Spending bill limited Congress' oversight of secret intelligence activities, senators say

Erin Kelly | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Senate votes to end government shutdown The Senate has advanced a bill reopening federal agencies through Feb. 8 after Democrats relented and lifted their blockade against the legislation. (Jan. 22)

WASHINGTON — The White House can now direct US intelligence agencies to spend money and take covert action without approval of congressional oversight committees under a provision slipped into the bill that ended the government shutdown, leaders of the Senate intelligence committee say.

"You could potentially have an administration — any administration — go off and take on covert activities...with no ability for our committee...to say 'time out' or to say we actually disagree with that policy," said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the panel's vice chairman.

A provision in the bill — requested by the White House and Pentagon — gives intelligence agencies an exemption from the law that requires them to get authorization from the intelligence committees before they spend taxpayer money, said Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and chairman of the Senate panel.

Section 504 of the National Security Act gives the committees the power to withhold money from the intelligence agencies if they object to surveillance programs or other intelligence activities.

"We take our oversight role extremely serious," Burr said. "We want every tool in our basket that we can to give the American people the assurance that we know exactly what's going on."

Burr said his concern would be the same no matter who was president.

Burr offered an amendment Monday afternoon to strip the provision from the short-term spending bill that keeps the government funded through Feb. 8.

Warner said that anyone who would object to a vote on Burr's amendment needs "to explain to the American people why ... they would want to give any administration ... a blank check."

The Bush administration, for example, secretly approved enhanced interrogation techniques against terror suspects in the years immediately after 9/11. Congress later outlawed such techniques, such as waterboarding and sleep deprivation.

Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, objected, blocking a vote on the Senate floor. Cochran, in making his objection, said the provision "is included exactly as requested by the administration."

"It is consistent with language that has been adopted many times in past continuing resolutions," Cohran said. He said he will continue to work with Burr "on his concerns."

Burr and Warner vowed to fight to remove the provision when the current funding bill expires. The federal government has been operating under a series of short-term spending measures since Oct. 1 because Congress has been unable to reach a deal on long-term spending levels.

"It's my hope we will come to our senses at some point in this process," Burr said on the Senate floor.

Warner said the provision was "slipped in" to the government funding bill by the House Appropriations Committee.

"So I've been very disturbed about this whole process that arose in the House, how this was attempted to get slipped in," Warner said on the Senate floor.

An aide to the House Appropriations Committee who was not authorized to speak publicly said the language in the bill was requested by the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Defense and is standard language that maintains the status quo. The aide said the notion that it gives more latitude to the Trump administration to spend money is incorrect.

Burr pushed back on that argument, saying "it really doesn't take a law degree to understand that there's a huge difference between ignoring Section 504 (of the current law)...or applying Section 504."

"So this really isn't a misinterpretation," he said.

Burr and Warner said the provision to weaken their oversight power comes just after they promised civil liberties advocates in the Senate that they would ensure that the FBI and other intelligence agencies don't overstep their bounds in carrying out a controversial surveillance program recently renewed by Congress.

That surveillance program, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, allows U.S. intelligence agencies to spy on the electronic communication of foreigners living in other countries who may have ties to terrorists. However, it also sweeps up emails, text messages, photos and other communication from an unknown number of Americans, and allows federal agents to search that data without a warrant.

Burr and Warner both supported a six-year renewal of the program earlier this month, calling it an essential tool to thwart terrorist plots. However, a bipartisan group of 34 senators opposed it, saying it violates Americans' constitutional rights against unreasonable searches and seizures.

"Both Senator Warner and myself said to our opposition that we would do everything within the committee's power to make sure that we did aggressive, real time oversight over the entire intelligence community," Burr said. "Sometimes that means that when we see that there might be something more uncomfortable, we alter the ability (of the intelligence agencies) to access funds...We call that fencing off money."

The committee won't have the power to do that at least through Feb. 8 and possibly beyond, Burr said.

"For the next three weeks, we will have an inability to exercise...the tools that we might need to keep our commitment to 34 (senators) that voted against us, but more importantly to the American people," he said.