Jamie Gorelick Quotes
Intelligence is only as good as the pressure from the consumer of the intelligence makes it.
Jamie Gorelick, Deputy Attorney General (Democrat), Member of the September 11 Commission, Testimony, House Transportation Committee Hearing, August 25, 2004
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The “gentleman” was a member of Congress. This is an issue between the Congress and the Executive Branch which has existed as long as our Republic: Whether all members of Congress should have access to all classified secret information of the Government. Mrs. Roosevelt who was usually an advocate of transparency, on this issue tended to side with the argument of the executive branch. Note that the arguments made in 1939 are still fought over today.
Helms had very bad experience even in hinting at unfavorable news about the Vietnam War. See {634520}. He didn’t even send copies to his own executives, the White House Chief of Staff or the other White House staff like the National Security Advisor who would normally receive copies of top secret memos.
The improved access comes from the rapid technological and economic development of open source information available to the public. Governments will also benefit although governments will not be able to maintain as much secrecy,
In the War on Terror, some CIA officers had gotten a George W, Bush Administration green light to torture some captured terrorists using a torture technique known as “water boarding”—a practice for which American military personnel were court marshaled and convicted in the Philippine War. The torture sessions had been videotaped, a normal procedure with CIA interrogations. The fact of the torture had leaked and a national scandal ensued with Americans on both sides of the question. President Bush and his Vice President publicly stated that the United States does not torture. Rodriguez then ordered the tapes destroyed. Later he gave his reasons after the Obama Administration decided not to investigate the matter or determine which, if any, CIA officials might have broken the law, by wither doing the torturing or destroying evidence—“obstructing justice.”
When Bob Casey was the CIA Director, he the declassification of all the operational files of the WWII Office of Strategic Service. The huge collection is referred to as Record Book 2.6
Adams was then in the Continental Congress and he and other patriots were learning as much about military methods as possible. For many, secrecy was an entirely new concept. Rush ran the hospitals for the Revolutionary Army and talked to many officers and enlisted men, and also observed much of the British military practices.
Bush had served earlier as the head of the CIA and understood the costs of such better than most. He was put in a difficult position when his son was President and one of the senior White House operatives, for small partisan advantage, leaked the name and identity of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA operative. Bush the father, remained silent even after the leaker was identified.
There has always been friction between the military intelligence services and the CIA. The main friction was that the CIA was not very forthcoming to military intelligence with the details of their secret intelligence whereas the Israeli’s shared with all the U. S. Intelligence Agencies.
Different intelligence and law enforcement agencies would not share information except in very unusual circumstances. After 9-11, this failing of our government was to be fixed, and sharing improved somewhat, but not by much. Schlesinger’s observation was still true years after 9-11.
If Casey had listened to Sofaer as the State Department did, President Reagan would have been spared the worst Scandal of his Presidency—Iran Contra. Casey had a great antipathy to lawyers. See {637470}.
Most of the successful intelligence agency administrators think that Cheney and some others are absolutely wrong that there should not be any discussion. There are times, of course, where secrecy is critical, but that does not mean that there cannot be classified discussion and coordination. Almost every one of the disastrous intelligence agency fiascos, could have been avoided if there were more and wider discussion in the planning. In many cases, Chaney, William Casey and others who hold their view prefer no discussions is that lawyers cannot block the operation on grounds of illegality. Or other agencies cannot get their priorities into the mix. If the NSA had discussed their plan to hack into the telephone calls of our most important allies with the State Department, the plan might not have gone through or if it had, the President would have been consulted. The Bay of Pigs was based on a set of assumptions that were not true and our government had a number of experts who could have debunked the assumptions the CIA planners were counting on which did not pan out.
Jamie S. Gorelick is an American lawyer who served as the Deputy Attorney General of the United States from 1994 to 1997, during the Clinton administration. She has been a partner at WilmerHale since 2003 and has served on the board of directors of Amazon since February 2012.
