Richard Durbin on Homeland Security Democratic Sr Senator (IL)

Became unofficial ombudsman for wounded warriors

$48M to protect US Embassies around the world

DURBIN: No, it's a big deal. Vice President Biden gave us a classified briefing this last week. They identified more than 25 of our embassies around the world that are particularly vulnerable. In the Defense Appropriations bill, which we wrote and sent to committee this week, I included $48 million specifically to upgrade in 35 embassies around the world the security that we need. We need to protect the people who are out there representing us, we need to know and realize we're living in an increasingly-dangerous world. And this specific threat that we've been briefed on over and over again has reached a new level.

Benghazi was a tragedy, but not a cover-up

DURBIN: The bottom line is this--this was a tragedy. We lost four Americans. We want to find those responsible and hold them responsible and we want to make sure that the security in embassies and consulates in the future, is going to be the very best. But unfortunately, this has been caught up in the 2016 presidential campaign--this effort to go after Hillary Clinton.

Q: There were 12 revisions of the government's version of what happened that night. The first version said that there were elements of al Qaeda involved in this, as an attack. Then at the end, the talking points said, "there are indications that extremists participated in violent demonstrations"--a totally different take on things. Why?

DURBIN: The Obama administration provided 25,000 pages of email. There's no attempt to cover it up. This was a squabble between two agencies, the CIA & the State Department, about the wording. [The idea of a cover-up] is unsubstantiated, and yet, the witch hunt continues.

Veterans angry over accusations that Guantanamo like gulag

Durbin said Monday night that he was among the first senators to call attention to treatment at Guantanamo, though he wound up apologizing for "some words" he used. "They weren't used in reference to any soldiers, doctor," Durbin said to Sauerberg. "They were in reference to whoever was involved in what the FBI agents found at Guantanamo."

Our actions at Guantanamo were like Soviet gulags

$15 billion investment for homeland security

Apologizes for comparing Guantanamo to Nazis & Soviet gulags

"I'm not sure what Sen. Durbin thought he was doing here," he said. "I don't know if he hates his country. I know they were terrible remarks that have hurt the people of this nation."

"I think he's resorting to personal, hateful personal attacks," a Durbin spokesman said. "I don't think that's what people are looking for."

Establish Maritime Security grants for ports and vessels.

Directs the Secretary of Transportation to:
• identify vessel types and U.S. port facilities that pose a high risk of being involved in a transportation security incident
• assess vulnerability of U.S. port facilities and vessels that may be involved in a transportation security incident.
• Requires owners or operators of vessels or facilities to prepare a vessel or facility security plan for deterring a transportation security incident to the maximum extent practicable.
• Requires such plans to be consistent with the National Maritime Transportation Security Plan.
• Requires transportation security cards for entry into a secured area of a vessel or facility.
• Directs the Secretary of Transportation to establish maritime safety and security teams to protect vessels, harbors, ports, facilities, and cargo in U.S. waters.
• Establishes a grant program for port authorities, facility operators, and State and local agencies required to provide security services.
• Directs the Secretary of Transportation to assess the effectiveness of antiterrorism measures maintained at specified foreign ports and make recommendations for improvements for foreign ports that do not maintain effective antiterrorism measures

Federalize aviation security.

Establishes the Transportation Security Administration, including:
• civil aviation security, and related research and development activities;
• day-to-day Federal security screening operations for passenger air transportation and intrastate air transportation;
• policies, strategies, and plans for dealing with threats to transportation;
• domestic transportation during a national emergency, including aviation, rail, and other surface transportation
• management of security information, including notifying airport or airline security officers of the identity of individuals known to pose a risk of air piracy or terrorism or a threat to airline or passenger safety.

Rated 100% by SANE, indicating a pro-peace voting record.

Peace Action, the merger of The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) and The Freeze, has effectively mobilized for peace and disarmament for over forty years. As the nation`s largest grassroots peace group we get results: from the 1963 treaty to ban above ground nuclear testing, to the 1996 signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, from ending the war in Vietnam, to blocking weapons sales to human rights abusing countries. We are proof that ordinary people can change the world. At Peace Action we believe...

• That every person has the right to live without the threat of nuclear weapons.
• That war is not a suitable response to conflict.
• That America has the resources to both protect and provide for its citizens.

The ratings are based on the votes the organization considered most important; the numbers reflect the percentage of time the representative voted the organization`s preferred position.

Hiding sources made post-9-11 analysis impossible.

