McConnell to Restrict Release of Intelligence EstimatesYou know what Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell thinks of open debate about intelligence matters. After all, he’s said repeatedly that public discussions of changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act have a direct result: “some Americans are going to die.”
So this shouldn’t come as a surprise:
National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell has reversed the recent practice of declassifying and releasing summaries of national intelligence estimates, a top intelligence official said Friday.Knowing their words may be scrutinized outside the U.S. government chills analysts’ willingness to provide unvarnished opinions and information, said David Shedd, a deputy to McConnell.
He told congressional aides and reporters that McConnell recently issued a directive making it more difficult to declassify the key judgments of national intelligence estimates, which are forward-looking analyses prepared for the White House and Congress that represent the consensus of the nation’s 16 spy agencies on a single issue. The analysis comes from various sources including the CIA, the military and intelligence agencies inside federal departments.
Referring to the public release of the reports, Shedd said during a Capitol Hill briefing: “It affects the quality of what’s written.”