Jane Harman: “I rise in strong support of the manager's amendment, which includes two provisions which I authored and which address…”

“I rise in strong support of the manager's amendment, which includes two provisions which I authored and which address problems continuing to impede our efforts to keep our country safe. First, it requires the Inspector General of the intelligence community to report to Congress in 180 days on overclassification of intelligence. Stamping documents ``secret'' or ``top secret'' for the wrong reasons interferes with accurate, actionable, and timely information sharing within the Federal Government and with State and local law enforcement. Protecting sources and methods is the right reason to classify information, but protecting turf or personal embarrassment is not. D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier says she hesitates to share information with the Federal Government for fear it will be immediately classified and rendered useless because she can't tell her officers in the field what to look for when on patrol. A variety of civil liberties and good government groups support our amendment, and I am glad it's in the manager's amendment.”