House and Senate Intelligence Leadership on President's Review Group Report
The leadership of the Senate and House intelligence committees released a statement in response to the President's Review Group's findings.
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The leadership of the Senate and House intelligence committees released a statement in response to the President's Review Group's findings. They oppose doing away with the NSA metadata program, saying that it is a "valuable analytical tool that assists intelligence personnel in their efforts to efficiently ‘connect the dots’ on emerging or current terrorist threats."
Here's the press release, over at Senate intelligence committee Chair Dianne Feinstein's website:
The Report of the President's Review Group makes some constructive recommendations, many of which the House and Senate Intelligence Committees have previously addressed in legislation reported by one or both committees. These include measures to increase transparency of the U.S. intelligence community’s collection programs, improve the security clearance process, and enhance whistleblower protections for intelligence community employees. However, a number of recommendations in the report should not be adopted by Congress, starting with those based on the misleading conclusion that the NSA's metadata program is ‘not essential to preventing attacks.’ Intelligence programs do not operate in isolation and terrorist attacks are not disrupted by the work of any one person or program. The NSA's metadata program is a valuable analytical tool that assists intelligence personnel in their efforts to efficiently ‘connect the dots’ on emerging or current terrorist threats directed against Americans in the United States. The necessity of this program cannot be measured merely by the number of terrorist attacks disrupted, but must also take into account the extent to which it contributes to the overall efforts of intelligence professionals to quickly respond to, and prevent, rapidly emerging terrorist threats. As the president has said, the NSA metadata program ‘is an important tool in our effort to disrupt terrorist plots.’ We continue to believe that it is vital this lawful collection program continue. The White House has indicated it will review the recommendations and determine which it will endorse and which it will reject. We look forward to working with the administration during this process and appreciate the assurances we have received that this consultation will happen.”
Raffaela Wakeman is a Senior Director at In-Q-Tel. She started her career at the Brookings Institution, where she spent five years conducting research on national security, election reform, and Congress. During this time she was also the Associate Editor of Lawfare. From there, Raffaela practiced law at the U.S. Department of Defense for four years, advising her clients on privacy and surveillance law, cybersecurity, and foreign liaison relationships. She departed DoD in 2019 to join the Majority Staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where she oversaw the Intelligence Community’s science and technology portfolios, cybersecurity, and surveillance activities. She left HPSCI in May 2021 to join IQT.
Raffaela received her BS and MS in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009 and her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 2015, where she was recognized for her commitment to public service with the Joyce Chiang Memorial Award. While at the Department of Defense, she was the inaugural recipient of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s General Counsel Award for exhibiting the highest standards of leadership, professional conduct, and integrity.
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