CIA oversight

[George at Orwellian.Org]

Excerpt:

The congressional ire was triggered by the CIA's refusal to participate in
a committee hearing on computer security at the Agency.

"Neither I nor any CIA representative will testify," wrote DCI George J.
Tenet bluntly on July 17.  He noted that House Intelligence Committee
chairman Porter Goss "urged me not to testify."

----

SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
July 19, 2001

**      INTELLIGENCE OVERSIGHT QUESTIONED
**      FBI MANAGEMENT CRITICIZED


INTELLIGENCE OVERSIGHT QUESTIONED

"Is the CIA's refusal to cooperate with Congressional inquiries a threat to
effective oversight of the operations of the Federal Government?"

That rather leading question was the topic of an unusual hearing before two
subcommittees of the House Government Reform Committee yesterday.

The hearing was unusual because the established structures of intelligence
oversight are rarely criticized within Congress itself, and Republican
committee chairmen rarely speak of the CIA with anger and indignation.  But
yesterday they did.

"The CIA is assaulting Congress's constitutional responsibility to oversee
executive branch activities," said subcommittee chairman Rep. Stephen Horn
(R-Calif.)  "The CIA believes it is above that basic principle in our
Constitution.  We do not agree."

"Tell me why I shouldn't be outraged," said Rep. Christopher Shays
(R-Conn.), also a subcommittee chair.  "When faced with persistent
institutionalized [CIA] resistance to legitimate inquiries, we're compelled
to reassert our authority,"

The congressional ire was triggered by the CIA's refusal to participate in
a committee hearing on computer security at the Agency.

"Neither I nor any CIA representative will testify," wrote DCI George J.
Tenet bluntly on July 17.  He noted that House Intelligence Committee
chairman Porter Goss "urged me not to testify."  See Tenet's letter here:

        http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2001/07/tenet.html

This prompted a fascinating discussion at yesterday's hearing of the
respective oversight roles of the House Intelligence Committee and the
House Government Reform Committee;  the adequacy of the House Intelligence
Committee's performance;  the definition of intelligence "sources and
methods" (which, by House rule, are the exclusive purview of the
Intelligence Committee);  the need to limit oversight of sensitive
intelligence matters;  the role of the General Accounting Office in
intelligence oversight; and other fundamental issues.

The questions were generally better than the answers.  Some of the
testimony concerning national security classification was incorrect or
misleading.  But the official anger at the CIA was palpable, and may yet
have policy consequences for the Agency.

The witness statements from the hearing are posted here:

        http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2001_hr/index.html#oversight

"It is important to curtail growing GAO initiatives to investigate
intelligence activities," according to a 1994 CIA memorandum on CIA policy
toward the General Accounting Office that was released yesterday.  The
memo, authored by Stanley M. Moskowitz (who went on to fame if not fortune
as CIA station chief in Tel Aviv), is posted here:

        http://www.fas.org/irp/gao/ciapolicy.html