Hollings opposes intelligence bill

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Those were the reasons why Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings cast one of the two no votes on an intelligence overhaul bill that cleared the Senate 96-2 Wednesday and is expected to pass the House before the Nov. 2 election.

"He didn't want to rubber stamp legislation for the sake of appearing to do something," the retiring South Carolina Democrat's spokeswoman, Ilene Zeldin, said Thursday.

The other senator to vote no was West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd, who also said the Senate must take the time to study the matter.

The measure incorporates many of the proposals put forth by the independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It would create a national intelligence director and streamline the work of 15 agencies in what is the biggest overhaul in decades of the way intelligence is gathered and managed.

Hollings wanted to create a national intelligence coordinator, or NIC, not a director.

A coordinator would have the more focused responsibility of sifting through intelligence and reporting directly to the president, whereas a director would be overextended by having to do all of that and run a massive bureaucracy, he said on the Senate floor on Sept. 30.

"The NIC will not control personnel and budget decisions. He will not have the power to fire people in other agencies that he disagrees with, or promote only people who share his worldview. He will not be able to manipulate policy direction of intelligence agencies and centers we may create," Hollings argued as he pushed an unsuccessful measure he co-sponsored. "The NIC will coordinate, not meddle in the work itself."