Years now. We watched this in the aftermath of exposures about a collection by nsa itself, the agency unfamiliar to most americans and as we take off our 2019 conference, we find now even intelligence oversight is very much in public headlines. We have an impeachment proceeding kick off by reports from the Intelligence CommunityInspector General. You have forthcoming next week, allegations and misuse of the surveillance act during the 2016 president ial campaign. We have proceedings from the house Intelligence Committee. Even intelligent overseers now are the center in the way that the intelligence agencies began earlier. In a way that was unprecedented. So we have a special focus this year on not just the Intelligent Agency the self but the messages in place to oversee them. One of the classic problems of Intelligence Surveillance is how to balance the need for operations that are secret. Surveillance that is done publicly in surveillance. How do you balance the need to conduct certain kinds of operations information gathering in secret while at the same ti time, holding them accountable to the public . Given the unfortunate history around the world but in our country as well. Secret ceramic power being used in purposes. We have programs today that include a discussion with one of the most important bodies during the oversight. Well have discussions on the renewed war, one of the mechanisms that text large scale collection. We will examine this morning some of what we have learned about compliance issues or misuses of largescale surveillance under authorities and how the Intelligence Community is seeking to address those and how effective those mechanisms have been. To start off, i think appropriately, we will begin with the intelligent oversight. What all are the entities that are working to keep the secret use of powers and checks . Do they operate effectively . How can they be improved . There are few better People Better suited than our moderator, the policy director and oversight. Working to increase transparency and accountability across government of the intelligence agencies. Our first excellent panel. I will give brief introductions. There full bio is on the website. I encourage you to check them out. Theres strategic and intelligence and associate professor of the war college. Recently published her first book, state secret. Governance and intelligence with the cambridge university. Daniel was the Education Fund on issues that concerned government transfer nancy, accountability and reform and National Security and promoting an open internet. His neck, ashley are recognized expert in capacity. David is a professor of Political Science at the university and among other titles, the untold story from truman to kennedy. A triumph in one reviewer called one of the coast books out there. Professor, professor of law is leading on civil rights issues and civil and criminal detention. So i think to kick us off before we get into what some of the problems are with oversight of the Intelligence Community, we should understand what the mechanisms are that exist over this secret governmental apparatus. So i hope you dont mind, i welcome to you first. You work with the mechanisms from National Security agency of the nsa. Talk a little about the benefits and limits to internal Oversight Offices and we will go into some of the external as well. I come at this conversation from the flow of the former head of the office of home and security where i played the role of the internal overseer for the i see located at dhs but i got interested at the center of this. So if you think broadly about the internal offices that plays a role in compliance with external and what you might call internal oversight, its a big list. I suspect some of my fellow panelists will have an inclusion for the sum of these. But i needed notes. So there is a Compliance Office responsible for the fisa court and the trade rules. Theres the general counsel which functioned in part as an oversight. Its enabling his client to do what the client wants to do they agree and then oversight. Its the nsa id which is more independent. Theres the Civil Liberties and privacy act of the nsa which has the policy creation role to be at the table when policy originated in oversight role. At the department of justice, theres a National Security position. A quote that i like the says this is not a big Oversight Office comes from a former official who called them they go to get the west. Other people disagree with that and say yes, it functions as an Oversight Office. Oversight function at the department of dissent, theres the Intelligence Community office, its the Protection Office which particularly has a role in 702 compliance work. Theres the ot and i general counsel. That mission into creation, i think it is right. Mission integration. Again, it has some compliant oversight so it functions. President s intelligence, board of intelligence oversight. Exiting for my role here, others will talk much more about that. Two more minutes, if i have that. The challenge of oversight internal Oversight Offices is simultaneously internal Oversight Offices are desired by the agencies they work for because they want the blessing of the offices. They want the external credibility that kept them. If we can create enough authority or reputation, they can carry reputational benefits. They might also want the expertise but they dont always want the expertise. They mostly want the blessing but then the question is, what comes with that . So what comes with that has to be some bringing into the agen agency, the more the offices designed to further. There has to be Civil Liberties credibility that comes with