What Are The Pitfalls Of Judicial Oversight

Terrorists widely violated immigration laws while in the United States. Even though the intelligence officials have gained information about terrorist attack, delayed organizational reforms prevent them to solve the crisis. Consequently, intelligence agencies were blamed because of organizational failure. Michel Delving gives some startling piece of news in his book The Devil Incarnate which described the event of September 11 attack. The report submitted by the House and Senate committee in June 2002 reveals the organizational failure of Bush administration. Analyzing various aspects of the 9/11 attacks, the committees still exposed a vast display of confirmation of failures by various security agencies like CIA, FBI, National Security Agency, another agencies that terminated in the terrorist’s achievement (Delving, 2006, p.79). Finally, problems in the FBI have created practical obstacles in the process of determining and preventing terrorist attacks. FBI and other intelligence agencies have introduced several strategies like counter terrorism included both criminal and intelligence investigations. Unfortunately, these strategies and techniques failed to strengthen security measures. Instead of that these techniques promote organizational crisis among the intelligence

In this paper the subject of interest is the role of congress in the oversight of strategic intelligence, or the lack there of. Does congress have a proper role in the oversight of strategic intelligence? If not what should the proper role be? These are the questions best answered by looking at the history of congressional over sight and where it is at today. The next few pages will cover the topics above and shed light on what it is congress calls oversight.

Congressional oversight: oversight by congress of the executive branch. This relates to this unit because in this unit we learn about the many things congress is in charge of, and its many functions in government. In this unit we discuss the different powers congress has and what powers it doesn’t have. With congressional oversight, congress has many powers such as protecting civil liberties, preventing fraud and waste, making sure the executive branch complies with the law, etc. The power of congressional oversight is important to American government and politics because it is an implied power of congress, and the idea of checks and balances is important in this country. Congress has committees and has the right to check the executive branch to make sure everything is in

The 9/11 attacks opened the avenue for a scrutiny of the performance and ability of the intelligence community to detect any threats to the safety of the United States. The media, politicians, reformists and other interested parties would not comprehend how such an attack would happen without the knowledge of the intelligence community. However, it is important to consider the fact that the attack was one of its kind and could not be approached with the resources and expertise used in other initiative such as the cold war. Therefore, the need to restructure the intelligence community arose from the view that it was still operating in the mindset and spirit of the cold war even in the modern era that had seen a revolutionary change of warfare

Senator Church’s summary of the committee findings states: “There has been, in short, a clear and sustained failure by those responsible for controlling the intelligence community, and to ensure its accountability.”, (Fourth Amendment Framework, 2015, p. 164).

Congress has the power to make authorizations of funds for programs involving strategic intelligence. One way Congress ensures that budgets policies are being followed is through the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The GAO is an independent agency that works for Congress and they investigate how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars. Their mission is to support the Congress in meeting its constitutional responsibilities and to help improve the performance and ensure the accountability of the federal government for the benefit for the American People. They provide timely information that is objective, fact-based, nonpartisan, nonideological, fair, and balanced. Audits made by the GAO are considered tools to be used to ensure policies for laws on budgets and appropriations of funds are

The U.S. Intelligence oversight is basically a method to establish a principle of the intelligence community. Similar to a public school, a principle exists and has much clout in the school. The principle does not instruct the teacher how to deliver their block of instruction, but ensures they conduct themselves in accordance with established policies and procedures. In comparison, this intelligence oversight I am referring to as the principle is Congress. So, what is it?

John D. Negroponte is a lifelong diplomat who was called by his president to handle one of his most sensitive and complex diplomatic missions to date - that was the reformation and integration of the United States Intelligence Community under the newly formed Office of the Director of National Intelligence. John Negroponte was not considered to be an idealogue or a neocon, and he had a long pedigree of successful performance in difficult positions. Serving in multiple positions spanning forty years, Negroponte was a pragmatic realist who got things done. Although there were some early detractors to Negroponte’s appointment (former Navy Secretary John Lehman opined “John Negroponte is a superb diplomat, but with no interest or experience in the intelligence

The intelligence community has undergone some major changes in the past thirty years. During the cold war this section of defense had massive funding. There needed to be an ability to predict what the Soviet Union was planning to do and what they were actually doing in order to prevent a nuclear war. After this period in time ended there was again large changes. The budget to the intelligence community was cut astronomically because there was perceived to be less of a threat to the United States (“9/11 Intelligence Failures Report”, 2002). This misperception was actually due to a lack of ability to shift to a new changing threat. This mind set allowed many unwelcomed risks to enter into the United States.

The United States (U.S) Intelligence community has come a long way since the revolutionary war. After winning independence from England, the U.S would not invest much into intelligence or foreign policy until the 20th century. Foreign policy was simply not a priority for our young nation, having an ocean on eastern and Western boarders of the country severely limited potential threats. President Franklin D. Roosevelt would be the first president since Washington to understand the importance of intelligence and lay the groundwork for what we now consider national intelligence. Unfortunately, it has taken two catastrophic failures in intelligence for the U.S to realize the need for good intelligence and take steps to improve itself. The

Congress plays a vital role in strategic intelligence through the use of operational oversight and budget control, but this has become an issue of concern in recent years. Congressional intelligence committees uphold high decisions pertaining to every type of intelligence collection that exist, and was founded on the concept of no one person having absolute power. This is the concept that undergirds the importance of the oversight of national intelligence. Since the U.S. involvement in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Congress has not had a very robust congressional oversight on intelligence and left the decisions to that of the president and the intelligence agency governing important operational matters.

Issues pertaining to Intelligence oversight are intricate ; complicated at best and confusing at worst . By the virtue of its very nature , intelligence and open scrutiny do not mix although that is what Congress is mandated to do . Historically , the debate over Intelligence reform & oversight was a bloody uphill battle between the legislative & executive bodies . To further illustrate that point , a study that researched history of 58 of congressional record , titled “ US INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

Congressional oversight is a mechanism that delegates Congress the power to investigate the activities of executive agencies, in order to ensure there is no violation of legislative goals (Lowi (et al), 2014). This summary concluded some discussion of the oversight mechanism from three articles by Lowi (et al) (2014), McCubbins and Schwartz (1984) and Kingdon (1984), particular on the effectiveness and its influences on agenda-setting process.

Under the instructions of these laws, FBA and NSA launched several programs for surveilling suspected people, among those programs the most notorious one is PRISM. This program

High level policy makers are not only concerned with intelligence; they are constantly concerned with reelection. A policy maker who is identifying requirements could decide to focus resources on an issue that is less vital to the nation’s security in order to obtain information that will get them reelected. High level threats could be pushed to the side in order to address an issue that is not necessarily as vital but is a hot topic in news media, and public opinion. This would be followed down by the intelligence community and the more dangerous area or individual threat could be left unmonitored.