The DNI On The Cyber Attack And Relations With Congress

Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair took some questions at the end of speech he gave to the Chamber of Commerce yesterday. He was asked about the cyberattack that crippled some government computers over the July 4 weekend. Blair said that the intelligence community hadn't figured out who had conducted it but that the investigation is continuing. Since his audience was a political crowd, I guess you can forgive the person who asked Blair about the "CIA secret assassin program" vis-a-vis congressional relations?

DIRECTOR BLAIR: What I'm finding in my six months in the job is that there are a lot of
legacy issues that we have to work our way through, as we establish a new relationship with the Congress, and this is one of several. But I think what's really important is that we are working with the Congress in a new and I think better way. I find that I've been very clear with the Congress that we will lean on the side of telling them about things. The statute says that we will inform Congress fully and currently of significant intelligence actions, and we take a very broad interpretation of that and tell them about - if there's any doubt in our mind, our default position is, let's tell the Congress about this. They're a partner in this. It's going to be better if we all work together. So what I'm really concentrating on, primarily, is making the new relationship going forward. And we'll sort out these legacy issues, but I think that what most people want and what we're really trying to do is build this new relationship as we go forward, that we can work together as partners so we all make this country safer.