that. So what the officers have to do, they have to maintain simultaneously their influence in the agency and their commitment to whatever external ones. To warn academic called the value and agency and is continually under threat. Whatever it is, save Civil Liberties, it helps us carry a commitment against the very strong orientation that tends to run against that value. You have to do that simultaneously. Thats the challenge. So how can it do that x well, it has to maintain pretty strong both with the agency and simultaneously external reference points. If that needle can be threaded, then what it can do is issues inside the office for more empowered entities back and tell people what to do as opposed to that. It can increase Public Access by writing reports, both reports are public and reports that are disclosed in discovery but generating internal papers that become external. And it can build a relationship with external advocates that help the agency respect those in question. Thats the basic idea and my position on this is not hopeless but its very, very hard. Its an internal oversight, it serves a purpose but they cant be the only check, especially the Intelligence Community could be extreme abuse which of authority. Its not only because they are not empowered enough because if they are the only check they would lose and the external orientation they need to succeed. So there under authorized but also because theyll lose whatever influence and commitment they have if they are the only check. Putting aside russians of their effectiveness, what are some of the major external oversight bodies that play a role . We could start with congress, there are two full committees and they have existed since the mid to late 1970s. Theres been a constitutional derived logic of congressional oversight of executive agencies, it goes back to the presidency of george washington. In terms of congressional oversight of intelligence and its been especially cia, they informally carried out 40s through the 80s but not very adequately. So now we have the Intelligence Committees which one hopes the think about intelligence agencies, much of it is carried out in secret so on behalf of the american public, we have elected officials to monitor these secret activities. As the president and commerce and these two committees to preside over legislation to keep them functioning to create boundaries, to investigate and see that they are performing and also legality. I would argue even further that the Congressional Oversight Committee is intended to rebalance symmetry when it comes to relationship of the external world because looking at this, ownership of this information, the committee silenced that by asking questions, bringing in people, requiring testimony in that type of thing. This was in the wake of the scandal. So they investigated intelligence and these committees were set up as a way of putting boundaries on it. This is a scandalous verse that these committees show, its an interesting critical piece, there up to that. They decided you need something more formal. Rebound this relationship. I think its important when you think about oversight, its not just the Senate Intelligence committee. The judiciary committee, they play a role as well. Its the overseers to the supporters or almost the boosters. In the overseers, they will ask to be your biggest advocates. There are other players as well. The Accountability Office which has a number of them who are intended to get questions answered. The Intelligence Committee try to work around and undermine fact. Theres also the inspectors general, they can talk better on that than i can. Theres whistleblowers, you can actually force to answer questions. You see a lot of these. 1. 1 billion people with higher clearances, theres 40 something people, the number of them, i think its 37. They can get their basic questions answered. When you talk about oversight, to what degree, to what extent of whom and with what help . When you look at the congressional context, think about that one final one. Its a select committee which means members are chosen by speaker and minority leader. His members are supposed to reflect the chamber but that doesnt actually happen. Oftentimes they dont have representatives. There are times when i havent had anyone. So the overseers but then its an interesting question. Nobody else brought up, overseeing the Intelligence Committee, i was going to. Im glad you beat me to it. The untold story, examines years between creation of a cia. The congressional oversight, do you think congressional oversight of the Intelligence Committee has changed since the dark ages . Theres some common features but its changed substantially because in the old days, there were very secretive subcommittees of the Services Committees and sometimes some of them perform somewhat effectively but there was no fulltime staff devoted to this. There were members of the Armed Services who what assigned some of their staffers and some of their time insisting them and monitoring especially cia so that old system wasnt as awful as the history books say. Thats one of the conclusions but it was never anything comprehensive or systematic so we have these big committees, maybe they are too big. But there are other committees engaging in oversights. A lot of members in congress who at least can examine what the intelligence agencies are doing. When ive spoken to form a legislative, ive spoken to a couple of them, for what its worth, they were very unimpressed in the years with this questioning. That they received from members of congress. With think in the modern years with big staff, all that we have, that the quality of oversight