Joe Lieberman: “A final response on this point. The Senator from Alaska says correctly if one looks at the overall budget of a given…”

“A final response on this point. The Senator from Alaska says correctly if one looks at the overall budget of a given military agency, it does not tell what they are spending on different programs. So I want to assure the Senator from Alaska that under the committee's proposal, not only do we not talk about what is being spent on specific programs and specific intelligence agencies, we do not talk about what is being spent in those agencies. We talk about the one number, the conglomerate bottom line or top-line number, and I think that only gives a general idea of what we are investing in intelligence, far from any specific information about what we are investing in particular kinds of intelligence, signal, human, image, let alone specific programs. I would not do this if I thought it would jeopardize our national security. In fact, that is why we did not call, as the Commission requested, for disclosure of individual agency budgets because we worried it might, and that is why we are asking for a report from the national intelligence director.”