House approves intel bill after removing provision penalizing cruel interrogations

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Dems pull provision penalizing intel personnel

WASHINGTON — The House approved an intelligence agency bill Friday after Democratic leaders hastily removed a provision that would have imposed prison sentences for personnel using “cruel, inhuman and degrading” interrogation techniques.

The controversial provision would have subjected intelligence officers to up to 15 years in prison for interrogations that violate existing anti-torture laws, including the use of extreme temperatures, acts causing sexual humiliation or depriving a prisoner of food, sleep or medical care.

Republicans strongly protested the measure when the bill came to the floor Thursday, forcing Democrats to pull the bill in order to avoid an unwanted debate on torture that could threaten passage of the legislation. It was reintroduced Friday with the interrogation provision removed.

The bill, passed 235-168, sets policy and classified funding levels for 16 federal intelligence agencies. The Senate has passed its own version, and differences must be worked out.

The torture provision, introduced by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., defined cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees and provided a penalty of up to 15 years in prison for using such techniques during an interrogation. It also said medical professionals who enable the use of improper treatment could face up to five years in prison.

McDermott said President Barack Obama last year extended the Army field manual’s guidelines on interrogation tactics and his amendment was intended to expand on the president’s order “to clearly define what constitutes a cruel, inhuman or degrading interrogation so that it is unmistakable what kinds of techniques are unacceptable.”

But Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, top Republican on the intelligence committee, countered that the “annual intelligence bill should be about protecting and defending our nation, not targeting those we ask to do that deed and giving greater protections to terrorists.”

Hoekstra unsuccessfully tried to attach a provision to the final bill that would have put the director of national intelligence in charge of coordinating the interrogation of terrorist suspects and ensuring all actionable intelligence is collected before the suspect is read his Miranda rights. Republicans have objected to the decision of law enforcement officials to read Miranda rights to the suspect in the thwarted Christmas attempt to blow up a Northwest airliner.

That amendment was defeated on a largely party-line vote. It would have required a beat cop to get permission from “a gaggle of Cabinet-level officials” before proceeding on an investigation, intelligence committee chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said. Republicans, he said, want “to take away our use of the criminal justice system to go after terrorists.”

On a similar front, Attorney General Eric Holder and Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday urged Congress not to take up legislation restricting the executive branch from prosecuting terrorism defendants in federal courts or in military commissions in the United States.

The final bill seeks to respond to a White House veto threat issued against a previous version that would have removed the president’s authority to limit congressional briefings on covert operations to the so-called gang of eight: the four Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees and the four party leaders from the two chambers. Instead, all committee members would have had access to briefings on black operations.

As rewritten, the president could still limit the number of lawmakers briefed on covert actions — those activities where the hand of the government is never to be revealed — if he certifies that it is “essential to limit access … to meet extraordinary circumstances affecting vital interests of the United States.”

The legislation also:

—Increases funds for human intelligence collection and counterintelligence activities and increases spending on language training.

—Creates an intelligence community-wide inspector general to identify interaction problems between agencies.

—Invests in efforts to improve cybersecurity.

—Bars private contractors from conducting interrogations of detainees in CIA custody and requires that interrogations be videotaped.

—Strengthens conflict-of-interest rules to prevent intelligence community officers from owning companies that sell products to the agencies.

The bill is H.R. 2701.

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