would be better than it is but one consistency, 1947 through today, if i can believe these former ones, strangely not enough attention given by most members of relevant committees to intelligent oversight. Why do you think that is . Thats a question for the group. Especially in our advocacy on protections and increased transparency, its been my experience that they go around National Security and thought the end of the conversation. Thats my experience but why do you think that is that members of congress and staff arent asking the tough questions they should be asking . The house Intelligence Committee has 40 something staff. When you look at congress as a whole, just putting into context compared to the 70s, theres fewer House Committee staff than there was in 1983. Theres a 20 something decrease in staff. Gao is down by 2000 staff. So we see diminishment in the number of staff who are able t to the obligations for members has gone up significantly. So i think it falls to what youre saying is that congressional focus and attention is very diffused. It is reactive to the news, its reactive, it is not proactive. When you have a big thing happening, like impeachment going on how much are they able, which is their primary response body, they focus on that. This is not a critique. They just dont have that. They can go to the Intelligence Community. Theres also perspective issues in terms of you want to make sure the people who are hiring to help do this and expecting to run the committee are motivated to go in and find out whats going on and talk about it. The oversight that needs to happen does not happen for the institutional designs. A lot of what has been described as endemic to the way congressional oversight works. Is not particular to the i see and the oversight of the i see. He almost never talk to somebody whos worked at an agency and says overseers are amazing. That never heard. So, some have more of Homeland Security has 34 committees which has its own problem but part of it is just the role of congressional oversight is limited by the academy of congressional oversight. The difference, one is there is no reason these committees hire people coming out of the i see so they start with clearances and knowledge and because the subject matter is so hidden, if you dont hire people who have the expertise already it is very hard for anybody to develop. You have to inherent and start off with people who have in the academic literature on the path to capture. And congressional oversight has to play a bigger role with the i see that has to play with any other part of the federal government because of security issues. So were asking congressional oversight to do something and capable and open area of agriculture or whatever. It is incapable of doing it and were not only asking it to the i see were asking to do more. I think its a certain piece which is capture and beyond a secret nature of intelligence which is highly technical and young limited staff and principals who are torn in Different Directions and after own responsibility but one could argue the intent is not set up to go into technical and controversial issues but i believe it wants to introduce the importance of emerging technology. One could argue you could understand the collaboration that involves operators, can understand how a satellite works, d of the people that can do that and they explain it to you and you have the time and its complicated. And there is a matter of reelection incentives, no one wins reelection because their great overseer. Its off camera. To the extent to oversight meetings are functional of collection focuses is because are conducted in public but these are not. I want to push back on the notion that congress is incapable. Maybe im overstating, i dont think congress is capable, i think the report in the investigation that took place was highly technical and detailed and clinically dangerous, it was not good but it was invaluable in the report that came out were great and it changed the nature of the way that we looked at what was going on and revealed a wide spectrum and i hesitate to talk about the historian sitting to my left but the Intelligence Committee did a good job in the 70s and 80s and they slid away from that. What we are seeing is an institutional design question, congress made itself dysfunctional and it was a choice in how many committees they honored and to allow leadership to appoint the members of the committees, these institutional Design Choices combined with the hearing yesterday, if you want to know how encryption or sidelights or these types of things work has to be dedicated staff that works for you who can answer the questions is invaluable but all these things were cut off in the mid90s. There was defamation of killing off one intent i dont know what to wouldbe but whatever double defamation, it destroyed the capacity of congress to do this work but its a policy choice designed i dont think its because there incapable i think the result of a number of political in retrospect were unwise but they dont have twis so we talk about the Intelligence Community as a group as one body. But i think everybody in this room understands the committee made up of different agencies and offices that are not typically part of the Intelligence Community and one of the challenges is coordinating roles across the board. I think the Intelligence Committee is a really good example of that challenge in terms of the executive branch. So the director of National Intelligence has created a coronation role and in a way to oversee the actions of the entire Intelligence Community. In your opinion, this is a question to the whole group, the office of