CONCLUSIONS - TERRORISM
• Conclusion 8. Intelligence Community analysts lack a consistent post-September 11 approach to analyzing and reporting on terrorist threats.
• Conclusion 9. Source protection policies within the Intelligence Community direct or encourage reports officers to exclude relevant detail about the nature of their sources. As a result, analysts community-wide are unable to make fully informed judgments about the information they receive, relying instead on nonspecific source lines to reach their assessments. Moreover, relevant operational data is nearly always withheld from analysts, putting them at a further analytical disadvantage.
• Conclusion 10. The Intelligence Community relies too heavily on foreign government services and third party reporting, thereby increasing the potential for manipulation of U.S. policy by foreign interests.
• Conclusion 11. Several of the allegations of pressure on Intelligence Community (IC) analysts involved repeated questioning. The Committee believes that IC analysts should expect difficult and repeated questions regarding threat information. Just as the post 9/11 environment lowered the Intelligence Community`s reporting threshold, it has also affected the intensity with which policymakers will review and question threat information.

CIA depends too heavily on defectors & not enough on HUMINT.

WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION (WMD) COLLECTION CONCLUSIONS
• Conclusion 77. The Intelligence Community relied too heavily on United Nations (UN) BLACKED OUT information about Iraq`s programs and did not develop a sufficient unilateral collection effort targeting Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction programs and related activities to supplement UN-collected information and to take its place upon the departure of the UN inspectors.
• Conclusion 78. The Intelligence Community depended too heavily on defectors and foreign government services to obtain human intelligence (HUMINT) information on Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction activities. Because the Intelligence Community did not have direct access to many of these sources, it was exceedingly difficult to determine source credibility.
• Conclusion 79. The Intelligence Community waited too long after inspectors departed Iraq to increase collection against Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction programs.
• Conclusion 80. Even after the departure of United Nations (UN) inspectors, placement of human intelligence (HUMINT) agents and development of unilateral sources inside Iraq were not top priorities for the Intelligence Community.
• Conclusion 81. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) continues to excessively compartment sensitive human intelligence (HUMINT) reporting and fails to share important information about HUMINT reporting and sources with Intelligence Community analysts who have a need to know.
• Conclusion 82. BLACKED OUT. The lack of in-country human intelligence (HUMINT) collection assets contributed to this collection gap.

Administration did not pressure CIA on WMD conclusions.

PRESSURE CONCLUSIONS
• Conclusion 83. The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction capabilities.
• Conclusion 84. The Committee found no evidence that the Vice President`s visits to the Central Intelligence Agency were attempts to pressure analysts, were perceived as intended to pressure analysts by those who participated in the briefings on Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction programs, or did pressure analysts to change their assessments.
• Conclusion 102. The Committee found that none of the analysts or other people interviewed by the Committee said that they were pressured to change their conclusions related to Iraq`s links to terrorism. After 9/11, however, analysts were under tremendous pressure to make correct assessments, to avoid missing a credible threat, and to avoid an intelligence failure on the scale of 9/11. As a result, the Intelligence Community`s assessments were bold and assertive in pointing out potential terrorist links. For instance, the June 2002 Central Intelligence Agency assessment Iraq and al-Qaida: Interpreting a Murky Relationship was, according to its Scope Note, `purposefully aggressive` in drawing connections between Iraq and al-Qaida in an effort to inform policymakers of the potential that such a relationship existed. All of the participants in the August 2002 coordination meeting on the September 2002 version of Iraqi Support/or Terrorism interviewed by the Committee agreed that while some changes were made to the paper as a result of the participation of two Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy staffers, their presence did not result in changes to their analytical judgments.

Repeal Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell, and reinstate discharged gays.

Repeals current Department of Defense policy [popularly known as `Don`t-Ask-Don`t-Tell`] concerning homosexuality in the Armed Forces. Prohibits the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Homeland Security with respect to the Coast Guard, from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation against any member of the Armed Forces or any person seeking to become a member. Authorizes the re-accession into the Armed Forces of otherwise qualified individuals previously separated for homosexuality, bisexuality, or homosexual conduct.

Nothing in this Act shall be construed to require the furnishing of dependent benefits in violation of section 7 of title 1, United States Code (relating to the definitions of `marriage` and `spouse` and referred to as the `Defense of Marriage Act`).

Restrict domestic monitoring of phone calls.

The Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Effective Discipline Over Monitoring Act of 2014 or the USA FREEDOM Act: Congressional Summary: