Transcripts For CSPAN2 Government Surveillance Privacy Conference - Panel On Intelligence... 20240713

100,000 in cash prizes with a grand prize of 5,000. For more information go to our web site, studentcam. Org. Next, a conference on government surveillance and privacy. Law professors, Security Experts and former government officials talk about oversight of the Intelligence Community. [inaudible conversations] good morning. Welcome to the cato institute. My name is julian sanchez, im a senior fellow here, and im grateful to everyone who has come out bright and early to the cato auditorium for our 2019 surveillance conference. Weve been doing this for some five years now. When we launched this in the aftermath of disclosures about bulk nsa collection by foreman nsa contractor edward snowden, the nsa itself was a fairly obscure agency, unfamiliar to most americans. And as we kick off our 2019 conference, we find that now even intelligence oversight is itself very much in public headlines. We have an impeachment proceeding kicked off in significant part by a report from the, from the Intelligence Communitys Inspector General. We have forthcoming next week a breathlessly awaited report on allegations of misuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act during the 2016 president ial campaign. We have proceedings aired in connection [inaudible] from the House Intelligence Committee. Even intelligence overseers now are at the center, in a sense; of our political discourse in a way that the intelligence agencies themselves began to be earlier, earlier in the cycle in a way that was really unprecedented since the 1970s. So we have a special focus this year on not just the intelligence agencies themselves, but also the mechanisms in place to oversee them. One of the kind of classic problems of intelligence and of surveillance in a free society is how to balance the need for operations that are inherently secret, surveillance that is done publicly in a sense is definitionally not surveillance. I so how do you so how do you balance information gathering in secret while at the same time rendering those with that power subject to mechanisms. Secret surveillance power being abused for political purposes. Is so we have a program today that includes a discussion with one of the most important bodies doing that oversight, the privacy and civil liberty Oversight Board this afternoon. Well is have discussions on the renewed war on strong encryption, one of the mechanisms that act to check large scale collection. Were going to examine later this morning some of what weve learned about compliance issues or misuses of large scale surveillance authorities under authorities such as fisa 702 and 215 and how the Intelligence Community is seeking to address those and how effective those corrective mechanisms have been. But to start off, i think appropriately, were going to begin with an overview of the intelligence oversights apparatus. What are all the different entities that are working to keep this secret use of power in check. Do they operate effectively, and how can they be improved. There are few people better, i think, suited to lead that discussion than our moderator, liz hempowics, who is the policy director at the project on government oversight that works to increase transparency and accountability across government in particular of the intelligence agencies. Ill pass it off to liz to introduce our first excellent panel. Thank you so much. Im going to do some brief introductions. Our panelists have long, storied careers, and so their full bios are on the conference web site, and i encourage you to check them out. Dr. Genevieve lester is the chair of intelligence and associate professor at the u. S. Army war college. She recently published her first book, when should state secrets stay secret with the Cambridge University press. Daniel schuman whose demand Progress Education funds on issues that concern government transparency, accountability and reform, Civil Liberties, National Security and promoting an open internet. Hes a nationally recognized expert on federal transparency, accountability and capacity. Dr. David barrett is professor of Political Science at villanova and author of the cia and congress, the Washington Post called it a triumph of research and one amazon reviewer called it literally one of the coolest books out there. And professor Margo Schlanger is collegiate professor of law, a leading authority on civil rights issues and civil and criminal detention. So i think to kick us off before we get into kind of what are some of the problems with oversight of the Intelligence Community, we should understand kind of what are those, what are the mechanisms that exist to conduct oversight over this relatively secret governmental apparatus. So, professor sclanger, i hope you dont mind that im going to come to you first. Youve looked extensively at the me mechanism of the National Security agency or the nsa. Can you talk about those and the benefits and limits to internal Oversight Offices, and then were going to go into some of the external that exists. Great. The conversation from the role as the former head of the Civil Rights Office at the department of Homeland Security where i was an internal overseer for the tiny sliver of the i. C. That is located at dhs. But i got interested in nsa as kind of the center of this. So if you think broadly about the internal offices placed on role in come means with externallyimposed norms and with what you might broadly speaking call internal oversight, its a pretty big list. And i suspect that some of my fellow panelists will quarrel with inclusion of some of these, but i actually needed to make sure i didnt skip any, i needed notes. So there is, at the nsa, a Compliance Office responsible for aspects of compliance with especially the strictures of the fisa court and also the 12333 rules. Theres the office of general counsel which functions in part as an Oversight Office, although in large part not. In large part as an enabling office to enable its client to do what its client wants to do. But in some degree, thats also an Oversight Office. Theres the nsa i. G. Which is more independent, obviously. Theres the Civil Liberties and Privacy Office at the nsa which has both a policy creation role to be at the table when policy is originated, a policy implementation role and an oversight role. There is, at the department of justice theres the National Security division. A quote that i like that says this is not such a big Oversight Office comes from a former, a doj official who calls the nsd the place the i. C. Goes to get blessed. So that makes it sound not very oversightlike, but other people disagree with that and say, yes, that actually functions as an Oversight Office. Theres the intelligence oversight function at the department of defense. Theres the Intelligence Community igs office. Theres at odni, the Civil Liberties Protection Office which particularly has a role in 702 compliance work. Theres the odni office of general counsel, the odni mission this is integration. Thats not right, is it . Mission integration. Which, again, has only compliance oversight sorts of functions. Theres the president s intelligence advisory board, intelligence Oversight Board. Theres the fisk itself, so now im exiting from my role here, and the [inaudible] which other people will talk much more about. But give me two more minutes