Misty Follow-On

On December 8, 2004, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV), the then-ranking Democrat and vice chairman on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence critized the program while on the Senate Floor, calling it an "unjustified and stunningly expensive acquisition". Sen. Rockefeller said he would, as a result, oppose the fiscal year 2005 intelligence authorization conference report due to be considered by the Senate later that day. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), also critized the program on the Senate Floor as an "acquisition program which is unnecessary, ineffective, over budget, and too expensive". Sen. Wyden added that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence had "raised concerns about the need and costs of this program for the past 4 years and sought to cancel this program in each of the past 2 years (...) [and] determined that this program should not be funded based on firm policy judgments." In both years, Sen. Rockefeller revealed that the vote of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence had ultimately been 'overruled' by Congressional appropriations committees.

According to Sen. Wyden: "Numerous independent reviews have concluded that the program does not fulfill a major intelligence gap or shortfall, and the original justification for developing this technology has eroded in importance due to the changed practices and capabilities of our adversaries. There are a number of other programs in existence and in development whose capabilities can match those envisioned for this program at far less cost and technological risk. Like almost all other acquisition programs of its size, initial budget estimates have drastically underestimated the true costs of this acquisition and independent cost estimates have shown that this program will exceed its proposed budgets by enormous amounts of money. The Senate Intelligence Committee has also in the past expressed its concern about how this program was to be awarded to the prime contractor."

During a June 19, 2007 conference, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell was quoted as saying that he had terminated a "multibillion-dollar program". The program in question was believed to refer to the Misty successor program.