Seshmeister
08-12-2013, 09:33 PM
Wow...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/12/the-man-who-misled-congress-on-spying-will-pick-obamas-intelligence-review-panel/
The man who misled Congress on spying will pick Obama’s intelligence review panel
By Timothy B. Lee, Published: August 12 at 7:59 pm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/files/2013/08/james-clapper.jpg
On Friday, President Barack Obama promised to appoint an “independent group” of “outside experts” to review the government’s surveillance programs.
Today, the president formally ordered the formation of this group, giving us a sense for just how independent the group would be. The announcement doesn’t inspire confidence that the president is interested in truly independent scrutiny of the nation’s surveillance programs.
The panel will be chosen by, and report to, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Clapper famously answered “no sir” when Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked whether the NSA collects information about millions of Americans. Clapper has since conceded that this answer was “clearly erroneous.”
And there are other signs that the group won’t turn out quite the way the president described it on Friday. Friday’s speech talked about the need for input from outside experts with independent points of view. The president made no mention of the need for outsiders or independent viewpoints in his memo to Clapper.
The stated mission of the group has also shifted. On Friday, Obama said the group would examine “how we can maintain the trust of the people, how we can make sure that there absolutely is no abuse.” But today’s memo makes no mention of preventing abuses. Instead, it will examine whether US surveillance activity “optimally protects our national security and advances our foreign policy while appropriately accounting for other policy considerations, such as the risk of unauthorized disclosure and our need to maintain the public trust.”
For students of history, this will be a familiar pattern. In 1975, President Gerald Ford created a commission headed by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller to examine allegations of abuses by American intelligence agencies. But the commission’s close ties to the executive branch prevented it from doing a thorough and vigorous investigation of the intelligence agencies’ activities.
Instead, truly vigorous oversight came from independent committees created by Congress: a Senate Committee headed by Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) and a House committee headed by Rep. Otis Pike (D-N.Y.). The same point is likely to hold today: genuinely independent oversight will only come from Congress, not a commission hand-picked by the nation’s top intelligence official.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/12/the-man-who-misled-congress-on-spying-will-pick-obamas-intelligence-review-panel/
The man who misled Congress on spying will pick Obama’s intelligence review panel
By Timothy B. Lee, Published: August 12 at 7:59 pm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/files/2013/08/james-clapper.jpg
On Friday, President Barack Obama promised to appoint an “independent group” of “outside experts” to review the government’s surveillance programs.
Today, the president formally ordered the formation of this group, giving us a sense for just how independent the group would be. The announcement doesn’t inspire confidence that the president is interested in truly independent scrutiny of the nation’s surveillance programs.
The panel will be chosen by, and report to, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Clapper famously answered “no sir” when Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked whether the NSA collects information about millions of Americans. Clapper has since conceded that this answer was “clearly erroneous.”
And there are other signs that the group won’t turn out quite the way the president described it on Friday. Friday’s speech talked about the need for input from outside experts with independent points of view. The president made no mention of the need for outsiders or independent viewpoints in his memo to Clapper.
The stated mission of the group has also shifted. On Friday, Obama said the group would examine “how we can maintain the trust of the people, how we can make sure that there absolutely is no abuse.” But today’s memo makes no mention of preventing abuses. Instead, it will examine whether US surveillance activity “optimally protects our national security and advances our foreign policy while appropriately accounting for other policy considerations, such as the risk of unauthorized disclosure and our need to maintain the public trust.”
For students of history, this will be a familiar pattern. In 1975, President Gerald Ford created a commission headed by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller to examine allegations of abuses by American intelligence agencies. But the commission’s close ties to the executive branch prevented it from doing a thorough and vigorous investigation of the intelligence agencies’ activities.
Instead, truly vigorous oversight came from independent committees created by Congress: a Senate Committee headed by Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) and a House committee headed by Rep. Otis Pike (D-N.Y.). The same point is likely to hold today: genuinely independent oversight will only come from Congress, not a commission hand-picked by the nation’s top intelligence official.