[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 19 (Monday, February 28, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 28, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
               THE UNITED STATES HAS A MAJOR SPY PROBLEM

  Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, last week, Senator Boren and myself 
introduced a measure to try to respond to the recent incident that 
revealed that the United States has a major spy problem. I am 
referring, of course, to the revelation that a CIA employee with access 
to highly sensitive information has been on the Soviet payroll or 
Russian payroll for some years now.
  I might say, it strikes many people as somewhat inconsistent for the 
Russian Government to be holding out its right hand for assistance from 
the United States and, at the same time, with its left hand, it is 
picking our pockets.
  Nonetheless, I think we have to point the finger of blame not only at 
Moscow but also at ourselves.
  Four years ago, Senator Boren and myself introduced a measure that 
would have reformed our counterintelligence system and, in my judgment, 
could have prevented the kind of thing that has taken place here with 
Mr. Aldrich Ames. He has now joined a list of a long string of those 
who have betrayed their country.

  In the past, people betrayed their country out of ideological zeal. 
But the days of Philby, Burgess, MacLean, Blount, and the Rosenbergs 
are over. Now our Nation's secrets are sold at the espionage bazaar to 
the most generous buyer.
  More spies have been named during the last 14 years than ever before 
in our history. They have been clerks, analysts, counterespionage 
specialists, cryptanalysts, officers, and enlisted personnel from every 
one of our military services. They are not high-profile, derring-do 
agents of spy fiction fame, but faceless, unglamorous individuals who 
have access to our most important secrets. They are what Tom Allen and 
Norman Polmar call our Merchants of Treason. And we seem to be capable 
of detecting then only when some family member turns them in, they 
surrender or when a Soviet defector discloses their identities.
  John Walker, a Navy radioman, operated a spy ring for 17 years before 
his former wife--no femme fatale out of Robert Ludlum or Len Deighton's 
novels--but a woman who worked for a time at a local shoe factory in 
Maine for $2.65 an hour, turned him in. Without Barbara Walker's phone 
call to the FBI, John Walker would in all probability still be 
jeopardizing the lives of every American so that he could profit.
  I might note parenthetically that Walker equated himself with the 
skullduggery of certain Wall Street traders. He did no more than Ivan 
Boesky--trade a little inside information. What Ames, Walker, 
Whitworth, Howard, Pelton, and others did was strike a Faustian bargain 
of sorts--they traded our lives for cash, undermining our deterrent 
against war, enabling potential adversaries to neutralize the very 
heart of our strength.
  With the fall of the Berlin Wall, it was suggested that this was all 
behind us. The cold war is over we were told. John LeCarre has written 
that the days of George Smiley and Karla are history. It is time to 
face new enemies--drugs, terrorism, poverty, brush fire wars and the 
pollution of our planet.
  Many spies may have indeed come in from the cold, Mr. President, but 
unfortunately many more will bask and flourish in the warm sun of our 
new relationship with Russia and East European nations--not to mention 
some of our closest allies.
  The era of the cloak and dagger may be over, but the cloaks are 
likely to multiply and those who wear them become even more persistent 
in their effort to procure military, industrial, and commercial 
secrets.
  The proposals contained in our bill, S. 1869, will not put an end to 
espionage. They are designed to do three things. Deter U.S. citizens 
from spying. Detect those who are not deterred. Help prosecute those 
who trade our security for their own enrichment.
  Legitimate questions have been raised about rights of privacy. The 
subject is not a trivial one and must always remain sensitive to the 
fact that we do not want to Stalinize our intelligence community in the 
name of national security. Access to our Nation's secrets is a 
privilege--one that must be more carefully granted and more carefully 
guarded. It is our responsibility to seek and strike the appropriate 
balance between guarding the right of privacy against those who would 
betray our Nation. I believe that balance has been struck by this 
legislation, which would:

  Establish uniform requirements for access to sensitive classified 
information and require persons considered for such access to make 
personal financial reports during that period and for 5 years after 
their access is terminated.
  Establish a new criminal offense for possession of espionage devices 
where intent to spy can be proved.
  Establish criminal offenses for selling or transferring top secret 
materials or removing them without authorization.
  Require persons with access to sensitive classified information to 
agree to report any foreign travel that has not been authorized as part 
of their official duties.
  Make some Government employees subject to random polygraph tests.
  Tighten laws barring profit from espionage.
  Expand existing authority to deny retired pay to those convicted of 
espionage in foreign courts.
  Permit the FBI to obtain financial records and consumer reports on 
persons believed to be agents of foreign powers without those persons 
being notified.
  Authorize the Attorney General to pay rewards of up to $1 million for 
information leading to arrests or convictions for espionage or for the 
prevention of espionage.
  Subject physical searches in the United States to the same court 
order procedure that is required for electronic surveillances.
  When Senator Boren and I introduced our bill 4 years ago, it was 
dismissed as perhaps a relic of cold-war thinking. But we believe it is 
even more imperative, now that the so-called cold war is over and that 
the Berlin Wall is down.
  ``Why now?'' we were asked. To which we could only respond: If not 
now, when? After the next Felix Bloch?
  Regrettably, Mr. President, we now know that was not a hypothetical 
question. It is only now that a new spy scandal is upon us that people 
are realizing the need to improve our counterintelligence system.
  Our bill, in essence, would deter those who might consider spying. It 
would help to detect those we fail to deter, and ultimately it would 
help our authorities to prosecute those individuals who betrayed their 
country.
  Let us act swiftly before our collective memory once again fades. For 
if we do not act now, when will we? After the next Aldrich Ames? Mr. 
President, I call this to the attention of my colleagues. I think it is 
an important piece of legislation. We should have passed it 4 years 
ago. It is time that we bring it forward now and pass it.
  I thank my friend for yielding the floor.

                          ____________________