United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

The United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is a committee of the United States House of Representatives, currently chaired by Devin Nunes. It is the primary committee in the U.S. House of Representatives charged with the oversight of the United States Intelligence Community, though it does share some jurisdiction with other committees in the House, including the Armed Services Committee for some matters dealing with the Department of Defense and the various branches of the U.S. military.

The committee was preceded by the Select Committee on Intelligence between 1975 and 1977. House Bill 658 established the permanent select committee, which gave it status equal to a standing committee on July 14, 1977.

Oversight

The committee oversees all or part of the following executive branch departments and agencies:

Intelligence Committee

Intelligence Committee may refer to:

House

A house is a building that functions as a home, ranging from simple dwellings such as rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes and the improvised shacks in shantytowns to complex, fixed structures of wood, brick, marble or other materials containing plumbing, ventilation and electrical systems. Most conventional modern houses in Western cultures will contain a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen or cooking area, and a living room. In traditional agriculture-oriented societies, domestic animals such as chickens or larger livestock (like cattle) may share part of the house with humans. The social unit that lives in a house is known as a household. Most commonly, a household is a family unit of some kind, although households may also be other social groups or individuals. The design and structure of the house is also subject to change as a consequence of globalization, urbanization and other social, economic, demographic, and technological reasons. Various other cultural factors also influence the building style and patterns of domestic space.

Intelligence

Intelligence has been defined in many different ways including one's capacity for logic, abstract thought, understanding, self-awareness, communication, learning, emotional knowledge, memory, planning, creativity and problem solving. It can be more generally described as the ability to perceive information, and retain it as knowledge to be applied towards adaptive behaviors within an environment.

Intelligence is most widely studied in humans, but has also been observed in non-human animals and in plants. Artificial intelligence is intelligence in machines. (i.e., software)

Within the discipline of psychology, various approaches to human intelligence have been adopted. The psychometric approach is especially familiar to the general public, as well as being the most researched and by far the most widely used in practical settings.

History of the term

Intelligence derives from the Latin verb intelligere, to comprehend or perceive. A form of this verb, intellectus, became the medieval technical term for understanding, and a translation for the Greek philosophical term nous. This term was however strongly linked to the metaphysical and cosmological theories of teleological scholasticism, including theories of the immortality of the soul, and the concept of the Active Intellect (also known as the Active Intelligence). This entire approach to the study of nature was strongly rejected by the early modern philosophers such as Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and David Hume, all of whom preferred the word "understanding" in their English philosophical works. Hobbes for example, in his Latin De Corpore, used "intellectus intelligit" (translated in the English version as "the understanding understandeth") as a typical example of a logical absurdity. The term "intelligence" has therefore become less common in English language philosophy, but it has later been taken up (with the scholastic theories which it now implies) in more contemporary psychology.

Devin Nunes

Devin Gerald Nunes, OIH, (born October 1, 1973) is the U.S. Representative for California's 22nd congressional district, serving since 2003. He is the twelfth and, at 42 years old, youngest Member of Congress in history to serve as chairman of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Nunes' district, numbered as the 21st from 2003 to 2013, is in the San Joaquin Valley and includes most of western Tulare County and much of eastern Fresno County. He is a member of the Republican Party. Nunes is the author of Restoring the Republic, published by WND Books in September 2010. Time magazine named him one of the "40 under 40" rising stars of American politics — their top forty civic leaders under 40 years old. The former deputy prime minister of Portugal, Paulo Portas, described Nunes as “one of the eight most influential statesmen” in America.

Nunes is a member of two top House committees: Ways and Means, where he was chairman of the Subcommittee on Trade, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, of which he is chairman. He was co-chair of the Brazil Caucus and the U.S.-Mexico Friendship Caucus.