On the recordFebruary 25, 2010
The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) has been a forceful and eloquent advocate for greater diversity in the intelligence community. And he's exactly right: we will be more effective when we have greater diversity in the intelligence community. We're more effective human collectors when we look like those from whom we are collecting. We will be more effective when we have a greater range of language talents including dialects. All of that is absolutely true. My point, in addition, however, is that it's not just getting them into the intelligence community. It's how we treat them once they're hired. And some of the recent actions over the last year, whether it's a special prosecutor to go after, again, interrogators after they have already been investigated, or whether it's releasing classified memos, even though five CIA directors recommend not having it done, that cuts against the ability to keep these qualified people in government service after we have them hired. And I can think of nothing worse than to threaten these people with 15 years of prison if they stray across the line in an interrogation as far as encouraging our intelligence professionals to stay with the government.