the director came to the effectiveness of oversight, positively or negatively . That is a hard one. I think about it quite a bit. I talked to people about it and i know someone who is worked to odm i but i dont have a clear sense of that. There is obviously pros and cons. Its like with everything, you put in structures and they have the potential, i dont think you and i are disagreeing about congress, they have the potential to do things and a drag on that potential outcomes from whatever situation they are in. Oh dni has occasionally been great for oversight and other times not so much. , how do some that, i dont know how to add that up. Its an interesting question, the variation is dependent on individual been in that position. We saw that with his relationship when he stepped down in the situation he got it in the hole impeachment process. I think measuring and understanding what was intended to do to streamline and integrate and provide contact or advising the president on intelligence issues is not achieving that or is it one more layer of bureaucracy that is getting large. I know people who work there and Say Something is a great advantage point and others think its one more structure that is muddying the waters but its an open question. I hear its another additional layer. Are there specific ways in which they have improved oversight of intelligence . Even just calling oversight is an interesting question. Describing at least internal oversight when they talk about oversight, they are talking about are you doing the right thing. But for internal oversight it tends to be are you doing the legal thing. Internal oversight are much tamer than congressional aspiration if they tend to be a compliance rather than a policy, is the game worth the candle, but is the drag on Civil Liberties worth the gain whatever the gain is to secure or intelligence . Odmi when it does internal oversight in the office of the pool rather than the director. Ive written and believed that compliance is a useful mode but not the most need that complaints, the rules are set to allow a strong a degree on Civil Liberties or privacy complaints that the rules should not satisfy us and theres insufficient attention paid by people who are in the no to think is that the right rule set. I think that old dni from compliance mode has furthered the inclination to think about surveillance from the perspective, are we doing the right thing as opposed to the legal thing. That does not really answer your question but i think you can see it and whats been made public of the reports of the civil liberty of odmi its a complaints mode and i dont think that is terrifically helpful and what we need out of the office, i wish we do something different. Some of the things that you draw are very useful with the is is. In oversight which is the opposite Legal Counsel of department of justice. Just because you can make a case that the law allows you to do something or you will not run into legal difficulties for a decision that no one will ever find out or if they find out theres nothing they can do because they dont have standing or the legal ways you can stop something from happening is a very different conversation from if our alleys find out if we did this or whats a consequence when people see were and political systems like is this wise is something that would be internally decided as well as opposed into the political process. The concern that i always have the has mixed responsibilities of implementing whatever the political decision is as well as having a role, can we do the thing being asked of us or what to maximum out we can do without getting into hearings, i think thats a very different question from is it wise to be doing th this, i dont think that conversation happens as much as it should and when it does happen, it is subsumed by we can do this not as much as whether we should do the. Also for internal opposites it states that the illegal and thats a very powerful move in if they instead say, that does not seem worthwhile, we think the privacy invasion of that is not worth the gain of intelligence and if they are seen to do that they lose juice and Gain Authority that they really are Compliance Offices. So internal offices have an incentive and internal civil liberty in the Intelligence Community to stay away from. Which is a piece some of the offices and many of them say thats what we will do we will be the law and it deprives the icy of a voice that we have a law that is in addition to interest in the privacy and civil interest are real and need representation in the internal process and they do not get it because office and i think this is true with the old dmi having institutional to not want to be seen to go there. It strikes me back a real missed opportunity to not address those concerns because i think when we see the scandal coming out of the Intelligence Committee and toys related on personal Civil Liberties. I would think the Intelligence Community would have been incentive in a serious and meaningful way. In that context, it indicatet the state privilege, this is the context of not a great question, its about liability from one of people were killed in the plan crash, this may or may not be intelligence, or chemicals killing their neighbors, is not always a question of if eyeopener email, can we put them in and give everybody living on the base brain cancer ten years later. Or can we have planes that fall in the sky because were not doing due diligence, there is a whole spectrum of questions that when you put the secrecy over something and we put over more and more things, is it about protecting something that needs to be protected that really needs to