Price, Schakowsky introduce intel legislation on private contractors

Reps. David Price (D-N.C.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) are seeking to prohibit intelligence agencies, including the CIA, from hiring private contractors for military detainee operations.

The two lawmakers introduced a bill on Tuesday to enhance oversight of the contractors working with the intelligence community and ban the use of contractors for detainee arrest, interrogation, detention and international prisoner transport.

{mosads}Price and Schakowsky are working with the House Intelligence Committee to include the legislation as part of the panel’s version of the 2009 intelligence authorization bill. The panel is scheduled to mark up that bill on Thursday.

Schakowsky told The Hill that if she and Price are not successful in including the language in the original chairman’s markup, she would offer it as an amendment on Thursday.

“The prohibition on contractors doing these sensitive interrogations is very important,” she said. “So far contractors seem to be immune from any kind of accountability, any laws and any form of disciplinary action. We do not even have clear tools to hold those individuals accountable.”

Price said, “Contracting in the intelligence community has more than doubled in scope in the last decade, and it’s clear that effective management and oversight is lacking. We’ve got to get a handle on it. That means demanding more complete information, establishing more effective management practices and, in some cases, drawing a red line to prevent the privatization of especially sensitive activities.”

The CIA has used outside contractors extensively for its secret interrogation program, according to testimony earlier this year from CIA Director Michael Hayden. The CIA increased its use of contractors at its so-called secret sites since Sept. 11, 2001, in part because the agency had little experience with detentions and interrogations and in part because private contractors helped it maintain a low profile, according to several media reports.

The Price-Schakowsky bill comes almost a week after the Senate Intelligence panel approved legislation to ban the CIA from using private contractors to interrogate detainees. The Senate bill also bars the CIA from using the controversial interrogation technique known as waterboarding and limits the agency to using only those interrogation techniques approved by the military. The military specifically prohibits waterboarding.

If the Senate language makes it through a floor vote and conference with the House, the bill risks a veto from the president. The White House vetoed the 2008 bill in March because of similar language banning interrogation techniques.

Meanwhile, Schakowsky said that the ban on contractors conducting detainee operations likely will also not get a free pass from the Bush administration.

“The White House has been incredibly consistent about supporting the use of contractors,” she said. “The notion of using contractors and outsourcing all these sensitive things is no problem for this administration.”

Price, who together with Schakowsky has been trying to rein in the scope of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, said that Intelligence Committee members should not be “surprised” at this new legislation. He called it an extension of previous efforts, in particular those seeking more oversight of contractors in the 2008 intelligence authorization bill that was vetoed.

The Price-Schakowsky bill would also require the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to provide Congress with how many contractors are involved in intelligence work, the activities they are asked to perform, the cost associated with their work, possible violations of laws and what the administration is doing to hold them accountable for misconduct. The companies themselves would have to provide the government with more detailed information on their hiring and training processes.

The legislation also calls on the DNI to put together a report on the use of contractors. The DNI will be asked to assess the appropriateness of using contractors to perform certain sensitive functions, the cost savings or other benefits achieved by using contractors, the oversight and accountability mechanisms in place for contractors, and the impact of contracting on the government intelligence workforce.