Benjamin Franklin once wrote: "Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead." While Franklin may have overstated the case, it is certainly true that the more people who know a secret, the greater the chances that someone will spill the beans, either inadvertently or intentionally.
Democratic governments are, for the most part, open governments. Few are more open than that of the United States. Capitol Hill is overrun with politically motivated, talkative people; and many of them have access to secret information vital to the security of the country.
Despite the fact that intelligence activities (both defense- and foreign policy related) are primarily the responsibility of the executive branch of government, Congress fits into the intelligence picture in several important ways.
First, as the legislative branch of government, Congress is in a position to establish and amend the legal framework within which intelligence must operate, and to control the purse strings.
Second, various intelligence-related committees on Capitol Hill have the power to initiate and carry out investigations into the activities of the American intelligence community.
Since intelligence activities can overlap into many areas of governmental operations, a number of committees-especially Foreign Affairs, Appropriations, Armed Services, and Judiciary-may occasionally deal with related matters. No committees are as deeply involved in this field, however, as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Established during the latter part of the last decade, these were designed to deal with the problems related to congressional overseeing of intelligence. The idea is both to limit the number of people with access to sensitive information that Congress needs to examine and to enforce strict security measures. The two committees' functions include monitoring U.S. intelligence operations, considering its budgetary requests, and making recommendations to Congress. The membership of each committee is to include representation from the four above-mentioned committees of each house. For example, the Senate Intelligence Committee has to draw two members from the Foreign Relations Committee, two from Appropriations, two from Judiciary, and two from Armed Services, among its 15 members.
The intelligence committees are quite unique. As a rule, they meet behind closed doors. Each staff member has a Top Secret security clearance. Those who need them have higher, "Code Word" clearances. The maximum term on the committees is eight years in the Senate, six years in the House; but the house leaders, who make the appointments, have the option of assigning shorter terms of membership. Of course, membership can also be cut short by a failure to win re-election. Since virtually everything these committees do is secret, the members cannot brag about their work on intelligence; so that certainly limits the political advantage of being a member. On the other hand, membership, in and of itself, does carry a fair amount of prestige.
Within the intelligence committees themselves, the control of sensitive information is said to
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