Q&A: Rep. Silvestre Reyes
Intelligence Ally
Providing the Intelligence Community with Tools and Support
Rep. Silvestre Reyes
Chairman
House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence
Representative Silvestre Reyes, now in his sixth term, became the first Hispanic to represent the 16th District of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996.
After serving his country in Vietnam, Reyes decided to devote his life to public service. In 1969, he began his career with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in the U.S. Border Patrol. After serving as an agent, immigration inspector and instructor at the Border Patrol Academy, he was named assistant regional commissioner in Dallas, Texas, for five years, where he had direct responsibility for administering a budget program exceeding $100 million for a 13-state area.
Reyes was then promoted to sector chief of the U.S. Border Patrol from 1984 to 1995, first in McAllen, Texas, and subsequently in El Paso. Reyes quickly became known as one of our government’s strongest and most effective innovators in border management. In McAllen and El Paso, Reyes initiated forward-thinking programs such as “Operation Hold the Line,” the Border Patrol’s Canine Program, and the Border Patrol’s National Anti-Drug School Education Program. “Hold the Line” continues as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (formerly the INS) strategy for the entire Southwest border and earned Reyes recognition from the White House, Congress, the Department of Justice and the INS, as well as numerous local, state, national and international organizations.
Reyes retired in December 1995 after more than 26 years with the Border Patrol to run for Congress.
In December 2006, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi selected Reyes to be chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, a committee on which Reyes has served since 2001. The committee drafts the laws that govern, authorizes the funding for, and provides congressional oversight of the 16 agencies that comprise the U.S. intelligence community, which includes components of the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, State and Energy.
Members of the House and Senate consistently seek out Reyes’ opinion when developing border security and immigration legislation. He has played a leadership role throughout his tenure in the developing the annual U.S.-Mexico Border Issues Conference in Washington, D.C., as well as the annual Border Security Conference at the University of Texas at El Paso, which explores policy and technological initiatives to keep our community, our nation and our economy safe.
Reyes is also a member of the House Armed Services Committee, where he sits on the Strategic Forces, Readiness, and Air and Land Forces subcommittees. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, Reyes has traveled numerous times to meet with soldiers serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom and around the world. Reyes has also traveled with the Armed Services Committee to North Korea to meet with high-ranking North Korean officials to encourage the abandonment of their nuclear weapons programs, and to Libya to inspect progress following Libyan leader Gaddafi’s pledge to rid his country of weapons of mass destruction.
Reyes is a past chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. He founded the House Diversity and Innovation Caucus and co-founded the Congressional USO Caucus, and serves on a variety of other caucuses and coalitions. In addition, he is a member of the U.S.-Mexico Interparliamentary Group.
Reyes holds an associate’s degree in criminal justice from El Paso Community College, and attended the University of Texas at Austin and El Paso.
Q: What do you see as your primary role as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee?
A: My primary role as chairman is to safeguard our nation against the threat of terrorism and provide the men and women of the U.S. intelligence community with the tools and support they need to do their job.
Q: What are your chief goals as chairman for the remainder of this Congress?
A: My chief goals are to:
• Support our intelligence professionals and military personnel serving in harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Modernize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) law to safeguard our nation and protect the civil liberties of Americans.
• Increase oversight of the Bush administration’s detention policies and practices.
• Continue work with the Director of National Intelligence to monitor the effectiveness and usefulness of the December 2004 intelligence reforms.
• Implement policies and programs to increase the diversity of the men and women in the intelligence community.
• Increase the committee’s focus beyond the Middle East to areas such as Latin America, Africa and Asia.
Q: As a former Border Patrol agent and prominent advocate of border security, what issues in this area are you currently focusing on?
A: We must ensure that we are providing all those who work to safeguard our nation’s borders, the Border Patrol agents who monitor the space between our ports of entry as well as the Customs and Border Protection officers who work at our ports, with the appropriate funding, technology and support. Wait times to enter the country through our land ports has been increasing, which is harming our economy and quality of life in the border region. We must be able to strike that balance between securing our nation and respecting our way of life.