be protected like an argument for somebody pushing back or something embarrassing or more than immersing with the liability and incentives but is not something that has to do the underlying missions so poisoning people does not have to do the military mission but something they want to keep. Are you subjected that the Intelligence Community keeps things secret. [laughter] no. [laughter] nor are they advocating against legislation for more transparency but they do. Going back to congressional oversight specifically in the Intelligence Community. I think everybody recognizes were seen in a much more hyper partisan direction almost daily and i think the Intelligence Committee in congress has been about the fray typically, but not uniformly. And not just starting with their role in the impeachment inquiry although that is not helping, we have started to see a hyper partisanship impact the work of the Intelligence Committees and i want to pose the question to the group, what do you think the impact that is having on oversight of the Intelligence Committee . Ill just start, i wonder about the future, not just the present but the future of the house Intelligence Committee having had a deep dive into impeachment inquiry, i can only assume that Speaker Pelosi deciding that representative adam schiff cost intelligence to take that role and this is a sign of her respect for adam schiffs intelligence confidence in all of that. But certainly my sense of the House Committee versus the senate ive made myself to reading about what the committee has been up to recently and i get the sense of the committee is functioning fairly well in the hyper producing. In which we find ourselves in the House Committee not so much. I think what could draw the House Committee and house Intelligence Committee back in to a more bipartisan cooperative functioning im always interested periodically how the committees that we should acknowledge in the committees are in secrecy and not just the Intelligence Agency but the committees are shrouded and how do they present themselves to the public and its instructive to look at their website and when you go to the website of the House Committee and you barely know there are republicans but you can click on minority and then you go there its nunes and you would not know much about anything a bottom shelf. And there from nunes you can hear conspiracy theories and anyway its a bit of a mess and with the Senate Committee you see for evidence of constructive functioning incorporation that has to be attribute to the chair and the republican in the Ranking Member and vice chair in the democrat, how will we move, i think theres a difference, theres an idea in 1948 that congressman had committed a joint committee on intelligence and much to my surprise the commission publicize the idea the idea in the 21st century but my friend whos a great scholar of congressional oversight, i have heard him say, if youre going to fly a small plane and theres dangers its better to have two engines that are than one. If one is not working maybe the other will in my sense is one engine is working fairly well and the other is not and i wonder how to get the other you cannot function very well if youre utterly polarized and i think unfortunately the constituent role has made that problem more difficult. I would say that i tend to agree that the senate has been operating more normally than the house but there has been reports that she remembered is subpoenaing the whistleblower the kick this off in your faces what myspace is. Of course there has been request on the house side to do that as well. I think it would be an incredible mistake considering the role that whistleblowers play in assisting congress to do the oversight work. So as an organization that fights for the whistleblowers, its a scary time to see this happening where Intelligence Community are to have the weakest protection to enforce protection of the federal government. Im holding my breath watching as things go to the senate how that will be handled. A couple of things. First i would not draw too much from the distinction website only and that the House Committee website have separate website from the majority in the minority in all the Community Websites are single website and youll see that for all of them. Theres other things but not necessarily that part i also think the spectrum of bipartisan is the wrong spectrum to look at. I think the house and sell intelligent was feeling long before impeachment the Trump Administration came in the bipartisan conceptualism was largely in support of a lack of oversight and that was more captured the perspective of intelligence communities and going back to what we had five years ago is also bad, the hyper partisanship is back in using the power and tools that is not helpful in the least and what we see is very destructive. We put out a report two years ago with 26 organizations in congress that talked about changing the oversight from gao and some was part of changing the intelligence communities, what you need to do with the Brennan Center has recommended and you need to go and see all the things that have happened in the commissions and figure out since year 2000 to present what are the oversight in the separate entity that is not captured in go and connect that to the prior but that would be valuable to figure out what the state a place and also think about the consequence of leadership with the house Intelligence Committee. You need to think about do they have enough staff, fortysomething is not sufficient and when you look at the scope of the entity that they oversee. In the clearance process. Staffers wait years for clearances when theyre in