Experts tell conference participants what to expect from the Hill in terms of new developments in national security law

“We are conducting too little meaningful, constructive oversight” of the intelligence community, said Jeremy Bash, minority chief counsel with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Bash was part of a panel at the 16th Annual Review of the Field of National Security Law held in Washington, D.C. The meeting was sponsored by the ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security, along with the Center for National Security Law of the University of Virginia School of Law, and the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke University School of Law. Bash was speaking for himself and not in his capacity as chief counsel.

In addition to Bash, the panelists of the “Round Table Discussion: Survey of New Developments in National Security Law: Views from the Hill” included Michael Power, chief counsel of the House Committee on Homeland Security; Scott W. Stucky, general counsel of the Senate Committee on Armed Services; and Ron Weich, chief counsel, Office of Senate Majority Leader-elect Harry Reid.

Our human intelligence officers serve under fire and under cover without praise, continued Bash. We are in a real intelligence war, he said, pointing to North Korea and its capabilities with respect to nuclear weapons, as well as Iraq, its use of improvised explosive devices, and what Maliki is capable of doing, and sometimes we expect too much from our intelligence members. Because we are in the intelligence war, the members of the intelligence community are going to ask for more authority, Bash said, and they should get it. But with more authority, more oversight is needed, he stressed.

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Weich, in speaking of the upcoming 110th Congress, said that there would be a lot of opportunity for the new committee chairs to conduct oversight.

Bash spoke to several of the bills and specific provisions that have been acted upon by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, as well as legislative measures that were not—for example, the Military Commissions Act, which bypassed committee action and went directly to the House floor. Power pointed to the workings of the House Committee on Homeland Security, much of which happens on a bipartisan basis despite the “disagreements that you see in the press.” Initially created as a select committee with limited jurisdiction, the House Committee became a permanent committee in 2005 with full jurisdictional responsibilities, explained Power. Still, the committee only has jurisdiction over programs within the Department of Homeland Security, which hampers oversight capabilities to a certain extent. Too, said Power, the House committee doesn’t have a comparable Senate committee with which to work.

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Stucky said that substantive intelligence policy is too often “punted to the appropriations committee,” which is unfortunate because the appropriators are not good at crafting substantive legislative solutions. It’s not their job, said Stucky. Like Power, Stucky commented on the bipartisan workings of Congress, in this case the Senate Armed Services Committee under Sens. John Warner and Carl Levin. Stucky instructed the audience on the key provisions of the defense authorization bill, which was signed into law in October, including so called “payday lending” practices.

Several national security issues will be debated in the Senate in 2007, speculated Weich. The Senate and the Armed Services Committee are likely to look at and take action on the 9/11 Commission recommendations, the Baker-Hamilton Commission early on, then later study the NSA wiretapping issue as well as the Military Commissions Act, including specifically habeas corpus review.

Other featured programs of the conference included speeches by the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Sen. Arlen Specter and Rep. Jane Harmon. Printed materials from the conference, along with audio and video, are available free of charge at the Law and National Security Web site.

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