I'm beginning to think that Snowden's disclosures provided more than just heinous evidence of the tentacled overreach of the NSA's sweeping surveillance programs. As much of a service to this country Snowden's disclosures were, He may have also presented us with an opportunity to take a closer look at the daily machinations carried out in secrecy by the congressional committees in charge of overseeing the NSA and other intelligence agencies.
Breaking through the wall of secrecy surrounding the committees in charge of overseeing America's massive intelligence apparatus has always been a frustrating if not maddening endeavor. A general exercise in futility. Many journalists have tried. Few if any succeeded. Talking Points Memo recently found out firsthand just how herculean a task it is to penetrate the wall. Every step along the way was blocked. And when when journalists asked for clarity of information deemed necessary to evaluate the committees' performance, many times that information suddenly became classified or otherwise "unavailable." Requests for interviews with current or former members and their staff routinely went unanswered.
So keeping with that shadowy tradition, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has blocked its former general counsel, Vicki Divoll, from speaking to Talking Points Memo (TPM) on the record about how the Committee functions.
“TPM was reporting a story based on interviews with members of Congress and current and former aides about the successes and pitfalls of intelligence oversight on Capitol Hill,” wrote Brian Beutler of TPM DC.
“The goal was to answer some basic questions for readers: How does a classified process differ from public oversight? What challenges do the combination of government secrecy, classified briefings, and strict committee protocols present to legislators trying to control the nation’s sprawling intelligence apparatus?”
You'd think those would be reasonable questions... in a "democracy."
Secrecy News (FAS Project on Government Secrecy) documented TPM's journalistic travails:
A Committee spokesman told TPM that this kind of information was “committee sensitive” and that therefore Ms. Divoll’s remarks on the subject should not be made public. See “Senate Intel Committee Blocks Former Staffer From Talking To Press About Oversight Process,” June 18.
In an earlier era — twenty years ago — it was still possible for a staff member of the Senate Intelligence Committee to speak candidly in public about the strengths and weaknesses of intelligence oversight.
Mary K. Sturtevant, a former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer wrote back in 1992 that the intelligence oversight process is constrained by size, time, personnel and secrecy.
“Because of the classified nature of the programs we review, we are especially reliant on information provided by the very Community we hope to oversee,” she wrote. “We lack alternative sources of information and points of view on intelligence budget requests, as there are few constituents with legitimate access to intelligence programs who wish to bring information forward to the Committees.”
“The fact that these programs are highly classified imposes an extra burden on already busy Senators because they must, as a practical matter, either come to the Committee staff or hearing spaces to review classified information, or read it in their offices in the presence of one of the Committee’s security staff. They might also be orally briefed in their offices or during Committee hearings by their designees or other Committee staff, but frequently this is on the fly and without benefit of note-taking.”
“Also, the arcane, often technical subject matter keeps all but the most persistent senators from delving into the details of intelligence programs where I am reliably told the devil resides. The net result of this situation is that this handful of Congressional budget staff end up providing most of the detailed recommendations — to eliminate, cut, increase, or even create programs — that are decided by Committee Members during mark-up of the Intelligence Authorization bill.”
“Although we occasionally hear the charge of ‘micromanagement,’ we always shake our heads in wonder that this could be so. In toto, we are perhaps one dozen or so full-time budget staff supporting the Intelligence Authorization and Appropriations Committees of both the House and the Senate reviewing activities conducted by tens of thousands of civilian and military personnel and programs valued in the multiple billions of dollars.”
“For better or for worse, the way budgets are put together and presented to Congress places the small number of new and on-going initiatives — those ideas most likely to reflect needed changes in direction — under the microscope of Congressional attention, while the great majority of continuing, or ‘base,’ programs, go unscrutinized.”
Did anyone else just experience the tiniest of heart palpitations when they read that last sentence? An absolutely stunning statement.
Anyway, I guess the more general point here is that it should be no surprise to anyone that members of Congress are not usually well-briefed on issues before they vote for them. A much as I loath conceding any justifications to members of Congress for inaction or mis-action, I kinda see what they're up against now.
See “Congressional Oversight of Intelligence: One Perspective,” American Intelligence Journal, Summer 1992 (posted with permission of the publisher) for Ms. Sturtevant's frank acknowledgment of institutional difficulties in both intelligence appropriations and oversight in general, compounded by today's bigger budgets and advanced technical aspects to appropriation spending.
And if all that isn't enough to make congressional oversight problematic, committee staffers almost exclusively come from the intelligence community itself, presenting potential conflicts of interest in the professional staff's basic operation. This sets up a classic dichotomy.
On one hand, this is perfectly understandable since such former intelligence employees bring much-needed subject matter expertise to the task of oversight, along with an existing security clearance. On the other hand, they may also possess a narrow, compliant perspective and a set of personal interests that limit their effectiveness, particularly if they ever hope to return to the ranks of their former employers. Meanwhile, it is hard to think of an intelligence committee staff member who joined the committee following a career devoted to civil liberties, government accountability or personal privacy.
To illustrate this point, a 2006 report from the Center for American Progress said Congress had failed in its fundamental duty to perform effective oversight of intelligence, and that the oversight function needed to be fixed.
See “No Mere Oversight: Congressional Oversight of Intelligence is Broken” by Denis McDonough, Mara Rudman and Peter Rundlet, June 13, 2006.
And yeah, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough helped write that report.
You know, it's almost funny. As chief of White House staff, I sure hope McDonough is good at delegating intermediaries where working with Congress is concerned. Somehow, I can't imagine congressional committee chairman -- especially in the House -- being anxious to work with someone who refers to them as being dysfunctional.
We are governed by a bloated unmanageable bureaucracy rife with conflicts of interest, special interests, and no interests at all. I can't believe we pay for this dysfunctional leviathan. We the People are its benefactors. Not its beneficiaries.