Sen. Richard Burr, the new Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, appears to have taken a first step toward promises to open some meetings to the public as he looks to beef up scrutiny of the nation’s top spy agencies.
The North Carolina Republican held his first public hearing on Thursday with a top U.S. counterterrorism official about existing threats to the United States. The meeting is significant because it’s so seldom that intelligence hearings are opened to the public.
Past committee chairs have largely eschewed public hearings aside from consideration of presidential nominations and the annual “worldwide threat hearing.”
Burr plans to hold regular public hearings each quarter that focus on one agency from the intelligence community, according to staff. Burr said the open hearings should give the intelligence community a chance to inform the public of its efforts and challenges.
“I want to make sure that our members and the public understand the serious and credible threat that many of these groups present to the security of the United States and to our allies,” Burr said in his opening statement.
The hour-and-half hearing remained in the unclassified arena. Nicholas Rasmussen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told committee members that more than 20,000 fighters, from more than 90 countries, have traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State – testimony that Rasmussen offered earlier this week in the House of Representatives.
While the majority of foreign fighters are from the Middle East, more than 3,400 come from Western countries, Rasmussen said. More than 150 came from the United States, he said. Some have died fighting.
One of the biggest concerns Rasmussen and other U.S. leaders have is that Western fighters who have traveled to Syria will return to their home countries and seek opportunities to commit other acts of terrorism.
“We face a much greater recurring threat from lone offenders and possibly loose networks of individuals,” Rasmussen said.
Burr’s decision to open up the security hearing to the public took some by surprise. In the past, he’s raised concerns about the risks of disclosing national security secrets.
Joseph Wippl, a former CIA officer in the National Clandestine Service and the agency’s former director of congressional affairs, said he was encouraged by Burr’s decision to give the public a chance to learn more about what the intelligence community is doing on behalf of the American people.
“Not everything should be kept secret,” he said. “I’m against leaks. I’m against gotcha leaks. But sometimes things have to get into the public domain and have to be discussed.”
Comments