Q: What role do you see intelligence technology, and specifically geospatial intelligence technology, playing in improved border security?
A: Similar to the way in which the military uses its technology to improve U.S. situational awareness in Iraq and Afghanistan, technologies that gather intelligence can play an important role in improved border security. New geospatial intelligence capabilities can provide a better understanding of the border’s terrain and spatial layout so that improvements can be made in physical security to reduce illegal border crossings. Leveraging technologies created for the intelligence community offers the potential to integrate new sources of data not currently being used for border security to help solve border challenges.
Q: More broadly, what current or future developments in geospatial intelligence technology do you see as most important in improving national and homeland security?
A: New geospatial intelligence capabilities include systems of manned and unmanned aerial assets with new detection technology that can not only provide new data, but also support the dissemination of this data more efficiently to Border Patrol agents. These new technical collectors, coupled with the ability to provide the data more quickly to support national and homeland security needs, offer distinct improvements to the current methods used by Border Patrol agents today.
Q: You and others expressed concern a few years ago when the leadership of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) was made separate from the Air Force. Do you think this new arrangement is providing for adequate collaboration between the military and NRO?
A: The reason the dual-hatted nature of the position was eliminated related to the significant amount of time the NRO director spent on Department of Defense needs. While the position is no longer dualhatted, the current director still coordinates with DoD. The NRO continues to make the relationship with the Air Force a high priority. Appointing a two-star Air Force general as the deputy director speaks to this. Arrangements such as these, coupled with greater collaboration between the military and the intelligence community, have the potential to achieve many of the same goals as having a single individual serve both organizations simultaneously.
Q: As a member of the Armed Services Committee as well as Intelligence, are you satisfied with the current level of cooperation and information sharing between the military and intelligence community?
A: There’s always room for improvement, but I have the honor of working with my good friend and colleague Ike Skelton, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and I know how closely our committees work together to safeguard our nation and empower our military and intelligence professionals.
Q: Is technology or culture more important in addressing the issue of information stovepipes within the military and intelligence community?
A: There are some technology obstacles that must be overcome to address information stovepipes, for example handling multi-level security and sharing large quantities of data rapidly, but much of the challenge is cultural and/or policy related. Moving from a “need to know” to a “responsibility to share” environment will take some commitment from all sides. Technology can be developed and policy and culture can be changed. What we have in common is the desire to protect our nation; ultimately this motivation will enable the military and intelligence community to move beyond the stovepipes.
Q: You have been vocal on the need for greater diversity in the intelligence community. Why is this important, and how can it be increased?
A: Diversity is important because our nation was caught flat-footed on 9/11. The ability of U.S. intelligence personnel to understand the customs and speak the languages of critical countries and groups is of extreme importance to our national security in the post 9/11 world.
Since first appointed to the House Intelligence Committee in the spring of 2001, I have consistently noted the lack of diversity among the men and women of the U.S. intelligence community—a dangerous shortcoming in today’s world of diffuse threats. In the fiscal year 2008 authorization bill, the House Intelligence Committee included a provision requiring the Director of National Intelligence to develop a strategic plan to increase diversity. This will provide Congress with the feedback necessary to gauge the success of the intelligence community’s recruitment and training to increase the number of personnel with these critical skills.
Q: What conclusions have you drawn from the recent congressional debate on FISA, and what prospects do you see for further action on this area in the current Congress?
A: The goal of the House Intelligence Committee is to provide the intelligence community with strong tools to track down terrorists, weapon proliferators and spies, while protecting the civil liberties of Americans and requiring stronger oversight by Congress. The NSA’s warrantless surveillance program that the Bush Administration secretly created after 9/11 and the recent “Protect America Act” went too far. I am proud of the legislation the House Intelligence Committee recently passed—it struck the appropriate balance, and while it has proven difficult, I remain committed to working with the administration to sign a bill into law that protects our nation and our civil liberties.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you. ♦
