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The Baltimore Sun
October 19, 1997, Sunday, FINAL EDITION

For the first time since World War II, U.S. citizens know how much of their limited tax dollars are being spent on intelligence: $ 26.6 billion.

George Tenet, director of central intelligence, released the figure Wednesday in response to a lawsuit brought by the Center for National Security Studies on behalf of the Federation of American Scientists. With this figure, citizens finally have more information that enables them to participate effectively in the debate on how much this country should spend on national security.

For years, not only has the intelligence budget been secret, but the money has been hidden in defense appropriations, distorting the true amount that's spent on the military. Now we can have an informed political debate on defense spending, something that was impossible when billions of intelligence dollars were tucked away in the Pentagon's budget.

Indeed, budget disclosure advocates have had a strong constitutional case - the Statement and Account clause of the Constitution requires a public accounting for all government expenditures:

"No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time."

But in United States vs. Richardson in 1974, the Supreme Court held that individuals could not sue to enforce the constitutional requirement.

Committee recommended that the intelligence committees "consider whether it is necessary, given the constitutional requirements and the national security demands, to publish more detailed budgets." Just a few months before, the Pike Committee had recommended that "there be disclosure of the total single sum budgeted for each agency involved in intelligence." During the two days of public hearings and a lengthy closed session held by the Church Committee, not one single official - including past CIA directors William Colby and Richard Helms, the new CIA director Stansfield Turner, and other former high officials of the CIA and the military intelligence agencies - argued that disclosing the secret budget number would endanger national security. Turner, for one, testified that it would "help the public put into perspective the intelligence activity of their country." But they opposed it nonetheless.

And, after conducting hearings on the matter a year later in May 1977, the newly created Senate Select Committee on Intelligence recommended by a one-vote margin that the aggregate amount appropriated for national foreign intelligence activities for fiscal year 1978 be disclosed. However, the full Senate did not act on this recommendation. Still, the issue never died. Over the years, advocates of budget disclosure in the Congress continued to argue that the greater discussion that would result from publishing the national intelligence budget figure would be in the public interest, without sacrificing national security at all.

While the Congress supported disclosure over the years, it never voted to make the number public.

In 1991 consideration, the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to require three disclosures: the aggregate amount of money requested by the president; the aggregate amount authorized to be appropriated by the conference committee on the Intelligence Authorization Act; and the aggregate amount given to the Executive Branch. The Congress as a whole then recommended but did not require that "beginning in 1993, and each year thereafter, the aggregate amount requested and authorized for, and spent on, intelligence and intelligence-related activities should be disclosed to the public in an appropriate manner."

The fiscal years 1993 and 1994 intelligence authorization bills included the same "sense of Congress" provision. Speaker of the House Thomas S. Foley, a Washington Democrat, and Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell, a Maine Democrat, and other current and former leaders of committees with intelligence oversight responsibilities, wrote to the president: "The world has changed greatly since the Cold War days in which the norm of strict secrecy on the intelligence budget was established. I The level of intelligence spending (although not the details) must be open to the public. In the absence of legitimate security justification, the norms of our democratic system require that the public be informed." Robert M. Gates, during his 1991 confirmation hearings for director of central intelligence, told Congress that "I have been trying to think I what symbolic steps that the Agency could take I that would suggest that the mentality of the Cold War has changed at the agency, that there is an appreciation of a new day. I But a couple of ideas that occurred to me - one was this idea of declassifying the top line [budget] number." Once confirmed, however, he refused to release the figure.

In March 1996, the one concrete reform of the secrecy system recommended by the Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the United States Intelligence Community, chaired by Harold Brown and vice chaired by Warren B. Rudman, was declassification of the aggregate intelligence budget. Still, neither the president nor the congress made those recommendations a reality.

In April 1996, President Clinton's press secretary Mike McCurry said: "Reflecting the president's determination to promote openness in the Intelligence Community, he has authorized Congress to make public the total appropriation - the bottom-line figure - for intelligence at the time the appropriations conference is approved by congress." Director of Central Intelligence John M. Deutch echoed his comments the next day.

But Congress took no action that year. Indeed, in 1997, for the first time, the Senate as well as the House voted against release.

In the meantime, Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists had unsuccessfully requested the number under the Freedom of Information Act. After Clinton's 1996 statement, the CIA would not be able to defend its position on the disclosure's harm to national security. Because the Freedom of Information Act requires release of information whose disclosure would not be harmful, Aftergood pointed out that the CIA's refusal to then declassify the budget was a violation of the law.

The CIA withheld the information even after the Center for National Security Studies threatened a lawsuit and pointed out that the CIA had no defense under the law. Faced with having to file its defense before a judge on Wednesday, the CIA released the figure.

Perhaps those in disagreement with the recent budget disclosure would be well served to remember another basic principal of our democratic government: that of accountability to the people.

For, as James Madison explained in Federalist 58, the power over the purse "may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure."

This disclosure has more than a symbolic value: It is a testament to the importance of the Freedom of Information Act and the right of individuals to go to court to enforce the law - even against the CIA.

Duncan Levin is public policy analyst at the Center for National Security Studies, a civil liberties group, based in Washington.

Copyright 1997 The Baltimore Sun Company