Upon taking office in 1977, President Jimmy Carter's administration with input from Congress immediately began to revise EO 11905 that was signed late in the previous year. Pressure and the need for reform of the U.S. Intelligence Community still existed from the Church and Pike Committees. EO 12036 would be signed barely a year after Carter took office on January 24, 1978.[1][2] The EO was hailed by Senator Walter D. Huddleston and Jimmy Carter as having the most input from the President and Congress amongst EOs up until that day. Carter also intended the EO to be temporary until new intelligence reform legislation could be put into law.[2] EO 12036 would be superseded by new legislation in the future.
The EO replaced Gerald Ford's (EO 11905) Operations Advisory Group and replaced it with the Special Coordination Committee which was much like the Policy Review Committee. The EO also imposed a lengthy list of restrictions on the U.S. Intelligence Community to ensure "full compliance with the laws of the United States." One of the main restrictions was that no intelligence operation would be undertaken against a U.S. citizen "unless the President has authorized the type of activity involved and the Attorney General has both approved the particular activity and determined that there is probable cause to believe that the United States person is an agent of a foreign power." This included banning any Central Intelligence Agency electronic surveillance in the U.S. and leaving the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the only intelligence community member allowed to conduct physical searches within the U.S.[1][2]
The EO also created the National Foreign Intelligence Board (NFIB) in order to assist the DCI with "Production, review, and coordination of national foreign intelligence." The NFIB was chaired by the DCI and included representatives from every agency in the intelligence community. The DCI and agency heads were also expected to keep various congressional committees up to date with intelligence community activity.[1][2]
The order expanded the ban on assassination in Ford's order to cover all assassination, whether or not "political."[1][2] This ban on assassination would be restated in Executive Order 12333.[3]
