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In the 1970s, Congress investigated intelligence abuses. Time to do it again?
- a3n 13y agoThis Congress? If they do anything, it will be to enact legislation to make what's going on appear more legal, in a chorus of harumphs.
- gavinlynch 13y agoExactly. The last time there was an open debate (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Awareness_Office) about mass surveillance, Congress realized it was a bad issue with the public. So what did they do? Government simply moved these programs into black budgets or granted retro-active immunity, or modified the FISA rules to make sure everything fit into a legal framework that is Congress Approved. They wrote the laws and fund the programs. They want these programs. Why would they care to have a public debate about them?
- rfnslyr 13y agoIs it possible for my belief in congress to reach negative numbers?
- wavefunction 13y agoAnd self-congratulations, don't forget those! "Congress has shown once again a remarkable willingness to reach across party lines to ensure that no problem is ever reported again. Time for a raise!" I believe that government can work well for us, it's just the individuals in there now in both major parties are by-and-large the worst sorts we could hope for real oversight.
- dllthomas 13y agoOversight of secret programs by elected officials flat doesn't work, in a system where money plays such a big role. The only ones who can speak on the issue (with dollars) are those who know about it, and the only ones who know about it are those asking for the power or the contract.
- wavefunction 13y agoI've seen it work in real life, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree.
- dllthomas 13y agoYou've "seen" oversight by elected officials reliably protect against abuses in a secret program? What was your role?
- wavefunction 13y agoCitizen only. I would cite Sens. Wyden and Udall as reliably working within the system to expose the abuses in a strategic manner, knowing how powerful the forces arrayed against them are. Now certainly you can disagree with me and say that they should have exposed everything they knew about the programs to the public, but I think their work over the years has been more productive that that. Had they gone public, they probably would have been replaced by other individuals all too interested in quid pro quo.
- dllthomas 13y agoMy point is slightly different - Wyden and Udall have been great in public, on this issue. My point is we have no way of telling whether their walk matches their talk behind closed doors. Hopefully it does, but I am not confident we can count on it. You've not observed it, you've observed what you think and hope is it - it may be, but it's not evidence until we know.
- jdp23 13y agoGreat interview. The last poll I saw on this was that over 75% want a committee to investigate, and roughly the same percentage cross party lines. "A new Church committee" is one of the demands from StopWatching.us and from EFF et. al.'s open letter to Congress.
- uvdiv 13y agoDoesn't the Church Committee still exist? It's the Select Committee on Intelligence: [Senate, ex Church] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Select_Committee_on_Intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Select_Co... [House, ex Pike] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Permanent_Select_Committee_on_Intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_Permanent_... The current chair is Dianne Feinstein, who apparently supports everything the NSA is doing.
- mtgx 13y agoI'm all for it. But hopefully the Congress people that will be part of the investigation team won't be the same people that butt-kissed the intelligence chiefs at the past 2 hearings. Put Wyden and Udall in charge, or even better - some people from EFF/ACLU.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- uvdiv 13y agoWyden and Udall are already on the Senate committee that oversees the NSA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Select_Committee_on_Intelligence#Members.2C_113th_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Select_Co... They have been for years, if anyone's been paying attention. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/us/politics/democratic-senators-warn-about-use-of-patriot-act.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/us/politics/democratic-sen...
- davidcuddeback 13y agoYes, but the reason that they would be good candidates to lead the hearings is that they've been trying to warn us about surveillance abuses for a while. They didn't wait until it was politically advantageous (read: after the Snowden leak) to do so. Source: the second link in your comment.
- dsirijus 13y agoI'd be contempt with just EFF being one of the 3rd parties to observe and cover in detail congressional investigation of the issue, in some official account of transparency. That's also more realistic goal.
- legutierr 13y agoI think you mean "content"; "contempt" has almost an opposite meaning.
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- badman_ting 13y agoYou know you're screwed when you start hoping Congress will save you.
- lettergram 13y agoThe difference is that the president and congress are in on it, they approved these measures and had been briefed (at least supposedly to some extent). Also, based on what I currently know from watching and reading about the current situation, there is suppose to be SOME form of checks and balances between the FBI, NSA, CIA, some members Congress, judicial committees set up, and the president. What is that committee going to find? That a large portion of the government was doing something wrong, I doubt it.
