So Why Can’t Democrats Rein in the Intelligence Industrial Complex?
Jeff Stein had a piece on the response to the WaPo article on intelligence contracting the other day that started with this question:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has long wanted more members of Congress to know what’s going on at the CIA, but why doesn’t she announce a full-fledged investigation into the intelligence contractor mess, complete with televised hearings?
In it, he quotes from someone he describes as a Pelosi aide saying there’s little will to get this done.
Back to Pelosi: An aide, who like all the others speaks only on condition of anonymity, said she “certainly sees a need to step up oversight.” But after taking an informal sounding, he added, Pelosi found “there wasn’t any momentum for it.”
I asked her about that quote when we talked on Saturday. Her first response was to deny that such a quote could have come from one of her staffers, and to suggest it had come from the intelligence committee (which is what her office said in a follow-up to me as well).
Pelosi: You mean someone from the intelligence committee? Not my staff or my office.
When I asked whether there was any support for doing something about contracting, Pelosi said the WaPo article had raised awareness of the problem.
Wheeler: Is there the support in the House and the Senate to do something about all this contracting?
Pelosi: This has been very well read by members.
Wheeler: The Washington Post piece?
Pelosi: Yes. And it isn’t, it doesn’t come as a surprise to people. But it comes as almost a relief that finally some of this is out in the open.
Pelosi went on to describe all the problems with contracting: the cost, the lack of a single chain of accountability, the lack of information-sharing, and the turf battles. Then she basically said the Intelligence Committee would have to take a look–or, maybe, the Administration might assess whether it was making us safer.
Pelosi: I think there, my view is, I think the intelligence committees would have to take a really harsh look, and I would hope the Administration has to say, are the American people safer because of what’s happening in the intelligence community and I think it’s all about their security.
In response to her hope the Administration would do something about contracting, I noted that James Clapper–on his way to being confirmed as DNI–has been a big fan of contracting. Pelosi’s response was to direct responsibility back to the Intelligence Committee.
Wheeler: Although, again, Clapper has been involved in the contracting side and seems to be a pretty big fan of using contractors, I mean he kind of poo-pooed the whole article, so do you think Clapper, again, assuming he’s approved…
Pelosi: I don’t have to vote on him so I’m sort of, I’m always saying to the White House, why him? No, I just don’t know. I don’t want to go there. I don’t know enough to give you a precise view on that. But I do know that this really needs some careful consideration and some review and the intelligence committee is the appropriate place to do it.
Of course, the folks at the Intelligence Committee–at least according to Pelosi though not according to the attribution in his article–are the ones giving Jeff Stein anonymous quotes saying any real investigation of the contracting won’t happen.
For her part, Jan Schakowsky (remember, she was in the room for the interview) doubted the commitment (implicitly, I assume she means the Executive Branch, since they’re the ones still awarding Blackwater contracts) to reducing intelligence contracting. But she also doubts whether the committees (remember, she’s a member of HPSCI) know what these contractors are doing, and ultimately comes back to the question of whether they make us safer.
Schakowsky:While there has occasionally been lip service that we need to reduce the number of contractors, it’s been disappointing to me that in the last few months we’ve seen Blackwater get another big contract with the CIA and with the State Department. I would really question the commitment–any commitment–to reducing the number of contractors. Just even in the most sensitive missions.
So I have–you know about my legislation. Stop outsourcing our national security. This is for the 27,000 private contractors, the gun carrying, that are doing these very sensitive missions and have a history of jeopardizing the mission, the safety of our troops, we’ve never done a good cost analysis. The Post story talks about how more expensive it is to use these people, and I am absolutely unconvinced that the committees know what some of these contractors are doing. So I want to see us have people that wear the badge of the United States of America, who are accountable to the combatant commander, there’s a clear chain of command, there’s laws that clearly govern what they do. You know right now there’s a grey area governing contractors, you know, and you ask yourself, what do they have to do, kill someone, before they become ineligible? Oh yeah, they’ve done that. Oh yeah, they’ve done that.
Pelosi: Oh yeah, they’ve done that. And that–what–Jamie Leigh Jones stuff, too. The sexual harassment and all that. They’ve done that. And hopefully we can renew that in the appropriations bill that they can’t pay…
Schakowsky: I think that there’s enormous risk involved. You know, the Speaker asked the right question. Are we safer, how risky is it, to have all of these, over a quarter of a million people, who have these Top Secret, these private contractors who have these Top Secret clearance, marching around with very little accountability, transparency, or oversight.