if thats about the right time. The challenge of oversight, internal Oversight Offices is simultaneously the Office Internal Oversight Offices are desired by the agencies they work for because they want the blessing of those offices. They want the external credibility that such blessings get them. If they can create enough authority or enough of a reputation that the blessing actually carries some reputational benefit, right in thats the thing that they want from them. They might also want the expertise, but they dont always want the expertise. What they mostly want is the blessing. But then the question is, well, what comes with that. So what comes with that has to be some kind of actually bringing into the agency the norm that the office is designed to further. So if its a Civil Liberties office, there has to be some Civil Liberties credibility that comes with that. And so what those offices have to do if theyre going to be effective at all is they have to maintain simultaneously their influence in the agency and their commitment to whatever thatting external norm is, which is a norm that Academic Work sometimes calls a precarious value. A value thats challenged in the agency and thats kind of continually under threat. And so this office, whatever it is say the Civil Liberties and Privacy Office has to carry a sustained commitment to Civil Liberties and privacy against what is a really very Strong Mission orientation thats hinged to run against that value. It has to do that simultaneously while maintaining influence in the agency. And thats the challenge. And so how can it do that. Well, it has to maintain pretty strong affiliation both with the agency and simultaneously with external reference points outside [inaudible] if that needle can be threaded, and well have more time to talk about it, then what it can do is [inaudible] issues inside the office for more empowered entities that can actually, you know, tell people what to do as opposed to just advise them. It can increase Public Access by writing reports, both reports that are publicly available and, honestly, reports that either get void or leaked or disclosed in discovery. But generating internal papers that becomes external. And it can build a relationship with external advocates that help the agency actually respect the norms that are in in questi. So thats the basic idea. And if it sounds hopeless, my position on this is its not hopeless but, boy, its very, very hard. Yeah. Yeah, id say internal Oversight Offices certainly serve a purpose, but they cant be the only, they cant be the only check on what especially in the Intelligence Community could be very extreme abuses of their authorities. Can i just say its not only because not empowered enough to be the only check, but because if theyre the only check, they will lose both influence, and theyll lose that external orientation i think they need to succeed. Right. So for both reasons. Both theyre underauthorized but also because theyll lose whatever influence and commitment they have if theyre the only check. Yeah. So putting aside questions of their effectiveness for now, and this is a question to the whole group, what are some of the major external oversight bodies that play a role in oversight of the Intelligence Community . Whoever wants to take it. Well, we could start briefly with congress. There are two full committees on intelligence, and they have existed since roughly the mid to late 1970s. Theres been a logic, a sort of constitutionallyderived logic of congressional oversight of executive Branch Agencies that goes back to the presidency of George Washington in terms of congressional oversight of intelligence, and my specialty has been especially cia. It was very informally carried out in the 40s through the mid 70s but not very adequately. Certainly not systematically. And so now we have the house and the Senate Intelligence committees which one hopes i mean, the thing is about intelligence agencies, surveillance and all this, so much of it is carried out and must be carried out in secret. So on behalf of the american public, we have democraticallyelected officials to try to monitor these secret activities. So theres a president , with but theres also congress and especially these two committees to preside over legislation to keep them functioning, to create boundaries, to investigate, to see that they are performing with both we ten but also competence but also legality. Ill pick up on that a little bit. I would argue, you know, further that the congressional oversight committees, theyre really intended to rebalance information asymmetry when it comes to the relationship with the external World Intelligence agencies, because youre looking at the difference between the executive branch ownership of intelligence information, the Intelligence Committees balance that by asking questions, bringing in people, requiring reports, testimony, that type of thing. And i think one thing that david touched upon is both these committees were set up in the 1970s in the wake of scandal. So the church of and Pike Committees investigated the intelligence abuses, and these committees were stood up as a way, a bipartisan way of putting boundaries on intelligence activities. And i think that the scandalous birth or the birth from scandal that these committees, these select committees show is an interesting political piece to the whole picture that these, intelligence oversight was done rather sporadically up to that point and decided we need manager a little bit more formal to be put in place to rebalance this relationship. I think thats important when you think about congressional oversight. Its not just house and Senate Intelligence committees. Fisa is overseen in part by the judiciary committee. The appropriator plays a role here as well. The house and Senate Intelligence committees [inaudible] to being, you know, the supporters or almost the boosters for the Intelligence Community. So the role that they play has changed from the postchurch and Pike Committee role, but to really being, no, no, were actually going to be your biggest advocates. Theres other players as well. Theres the Government Accountability office which has a number of folks with clearances who are intended to aid congress in getting questions answered. The Intelligence Community tries to work around gao and undermine their ability to engage in oversight, but they do have that role. Theres also the inspectors general that exist, and we probably can talk about this more than i can. Theres dissidents, theres whistleblowers, theres the press. There are a number of players that help educate and bring in particularly congress. Is the major point of leverage where you can actually force folks to answer questions. And you see a lot of games that get played. Theres 1. 