[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 58 (Wednesday, April 11, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2067-S2068]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            FISCAL YEAR 2018 INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION BILL

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I am putting a hold on the Fiscal Year 2018 
Intelligence Authorization Act, as currently drafted, for two reasons.
  The bill marked up by the Senate Intelligence Committee included 
three amendments I offered, one of which required that the Director of 
National Intelligence, working with the Department of the Treasury, 
produce a report on the threat to the United States from Russian money 
laundering. My first objection to the current version of the bill is 
based on a change to that provision which downgrades responsibility for 
the report and removes the Department of the Treasury. The critical 
importance of this issue to our national security requires the highest 
level responsibility within the intelligence community. It also 
requires the direct involvement of the Department of the Treasury to 
ensure that all the Department's financial intelligence resources, 
including those that fall outside the intelligence community, are 
brought to bear.
  My second objection, as I explained in my minority views to the bill 
in committee, is that it includes a provision stating that it is the 
sense of Congress ``that WikiLeaks and the senior

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leadership of WikiLeaks resemble a non-state hostile intelligence 
service often abetted by state actors and should be treated as such a 
service by the United States.''' My concern with this language does not 
relate to the actions of WikiLeaks, which, as I have stressed in the 
past, was part of a direct attack on our democracy.
  My concern is that the use of the novel phrase ``non-state hostile 
intelligence service''' may have legal, constitutional, and policy 
implications, particularly should it be applied to journalists 
inquiring about secrets. The language in the bill suggesting that the 
U.S. Government has some unstated course of action against ``non-state 
hostile intelligence services''' is equally troubling.
  The damage done by WikiLeaks to the United States is clear, but with 
any new challenge to our country, Congress ought not react in a manner 
that could have negative consequences, unforeseen or not, for our 
constitutional principles. The introduction of vague, undefined new 
categories of enemies constitutes such an ill-considered reaction.

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