[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 39, Number 51 (Monday, December 22, 2003)]
[Pages 1798-1799]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Statement on Signing the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 
2004

December 13, 2003

    Today, I have signed into law H.R. 2417, the ``Intelligence 
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004.'' The Act authorizes funding for 
United States intelligence activities, including activities in the war 
against terrorists of global reach.
    Section 506A(c) of the National Security Act of 1947, as enacted by 
section 312(b) of the Act, purports to require the President to request 
that the Congress enact laws appropriating funding for a major 
intelligence system procurement in an amount set as a cost estimate by 
an entity subordinate to the President or to explain why the President 
instead requests amounts below those levels. Moreover, beginning with 
the submittal to the Congress of the President's budget for FY 2006, 
section 312(d)(2) of H.R. 2417 purports to condition the obligation or 
expenditure of funds for development or procurement of a major 
intelligence system on the President's compliance with the requirements 
of section 506A. The executive branch shall construe these provisions in 
a manner consistent with the Constitution's commitment to the President 
of exclusive authority to submit for the consideration of the Congress 
such measures as the President judges necessary and expedient and to 
supervise the unitary executive branch, and to withhold information the 
disclosure of which could impair the deliberative processes of the 
Executive or the performance of the Executive's constitutional duties.
    Section 341(b) purports to require the Attorney General and the 
Director of Central Intelligence, acting through particular offices 
subordinate to them respectively, to establish certain policies and 
procedures relating to espionage prosecutions. The executive branch 
shall implement this provision in a manner consistent with the authority 
committed exclusively to the President by the Constitution to faithfully 
execute the laws and to supervise the unitary executive branch. 
Similarly, sections 1102(a) and 1102(c) of the National Security Act, as 
enacted by section 341(a) of the Act, purport to mandate that the 
Director of Central Intelligence use or act through the Office of 
National Counterintelligence Executive to establish and implement an 
inspection process for all agencies and departments of the U.S. 
Government that handle classified information. The executive branch 
shall implement this provision in a manner consistent with the 
President's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive 
branch.
    The executive branch shall construe and implement section 376 of the 
Act, relating to making available classified information to courts, in a 
manner consistent with the President's constitutional authority to 
classify and control access to information bearing on the national 
security and consistent with the statutory authority of the Attorney 
General for the conduct of litigation for the United States.
    Many provisions of the Act, including section 106 and subtitle D of 
title III of the Act, seek to require the executive branch to

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furnish information to the Congress on various subjects. The executive 
branch shall construe the provisions in a manner consistent with the 
President's constitutional authority to withhold information the 
disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, national security, 
the deliberative processes of the Executive, or the performance of the 
Executive's constitutional duties.
    The executive branch shall implement section 319 of the Act in a 
manner consistent with the requirement to afford equal protection of the 
laws under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the 
Constitution.
    Section 502 purports to place restrictions on use of the U.S. Armed 
Forces and other personnel in certain operations. The executive branch 
shall construe the restrictions in section 502 as advisory in nature, so 
that the provisions are consistent with the President's constitutional 
authority as Commander in Chief, including for the conduct of 
intelligence operations, and to supervise the unitary executive branch.
    Section 106 enacts by reference certain requirements set forth in 
the joint explanatory statement of the House-Senate committee of 
conference or in a classified annex. The executive branch continues to 
discourage this practice of enacting secret laws and encourages instead 
appropriate non-binding uses of classified schedules of authorizations, 
classified annexes to committee reports, and joint statements of 
managers that accompany the final legislation.
                                                George W. Bush
The White House,
December 13, 2003.

Note: H.R. 2417, approved December 13, was assigned Public Law No. 108-
177.