- XorNot 13y agoSo did the people of the US though. There haven't been intelligence abuses because this is all legal to do, and the laws are publicly available knowledge if anyone would care to look. If the issue is people think some of these things should be illegal, then the challenge is to get the appropriate legislation changed. But if you're only champions are people who think foreign intelligence should be shutdown altogether (as Snowden has been moving his message towards), you're not going to get very far (because it's an obviously stupid idea).
- LoganCale 13y agoThat's clearly not what Snowden has been saying or implying. The information he released about Chinese spying and hacking was about what he considered abuses, e.g. spying and hacking civilian infrastructure in China rather than targeting state actors.
- mpyne 13y agoSnowden has been saying in other realms that foreign citizens should have as much privacy as U.S. citizens do, which essentially defeats the purpose of having the NSA at all given how intertwined "national security-related" communications are with the rest of our comms. The other way you can go is to degrade the level of protection from this type of data collection an American gets to match what NSA can do for foreigners (since having so much as one foreign party to a conversation makes the whole thing fair game for NSA). But I don't think that would be politically feasible, and it's not as if that would really make those who live outside the USA feel any better about the idea of their data being collected.
- DanielBMarkham 13y agoWe absolutely need this, but for this to happen you are going to need one of the leaders of either the senate or house to buy-in. Not likely without kicking the current yahoos out. Remember, it's mostly these same guys who put us here in the first place.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- saosebastiao 13y agoThe most surprising thing about this article was that Idaho actually elected a democrat to the Senate once upon a time.
- dllthomas 13y agoThe parties have moved all over the map over the last 100 years.
- superuser2 13y agoIt doesn't seem like anyone outside of HN considers these abuses. If anything Congress will investigate how to stop all these leaks, not the programs being leaked.
- geophile 13y agoYes, and can I have a pony? The problem is that, in spite of his happy talk, Obama has always been as bad as Bush on the first and fourth amendments, arguably worse. Remember, he voted for telecom immunity in 2008, when he was a senator. From the article: "In the wake of Watergate, Democrats won large majorities in both houses of Congress in the midterm elections of 1974. One of the first items on the new Congress’ agenda was to investigate the intelligence abuses of Richard Nixon and his predecessors." From another article (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/11/obama-leaves-door-open-to_n_156910.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/11/obama-leaves-door-o...): "Responding to the most popular inquiry on the "Open for Questions" feature of his website, Barack Obama said on Sunday that he is "evaluating" whether or not to investigate potential crimes of the Bush administration, but that he was inclined to "look forward as opposed to looking backwards." And even if Obama weren't so awful in this regard, Congress is not capable of doing anything with real teeth.
- fragsworth 13y ago> Congress is not capable of doing anything with real teeth. Congress has the power, and is legally capable. They just don't want to, for some fucking reason. Someone explain to me why the Republicans don't get all up in arms about this mess? They could easily blame it on Obama's administration to win support for the next election. Even though they voted for the PATRIOT act, they can at least put on an act of hating that one part where everyone gets spied on. It's really not hard to put a spin on it where you can gain a ton of public support. Instead, the ONLY people we see who are angry about the whole situation are the "fringe/crazy" ones: Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Ron Paul, etc... which, interestingly enough, lowers the credibility of outrage. Meanwhile, everyone else in Congress and mainstream media proclaims Snowden a traitor. I've never been one for conspiracies (seriously, never in my life), but I'm finding it more and more difficult to shake the feeling that there's something going on with our government and media that we're all completely unaware of. Their actions make absolutely no logical sense from an individual self-interest perspective.
- jasonkolb 13y agoThe reason is that there's no one giving them money to protect our freedoms. There's a line of parties with billions of reasons (annually) to maintain the status quo, and they pay full-time lobbyists to protect their interests.
- dvmmh 13y agoNo. The congress/president are so scared of having another terrorist attach on their watch that they are 100% sold on letting the NSA/FBI/CIA/NYPD do anything they want to do in the name of safety/security. This stems from the fact that the average American demands that they be safe and anyone that "drops the ball" will bear their wrath next election cycle. The average American values an illusion of safety/security FAR HIGHER than their privacy.