I think Schakowsky and Pelosi lay out the problems of the issue well, but it sure seems there’s a lack of leadership on this issue (the Chair of HPSCI, Silvestre Reyes’ office, apparently didn’t respond to Stein’s inquiry, for example).
But there may be another problem. In a comment addressing a different issue (passing legislation to close Gitmo, though he said it applied to legislation to protect civil liberties and rein in executive power, as well), on our panel the other day (1:11:01), Jerry Nadler spoke of Democrats’ “unwillingness or inability to bring good things to the floor.”
It’s safe to say–and I won’t attribute it to anyone except it’s an observation I’ll make–it’s very difficult to get anything on the floor of the House that will cause a vote that some people are worried would be interpreted by 30 second TV ads as “Congressman so-and-so voted in favor of the terrorists” or “Congressman so-and-so voted to make us less safe from the terrorists.”
That is, for things having to do with counter-terrorism, there’s an unwillingness to take a stand for fear it will hurt the position of what Nadler calls the Democrats’ “marginal” members.
Our utter dependence on intelligence contractors–like our failure to close Gitmo–is making us less safe. Are we refusing to do something about contracting for the same reason–that we’re too afraid of being accused of making America less safe to actually do obvious, necessary things to make ourselves more safe?
The contractors are making a full-court press to make someone safer, but it is certainly not us, the general public. They are protecting those who have something to hide from year one of the Bush 43 administration. The more redundant walls around those secrets, the more secure are the perps who brought us Pearl Harbor II.
Could Dem’s be any limper? They may be the biggest bowl of overcooked pasta in history.
I was imagining quivering towers of jello that fall forwards, backwards or sideways in the slightest breeze.
EW, do you know if the congtractors’ “products” belong to the US gubmint or to the contractors? Is there any requirement for strict record-keeping on the origin of those “products”, and where they go from there until they finally wind up in some permanent repository (if any)? Thank you so much.
That’s good, too! I just wanted to use the word “LIMP”. ;-)
“EW, do you know if the congtractors’ “products” belong to the US gubmint or to the contractors? Is there any requirement for strict record-keeping on the origin of those “products”, and where they go from there until they finally wind up in some permanent repository (if any)? Thank you so much.”
fatster, the matter of ownership, and obligation to fully and properly preserve on the part of contractors, has been one of my concerns from the beginning on this topic, for lots of reasons, but among them because the ability to eventually do decent history of the last decade in 35 to 50 years will depend upon them being preserved, and declassified in the proper way. (Remember — I am the history freak here.)
From what I have gotten from Tim Shorrock, they seem to be ignoring the law about preservation. If they were following it, it would be in contracts, and there would be precision as to how things are to be preserved, and contracts would set aside budgeted funds for proper archiving and preservation. The fact that they seem to be sliding over the law as opposed to changing it, or writing in exceptions is probably a function of not wanting to offer up another handle for objections. That is why I am communicating with some persons with a professional interest in this matter as historians. Until the Dana Priest article, they apparently were unaware of what the culture of contractors hath wrought that hurts a basic element in historical analysis.
But formally, the law is still there. There is an obligation to preserve and archive. The Intelligence Services — all of them, are Executive functions, and are covered by the Presidential Records Laws.
Another thing that is not at all clear is what contractors are obligated to do with their tools. Let’s say you develop, as U of Utah seems to be doing, a nifty data mining program. You adapt it to the needs of a particular agency, and use it to deliver intelligence products. Are you obligated to archive and preserve that program so that some future historian can examine your work? Can you sell the program to another agency or another country’s intelligence service? Can you create an adaptation for commercial use? Who indeed owns the “tools” and the copyright on them? U of Utah is a non-profit, but in the world of procurement, they will probably negotiate a significant overhead charge (at least 50% of total contract, perhaps as high as 70%), to the Government for use of their personnel and tools. But if it is a for profit entity, they probably retain the rights of ownership to their tools, and shareholders would want their company to exploit for further profit anything they developed and owned. All this is most unclear in law and regulations governing contracting or procurement. Of added importance, it is highly unlikely historians in the future could replicate and test any contemporary analysis without having access to the tools used in the current processes. It is parallel to the reasons why Archives usually have all varieties of wire recorders, tape recorders, record players, and the like, so as to “read” the electronic content of the past, and why they pay attention to maintaining old computers with word processing programs so as to read text written into old computer languages on various sizes of floppy disks.
