Slashdot Mirror
Church Committee Members Say New Group Needed To Watch NSA
Trailrunner7 writes "In a letter sent to President Obama and members of Congress, former members and staff of the Church Committee on Intelligence said that the revelations of the NSA activities have caused 'a crisis of public confidence' and encouraged the formation of a new committee to undertake 'significant and public reexamination of intelligence community practices.' In the letter sent Monday to Obama and Congress, several former advisers to and members of the Church committee, including the former chief counsel, said that the current situation involving the NSA bears striking resemblances to the one in 1975 and that the scope of what the NSA is doing today is orders of magnitude larger than what was happening nearly 40 years ago.
'The need for another thorough, independent, and public congressional investigation of intelligence activity practices that affect the rights of Americans is apparent. There is a crisis of public confidence. Misleading statements by agency officials to Congress, the courts, and the public have undermined public trust in the intelligence community and in the capacity for the branches of government to provide meaningful oversight,' the letter says."
'The need for another thorough, independent, and public congressional investigation of intelligence activity practices that affect the rights of Americans is apparent. There is a crisis of public confidence. Misleading statements by agency officials to Congress, the courts, and the public have undermined public trust in the intelligence community and in the capacity for the branches of government to provide meaningful oversight,' the letter says."
You mean "lies" - FTFY.
We have a group that monitors the NSA. The NSA lied to them.
Who watches the watchmen?
Yes, the NSA and the greater intelligence community clearly needs oversight, but will anyone trust someone with that much power any more than we currently trust the NSA?
And to preach to the choir, but shouldn't the conversation shift to asking:
Less rubberstamping committees, more restritictions on the government.
Carter started extraconstitutional spying on suspected foreign agents (tapping phones) and had FISA courts oversee the implementation, and those courts I think went ahead with all but 4 out of 17,000+ requests in one of the past years.
Oversight is always than complete government restriction.
WTF has a Church Committee got to do with this anyway? There is supposed to be 'Separation of Church and State" as part of the constitution.
(And which Church are we talking about anyway? Catholic? Lutheran (ELCA) Southern Baptist? Methodist etc
But I can't help but feel that the very nature of our Government has morphed. Institutions like the NSA aren't bothered by public perception -- they have grown into their own. They are beholden only to their own agenda and will do whatever it takes (lying to congress, fabricating effectiveness) to maintain and expand their power. Obama will do some hand-wringing on TV but in the end nothing will change.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Ahem... from wikipedia: "The Church Committee was the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church (D-ID) in 1975." ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
A former US Senator who was highly distrustful of the NSA in the 70s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... He formed a committee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
The committee was chaired by a Congress-critter named Church. Nothing whatever to do with religion.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
Seems like the NSA and CIA might be by nature beyond oversight. Their job includes assuming that the worst scenarios are possible, which then justifies any action to thwart them, including lying to their overseers in order to keep doing illegal things they think is necessary to prevent those worst possible scenarios. It's bureaucratic paranoia resulting in functional schizophrenia that makes sense within the hive mind but not within the greater public mind that employs them to keep us safe.
...is another committee, I'm sure of it.
Maybe a committe, and a staff...of course you have to have a competent staff. And they're going to be overworked, so a whole fleet of nubile, er, naive, er, talented interns.
And they'll need offices, maybe a new office building, somewhere downtown so they can exercise 'oversight' as closely as possible. A parking garage, certainly, plus probably a cafeteria. Probably a monorail from the airport is worth considering too...
-Styopa
Oh, not that kind of Church?
Sure, an oversight committee would be a good idea. But are they going to be able to actually do their job? High-ranking officials in the NSA have already demonstrated they are willing to outright lie to congress, so why would they be any more honest here?
We'll just end up with a committee that isn't allowed to know about the things they should be monitoring, wouldn't be told if they were allowed to know, and can't actually do anything about any abuses they do find beyond politely reminding the NSA that their actions are probably illegal.
No amount of "reform" is going to fix this. Adding more lawyers and more bureaucracy will not fix this. It's all cop-outs and the NSA will keep doing what it's doing under whatever name it's given as part whatever cop-out reform you can imagine.
You might get there with constitutional amendments, but personally I'm arguing for a breakup; the problem is the millions highly paid bureaucrats ensconced in Washington doing the bidding of their hundred foot tall political Masters of the Universe in league with corporate statists trying to rectifiy the world to fit their business models. We don't actually need these people to live well and honorably, folks.
We really don't.
Until the US congress actually withholds funding from an agency that violates US law, all federal agencies are exempt from the law.
227-3517
I was thinking of those that would perverse a system for their own personal wet dreams. These same personalities would scream innocence when publically confronted with their actions; while rest of us try to keep from purging our prior meal. So ya, lies.
The NSA needs to be taken apart and gotten rid of. Its almost complete overlap with CIA / FBI. There should be no NSA. We don't need a separate signals intelligence agency without a clearly defined scope.
The stuff the NSA does around developing secure encryption standards etc (assuming it actually does any of that anymore and iust putting back doors in things ) should go the FBI as crime prevention. Everything else is foreign intelligence and should go to the CIA removing the duplication of course. It should be re-iterated the CIA is forbidden from operating withing the boarders.