1 Million People with top secret or higher clearances. Theres 40 something people on the House Intelligence Committee. The number of senators who have access to a staffer with a clearance is, i think, 37. So most senators dont even have someone who can get their basic questions answered. So when youre talking about oversight, you know, its to what degree, to what extent of whom with what help. And i think when you look at it in the congressional context, the political games that are played so just think about [inaudible] for one final whack at them, because its fun for me. Its a select committee which means the members are chosen by the speaker and the minority leader. It is not a Standing Committee like judiciary. Its members are supposed to reflect the composition of the chamber, but that doesnt actually happen in effect. Often times they dont have representatives, so theyre required to have someone from judiciary. Theyve had periods of time where they havent had anyone from that committee. So, you know, theres the overseers, but the extent to which they oversee is an interesting and open question. I was, if nobody else brought up the role of whistleblower overseeing the Intelligence Community, i definitely [inaudible] so im glad you beat me to it, daniel. Professor or dr. Barrett, your book the cia and congress, the untold story, examines the years between the creation of the cia and the bay of pigs invasion. What one reviewer referred to as the dark ages of congressional oversight. Do you think congressional oversight of the Intelligence Community has changed much since those dark ages . Oh, i think theres some common features across those many decades, but its changed very substantially. In the old days, in those first three decades or so, there were tiny and very secretive subcommittees of the Armed Services committees and appropriations committees, and they so four of them, and sometimes some of them performed somewhat effectively. But there was no fulltime staff devoted to this task. So you had members of Armed Services and appropriations committees and these subcommittees who would assign some of their staffers to spend some of their time in assisting them and monitoring the, especially cia. So it was, it was that old system wasnt as awful as the history books say. Thats one of the conclusions of my book. But it was never anything like comprehensive or systematic. And so now we have these big committees. Maybe theyre too big, these Intelligence Committees. But as has been pointed out, other committees engaging in oversight. We have a lot of members of congress who at least can examine what the intelligence agencies are doing. My sense of it when identify spoken ive spoken to former legislative liaisons for cia, and ive spoken to a couple of them, i have to say for what its worth they were very up impressed unimpressed in their years where they did that work with the sort of attention and questioning that cia received from members of congress. You would think in the modern era with these big committees, big staff, all this, all the laws that we have that the quality of oversight would be better than it is. But one consistency across the long haul from 1947 through today, if i can believe these former legislative liaisons, is that theres, strangely, not enough attention given by most members of relevant committees to intelligence oversight. Why do you think that is . And thats a question for the group. I think especially in our advocacy on protections and increased transparency in the Intelligence Community, you know, its been my experience that we go up to the hill and meet with staffers, and they, you know, they wave around National Security and thats the end of the conversation. And so thats been my experience, but i would love to pose the question to you guys. Why do you think that is that maybe members of congress and their staff arent asking the tough questions they should be asking . So maybe i misspoke before. So the House Intelligence Committee has 40 something staff. So the number of personnel they have is tiny. When you look at congress as a whole, theyre just putting it in context compared to the 1970s, theres 1,000 fewer House Committee staff now than there was in, like, 1983. Theres a 20 something percent decrease in Senate Committee staff. Gao is down by 2,000 staff. Crs, where i used to work, is down by 20 as well. So we actually see the diminishment in number in the number of staff, and the [inaudible] for members has gone up significantly. So i think this follows through with what you were saying which is that congressional focus and attention is very diffuse. You didnt say this, but ill say this which [inaudible] reactive to the news, its reactive to leaks, its reactive to the administration. Its not proactive. And when you have a big thing happening, so right now impeachment is going on thats being managed by the House Intelligence Committee, well, how much are they able to oversee the Intelligence Community which is their primary responsibility when theyve been spending all this time focused on this other thing . And this isnt a critique. We can get into that later if folks want, but its more, you know, they just dont have the resources to do the work that they need to know. And a lot of their staff come over from the Intelligence Community. So theres also prospective issues in terms of you want to make sure the people that youre hiring to help do this work and to run the committee are those who are motivated to go in and find out whats going on and to talk about it. But they feel caught that the Intelligence Community wont answer their question if they dont give them a lot of accommodation. And the consequence of that is, you know, you take things out of the public space, or you dont ask some of the tough questions. You dont have the people who can ask the tough questions. And a lot of the oversight that needs to happen doesnt has been for these institutionallydesigned reasons. You know, a lot of what has just been described is just endem ec to the way congressional oversight endemic, its not particular to the i. C. And to oversight of the i. C. You almost never talk to somebody who works at an agency who says, you know, our overseers are amazing. I mean, thats a sentence ive never heard, right . And so, now, some of them is are more, you know . Homeland security famously has, whatever it is, 34 committees which oversee it. Which has its own problems. But part of it is just the role of congressional oversight is inherently limited by the political economy of congressional oversight. The difference is i mean, theres a few differences. One is clearances. I mean, theres a reason that these committees hire people who are coming out of the i. C. , its because that way they start with clearances and knowledge. And because the subject matter is so hidden, if you dont hire people who have the expertise already, its very hard for anybody to develop the expertise. So you have this inherent you start off with people who have i wouldnt want to call it captured, but who are, you know, in the academic literature on the path to capture, right . And oversight, congressional oversight has to play a bigger role with the i. C. Than it has to play with any other part of the federal government because of the security issues. So were asking congressional oversight to do something that its incapable of doing even in a really open area. I dont know, agriculture or whatever, right . Its incapable of doing it. And yet were not only asking it to do it about the i. C. , were asking it to do more. Just to follow up on that, because i think that it is a certain piece, an aspect of this is capture. I would also say the nonsecret nature of intelligence is highly technical. Is so youve got limited staff, youve got principals who are torn in a lot of different directions. Intelligence is not your only responsibility. One could argue the incentive structure is not set up to make them want to delve deeply into technical and controversial issues. But i really, i think, want to