SENATE MULLS CHANGES IN INTELLIGENCE OVERSIGHT
The Senate Intelligence Committee has recommended creation of a new
Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Intelligence to prepare the
annual intelligence budget.
"The [proposed] Subcommittee on Intelligence shall appropriate all
funds for the National Intelligence Program (NIP) (as opposed to the
current situation where appropriations for the NIP are fragmented among
several subcommittees within the Appropriations Committee)," according
to the March 6, 2008 proposal sent by fourteen members of the
Intelligence Committee to the Senate Majority Leader.
http://www.gather.com/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2008_cr/ssci030608.pdf
The proposed Subcommittee, on which members of the Intelligence
Committee would be heavily represented, would increase the Committee's
influence and leverage over executive branch intelligence agencies. It
would also probably imply and require continuing disclosure of the
annual budget for the National Intelligence Program.
The proposal was developed in response to recommendations of the 9/11
Commission and 2007 legislation implementing those recommendations. It
has already won significant bipartisan support outside of the
Intelligence Committee.
"The options for additional reform contained in the SSCI's letter
represent a thoughtful response to the 9/11 Commission's
recommendations," wrote Senators Joseph Lieberman and Susan Collins of
the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on
March 13.
http://www.gather.com/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2008_cr/hsgac031308.pdf
But the proposal is opposed by the leadership of the Senate
Appropriations Committee.
"We do not understand how the creation of an Intelligence
[Appropriations] Subcommittee, led by members of the Intelligence
Committee, would do anything but minimize the free exchange of ideas
and hamper the debate which exists in the current system," wrote
Senators Robert Byrd and Thad Cochran, the Chair and Ranking Member of
the Appropriations Committee.
"We strongly believe that consolidating authority over intelligence in
a smaller group of Senators is precisely the wrong way to improve the
Senate's oversight of intelligence," they wrote in an April 5 letter to
the Senate leadership.
http://www.gather.com/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2008_cr/app040508.pdf
It may be argued that the greatest defect in Senate oversight of
intelligence is not a limitation of jurisdiction or budgetary
influence, but of principle and will. Overseers have failed in recent
years to challenge the Administration's implicit view that the ends
justify the means, and they have acquiesced in momentous intelligence
policy deviations, which now apparently include officially-sanctioned
torture (though that word is not used) and extra-legal surveillance of
domestic communications. Americans who are repulsed by such
developments lack effective representation in the Senate oversight
process.
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Comments: 9
This is a typical DC turf battle, plain and simple.
Open Society Institute
"George Soros is founder and chairman of the Open Society Institute and the Soros foundations network. He is also the chairman of Soros Fund Management LLC."
MoveOn.org BS.
I'll give you credit for the clever disguise of left-wing propaganda however.
From Gabriel Shoenfeld Commentary Magazine (Commentary is considered a Right of Center Publication) : "Steve Aftergood, the proprietor of the blog Secrecy News, knows more about secrecy in government than just about anyone else in the United States. He has also thought deeply about the issue. He and I disagree about a great many things, including his contention that the Bush administration has been excessively secretive about what he calls its "shameful" activities in the realm of national security.
But unlike some of his colleagues in the open-government lobby, Aftergood believes that "genuine national security secrets such as confidential sources and legally authorized intelligence methods should be protected from disclosure"...
The FAS Project on Government Secrecy works to promote public access to government information and to illuminate the apparatus of government secrecy, including national security classification and declassification policies. The Project also publishes previously undisclosed or hard-to-find government documents of public policy interest, as well as resources on intelligence policy. You may find out more about the Government Secrecy Project and FAS by visiting www.FAS.org
Mr. FAS (too much of a leftist coward to even put your name to your lame comment);
Mr. Aftergood is a shill for paleoliberal lunatics, like George Soros ... and Kevin S. evidently.
After 9/11 there was an Egyptian who, under threat of being shipped to Egypt for a round of torture, falsely admitted to having a part in 9/11.
Losing Billions of dollars and thousands of small arms in Iraq.
Bush screams terrorists and we are supposed to give him a blank check?
Yeah, they need oversight big time.
And the left are loony for asking for oversight? What do you expect from a bush worshipper?
You must be a lunatic Soros shill, too.