- jamesjporter 13y agoTo me this seems like the root of the issue. Politicians give the voters what the want; If most are willing to trade civil liberties for security (or at least the illusion of security) than that's the way it will be :(
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago>The congress/president are so scared of having another terrorist attach This is an excuse. I'm more inclined to think it is the fantastical amounts of money they get to play with, spoils for their districts and such.
- saraid216 13y agoThose two explanations are not mutually exclusive. It's probably both, to varying extents, in many different members.
- gnaritas 13y agoSimply not true; Busk dropped the ball, 9/11 happened, and he was re-elected.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- j_baker 13y agoHis committee examined the actions of the FBI, CIA, NSA and other agencies between World War II and the 1970s. Let's hope that it doesn't take another 30 years for these issues to be resolved. Though given the attitudes of the people on these committees, I don't give that good odds.
- guelo 13y agoIn the current political climate I think the best chance to stop it would be for the Supreme Court to rule on the merits. That would require the courts to allow the lawsuits to proceed, which might happen now thanks to Snowden. If not, then the next best chance would be some Nixon-level scandal over partisan spying abuses that spurs congress into action. Though that could take decades before it happens.
- ferdo 13y agoThe chairman of that committee, Frank Church, warned about the NSA in 1975: > "That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide." > "I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge... I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return." > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Church#Warning_about_the_NSA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Church#Warning_about_the_...
- stackedmidgets 13y agoIt was only a temporary fix last time, would be an even more temporary fix this time.
- hooande 13y agoThe difference between now and 1970 is clear: NSA surveillance doesn't affect the lives of the average american. Spying or not spying, the lives of most people are the same as they have been. The NSA has been doing what its doing for years, and most people have suffered no ill effect. We can't expect Congress to be up in arms about philosophical privacy issues. In the 70s on the other hand, Watergate was a really really big deal. It did have an effect on the daily lives of most americans. A US President had never resigned in disgrace before, and it was very much on peoples' minds. Congress was fulfilling it's role to help the nation heal in a time of crisis. The problem with this NSA story is that there hasn't been anything to make it "real" in the minds of the average citizen. If people thought that Obama was using surveillance to keep tabs on and punish his political enemies, people would be up in arms. If the government was kicking down doors and arresting people for thought crimes, Republicans in Congress would be out of their minds with rage. Given the current political situation, it would only take evidence of one abuse to make most americans rise up in protest. But we haven't seen that yet. This is why I think that Snowden overplayed his hand. Evidence of surveillance is shocking, but it's not enough to incite people to action. If he could have provided proof of just one actual abuse due to government surveillance, he would have made the impact that he wanted and so much more. As it is, I'm afraid that he might have thrown his lifestyle away for nothing.
- sliverstorm 13y agoThat's a good point. If Snowden had, for example, released proof that Obama defeated Romney with the help of the NSA snooping, the Republicans probably would have sacked the White House by now.
- 205guy 13y agoAs opposed to taking a chance at preventing that abuse? Perhaps not as dramatic, but on the whole better to curtail it before. Once the level is abuse, it's much harder to correct. I do see what you're saying, though. The surveillance could just get more subtle, the secrecy of it better to prevent future leaks, so that the lying about could continue. And then the chance of abuse is still there. Who knows, maybe there are already cases of abuse, such as the Barrett Brown story. Maybe there are are others waiting to come out, or it will be easier to get them out after this first revelation.
- pawrvx 13y agoThis is not the same Congress anymore
- Thiz 13y agoIn the 70s Nixon was impeached for spying on the democrats, will Obama get impeached for spying on all americans?
- D9u 13y agoI dislike the idea of "private contractors" having access to my data, much less government secrets. These private spies provide a layer of insulation between their actions and the checks & balances which are supposed to protect us from civil rights abuses by the government. I'm not sure how many "private contractors" the NSA had in the 1970's but I'm sure that the recent revelations would not have gone without public outcry in the 70's, and just as the use of mercenaries in wartime was once frowned upon in the USA, so would the news of "mercenary-spies" operating outside the direct oversight of the US government be frowned upon.