. They represent the best of our country. They reflect our strength, our resilience, our values, our patriotism, our sense of purpose, our commitment and optimism. No matter what the obstacles, America and the American people will go on and will prevail. We will prevail because we represent a cause, the cause of freedom, the cause of opportunity. I hope and pray the passage of this legislation will help the families of 9/11 find some peace, as I am confident it will help all Americans find cause for greater confidence in our Nation's future security. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to express my deep gratitude and best wishes to a dedicated and long-serving member of my Washington staff, Sharon ``Sherry'' Hickey, who has worked on Capitol Hill for nearly 31 years and who is retiring from the U.S. Senate on December 3, 2004. Sherry has been a member of my Senate family since I was first elected to this office in January 1989. She has many talents, ``wears many hats,'' is always willing to lend a hand or offer guidance, and her contributions to the work of this office, particularly in the area of constituent outreach, have been invaluable. She began in my office as assistant to the chief of staff and military caseworker. As caseworker, she most clearly demonstrated her compassion and empathy for others. Sherry assisted many grateful soldiers and their families in my home State of Connecticut, including during the first Gulf War, by intently listening to their concerns and successfully resolving the variety of problems they faced to the fullest extent possible. Sherry is also a gifted and eloquent writer. As my personal/ legislative correspondent, she has researched and drafted responses for literally thousands of constituent communications on important issues before Congress, as well as requests for tribute, congratulatory, and recommendation letters that I have received over the years. With her expressive, articulate, and intuitive communication skills, Sherry has a knack for preparing responses to each of them in the informative, yet personalized, style that I prefer. Prior to the good fortune that brought her to my office, Sherry first began her Hill career when she was hired by Representative John Melcher (D-MT) in December 1973. Following his election to the Senate in 1976, Sherry remained on his staff as a personal assistant and consumer affairs caseworker until he left office in 1988. Previously, she served as secretary to the Assistant Director of the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Bureau of the Mint from 1967-1971. Some may find it surprising to learn that, among her many hidden abilities, Sherry is a talented artist. Perhaps her retirement will afford her more time to pursue this interest. Still, what has always been most important to Sherry is her family. She met her husband Peter while she was a member of Senator Melcher's staff; and their son, Brian, of whom they are both enormously proud, spent 2 years as a toddler at the Senate Employees Child Care Center. Sherry often brought Brian to the office for a visit, so it is hard for me to believe that he has since achieved the Boy Scout rank of Eagle Scout and is now a second-year student at the University of Virginia! For her own part, after spending precious time devoted to raising her son and guiding him along the path toward adulthood, Sherry applied her energies after work, and, with her usual determination, completed her Associate in Science degree from Northern Virginia Community College earlier this year. Sherry has had and exemplary career and fully understands the value of a public service commitment to help others. She has always had a special caring touch in reaching out to the constituents we serve and getting them the help they need and deserve. She has provided a guiding hand and has been a resource and support to so many members of my staff. Sherry has what some may call an ``old-fashioned'' work ethic, but it is one based on immense pride and satisfaction in a job well done. I can certainly attest to that. Sherry is proud to be a native Washingtonian, and she can now be proud of the years she has dedicated to my State of Connecticut and to the State of Montana. I know her well-deserved retirement will afford her many new opportunities. Sherry has made many friends on the Hill, and we will miss her ready smile and kindness. It is with great fondness and my personal thanks that I wish her only the best in whatever direction she chooses to go from here. Congratulations on a job well done!

Mr. LIEBERMAN

Mr. LIEBERMAN. Five minutes.