introduce the concept and the importance of emerging technology in this. Because one could argue you could understand, for example, a covert operation that involves operators. Can you understand how a satellite works . Do you have the people who can do that . Can they explain it to you . Do you have the time to understand it . I think technologys increasingly complicating the oversight picture. And theres the matter of reelection incentives. No one wins reelection because theyre a great overseer of intelligence. [inaudible] to your constituents. Right. I mean, its always its off camera. Right. I mean, right . To the extent that oversight meetings are functioning a functional for elections, its because theyre conducted in public. But these arent. Right. So theres sort of one way, i want to push back on the notion that congress isnt capable of maybe im overstateing, but i dont think congress is incapable of oversight in this context. I think the Church Committee report and the investigation that took place there was highly technical, highly detailed, it was politically dangerous, right . It wasnt good for church. But it was invaluable. The reports that came out were great. It changed the nature of the way that we looked at what was going on. It rereeled great wrongdoing revealed great wrongdoing across a wide spectrum, and i hesitate to [inaudible] immediately to my left, but the house and Senate Intelligence communities actually seemed to do a good job in the 70s and 80s. And they sort of slid away from that. I think what were seeing is an institutional question. Congress itself has made itself dysfunctional, and this was a choice. It was a choice to decrease the number of staff, it was a choice in how many committees members sit on, its a choice to appoint members of the house and Senate Intelligence committees. These institutionallydesigned choices combined there was a hearing i was at yesterday on bringing back the office of technology assessment. So if you want to know how encryption or satellites work, having a dedicated body of staff that work for you who can answer those questions is invaluable. But all of these things were cut off in the mid 90s, right . There was the gingrich cuts that, you know, well, decimation is killing off 1 in 10, so i dont know what 2 in 10 would be. It destroyed much of the capacity of congress to do this type of work. But that is a policy choice. That is a design choice. I dont think its because theyve inherently capable. I think that its the result of a number of political [inaudible] in retrospect were unwise, but they dont have to be the final choice about what that position has to be. So we talk about the Intelligence Community as a, as a group, as one body. But i think everybody in this room understands that the Intelligence Community is made up of different agencies, different offices within agencies that arent typically part of the Intelligence Community. And one of, i think, the challenges is kind of coordinating roles across, across the board. And i think the Intelligence Community is kind of a really good example of that, of that logistical challenge in terms of executive branch. So the office of director of National Intelligence was created kind of to play that coordination role, and in a way, to kind of oversee the actions of the entire Intelligence Community. So in your opinions, and this is a question to the whole group, does the creation of the office of the director of National Intelligence change the effectiveness of oversight positively or negatively . Wow, thats a hard one. [laughter] i, i mean, i think about it quite a bit, and, you know, i talk to people about it. I talk to people who i know someone who used to work as odni, but i dont have a clear sense of that. Yeah. I mean, theres obviously pros and cons. I mean, its like with everything, you put in structures, and they have the potential. And i dont think you and i are disagreeing about congress, actually. They have the potential to do, to do things, and they have a drag on that potential that comes from whatever sort of situation theyre in, right . Odni has occasionally been great for oversight and other times not so much, right . And so, like, which like, how do you sum that . I dont even know, i dont know how to add that up. I think that its an interesting question because the variation also is very dependent on the individual. Yes. In that position. And i think we really saw this with dan coats in his relationship when he sat down and we saw acting dni mcguire in the situation he got and this whole impeachment process that were talking about now. And i think that measuring its effectiveness, you can go back to First Principles to understand what it was intended to do which was to streamline, integrate and provide a point of contact or advising the president and others on issues. Is it achieving that or is it one more layer of bureaucracy that is getting increasingly large. And i know people who were, well, some think its a great vista, a great vantage point. Others think its just one more structure out in thats muddying the waters. But its an interesting, open question. I hear more often its an additional layer of bureaucracy, arguably. But theres some specific ways in which odni has improved oversight of intelligence. Well, i mean, even just calling it oversight is sort of an interesting question because describing at least internal oversight, congress not so much, right . So when congress has the oversight, theyre talking about are you doing the right thing. But for internal oversight, it tends to be argued doing the legal thing, right . Internal oversights aspirations tend to be much tamer than congressional as praixes. Aspirations. They tend to be a compliance strain rather than a policy, you know, is the game worth the candle kind of graham. Or maybe thats not quite right, but is the drag on Civil Liberties worth the gain, whatever the gain is, to security or to intelligence. Odni has definitely been, when it does internal oversight and im talking about the office as a whole rather than the director. Right. [inaudible] compliance mode. Ive written and believe that compliance mode is not its a useful mode, but its not actually the mode we mouth need. We most need. That compliance, you know, the rules are set to allow a pretty strong degree of intrusion on Civil Liberties or pryce. Come privacy. Compliance is those rules should not satisfy us and that there is insufficient attention paid by people who are in the know to think that is that the right rule set. And i think that odnis compliance mode has furthered the disinclination to think about surveillance from the perspective of are we doing the right thing as opposed to are we doing the legal thing. So that doesnt really answer your question, but i think that you can see it in the sort of whats been made public of the reports of the Civil Liberties office as odni. Its very much a compliance mode, and i dont think that terrifically is helpful in terms of what we need out of that office. I wicker it would do i wish it would do something a little different. Can i just underscore that . I think the distinction that you draw is a very useful way of thinking about, the is versus the ought. And actually it brings in another entity in terms of oversight which is, of course, the office of Legal Counsel inside the department of justice. Just because you can make a plausible that the law allows