NSA can spy without oversight during shutdown
Posted by: Jon Ben-Mayor on 10/09/2013 05:49 AM
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I have been wondering about this very thing; who is watching the watchers now that the shutdown has effectively halted any oversight that there may have been? Deep down inside I knew the answer -business as usual.
If you recall there was a review panel established by the White House to assess the country’s intelligence programs and that panel was due to report its findings to the president this Friday. Days before deadline, though, that board has become a voluntary casualty of the government shutdown.
RT explains further by saying, President Barack Obama announced in August that the unauthorized disclosure of national security documents and the subsequent discussions it sparked warranted the creation of an independent panel, the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies.
“The Review Group will assess whether, in light of advancements in communications technologies, the United States employs its technical collection capabilities in a manner that optimally protects our national security and advances our foreign policy while appropriately accounting for other policy considerations, such as the risk of unauthorized disclosure and our need to maintain the public trust,” the president said two months ago.
Practically one week before a 60-day deadline to deliver a report to the White House, however, the group has put itself on ice. Politico’s Josh Gerstein and Mike Allen reported over the weekend that one member of the five-personal panel — former Central Intelligence Agency director Michael Morell — decided to pull the plug on the board until the government shutdown that started last Tuesday morning comes to a close.
“I simply thought that it was inappropriate for our group to continue working while the vast majority of the men and women of the intelligence community are being forced to remain off the job,” Morell told Politico on Saturday. “While the work we’re doing is important, it is no more important than - and quite frankly a lot less important - than a lot of the work being left undone by the government shutdown, both in the intelligence community and outside the intelligence community.”
According to the Washington Post’s estimate, that means only around 15 percent of the NSA has actually been furloughed, leaving maybe 30,000 or so employees on the job.
If you recall there was a review panel established by the White House to assess the country’s intelligence programs and that panel was due to report its findings to the president this Friday. Days before deadline, though, that board has become a voluntary casualty of the government shutdown.RT explains further by saying, President Barack Obama announced in August that the unauthorized disclosure of national security documents and the subsequent discussions it sparked warranted the creation of an independent panel, the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies.
“The Review Group will assess whether, in light of advancements in communications technologies, the United States employs its technical collection capabilities in a manner that optimally protects our national security and advances our foreign policy while appropriately accounting for other policy considerations, such as the risk of unauthorized disclosure and our need to maintain the public trust,” the president said two months ago.
Practically one week before a 60-day deadline to deliver a report to the White House, however, the group has put itself on ice. Politico’s Josh Gerstein and Mike Allen reported over the weekend that one member of the five-personal panel — former Central Intelligence Agency director Michael Morell — decided to pull the plug on the board until the government shutdown that started last Tuesday morning comes to a close.
“I simply thought that it was inappropriate for our group to continue working while the vast majority of the men and women of the intelligence community are being forced to remain off the job,” Morell told Politico on Saturday. “While the work we’re doing is important, it is no more important than - and quite frankly a lot less important - than a lot of the work being left undone by the government shutdown, both in the intelligence community and outside the intelligence community.”
According to the Washington Post’s estimate, that means only around 15 percent of the NSA has actually been furloughed, leaving maybe 30,000 or so employees on the job.
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