The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Responsibilities and Activities is under new management in the 114th Congress. With a Republican majority in the Senate, the committee is now chaired by Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina. The former chair is now ranking minority member, Sen. Dianne Feinstein representing California.
Feinstein had been leading a concerted committee effort to ensure that the committee was able to perform its lawful oversight duties unimpeded by the intelligence agencies. It now appears that Senator Burr shares many of her misgivings about the information being received by the committee from the intelligence community. The leaders have agreed to compile a “secret encyclopedia of American intelligence collection”, according to a story in the Washington Post.
Need-to-Know Nightmares
In the last decade, the intelligence community and the people who oversee it for the American people have been engaged in a low-level conflict. At the heart of the fight, for all agencies, the Congress and the Administration, is the question “Who needs to know which programs and actions are being taken by any given intelligence organization?” Claims and counter-claims about classified briefings and reports have been argued in the media and in congressional hearings. Leaks, whistleblowers and mischance have revealed activities that may or may not be legal, approved of by leadership or briefed to elected officials. It’s a mess.
The basics of the agreement between Burr and Feinstein have been, of course, leaked anonymously. Senate committee staffers will create this encyclopedia without assistance from Executive Branch officials formerly assigned to the committee. The leakers claim that the process will not create one specific document. In addition, they claim that the information gathered will not be allowed to be kept in the custody of the Select Committee.
Congressional Limits
Techdirt points out that oversight by Congress has limits, “so much of the work done by the intelligence community actually falls under executive order 12333.” The Reagan-issued executive order covers most of the activities of American intelligence agencies and, as Techdirt states, “Congress technically has no oversight mandate.” The Committee is, then, compiling a partial encyclopedia of some activities, which is laudable but probably without any real utility.
The conflict between Congress and the intelligence community is not ending. Creation of a secret encyclopedia will accomplish little and will be incomplete. The documents or database will present an attractive target for hackers and spies. Oversight of intelligence activities by elected officials will remain sporadic and contentious.
