Edward Lucas Quotes
It’s worth remembering that America has the toughest system of intelligence supervision in the world—way tougher than France, tougher than Germany. No one else has this combination of a court with judges who are not appointed by the government, who are appointed by the Supreme Court. You have congressional scrutiny—and it may well be that Congress is in different hands from the party that holds the White House—plus you have executive power in the White House. And then you have a very strong professional code within the NSA. What we have seen from the Nixon experience was this: when Nixon tried to politicise the CIA, trying to overrule it, trying to politicise the FBI, it ended in disaster. And I think that although the American record over the last 50 years certainly has some black spots, I would far rather live under the American system of intelligence oversight than I would under the French. So I think we should all learn from the American system and try and copy it.
Senator Church was the chairman of the committee. It’s reports (14 in all) are the most extensive documentation of U. S. intelligence ever compiled.
When he became a candidate, he modified this position and stated that he would abolish both agencies spying on Americans activities but not necessarily abolish all the functions of the agency.
He was the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The intelligence agencies had in many cases not shared critical information with the oversight committees and the White House and in a number of cases actually lied to them.
Gates believed that ideally the government would have the trust of the people to access critical data, but that at the moment there are many who do not trust the government. Unfortunately, the FBI on many occasions have themselves broken the law and targeted people who had political and social viewpoints of which the FBI leadership did not approve. The CIA has on many occasions violated the law and repeatedly lied to Congress and even Presidents. The National Security Agency has also, in its zeal to carry out its mission skirted the law and the Director of National Intelligence blatantly deceived Congress and was exposed by the Snowden releases. Gates was an optimist and thought that the government could regain the necessary trust to allow it to have access to virtually all data in order to best protect society from things like terrorism with biological weapons.
The CIA did not have a long tradition. It was created after WWII when the OSS was are espionage organization had been disbanded In the early days of the Cold War, the CIA went rogue and engaged in covert activities without the knowledge and approval of the President and his cabinet. General Maxwell Taylor conducted a thorough investigation and the agency was brought under control. There hav been several more incidents since then and every few years there have been additional scandals of unauthorized operations which were harmful to American interests and values. In a democracy it is always hard to control a secret organization. Actually, at the beginning of WWII, we had almost no espionage capability and President Roosevelt had a series of friends who provided him with intelligence until William Donavan had time to establish the OSS which did such a wonderful job.
Hirsh had uncovered CIA illegal surveillance of anti Vietnam war protesters in the late 1960s. They broke two sets of laws. First, the CIA had no authority to investigate and track American Citizens anywhere but particularly American citizens. Second, the FBI which did have the authority to investigate Americans, were not allowed to use the methods that the CIA did. They violated not only Federal Law and Rules, but also violated the 4th Amendment Rights of thousands of citizens.
Edward Lucas is a British journalist working for The Economist, the London-based global news weekly. He was the Moscow bureau chief from 1998 to 2002, and thereafter the central and east European correspondent. He has also been a correspondent for The Independent and the BBC. Lucas also writes occasionally for the Daily Mail. Edward Lucas is Senior Fellow and Contributing Editor at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Washington D.C. Lucas has been noted for his strong criticism of the Russian government, in particular of Vladimir Putin. He coined the term Whataboutism.