you to do something or that you will not run into legal difficulties for a decision that you make because no one will ever find out about it [laughter] or if they find out, theres nothing they can do about it because they dont have standing or all of the legal ways that you can stop something from happening is a very different conversation from, well, whats the blowback if our allies find out that we did this thing to them, or whats the consequence when people see that were interfering in political systems . If is this wise is this wise . You would think that would be internally diseased as well as being imposed decides as well as imposed through the political process. But the concern i always have with [inaudible] that has mixed responsibilities of implementing whatever the political decision is as well as having this sort of foresight role is that the latter drops away. Can we do the thing thats being asked of us, or whats the maximum amount that we can do without getting into, you know, if and when there are hearings, we will emerge unkated, i think thats very different from is it actually wise to be doing. And i dont think that conversation happens maybe as much as it should. And when it does happen, it is subsumed by the we can do this, not as much of whether we should do this. Also for internal offices, if they can plausibly say, but thats illegal, thats a very powerful move. Right. And if they instead say that doesnt seem worthwhile, right, we think the privacy invasion of that is not worth the gain in intelligence, if theyre seen to do that, they kind of lose juice in the agency. They Gain Authority in the agencies to the extent they really are Compliance Offices. So they have kind of an incentive to stick with compliance and internal Civil Liberties offices within the Intelligence Community have an incentive to stick with compliance and stay away from really . Which is a piece of is that wise, right . And so some of the offices, many of the offices say, okay, thats what were going to do, were going to be about law. And what that does is it deprives the i. C. Of a voice that isnt about law, but is in addition to being that law about interests. The privacy and Civil Liberties interests are real, and they need representation in the internal process, and they dont get it because the offices and i think this is true at the odni offices. Thats where you asked, sort of have institutional reasons to not want to be seen to kind of go there. I mean, it would strike me as a real missed opportunity to not address those concerns, because i think when we see scandals coming out of the as well as community, its almost always out of the Intelligence Community its almost always related to the encroachment on Civil Liberties. So, you know, i would think that the Intelligence Community would have an incentive to begin addressing those earlier on in the process in a really serious and meaningful way. Can i yeah, absolutely. Sort of in that context. [inaudible] further than i can. So when you look at, like, this emergence of the state secrets privilege, right, this is in the context not of grave questions of state, right . Its about liability from whether the people were killed in a plane crash. Or we have, you know, this is may or may not be intelligence, its certainly National Security. Like the bases in georgia that are leaking toxic chemicals that are killing their neighbors. You know, it was not always a question of is it okay if i open up your email, its can we dump all these pollutants in the stream and give everybody on base brain cancer ten years later. Or can we have manes that fall out of the sky because were not doing our due diligence. So theres a whole stack of questions that when you put the cloak of secrecy over something, and we put it over more and more things, is it about protecting something that needs to be protected, that really needs to be protected, right . The compelling argument and theres somebody pushing back, or is it just something thats embarrassing or that is more than embarrassing, that promotes liability but isnt something that has to do with our understand lying mission. It is manager they want something they want to start of keep under wraps. Are you suggesting the Intelligence Community keeps things secret that could be embarrassing . No, never. [laughter] because thats wild. Nor are they advocating against legislation that would provide more transparency around the types of things that they do. Right. So going back to congressional oversight and the role it plays specifically in the Intelligence Community, i think everybody can recognize that we are moving in a much more hyperpartisan direction almost daily. And i think the Intelligence Committees in congress have typically been above the fray, typically. Not, not uniformly, of course. But i think and not just starting with their role in the impeachment inquiry, although thats certainly not helping, i think we have started to see this hyperpartisanship impact the work of the Intelligence Committee. And so i just wanted to pose the question to the group what do you think the impact that its going to have or is having on oversight of the Intelligence Community . Well, ill just start, but i wonder about the future not just the present, but the future of the House Intelligence Committee having had this deep dive into the impeachment inquiry. I can only assume that Speaker Pelosi deciding that representative schiff chair house intelligence, for that committee to take on that role, this is a sign of her respect for schiffs intelligence, competence and all that. But certainly my sense of the House Committee versus the senate, ive sort of made myself do some reading about what the committees have been up to recently, and i certainly get the sense of the Senate Committee functioning fairly well in this hyperpartisan period in which we find ourselves. And, of course, the House Committee not so much. And i think what could draw the House Committee, House Intelligence Committee back into a more sort of bipartisan, cooperative functioning. Im always interested how periodically i check to see how the two committees, which are themselves, we should acknowledge, the committees are shrouded in a lot of secrecy. Its not just the intelligence agency, but necessarily the committees are shrouded in secrecy. How do they present themselves to the public. So its instructive to look at their web site. And when you go to the web site of the House Committee, you would barely know that there are republican. But you can click on minority and you can then you go there and its nunez, and you wouldnt know much, anything about schiff. And then there from nunez you can hear, essentially, conspiracy theories. Anyway, its a bit of a mess. Well, with the Senate Committee, you know, you see both sides, and you see more evidence of constructive functioning and cooperation. That has to be, i think, contribute to senator burr, the chair, republican, and the ranking and the vice chair, senator warner, the democrat. But how do we move so i think theres a difference. You know, theres an old idea going back to 1948 that congress should have created a joint committee on intelligence. And then much to my surprise, the socalled 9 11 commission sort of publicized that idea, recommended that idea in probably 21st century. My friend whos a great scholar of congressional oversight of intelligence, ive heard him say, you know, if