In my mind, the question of ownership, preservation, and proper archiving of Government paid for data and analysis is at the absolute heart of this whole question — and we should at a minimum try to get Congress to address it and set the rules. I don’t believe Contractors should have any ownership interest that trumps the US Government in the in-puts or out-puts or the tools of what they do under contract.
I would remind that at the current time, about 80% of the money appropriated for intelligence is in the Department of Defense budget — not in the intelligence budget, or the agency budgets. In fact, the Intelligence Committees have no oversight of anything in DoD. We misplace our concerns if we just focus on the Intelligence Committees in the House and Senate, we have to deal with both these, and the Armed Services committees in both houses.
An excellent point and worthy effort Sara.
I hope Congress, by some means or other, might stumble across what you have laid out most succintly, as doing as you suggest is but another of their responsibilities which they seem, sadly, (and at great consequence to the rest of us) unable or unwilling to grasp.
As a fellow appreciator of history, unsanitized and “un-official”, I am most seriously concerned that the Sunstein “approach” is gaining in popularity and in smug conceit.
Thank you, Sara, for your comments, though too rare from my perspective, are precious and significant beyond words.
DW
Pelosi and Congress are full of bullshit, except when they remark that they will feel the heat (favoring “terrorists”) if they really do anything too strongly rein in the military-intelligence-contractor gravy train. But the heat won’t be from the American people, but from those with deep pocketbooks and access to power.
There was a lot of criticism of Dana Priest and the Post when they claimed facts that had already been covered by Tim Shorrock and others years earlier. So how can Pelosi get away with this statement? (emphasis added):
It can’t all be blamed on the way House members receive briefings from the administration, intel agencies, etc.
Moreover, I have heard that the Senate Intel and Armed Services committees make a practice of warding off investigations, telling people “not to go there”. You see this tendency in the very interview EW presents
What? She knows and is always asking the WH “why him?” Or she doesn’t know anything, or “enough”. She knows less than Marcy? Hell, she just doesn’t want to answer the question.
I just got confirmation from Sen. Feinstein’s press office that all the congressionally-mandated notifications about the transfer of Abdul Aziz Naji were given. As powwow laid out via quotation recently, that means that 15 days before he was forcibly repatriated to Algeria, Congressional committees and members of Congress with “appropriate jurisdiction” were informed of the deportation. So they are informed of a lot of things we aren’t even told about, and they’re not proud to tell us.
I’d ask along with Julian Assange at Democracy Now! today, where are the investigations into civilian deaths and possible war crimes in Afghanistan? Also, hey, where is the investigation into torture and illegal experimentation?
Great questions, Jeff!
This is SO infuriating! I just can’t stop thinking about the possibility of just DEFUNDing Congress–every last, senator and rep and staffer and gofer–out of jobs and healthcare and retirement funds. /rant
Not much of a response from Ms. Pelosi, given that the administration has known this story wsa coming down the pike, presumably largley in its present form, for six months. No secrets from the administration or Congress, just from the public.
I agree with Jeff. Sounds like Pelosi knows more than enough to at least be pushing back PUBLICALLY from her position of power.
However, invoking ennui among her fellow Congresspeople seems to be Pelosi’s favorite explanation for the lack of Congressional investigations and oversight.
If she is driving the bus (and as Speaker of the House she is the driver!), then she needs to press the accelerator to pick up speed and energy. Pointing backwards at her ‘dozing passengers’ as an explanation for not moving forward is a cop out. Maybe she doesn’t press the pedal, because she doesn’t want to wake them. Or maybe she lost the roadmap. Someone hand her a copy of the U.S. Constitution.
Is that really the right question? Shouldn’t the right question have something to do with whether or not proper oversight can and is being done of these contractors to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States? Or something to that effect?
Bob in AZ
Because, just like the Republicans, they work for them.
What a splendid idea, harpie. I know everyone would vote for it!
Rants don’t have to be realistic.
So, you would de-fund the one body that Constitutionally is charged with oversight of the Executive? Just free up ObamaLLC to do whatever they damm well please? And deprive us of the body that can write regulations to reign in businesses like BP that have run amok?
So, in essence, you just want to throw the Constitution of the U.S. in the trash?
Bob in AZ
Bob, that was me that said that. I thought dipper might have been answering with sarcasm [don’t know for sure]. My comment was just a frustrated cry of impotence to have ANY impact on the actions of my government, while at the same time being required to fund it at ever increasing rates.
Congress is supposed to be a check on the executive branch. The fact is, for 10 years now [at least], Congress has not been doing their job. I would be fired for that.
