What is Congress’s Role in Strategic Intelligence? Congress’s role in strategic intelligence is oversight. “Congressional oversight refers to the review, monitoring, and supervision of federal agencies, programs, activities, and policy implementation.”[1] There is a congressional committee and a system in place in order for Congress to largely exercise this power. With that said oversight goes back to the early days of the republic which also includes activities and contexts of Congress. Some of the activities and contexts included are: investigative, appropriations, and legislative hearings; by committees, select committee’s special investigations, and reviews and studies by congressional support agencies and staff. The authority for congressional …show more content…
“Both committees found evidence of spying on American citizens, illegal wiretapping, and cover-ups. As a result, Senate Resolution 400 in 1976 and House Resolution 658 in 1977 established the intelligence.”[3] Congress has a great responsibility and positive role when it comes to intelligence oversight. Congress must ensure lawmakers agree with the methods in place and the limitation on observations by the executive branch. They also must ensure that if the lawmakers are not on board, the practices of those agencies are being changed and new practices and methods are being created. After 9/11 occurred a commission was formed and they concluded that many of the “aspects of congressional oversight of the intelligence community were dysfunctional.”[4] Suggestions were made by the 9/11 commissions to increase the capabilities of Congress. This is to ensure that going forward that Congress oversight would actually be affective and successful in the …show more content…
Congress is focusing on the Department of Homeland Security and reforming the department thirteen years after the terrible acts of 9/11. Congressional oversight when it comes to homeland security is extremely important, but having just oversight is not important it must be effective as well. Americans are not privy to any type of activity with occurs within the government, thus making it even more important that the congressional oversight is done effectively. This is different than other policies as Americans have access to and are able to monitor what goes on with other policies, because of this the American public must rely on Congress to ensure they are monitoring all aspects correctly to include all “sensitive and classified national security programs. Put simply: If Congress is not effectively overseeing these programs, no one is. Congress’s failure to reform itself makes the country less safe.”[5] The 9/11 Commission along with the WMD Commission see the problems within the strategic intelligence. There was a report that came out which stated: “Managers and analysts throughout the Intelligence Community have repeatedly expressed frustration with their inability to carve out time for long-term research and thinking. This problem is reinforced by the current system of incentives for analysts, in which analysts are often rewarded for the number of pieces they
Stemming from a loose interpretation of the Constitution – and specifically the necessary and proper clause -- congressional oversight is one of many enumerated powers bestowed upon Congress per Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. As the legislative body, Congress is charged with overseeing the inner workings of the Executive Branch and its federal agencies as a part of a system of checks and balances. However, as previously mentioned, this power is one of the implied powers of Congress, thus making it very difficult for many to delineate rightful oversight from reckless meandering. In the Constitution, for example, there is no singular mention of a definitive power such as “congressional oversight.” Consequently, there is no clear set of goals or practices through which Congress can oversee the executive branch. This is where things can become slightly tricky, however.
“President Bush has stated that about a hundred detainees were held under the Central Intelligence Agency secret detention program, about a third of whom were questioned using “enhanced interrogation techniques. The CIA has a way of very publicly blowing their cover seeming to pop up wherever turmoil, and political problems arise. The CIA exists to prevent threats, its operations involve covert actions or spying through various means to gather critical intelligence data. The CIA dates back to 1947. The qualifications and skills are above average. The job of the CIA is to anticipate and quickly assess rapidly evolving international developments and their impact, both positive and negative, on US policy concerns. When researching the career of
The Department of Homeland Security faces challenges of failure to coordinate and cooperate in the latest fight against computer crimes as well as more general intelligence-gathering operations. (...
There should be a system of checks and balances where congress must review the methods the FBI, CIA and other law enforcement agencies are using in relation to wire taps, search warrants etc. Congress must ensure that the intelligence gathered is used in connection with terrorists and not just criminals in general.
...e community have had conflicting views and opposing agendas. Lack of cooperation and communication between intelligence agencies; such as the FBI and the CIA refusing to share information prior to the terrorist attacks of 2001, resulted in limited information and failure on the part of the intelligence community and policy decisions regarding US safeguards against terrorist.
Nedzi (D-Mich.), Luclen N. “Oversight or Overlook: Congress and the US Intelligence Agency.” A Congressman talk to the CIA senior seminar, November 14, 1979, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol18no2/pdf/v18i2a02p.pdf (accessed January 7, 2014).
Despite American author Mark Twain’s insistence that the members of Congress are idiots, the legislative body of the United States of America holds quite a bit of power. Although the powers of Congress, as granted to them in the Constitution of the United States, have remained the same, the importance placed on those powers has changed overtime, lessening for some, and rising for others.