congress, Jared Kushner could get clearance in a week, if you can get an interim clearance in the executive branch in a matter of days and it takes more than a year for Congressional Staff, that does not make sense whatsoever, theres a number of things. Taking all of the stuff in putting in a secret committee when there to act as the american people, their communication from the Obama Administration that were sent to congress that the house Intelligence Committee being sent to all the members of the house. Which they are not allowed to do, the house Intelligence Committee would chastise members for putting up on the floor that were published in the newspaper. The front page of the near times and you can discuss on the house floor but the house Intelligence Committee against members of those things. What we have our folks have taken upon themselves to be the arbiter enclosed around themselves so they cannot see what is going on in staff cannot see it in the public cannot see it and its a fundamental promise whether more bipartisan or hyper partisan, i think the nature of the Intelligence Community is a failure and we need to rethink from the ground up. I think you make an interesting point about the long wait time and one idea that weve gone over and over but for congress to take over the job of granting security clearance to Congressional Staff done through the house the Capitol Police or another body and not something that the congress should consider because you can get an interim security if youre in the white house in a week and a congressional stopple have to wait years and that incentivizes further pulling people from the Intelligence Community into the oversight which is not necessarily a bad idea but you have to balance that out. Why has congress not done this, again im historically granted but when i look back we decades, ive seen so much Death Threats from the legislative branch to the executive branch, why isnt congress on this . Thats a question for the agent. Is a great letter from 1978 from the head of the cia. Where the cia says there are too many people with clearances across government and we need to reduce them and we need to encourage you to reduce them so sure as long as we get to keep them for leadership in those followup letters that say we are increasing the number of people on the executive branch and of Course Congress will not be happy and they say as long as leadership goes with the people they will be fine and Speaker Pelosi is a member of the house Intelligence Committee so the people who think that they need the information, the speaker, the minority leaders, have access and they think back to the members of congress himself, why does the clearance need to be. One Congress Passed the law and establish their own clearance will, they could do it for all the others. In putting aside that, why would Congress Want to go to these other folks. Theres an answer by which you obtain. I think that there is a moment of fear and icy related stuff, its the area and which, its not the only area but the area in which someone can say that would be the end of the republic or some moderated version. And everybody who has been involved in oversight or civil liberty protection has a story to tell, where somebody said to them, ill just do the one thats me, where somebody said to me that is a victory for our enemies. And i thought they were wrong, i thought that was insane and just to reassure everybody, but the fact is that requires that is why Congress Wants other people to do clearances. Because that way if something bad happens, if there is another set of disclosures, if there is a leaker or whatever or if something bad happens, they can say we did not clear, they cleared it and those people who are the experts, they cleared this guy so you cannot blame us for having given them the clearance. That is also what there is an implicit threat in terms of disclosures. In the experts in the agency are better equipped to dismiss the threat than people who are less expert. How is the speaker supposed to know if something really is a threat, it does not take a lot of attention and she has a lot of stuff going on, it is nice for her, i dont mean this about Speaker Pelosi in particular, im not talking about a particular dispute but in general they have every reason to want to get the ac before they receive information and send information because people cannot criticize them if something bad happens and they dont have to figure out that something bad will happen. I would argue that while it may be an easier way out and it means less consequences for them it is not necessarily them fulfilling their role as a legislative body. I did not mean this as defense. Right, i think its easy to hear that and say that makes sense i would not want that responsibility but im not a member of congress for good reason and i guess i dont have a lot of sympathy for that position although i understand the human nature coming to. It seems the worl worst of al worlds. They get informed and get communicated about and cryptic forms in the rockefeller note, he was a vice chair he was informed of illegal behavior and he writes a note to file its ridiculous hes a vice chair of the Intelligence Committee, i have real problems but i cannot consult. Of course you can. That is your job. So Congress Hits the downside and we told you this was going on and you did not stop it and whats the upside, the upside is all the terrible things are going on will continue to go on. I think the game of theater, will leave the handwritten note in pencil bubble, ten years later. That is what makes Congress Look stupid because they are choosing to be stupid and thats dangerous for