Washington, D.C. — U.S. Congressman Mac Thornberry (TX-13) today introduced a bill to clarify and strengthen requirements for intelligence information sharing between the White House and Congress. The bill, H.R. 4261, would amend the National Security Act of 1947 to provide clear standards and procedures for Congress to receive intelligence information.

“Too often, information is a political tug-of-war between Congress and the President, which makes it harder to protect the country,” Congressman Thornberry said. “There should be a clear standard that allows Congress and the White House to perform their constitutional duties without having vital national security programs or intelligence information being used as a political football,” he continued.

Thornberry’s bill, H.R. 4261, strengthens the requirement to provide Congress with intelligence, including information regarding covert operations.  It also outlines a clear standard that all intelligence information shall be shared with the full House and Senate intelligence committees.

“There are people plotting and planning attacks against America as we speak.  Since September, there have been six known cases, and thankfully, we were able to stop five of them.  The sixth resulted in the shootings at Fort Hood,” said Thornberry. “The Administration has not given Congress all of the information that it has one the Fort Hood case.  How can we take the necessary steps to thwart similar attacks in the future if Congress isn’t given the opportunity to review the pieces of the puzzle?,” he continued.

Thornberry’s bill does recognize that there may be instances in which restricted information sharing is appropriate and necessary by providing the President an option to brief a smaller group as long reasons for limitations are provided.  However, the Chair and Ranking Member of the Intelligence Committees have the authority to review such a request.  In response, they can agree to limit distribution of the information, or they can decide to provide the information to the full committee despite the President’s request. Thus, the President’s constitutional authority to classify information is protected, as is Congress’s authority to set its own rules.

“This bill helps empower Congress to limit itself, rather than allowing the President to limit Congress.  This improvement will allow the intelligence committees to focus as much attention as possible on existing and emerging threats of terrorism and other issues so we can assess how effective our intelligence efforts really are,” said Thornberry.

H.R. 4261 will be referred to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. To read the bill text, please click here.