youre going to fly a small plane and theres some danger, its better to have two engines rather than one. If one engines not working, maybe the other one will. One engine is working at least fairly well, the oh is not, and i wonder how to get the other one i just think you cant function very well if youre just utterly polarized. And i think, unfortunately, this impeachment role has made the problem more difficult. Yeah. I tend to agree with you that the senate has been operating more normally, i guess, than the house. But i, you know, there has been voter reports that chairman burr is considering subpoenaing the whistleblowers. Kick this all off. Yeah, your face is exactly my face there, i think. And, of course, there have been requests on the house side to do that as well, and i think it would just be such an incredible mistake considering the role that white housing blowers play in assisting congress to do its oversight work. So, yeah, i mean, you know, as an organization that spikes for the rights and protections of whistleblowers, its a scary time to see this happening. Intelligent communities have some of the hardest to enforce protections within the federal government. So i am holding my breath watching as things go over to the senate, how thatll be handled. Yeah. So a couple of things. First, i wouldnt draw too much from the distinctions between the house and Senate Committee web sites only in that all the House Committee web sites have separate web sites between the majority and the minority right. Whereas in the senate all the Committee Web sites are a single committee. Right. So there are other things that i think support your thesis, but not necessarily that. I also think that the spectrum of bipartisan to hyperpartisan is the wrong spectrum to look at. I think that the house and Senate Intelligence communities were failing long before impeachment in the Trump Administration camp, that their bipartisan consensualism was largely in support of a lack of oversight, and that was more captured by the perspective of the Intelligence Community. And going back to what we had five years ago is also bad. The hyperpartisanship is bad, right . Just using the powers and tools to go and like, that is not helpful in the least. And what were seeing is very destructive. We put out a report two years ago with 26 organizations and numbers of congress that talked about changing congressional oversight of the Intelligence Committee. Gao, looking at staff part of it was also changing fundamentally the house and Senate Judiciary committees. One was do what the Brennan Center has recommended and a number of scholars which is you need to go and see all the things that have happened since the church and pike sessions. From 2000 to present, what are the steps taken place and have a separate entity that is not captured in the way that intelligence communities havent been cap purred. Cuptured. It would require several years work, but i think that would be valuable to figure out sort of what the state of play is. But you also need to think about the consequences of having leadership picking the members of the house and Intelligence Committee. Its pernicious. You need to think about do they have enough staff, a 40something staff is clearly not sufficient because when you look at the scope of the entities they oversee. You need to looked at how the clearances work. If Jared Kushner could get an interim clearance in a week sorry, i dont mean to pick on him but if you can get an interim clearance in the executive branch and it takes more than a year for Congressional Staff to get a clearance, that doesnt make sense whatsoever. Right. So theres a number of things. And taking all of this stuff and putting it in a super secret committee when the purpose of the committee is to act as the avatar of the American People and to be responsive . There were communications from the Obama Administration that the House Intelligence Committee stopped from being sent to all the other members of the house which theyre not allowed to do. The House Committee will go and chastise members for putting up clappers on the floor because theyre leaking classified material. From the front page of the new york the new york times, certainly, you can discuss it on the house floor. What we have are a handful of folks who have taken it upon themselves to be the arbiter of all this, and theyve sort of closed the cloak around themselves so you cant see whats going on. The staff cant see it, the public cant see it, and this is a fundamental problem. I would suggest whether its more bipartisan or hyperpartisan, i think the nature of the house and Senate Intelligence communities themselves is indicative of failure and that we need to rethink it from the ground up. Lease for another body. I think that it comes in that the conference should consider. You can get an intern security clearance in a week. In Congressional Staff will have to wait years. That just incentivizes further pulling people from the Intelligence Community into the Oversight Offices which has brought necessarily a bad idea but he got a balance that out. Stomach why hasnt Congress Done this. My suspicion, will would i look back with his recent decades, yet further, i see so much from the legislative branch to the executive pressure. Why hasnt Congress Done this. Thats a question for the ages. Ask him if theres a from 1979 between the head of the cia, would the cia believe it is. There are is it too many people with clearances. Across the government we need to reduce them so we need to encourage this withdrawal. Enter as long as we can get the leadership. And then in a followup letter, massively increasing the number in people in the executive branch clearances. They said why dont the leadership get the people and it will be fine. Jose, is the member of the house action. The people who think they need the information, the people that she handpicks, the minority leaders, the people that he handpicks. Have asked him. They other members of congress themselves. The widest congress or the congressional stephanie clearance. Its an executive branch function. One is simply pass along. They could do it for all of the others. Putting hillside that, why would Congress Want to go to these other folks. A consensual profit. But from a first principle, theres certainly reasons that we dont need to do that. There is a moment of fear and i see related stuff. It is the area in which, somebody can see to you, that will mean the end of the republic. Or some moderated version of that. Everybody, has been involved in oversight for Civil Liberties potential has a story to tell. Somebody said to them, that is a victory for our enemies. I thought they were wrong. I thought that was insane. Just to reassure everybody. The fact is that that requires and thats why Congress Wants other people to do clearances. Because that way, if something bad happens, if there is another set of disclosures, if theres a leak or if there is a whatever. Something bad happens, they can see look we didnt clear it. They cleared it. Those people who are the experts, they cleared the sky. But so you cant blame us. That is also why there is this encrypted threat in terms of disclosures. The experts in the agency are actually better equipped to dismiss that threat and people are less expert. How was the speaker news of us to know if something really is the threat. That would take a lot of attention