That is how you restore public confidence.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Short of them being allowed to stick their manifesto in his breast pocket during a press conference, jack-shit is going to happen, all justified by permanent war and 'National Security' - the same garbage they've increasingly used to stop FOIA requests (which will probably be repealed in a few years anyway).
Same is true for government, which mostly only answers to We the Corporations these days.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Not just lies, perjury. Those lies were told under oath.
If we had a functioning justice system in this country, those perps would be in jail awaiting trial right now.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing ...
The problem, therefore, being one of branding rather than action?
Hint- the fact that they lied doesn't matter to me. The fact that they're reading this post, in building my dossier, does.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
“You don’t fight it without a price because they come after you and they don’t always tell the truth."
http://blogs.rollcall.com/218/...
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Ahem...
Well isn't that spehshull. Doing our little superiority dance, are we?
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
It's called The People. Stop withholding relevant information from the responsible watchdog organization, and everything will work itself out.
Well then Nancy Pelosi is a chicken shit - pure and simple!
That's what you do with rogue agencies.
Back when I was in the Canadian Army, we disbanded entire units, burned their colors, demoted their officers, and punished the guilty for torturing civilians in Africa.
Do that with the NSA. Starting at the top, with long prison sentences in gulags.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The most widespread violations of citizen's rights in the history of this nation, practices that have badly damaged the international reputation of the nation in both public and private sectors, appointed officials who have sworn to protect and defend The Constitution patently guilty of criminal behaviro being allowed to tell Congress to, essentially, go fuck itself, and the advice is "form a committtee". Seriously?
There appear to be 2 paths forward.
Not just lies, perjury. Those lies were told under oath.
If we had a functioning justice system in this country, those perps would be in jail awaiting trial right now.
-jcr
If we had a functioning justice system, they would have been rounded up, tried for treason, and executed as traitors. They are levying war against the entire populace and are aiding our enemies with spy-back agreements. The banksters, the clowns at BP, the Enron dicks, etc. all knowingly, willingly, and intentionally fucked shit up on such a grand scale that I would consider them to be waging war on Americans as well, thus making them traitors and earning them the death penalty.
But the law doesn't apply to the rich and powerful in this nation.
Who else on /. (besides me) remembers the Church Committee hearings? Tricky Dicky? The Saturday Night Massacre?
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Not just lies, perjury. Those lies were told under oath.
If we had a functioning justice system in this country, those perps would be in jail awaiting trial right now.
-jcr
If we had a functioning justice system, they would have been rounded up, tried for treason, and executed as traitors. They are levying war against the entire populace and are aiding our enemies with spy-back agreements. The banksters, the clowns at BP, the Enron dicks, etc. all knowingly, willingly, and intentionally fucked shit up on such a grand scale that I would consider them to be waging war on Americans as well, thus making them traitors and earning them the death penalty.
But the law doesn't apply to the rich and powerful in this nation.
Laws don't apply to the intelligence community when psychos roam this planet.
It's not religion, they're talking about the lambda calculus.
You added nothing except a weak attempt to act like government is only a problem due to corporations.
Corporations get more and more involved with the government due to the increasing regulations that governments put on them.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to separate them now. But the fault for the intertwining lies directly with the government.
no, government always has been in pockets of large corporations. in western world, started hundreds of years ago with banking cartel
The constitution and judiciary who will enforce it is the only group you need. They won't so the new group is just as free to break the law as the NSA. The Supreme Court and your government is already corrupt and ignores the constitution, so you're pretty much screwed.
Laws apply to everybody regardless of who's roaming the planet.
Otherwise the psychos end up running things.
THIS!!!
There is never greater need for the rule of law than when society is at war or otherwise under attack.
In fact, artificial creation of "emergencies" is a classic ploy of governments to grab more power over the people.
Got my driver's license about that time, so didn't pay too much attention to that sort of thing, but I remember it from the news.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
And who is all this spying for? Could it be ... perhaps ... SATAN?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
all too well, (shaking my head), all too well
it's like deja-vu all over again...
The psychos do run things, because laws are not applied to leadership. That is an accurate summary of the current state of governance for most countries of the world.
Do I get whooshed now?
And you can't spell SATAN without N, S, and A. Coincidence? I think not.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
Eventually it would fall on congress to not pay congress, and they've already pointed out during the shutdowns: Sorry. It is against the constitution for congress not to pay itself...
Hello Dave.
Cheers,
Hal
OK. As long as you don't say, "I can't do that, Dave," when I ask you to open the door.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
The main problem is that the NSA has experienced scope creep and grown excessively large. Currently they handle SIGINT both foreign and domestic, while the head of the NSA also runs Cyber Command and the Central Security Service. The correct course of action would be to split them into multiple agencies with different chains of command. The most obvious looks something like this:
NSA - Foreign SIGINT, leaves the DOD, becomes independent agency but still reports to DNI like the CIA
New Agency - Domestic SIGINT, under the DOJ
Combined Cyber Command/CSS - Now separate organization but stays under DOD
My predicate calculus trumps your lambda calculus.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Seriously, what do you have to hide?
Seriously, it's none of your fucking business.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan