Senator says ban torture but give CIA interrogation leeway
By PAMELA HESS
Associated Press
May 9, 2008
Page 2 of 2
The bill also would increase the jail sentence for those convicted of revealing the identity of a covert intelligence agent.
The Senate bill also tries to limit the intelligence agencies' use of private contractors. It says, on average, a private contractor costs $250,000 a year compared with $126,500 for a civilian government employee.
Also on Thursday, the House Intelligence Committee approved its version of the 2009 authorization bill. It requires intelligence agencies to brief the entire committee -- not just the leaders -- on certain covert operations before the committee will finance them.
The House bill would add money to both electronic intelligence collection and human spying endeavors, though the amounts are classified. The committee said it also approved ''a sizable request'' for a national computer security monitoring program.
For the second consecutive year, the House prohibited any congressional ''earmarks'' from being attached to the bill.
It was classified pet spending projects that landed former intelligence committee member Rep. Randy ''Duke'' Cunningham in prison for more than eight years.
Cunningham pleaded guilty in 2005 to accepting $2.4 million in bribes from contractors in return for his steering lucrative secret federal contracts to their companies.
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