Homeland security entities are proactive in the fight against terrorism on American soil. Their mandate is to collect information relating to potential attacks and analyze it to find a solution to the danger. With this in mind, these entities employ numerous spying techniques to collect intelligence for safeguarding of the nation. Homeland security entities have spies in almost all the countries in the world, especially those that show aggression towards America. The main aim of these spies is to carry out espionage to determine threat levels and find ways of neutralizing threats (Randol, 2009). This involves deployment of secret agents to areas or countries that exhibit terrorism activity in a bid to collect information. The spies interact with local people and members of terrorist groups using aliases that enable them conceal their identities.
In order to fulfill its duty of ensuring the safety of its law-abiding citizens, and apprehending those who would cause them harm, the government does need to access certain information. In fact, many blame suppressed intelligence operations for allowing the terrorist attacks in 2001 to slip through (Cooper). It would be foolish not to tighten security after suc...
Tidd, J. M. (2008). From revolution to reform: A brief history of U.S. intelligence. The SAIS
One of the main failures of law enforcement and intelligence agencies identified by both the authors of “The Cell” and Senator Richard Shelby was that the F.B.I. and C.I.A. acted in competition with one another to produce results, as opposed to in centralized collaboration. Gladwell points out that the intelligence community was structured in this manner in response to the failures of the Bay of Pigs operation, which had been based on highly centralized intelligence gathering. In turn, the structure of intelligence agencies at the time of the Bay of Pigs was in response to the failure of decentralized intelligence to identify the threat of an attack on Pearl Harbor. The iterative cycle of intelligence failures and subsequent reform efforts ignores the premise that the failures do not represent evidence of the limitations of intelligence agencies, but rather the limitations of intelligence itself. As Gladwell states, “in our zeal to correct what we believe to be the problems of the past, we end up creating new problems for the
The legislative Branch is a powerful part of our governmental system. One of the strengths of it is that it has powers that no other branch has. The legislative branch, including both the House of Representatives and the Senate, is given extensive powers by the Constitution. The legislative branch is the only branch that can create laws or change existing laws. In addition to creating and changing laws, the legislative branch has an array of powers such as: the power to declare war, confirm or reject many Presidential appointments, impeach a federal official, to include the president or a justice of the Supreme Court, create annual federal budgets and direct how federal monies are spent, and extensive investigative powers. Essentially, one of the legislatives branches’ greater powers to creating and changing laws do not yield there; additionally, if the President vetoes a bill, they may override his veto by passing a bill again in each chamber as long as the chambers can get at least a two-third voting in favor of the bill. An example would if the President wants to create a program and/or a system, he will have to go through Congress for approval of the
Counterintelligence (CI) is defined as, “information gathered and activities conducted to identify, deceive, exploit, disrupt, or protected against espionage, other intelligence activities, sabotage, or assassination conducted for or on behalf of foreign powers, organizations or persons, or their agents, or international terrorist organizations or activities. ” The citizenry of the United States on the U.S. Government is the focus of the examination of counter intelligence of citizenry on its national government. Data collected and research performed by James Riedel seeks to establish the citizens as a network of spies on the U.S. Government. The spying of citizens on the government is referred to as “espionage” . Counter Intelligence as acts of espionage committed by U.S. citizens is described by Riedel as short in duration and “poorly paid” .
In order to adequately evaluate the ethical uses of intelligence or covert action, it is necessary to begin by determining whether intelligence officers are professionals. This point is essential. As in the medical and legal professions, a code of ethics is central to the discipline, serving as a guide to assist intelligence officers in understanding what actions are ethical or unethical. Some intelligence officers engage in or assist in the planning of covert action and the question remains: What are the ethical limits in what the president can direct intelligence officers to do when engaging in covert action? (Burgos, 2009, p.2).
The Central Intelligence Agency’s main responsibility is stated in its Vision statement: “We will provide knowledge and take action to ensure the national security of the United States and the preservation of American life and ideals” (www.cia.gov). The CIA’s job is to provide pertinent, timely, and un-biased foreign intelligence. They also act as an unseen force by conducting undercover action as ordered by the President in order to preempt threats or achieve objectives of the United States. The CIA is the only intelligence organization that is not subject to cabinet prerogative, making it reliable in it is unbiased in its reports, because it has no political agenda. There are six main types of intelligence by which the CIA collects information. Human intelligence (HUMINT) is information gathered by field operatives through overt and covert techniques (www.cia.gov). Communications intelligence (COMINT) is acquired from intercepted foreign communications (www.cia.go...