Intelligence Authorization Legislation forFY2014 and FY2015: Provisions, Status, Intelligence Community Framework. November 20, 2014.

摘要

The challenge for this and future Congresses is to help shape intelligence priorities while a more integrated IC adjusts to new budget realities. Congress has an important role in the oversight of the agencies responsible for dealing with this altered intelligence environment, and the annual authorization process represents one of the most important opportunities to exercise this role. Intelligence authorization legislation does not guarantee effective interagency intelligence efforts, but proponents of the oversight process maintain that authorization acts are the best lever that Congress has to address the interagency effort.Permanent, continuing, day-to-day oversight of the U.S. intelligence community (IC) by the two congressional intelligence committees will soon mark its 40th anniversary. The IC’s missions, responsibilities, capabilities, size, and management have experienced dramatic changes over the past four decades. The congressional oversight committees have played a significant role in shaping these changes and continue to do so, particularly through their annual intelligence authorization bills. In recent years the IC has initiated a transformation from the agency-centric practices of the past to an “intelligence enterprise”1established on a collaborative foundation of shared services, mission-centric operations, and integrated mission management to confront its ever growing list of challenges. The recently released National Intelligence Strategy 2014 lays out the strategic environment and identifies the scale of what James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), terms the “pervasive and emerging threats.