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