Latest in intelligence oversight
As of Sept. 24, the House of Representatives has formally launched impeachment proceedings against President Trump.
The House Intelligence Committee released two letters it received from the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (ICIG), Michael K.
On Sept. 13, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff issued a subpoena to Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire to compel the production of a whistleblower complaint.
In 1975, Philip Agee, a former CIA case officer who claimed he had become disillusioned with the CIA’s support for right-wing dictators in Central and South America, published “Inside the Company,” a tell-all memoir of his service, which included an appendix naming 250 alleged CIA officers, agents and informants. Agee also founded a magazine called “CounterSpy,” which advocated outing clandestine CIA officers.
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs recently published results from the second round of an annual poll, sponsored by the Texas National Security Network at the University of Texas at Austin, which aims to shed light on Americans’ perceptions of the intelligence community. The data collected in 2018—including survey methodology and limited policy analysis—are available here.
On Jan. 29, the heads of six agencies in the U.S. intelligence community delivered annual testimony in front of the Senate intelligence committee about global threats to U.S. national security. As could be expected, the nature and scope of contemporary cyber threats and electoral security was of significant interest at the hearing, which included the director of national intelligence, the CIA director, and the FBI director.
What follows are a few thoughts on the House intelligence committee’s report dated March 22 and released April 27 by the majority—and the consequence of the process taken to release it. This is not a comprehensive review of every issue covered by the report. These views are based on my read of the majority report only. I have not yet read the minority views report, as I thought it important to assess the majority report without color of the minority views.
Harvard Law Review has published a new issue, now available online, which includes a feature article and several responses concerning the role of the President and National Security Council in overseeing foreign intelligence collection. The feature article and overall series could not be more timely, particularly in light of last month’s Wall Street Journal report on U.S.
One thing I love about the various annual authorization bills is that they often contain very interesting but little-noticed provisions. The Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016, which HPSCI (the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence) voted out last week, is no exception. The full text is here, and my top-five highlights appear below:
Section 303: The Intelligence Committees want in on Special Access Program reporting.