Yes, and the standard answer for that, if you feel your congress-critter is not doing his/her job, vote for someone else. You don’t defund Congress, you vote for someone else next time you get the chance.
Bob in AZ
Thanks for the civics lesson, Bob, but I actually do know that.
I’m sorry we’ve gotten into this little spat about my stupid little outburst. Please excuse me for that, and I’ll excuse the condescending lecture, OK?
Good Night.
Sorry– didn’t mean my response to be a condescending lecture. Its just that sometimes, in our frustration, we cast about for new solutions that might be worse than the problem. I appreciate your comments.
Bob in AZ
Best dreams, harpie.
So Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House of Representatives and she says, “…it comes almost as a relief that finally some of this is finally out in the open.”
Right.
How much did Nancy Pelosi put out there, for the consideration of the people, all of us, herself?
Or does she not consider that SHE has an obligation to do so?
Perhaps it is not in her job description?
It is part of her responsibility, her obligation – and that ain’t the half of it.
Jeez!!!
Pathetic.
One imagines that if she were in a theater afire, that she woudd quietly walk out so as not to disturb the audience.
What a shadow she casts, in the middle of the night.
DW
As is true with the kind of businesses big banks have morphed into – generators of Wall Street-size profits by intentionally imposing punitive charges on customers, instead of earning reasonable profits from lending to credit-worthy borrowers and having their loans repaid with interest – there’s too much money being lavished around intel contractors to think that the administration will approach – let alone ameliorate – this problem on its own. Moreover, Mr. Obama actively shies away from such things even in circumstances where there isnt’a shred of the momentum this industry has.
Ms. Pelosi must know this. Suggesting the administration might address the most acute problems on its own would not be credible unless it were a warning shot across its bow, telling it that it can volunteer or be volunteered into taking a harder look at an excruciatingly expensive, profitable, but ultimately corrupt industry (because secret and unregulated, but lavished with taxpayer funds). Anything else is providing the administration cover, without expecting it to do anything.
Which is it, Ms. Pelosi?
Meanwhile, over at the FBI:
Hundreds of FBI agents probed over cheating on surveillance test
LINK.
The simple answer to the question posed by EW’s post title is: Money!
Until this country levels the playing field and prohibits wealth from having an unequal, bigger, and louder voice in politics, we will continue to be a “Capitalocracy” as opposed to a real “Democracy”.
This means leveling the playing field in both campaign funding as well as lobbying.
This means repealing the absurdity that corporations are “legally” enfranchised with the same constitutional rights as individual human citizens.
I am not naive enough to believe that our Representatives and Senators will ever willingly endure the cold turkey required to cure their addiction to this wealth, but the point is that unless and until they do, we’ll only get the government that money can buy.
And Sara…
(my bold)
klynn on a previous Nancy Pelosi thread:
It is interesting that there are three areas of our lives which the finance industry has worked very hard to privatize or maintain growth as privatized: healthcare, defense and retirement, (and might I add — eventually infrastructure). The three key areas of any life where the “fear card” can be played over and over to manipulate the masses all with the theme of protection/prevention. (The same card will be played on infrastructure as well.)
So MD, I would agree it is money. Money manipulating three key areas of life to gain ultimate power. But there is the darker side to privatization which creates greater threats to our lives and that is why Pelosi has an obligation to push for accountability. Unfortunately, I have a concern she may be unable to, perhaps to conflict of interest.
And Sara, you are spot on:
It is after all the tax dollars of the citizens paying, thus we should own it. Especially for the sake of national security.
Thanks for the post EW. Thanks for the comments MD and Sara.
And tangentially on topic, good ol’ contracter boy, former head of the NSA and CIA in the Bush/Cheney regime, Mikey Hayden isn’t satisfied with just wiretapping everyone, he also wants to cyber-polygraph everyone as well:
Coming soon to a keyboard near you!
Let me guess, Hayden has a financial interest in the software that performs the keystroke analysis, just like his boss had a financial interest in selling Naked Girly Machines to the TSA. Fabulous.
By the way EW, I would change your title from “can’t” to “won’t”. There is a big difference between the two.
A financial interest wouldn’t surprise me at all.
Buy his cyber-polygraphing and he’ll throw in free Ouija boards as well.
LOL : ) Now, where to find a crystal ball, a palmistry book, a bead curtain or two, and a fabulously loud head scarf…
Well, this will fit in perfectly with the curse on the Pack!