and shes got a lot of stuff going on. So it is nice for her, and i dont actually mean has brought policy and speaker policy in particular. Im not talking about the particulars dispute. I think in general, congress has every reason to want to get the sayso of the ic. Before they receive information because then people cant criticize them for something if it bad something that happens. I would argue that while it may be the easier way out. Less consequence is for them. Its not necessarily them fulfilling the role a sneak legislative body. I didnt mean that. Right but i think it is easy to hear that and see yeah that makes a lot of sense. I wouldnt want that responsibility either but im not a member of congress. I dont have a lot of sympathy for that position. Although i see how it could be in it. They get informed. They get communicated by something burried encrypted. The rockefeller note, he was a vice chair. I cant refuse vice chair chair. He was informed of illegal behavior and writes a note to file handwritten note to file, it is ridiculous that is chair of the vice chair of the Intelligence Committee. A sinking in a file. Have a real problem with this. Just do it. This is your job. A sneak downside, would we told you this was going on and you didnt stop it. And what is the. There is no upside. All of these terrible things that have been going on will continue to go on. This think with speeder, we will tell some of them but not tell them all. Well tell a little bit and the note will come up ten years later and that is politically stupid. There deliberately choosing to be stupid. That is dangerous for them in the body rest upon the approval of others. One her question. Then i will go to the audience. Maybe putting allies on the spot and apologize. To move into the conversation about necessary reforms in the space. Wave the magic wand, there wouldbe one think, not politically feasible in the moment, maybe real estate happens tomorrow but if you waive that magic one and have one change occur in any particular Oversight Office or entity of the Intelligence Community, what would it be. What you think would have the most impact. Of two. These are going to be supermarket with a possible. They should have one staffer who is cleared at the fci loophole. So that the briefest play, congressional offices. In our members that have introduced legislation for another couple of years. And that wouldbe that i would change if affirming select committee to a Standing Committee. The members are chosen through the political process. Not chosen by the speaker or the minority leaders. So they be more broadly represented to the congress and not beholden to just one person. On the south side, increase the size of the staff. That is a serious concern. Dont have recourse. You need clearances, they need wide expertise. So much of this is working has not direction that we really need to broaden that capacity there to support them. I understand there was an ideal prevention like back in the 70s and 80s, and those who will appointed to congressional Intelligence Committees, those numbers should be people who have really good reputations within their respective body or seriousness of purpose and a willingness to spend the time and the willingness to be nonpartisan and bipartisan. How to revise that idea, relative to what you are stayi staying, or the ideas i read about was different from viewers, specific to the house i was to help the speaker in the minority leader of greek it should be to whos chosen to be in choosing the chair of house intelligence, both the speaker and the minority leader should agree on that first and the speaker in the minority leader should grip upon should be vice chair of this committee. Seems to me that wouldbe a start. Two idealistic with this notion that people in these two committees wouldbe serious about intelligence oversight. I think everyone in this room knows this but there is a big audience out there on cspan so i just want to make a elementary. That this matters. What intelligence agencies do is critically important but we know from history that sometimes there is been incompetence and sometimes there has been a legalities. Congress in these account committees especially, can make a difference. Sometimes they have. Will take my role is focusing on the internal offices. Not because i necessarily think the most important. I actually dont think those of the most important. Thats would doing on this panel. I think in each element of the ic, i would redesign the internal Civil Liberties office to increase its hierarchical stature and his access and safeguard the kind of rule and policy development and its connections to external advocacy communities. To try to bring Civil Liberties perspectives into the Agency Development process. Can i just one more think. I think we look at that is about understanding, that kind of covers some of this. You have reporting inside, and external. I would argue that in terms of for example would agencies investigated sector and Inspector General and reinforcing the importance of someone it can be in both worl worlds. I think it wouldbe another think that i would strengthen. I would use that a sneak complement to the rust that has been talked about. I think that rules especially important. We do see strengthen is Inspector General news, you specific recommendations . I think the question there would you are talking about the equity of that role. That role has to be protected and know how you do that. Something rule internally. Statutorily for sure. The developing culture norms around the role, so dont have a concrete rule to focusing on this and it will be effective but i think the economy should be there. That is a crucial piece what happens internally. It can be seen i can see that trying breakdown that they were talking about witches and inference between her internal national they can also be seen a sneak spokesperson within burried straightforward. I work for the army, are you loyal internally or externally. Will that person needs to be tested. Its obvious but kept safe. Would i did that we been pushing for a little while is to get all Inspector General protection. Basic we saw and even with icd recently after sending this letter to congress, then firing him. And there really isnt anything you could do to stop the president from doing that. Hes in the pressure of the president doesnt benefit from removal and protections from other Oversight Offices. We also see keeping it vacant. In these types of ways of that role. Assuming im not a specialist in Inspector General but my sense of it is and i know some of this is great. Inspector general has done some great reports and betsy reports across the decade. Have them in some horrible failures by inspectors general or intelligence agencies. Because im not familiar with really gutsy reports. May be one of the biggest failures will be not properly protecting and so i think even just earlier this administration, the person that the president chose to nominate for the cia Inspector General, which had been vacant had opened the lower retaliation complaint against them. Luckily, reporting and he reported that and i think doctor into the senate not at bay missing the nomination and later went through the thinking goes to show that there are a lot of responsibilities of these individuals hold think you mentioned earlier the strong leadership is critical. And i think that is one