By virtue of his constitutional role as commander-in-chief and head of the executive branch, the President has access to all national intelligence collected, analyzed, and produced by the Intelligence Community. Because the intelligence agencies are part of the executive branch, the President's position affords him the authority—which, at certain times, has been asserted —to restrict the flow of intelligence information to Congress and its two intelligence committees, which are charged with providing legislative oversight of the Intelligence Community. The issue of restricting the flow of intelligence information to Congress, a perennial point of conflict between the legislative and executive branches, has most recently resurfaced in the wake of the Fort Hood Army base shootings in November 2009, the subsequent Christmas Day airline bombing plot, and the Afghanistan suicide bombing that killed seven Central Intelligence Agency employees later that year. Together, these incidents underscored the degree of sensitivity with which Congress views the executive branch's statutory obligation to keep the legislative branch fully and currently informed of all intelligence activities. While some Members of Congress reportedly voiced satisfaction with executive branch efforts to keep them informed about some of these attacks, other Members have generally criticized the White House's notification efforts, particularly with regard to the Fort Hood shootings are concerned. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Reyes reportedly said that he has been "very satisfied" with the Administration's response with regard to information sharing pertaining to the Christmas Day airline bombing attempt. Representative Peter Hoekstra, however, reportedly asserted that the White House has done a poor job of keeping Congress informed of national security issues, generally, and criticized the White House for continuing to "put up roadblocks and hurdles to prevent us form getting information or answers to even basic questions." As a result of its control over intelligence, the executive branch, including the President, the vice president and a small number of presidentially-designated Cabinet-level officials —in contrast to Members of Congress —arguably have access to a greater overall volume of intelligence and to more sensitive intelligence information, including information regarding intelligence sources and methods. Top Administration officials, unlike Members of Congress, also have the authority to more extensively task the Intelligence Community, and its extensive cadre of analysts, for follow-up information. As a result, some contend, the President and his most senior advisors are better positioned to assess accurately the quality of the Intelligence Community's intelligence than is Congress. In addition to their greater access to intelligence, the President and his senior advisors also are arguably better equipped than is Congress to assess intelligence information by virtue of the primacy of their roles in formulating U.S. foreign policy. Their foreign policy responsibilities often require active, sustained, and often personal interaction, with senior officials of many of the same countries targeted for intelligence collection by the Intelligence Community. Thus the President and his senior advisors, some contend, are better positioned to glean additional information and impressions—information that, like certain sensitive intelligence information, is generally unavailable to Congress—that can provide them with additional perspective with which to judge the quality of intelligence. The President is able to control dissemination of intelligence information to Congress because the Intelligence Community is part of the executive branch. The Intelligence Community was created by law and executive order to principally serve the government's executive branch in the execution of its responsibilities. Thus, as the head of the executive branch, the President generally is acknowledged to be "the owner" of national intelligence. The President's otherwise exclusive control over national intelligence, however, is tempered by a statutory obligation to keep Congress, through its two congressional intelligence committees, "fully and currently informed of all intelligence activities." Current law also prevents the executive branch from withholding intelligence information from the committees on the grounds that providing such information would constitute the unauthorized disclosure of classified information, or information relating to intelligence sources and methods. In 2004, Congress further strengthened its access claims to national intelligence when it approved intelligence reform legislation explicitly directing that the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) provide the legislative branch access to national intelligence. Under previous statute, the head of the Intelligence Community was legally required to provide the legislative branch national intelligence, but only "where appropriate." Congress never defined, either in statute, report language, or during debate, what it considered to be "appropriate," essentially ceding to the executive branch the freedom to adopt its own interpretation of congressional intent in this regard. Despite the unqualified directive adopted in 2004, however, its impact on the Intelligence Community, as is so often the case, turns on how aggressively Congress chooses to assert its statutory prerogative. Despite certain conflicting legal authorities governing congressional access to national intelligence, the U.S. Judicial Branch has not had to address the issue, since no case involving an executive-legislative branch dispute over access to intelligence has reached the U.S. courts. Absent a court ruling more clearly defining executive and legislative branch authorities in this area, which most observers view as unlikely, the executive branch has contended that it is under no legal obligation to provide