Oversight Mechanisms Quotes

The FBI's mission is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution. To carry out that mission, we're entrusted with a lot of authority, so our actions are subject to close oversight - from the courts, from our elected leaders, and from independent entities like the inspector general.

It’s a big country; it needs a lot of regulation.

It is not easy for the courts to control the intelligence agencies. There has to be concerted and coordinated effort on part of the courts, the parliament, and the government.

I believe that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act must be reformed. We must improve the American public's confidence in, and perception of, our national security programs, by increasing transparency, strengthening oversight, and safeguarding civil liberties.

Snowden's revelations shocked the world and made it very clear why we need to have some way to look over those who look over us. With increasing terrorist attacks, security is critical, but not without any accountability or oversight.

We have grown up as a nation, respected for our free institutions and for our ability to maintain a free and open society. There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to correct it.

Is there any way we can know that claims of state secrecy are in fact being used to protect the national security rather than to conceal the abuse of authority?

I'm increasingly inclined to think there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level just to make sure that we don't do something very foolish.

Political checks will no more act of themselves than a bridle will direct a horse without a rider. If the checking functionaries are as corrupt or as negligent as those whom they ought to check, and if the public, the mainspring of the whole checking machinery, are too ignorant, too passive, or too careless and inattentive, to do their part, little benefit will be derived from the best administrative apparatus. Yet a good apparatus is always preferable to a bad.

All bureaucracies have to be weeded and watched.

I've always been fond of the saying that when it comes to oversight and reform, the federal government does two things well: nothing and overreact.

In Afghanistan, the viceroy approach would reduce rampant fraud by focusing spending on initiatives that further the central strategy, rather than handing cash to every outstretched hand from a U.S. system bereft of institutional memory.

Preventing staff from having too much influence and decision-making power is fairly easy. Appropriate procedural safeguards can be installed to prevent staff from, among other things, self-dealing, making decisions in an isolated manner, or committing funds without oversight.

There's one overriding issue, namely, that we live in a police state so long as the police get to police themselves. And that is why cops go unindicted.

We must have government, but we must watch them like a hawk.

It's true that robust governance structures, checks and balances, transparency of markets, directionally leads to... less vulnerability to corruption.

It is clear we can make reforms to better ensure we are giving law enforcement all of the tools they need while maintaining the appropriate safeguards to protect the very freedoms we cherish.

It is a little bit difficult to talk about things that do involve classified matters in public. But I think the public needs to know that there are multiple oversight layers, including the FISA Court, congressional oversight, internal oversight within the FBI and intelligence community, that protects Americans from - under - their - their privacy rights while targeting terrorists and people who are trying to kill us.

I came in with a healthy skepticism about these programs. My team evaluated them. We scrubbed them thoroughly. We actually expanded some of the oversight, increased some of the safeguards. But my assessment, and my team's assessment was that they help us prevent terrorist attacks. In the abstract, you can complain about 'Big Brother' and how this is a potential program run amok. But when you actually look at the details, then, I think we've struck the right balance.