example. Theres some failures to engage by inspectors general. Theres been some situations where the Inspector General is known to have known about some problem and didnt take it on. So that is not as public as because a report. It is a dog not barking think. I dont know of any nipsey which doesnt mean there arent any. I have no idea but they have to be some inspectors in the Inspector General report and some agencies. That is just not right. That makes us is another office, and office with the staff that has to become quite expert and quite contentious topics burried fast. So expect there to be to be summit mistakes preventively the make mistakes sometimes. Went to the ig, unending spectral general. Now we are going to the audience for questions. Please wait to be called on. With the microphone so everyone in the room and the online audience can hear. A sneak start please announce your name and affiliation. Thank you. My name is stephen pete, i am a retired service officer. While the streaming, and did two tours in the state Department Bureau of intelligence and research and was at the time the first gulf war would a secretary for associate and bankers summary. Edited in my career, i was working doing with the carcasses. I appreciate it burried much your comments and there are two areas where had some observation here. What is have to stand there. You are speaking of the role the dni. I think if you look at small intelligence agencies, like the bureau of intelligence and research, is the doubleedged sword. The good aspect is that people working for small agencies get to do details and dni, they now are far more involved in the process of repairing the president news daily briefings in the past. The bad part of it is that there are now more up in a larger institution and there is perhaps less opportunity from the dissent that there was in the past. In particular think of dissent in terms of the famous footnote in the second gulf war. That wouldbe my observation on that. Be interested in seeing what you have dissent. Your comments on traditional oversight, first, having worked in one of the smallest intelligence agencies, i would disagree with you about focusing on the number of people with clearances. I would argue is more important the quality of the oversight process. And i know thinking in particular one time would i was working on the caucasus and went up to them and i was speaking with some people about about and i was burried impressed with the knowledge that they had and is burried impressed with the quality of their questions. And with going and talking about the quality of the oversight, something important to keep in mind is often the members themselves, are in agreement with the administration of the days positioned. In thinking again it would lead up the second gulf war. They are often mentioned agreement with the policies that administration and with the practices and i am thinking now the torture tactics of the cia which are things that i think will horrible. But i would argue that on a bipartisan basis, have a lot of support. So again thank you for your presentations and wouldbe interested in your comments on my observations. It is gratifying to hear that you are hearing that it questions. From members. I was a little shocked or deflated to hear again from a couple of legislators liaisons that they were not impressed. Im glad to hear. It is gratifying to hear. These will good questions. On the first one, the burried much varies varies, and what time and so, there are many smart people who work burried hard and burried long hours. The second. , i think the the Intelligence Committee reflects leadership prerogatives means that you will lock the loophole of dissent necessary to push back on things that need to be questioned like torture. There may be questions within the democratic conference who would disagree with these behaviors because that information is kept for nearly people who are in control by leadership. That there isnt an opportunity to push back. I think if were going to treat congressional oversight seriously, when he talked about in terms terms of congress. In terms of each chamber and involving members and being able to engage. And making a burried in a row reporting and keeping the information burried close read beyond the mic that is necessary. Had what was going on been better was going on in the house in the city, you wouldnt just have i remember members staying we will never told. Senior members, staying we will never told. Maybe the work, but do the work nobody knows from where i separated but if the members knew, for that to continue. I think we have time for one or two more questions. Hi there. Thank you all for being here today. Shannon was i pursue. Current oversight at the National Security agency. Im not a technology will hurt perspective the more about the broad is there a Technical Expertise now. Okay do to develop that expertise in these oversight bodies. In terms of exultation abroad. To conduct that kind of surveillance. Im actually not an expert. Im more of a sale a person my impression but i wouldnt want i will just turn impression. Twelve triple three oversight has brought burried robust. Weve been talking about problems with oversight in areas that are massively more covered than in so everything you heard, is about other stuff. Then see, theres a tent or a hundred of that amount of oversight going on through this surveillance for this my impression. But dont really know that. Burried briefly. The technology policy, and like oversight different congress. The fact that it has agencies that can support that dive boat think. There is a hearing that took place yesterday. Enhancing technology policy. In general you think that there is an understanding on the hill that they are woefully deficient of the trump of cushions. In others an effort to at least push back on that and try to reestablish the tragedies that they lost. Women minute 45 seconds. Does anybody have a burried quick question. Good morning and thank you all. Pujol see pretty much in response to abolish the entire ic. Simply because of all of the illegal wars and the illegal surveillance. Illegal things from people from john lennon to mlk to fred hampton. The unaccountability and non transparency to the public of how our earnings being its been. I would argue that increased oversight may help you get there. Why is everyone looking at me. [laughter]. I dont think you can abolish it. I think you can break it up. Major portions of its mission can be taken away. They you can and body. This specific oversight. I think what we have seen, are including ongoing surveillance of war protesters. Undermine our ongoing threats to the security democracy. That is terrifying we should be afraid of those things we need to think about what is happening and to engage in systematic oversight. An restriction of these efforts. So that is not dangerous to the body politic. You wont be able to get rid of those functions because they are necessary to sustain these concepts. His stomach with, we conclude our first battle. I want to thank all of the panelist and cato for putting this on. Well take those 15 minute break. Refreshments are available in the winter garden. Located on the first four. Refreshments are located on this loophole. Left of the elevators on the lower loophole. July for new. In 15 minutes, well have our second right panel. Thank you. [background sounds]