Not exactly bmaz, prognostications are not what’s required, but I wouldn’t turn down a lucky rabbit’s foot ; )
As for your “curse”, get back to this Red Sox fan in 86 years and I’ll let you know what I think of your Curse of the Brett-bino ; )
I second that (*g*)
Bob in AZ
Totally
He’s working for the Chertoff Group — plus — he just joined the BoD of Alion Science and Technology (I wonder if they have the contract for the keystroke logging?)
A few months ago, I wrote a few blogs about revolving door employment between gov. and our new fear industrial complex, with the main characters being Chertoff, and McConnell along with former congressmen and former military. Here’s the one about Chertoff. Here’s the one about McConnell. And here’s the first one in the series about our global weapons monopoly
Thanks for the links to your excellent posts. Skeletor makes my blood boil. I fly a lot and I have gotten to the point where I hate it simply because I find TSA and their parent company DHS so loathsome. I was recently asked to get in the Naked Girly Machine at BWI. I said no. The nice young man (he really was very nice) kept trying to persuade me to do it. He finally stopped when I cut him off and gave him a brief lecture on the 4th amendment of the Constitution ; )
Seeing as we are so good at prosecuting spies, I can only conclude this is to catch whistleblowers who may be finding those who are “inside the gate”.
It is the Chertoff Group after all. You know, we are not allowed to shine light on Team B.
Mikey’s mentality hasn’t changed a bit from the Bush/Cheney regime. Everybody is guilty until proven innocent.
This is sick.
And what’s even sicker, he’s liable to find an appreciative and buying government audience.
Give him an inch, and he’ll hang you, to paraphrase an old saying. What an absurd explosion in spying data real-time keystroke analysis would involve. To what effect, other than normalizing such intimate intrusion. What would the s/w pouring relentlessly through such a new pile of data really look for? Without exaggeration, this comes close to creating thought crimes.
Mikey Hayden read Orwell’s “1984” and took it to be his charter.
Yes, exactly.
DW
And btw, are any of you going to come on over to EW’s latest post?
I’m getting lonely there talking to myself. *g*
University of Utah researchers meeting with NSA on data mining work
By Paul Koepp
Deseret News
Published: Monday, July 26, 2010 10:00 p.m. MDT
– SALT LAKE CITY — When the National Security Agency’s new information storage center is up and running at Camp Williams, there will be a lot of numbers to crunch. For help, the NSA may turn to a local source: a University of Utah professor who has come up with a simpler, faster method of “data mining.”
Suresh Venkatasubramanian, assistant professor of computer science, will present his method Wednesday at an academic conference in Washington, D.C. As the government, researchers, social networking sites and businesses gather more and more information, it’s becoming a mammoth task to sort through it all.It’s a paradox, he said. “You want a richer description of your data, but you pay for it. Every time you add a dimension, it slows you down that much more.”Venkatasubramanian’s research has found a way to reduce the variables in any data set to zero in on its most important elements.
The professor said that while current computer programs struggle to analyze data from 5,000 people, his program smoothly handles information from more than 50,000.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is expected to pick a contractor for the $1.9 billion, 120-acre facility by October. The first stage of construction should take about two years.The Military Installation Development Authority of Utah has already secured a multimillion-dollar contract to develop a master plan for power, water and sewer infrastructure at the site.
U. researchers meeting with NSA on data mining work | Deseret NewsJul 26, 2010 … U. researchers meeting with NSA on data mining work | Deseret News. … Jealous U | 9:41 p.m. July 26, 2010 “2010, the beginning of the end …
http://www.deseretnews.com/…/U-researchers-meeting-with-NSA-on-data-mining-work.html – Cached
NSA Project To Bring Thousands To Fort Meade ,Maryland
Published on 07-27-2010
Source: WBALTV
FORT MEADE, Md. — A draft environmental impact statement said that a project by the National Security Agency will bring 6,500 workers to the Fort Meade area, challenging the area’s infrastructure.
The NSA statement said the planned expansion will cost at least $2 billion
The project, called Site M, will include a 1.8 million-square-foot building on land at Fort Meade that is currently used by two golf courses.
While local officials said they are excited about the job growth and benefits to the local economy, they are also worried whether the county can accommodate the growth.Roads, schools and other infrastructure could become congested, and Anne Arundel County officials said it does not have money for major projects.
NSA Project To Bring Thousands To Fort Meade – Project Economy …Jul 26, 2010 … FORT MEADE, Md. — A draft environmental impact statement said that a project by the National Security Agency will bring 6500 workers to the …
http://www.wbaltv.com/money/24397493/detail.html – Cached