Congress access to all national intelligence. By contrast, Congress, through its congressional intelligence oversight committees, has asserted in principle a legal authority for unrestricted access to intelligence information. The Committees, historically, have interpreted the law as allowing room to decide how , rather than whether , they will have access to intelligence information, provided that such access is consistent with the protection of sources and methods. In practice, however, Congress has not sought all national intelligence information. Unless the intelligence committees have asserted a compelling need, the committees generally have not routinely sought access to certain sensitive intelligence information, such as intelligence sources and methods. When the committees have cited a compelling need for such access, Members generally have reached an accommodation with the executive branch, but not always. Perhaps, in part, because of these differing legal views, the executive and legislative branches apparently have not agreed to a set of formal written rules that would govern the sharing and handling of national intelligence. Rather, according to one observer, writing in a 1997 monograph: The current system is entirely the product of experience, shaped by the needs and concerns of both branches over the last 20 years. While some aspects of current practice appear to have achieved the status of mutually accepted "policy," few represent hard-and-fast rules. "Policy" will give way when it has to. In 2001, and again in 2002, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) directed that the Director of Central Intelligence prepare a comprehensive report that would examine the role of Congress as a consumer of intelligence, and explore the development of mechanisms that would provide Members tailored intelligence products in support of their policymaking responsibilities. CRS is unaware whether the Director produced such a report. Subsequently, both intelligence committees attempted to ensure that the full membership of each committee were kept fully and currently informed of that intelligence viewed by executive branch as being the most sensitive. In the fiscal year (FY) 2006 intelligence authorization bill ( S. 1803 ), the SSCI included language requiring that the Intelligence Community, upon the request of either the chairman or ranking Member of either of the congressional intelligence committees, provide "any intelligence assessment, report, estimate, legal opinion, or other intelligence information," within 15 days of the request being made, unless the President certifies that the document or information is not being provided because the President is asserting "a privilege pursuant to the Constitution of the United States." Subsequently, both intelligence committees have attempted to address so-called Gang of Eight notifications, which are notifications of especially sensitive covert actions that by statute can be limited to the chairmen and ranking minority members of the two congressional intelligence committees, the Speaker and minority leader of the House, and Senate majority and minority leaders if the President determines that doing so is essential in order to protect vital U.S. interests. In its version of the FY2010 Intelligence Authorization bill, the House Intelligence Committee replaced the current Gang of Eight statutory provision, by adopting a statutory requirement that each of the intelligence committees establish written procedures as may be necessary to govern such notifications. The Senate Intelligence Committee, in its version of the FY2010 Intelligence Authorization bill, left the Gang of Eight statutory structure unchanged, adopting instead, language requiring that the full membership of the intelligence committees be informed of all covert actions and that all members of the two intelligence committees be notified when the executive branch notified the Gang of Eight of any covert action activities. The enacted version of the legislation, P.L. 111-259 , provided that in cases where findings or notifications are not made available to all members of the intelligence committees, within 180 days the President shall notify all committee members that notification has been provided only to the Gang of Eight, and provide all intelligence members a general description of the activity planned. The executive branch generally does not routinely provide with Congress four general types of intelligence information: 1. the identities of intelligence sources; 2. the "methods" employed by the Intelligence Community in collecting and analyzing intelligence; 3. "raw" intelligence, which can be unevaluated or "lightly" evaluated intelligence, which in the case of human intelligence, sometimes is provided by a single source, but which also could consist of intelligence derived from multiple sources when signals and imagery collection methods are employed; and 4. certain written intelligence products tailored to the specific needs of the President and other high-level executive branch policymakers. Included is the President's Daily Brief (PDB), a written intelligence product which is briefed daily to the President, and which consists of six to eight relatively short articles or briefs covering a broad array of topics. The PDB emphasizes current intelligence and is viewed as highly sensitive, in part, because it can contain intelligence source and operational information. Its dissemination is thus limited to the President and a small number of presidentially-designated senior Administration policymakers. In not providing Congress routine access to source identities, executive branch officials cite the need to protect against "leaks" or unauthorized disclosures of information that the Intelligence Community generally considers to be its most sensitive. The argument is made that as more individuals are briefed about sources, the greater is the risk that this information will be disclosed, inadvertently or otherwise.