them as a body to rest upon the approval of the american people. I will ask one more question and then ill go to the audien audience, and i may be putting on the spot but i apologize but to move to the conversation about necessary reforms. If you could wave a magic wand and there would be one thing, it doesnt have to be politically feasible in the moment or does not have to be real estate traffic tomorrow but if you could wave it and have one change occur in any particular Oversight Office or entity of the Intelligence Community, what would it be. What would have the most impact . These are going to be superlong, every member of congress should have one staffer who is cleared at the tss ei level for the games that they play with the information beyond congressional office. The other would be i would change it to be in a standing committee, the members are chosen through the parties and not chosen by the speaker or the minority leader and more broadly represented to the caucus. I like to contribute on the staff increased expertise and size of staff, if they dont have recourse in support they need the clearances but wide expertise, so much of this work is headed in the direction that we need to broaden the capacity to support that going forward. I understand it was an idea back in the 70s, 80s that those who are appointed to congressional Intelligence Committees, those members who have really good reputation within their respective body for seriousness purpose and are willing to spend the time and to be nonpartisan bipartisan, how to provide the idea and what you are saying, one of the ideas is different from yours but specific to the house side was to have the speaker in the minority leader agree that each should agree that whose chose chosen so choosing the truth is become the minority leader should agree on the person and then they should agree on who should be the vice chair of the committee. It seems that would be a start, its too idealistic but the notion that people on these two committees would be serious about intelligence oversight. I think everyone knows that there is a big audience out there on cspan2 so i want to make that appointment, i think this matters is critically important that we know from history that sometimes there has been incompetent and sometimes the colonies and congress in these committees especially can make a different and sometimes they have. I will take my role focusing on the internal office not because i think those are most important, i actually dont think the most important. I think in each element of the i see, i would read redesign the internal civil Liberty Office to increase the statute and the axis and the safeguard the role in policy development and its connection to external obvious geeky communities to bring civil liberty into the Agency Development process. I think we look at that as an institution that covers some of this. You have reporting inside external so i would argue, that has a politicized background as well and one agency inspected to strengthening the role in enforcing the importance and i would use that to complement the rest of the things they talk about. If i can push you a little bit, when you say strengthen geo specific recommendations . I think we talked about the role. So that role has to be protected and i dont know how you do that you would probably do that through a role structure and obviously statutory but i think developing culture and norms around the role to keep it safe. I dont have a concrete right this rule and this will be effective, what happens to the individual when they complain internally and left a crucial key because it can be seen as effective to train breakdown what weve been talking about which is internal and external but also be seen within i work for the army chain of command so are you loyal internally or externally but kept safe. One idea we been pushing is to give all and spectral generals protection because we saw with the id recently that after sending up to the congress that it was inspiring and theres not anything you can do to stop the president from doing that he does not benefit from removal protection from other Oversight Offices. We see these types of people coming in. Im not a specialist in inspectors but my sense is, and i know some of this Inspector General has done some great reports and gutsy reports across the decade, have there been horrible failures by the generals or intelligence agencies, i mainly familiar with gutsy reports. One of the biggest failures would be not properly protecting and even just earlier in the ministration the person that the president chose to nominate for the cia Inspector General had open the whistleblower retaliation against him. I think that is one example. There has been failures to engage by the Inspector General, there has been situations where the Inspector General is known to have known about a problem and did not take it on. So that is not as public as a gutsy report, its a dog not working. And i dont know of any in the i see which does not mean that there arent any. But there are definitely an Inspector General report that we read and some agencies where you read it anything thats not right. That makes sense. Its another office with the staff that has become quite expert in contentious topics very fast so you would expect the Inspector General to make mistakes. Were twominute deep in the ig now were going to the audience for questions and please wait to be called on and wait for the microphone in the online audience can hear and as a start please announce your name and affiliation. Thinking. My name is stephen and im a retired Foreign Service officer and while i was serving i did two tours in