Haley Stevens: “My point is this: Included in intelligence are the top secret plans of this country. They are the planning for future…”

“My point is this: Included in intelligence are the top secret plans of this country. They are the planning for future devices and concepts that deal with interception of information. They deal with the ability to identify individuals. They deal with so many classified areas that I may be violating some rules by mentioning the two I mentioned. All the money we put in this bill, hide in the intelligence bill, to stop anyone from knowing about it, has to be disclosed under this direction, to include everything, any program, project, or activity of any one of these agencies. I plead with Members to think about classification. This is not routine classification of who is an employee of the CIA. That is bad enough, come to think of it. These activities are so far reaching, and with so many agencies, including the defense agency that deals with research activities. It has projects it is working on, which are so far out that may prove to be viable. They are part of the intelligence budget. They are classified. They are down in the black portion of the bill and are kept classified because we do not want anyone to know what we are researching and what we are developing. It would be included in this. No amendment we ever looked at before would have done that, but because of the definition of intelligence in this bill it becomes all inclusive and there is no alternative. Sometimes I think maybe I am just not able to communicate totally what I am thinking about this bill.”