the state Department Bureau of intelligence and research one at the time of the first gulf war when i was associate editor and the end of my career i was working dealing with the caucuses. I appreciated very much your comments, two areas where had observation and id be interesting on what you have to say. You are speaking about the role of the dni. I think if you look at small intelligence agencies like the research, its a double edged sword. The good aspect is people working for the small agencies get to do detail with dni and they are more involved in the process of repairing the Daily Briefing than in the past. The bad part is there is more caught up in the larger institution and there is perhaps less opportunity than there was in the past and i think of dissent of the famous footnote of the second gulf war. That would be my observation and im interested to suit you have to say. Your comments on congressional oversight. First having worked in one of the smallest intelligence agencies i would disagree about focusing on the number of people with clearances. I would argue its more important quality of the oversight process and a note one time when i was working on the caucus and i was speaking with people about the country and was very impressed with the knowledge and the quality of the questions. And we were talking about the quality of the oversight, something important to keep in mind the members themselves are in agreement with the ministration of todays positions and im thinking again with the second gulf war, they are much in agreement with the policies of the administration and with the practices and im thinking the torture tactics of the cia which are things that were horrible and i would argue on a bipartisan basis has a lot of support. So thank you for your presentation and id be interested in your comments on my observations. It is gratifying to hear that you are hearing good questions from members. I was a little shocked or deflated to hear from a couple of legislative liaisons that were not impressed. Im glad to hear what do you say. Its gratifying to hear. Good questions coming from member. On the first point i think it varies on what time and what country. There are many sorts of people who worked long hours to cover the group. On the second point, i think the competition of the Intelligence Committee is that it reflects leadership and you will lack the level of dissent necessary to push back on things that may be questionable like torture. People are controlled with leadership there is not an opportunity to push back. I think if we are going to treat congressional oversight seriously, we need to talk in terms of congress in terms of each chamber and all the members of the chamber and to make a very narrow and keep the information close insert respect beyond the point necessary. So what was going on is better within the senate and the members saying we were never told, senior members we were never told, maybe they were and maybe they worked but if more members knew it wouldve been hard for it to have continue. I think thats true for a lot of activity. We have time for one maybe two more questions. Thank you for being here. My name is sheena from cyber scoop, i want to ask everyone about current oversight of the National Security agency, im not a technological perspective but the domestic surveillance and surveillance abroad and is there the Technical Expertise now and what can we do to develop Technical Expertise in terms of exportation and fraud and malware abroad. Im curious if you can focus on that. I am not an expert, you probably are more of an expert. My impression, 12 people with three oversight is not very robust. So we have been talking about problems with oversight that are massively more covered, everything youve heard about less about other stuff and say hundreds of that amount of oversight going on. I dont really know that but thats an impression. The policy and oversight that congress has destroyed it to do the type of work generally i think is an understanding on the hill that they are deficient across the entire spectrum and there is an effort to push back and try to reestablish the capacity. We have one minute and 45 seconds, with a very quick question. Thank you all very much. What would you say because of all the legal wars and legal surveillance and illegal assassinations of people from john wayne to them okay fred hampton who we noted earlier this week and the unaccountability and on transparency to the public, how earnings are being spot i would argue that increased oversight may help you get there. I dont think you can abolish it but you can break it up and take away portions of the mission and embody cigna giving oversight, what we have seen including online surveillance of protesters to undermine the political system is undergoing and is terrifying we should be afraid of those things and we need to think about what is happening and to engage in systematic oversight and construction of these efforts so that it does not dangers in the body politics. I dont think you get rid of this because as necessary. With that we conclude our first panel, i want to think the panelist for putting this on. And you want me too make we will take a 15 minute break and refreshments are available in the Winter Garden is located on the first floor and restroom is located and when you reach the bottom of the stairs or down the hallway to the right. Join us in 15 minutes for the second great panel. [applause] thank you i learned a lot. Recognition technology and First Amendment issues. Welcome back for the 2019 cato surveillance conference, i am still Julian Sanchez and im pleased to welcome you for the afternoon seson