The GAO's Office In The NSA Is Collecting Dust Because Congress Hasn't Asked For A Report In Years

from the oh,-you-mean-this-'stringent-oversight?' dept

The NSA's defenders go to great lengths to convince everyone (the public and many angered legislators) that it operates under a tremendous amount of oversight -- so much though that even THINKING about abusing its capabilities is out of the question. The leaks have repeatedly proven this assertion false as members of the supposedly stringent oversight continue to state their shock and dismay over what's been uncovered.

Steven Aftergood at Secrecy News points out there's another layer of oversight that's gone unutilized for years as well.
Years ago, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, conducted routine audits and investigations of the National Security Agency, such that the two agencies were in “nearly continuous contact” with one another. In the post-Snowden era, GAO could perform that oversight function once again.

“NSA advises that the GAO maintains a team permanently in residence at NSA, resulting in nearly continuous contact between the two organizations,” according to a 1994 CIA memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence.
Why haven't we read any damning reports from the GAO about the NSA's abuses over the past several years? Well, apparently it's because no one wants to know.
At a 2008 Senate hearing, Sen. Daniel Akaka asked the GAO about its relationship with NSA. “I understand that GAO even had an office at the NSA,” Sen. Akaka noted.

“We still actually do have space at the NSA,” replied David M. Walker, then-Comptroller General, the head of the GAO. “We just don’t use it. And the reason we don’t use it is we are not getting any requests [from Congress]. So I do not want to have people sitting out there twiddling their thumbs.”
There's that oversight at work again. Idle for "years" by 2008 and no signs that anything has occurred since then. The GAO maintains an office (currently unstaffed) within the NSA but because if no one's asking any questions, it's not providing any answers.

If there's something the GAO does well, it's track down internal issues and problematic behavior. Unfortunately, it's limited to recommending courses of action rather than mandating any serious changes, meaning its follow-up reports are generally filled with descriptions of how these audited entities failed to pursue the recommendations and (often) performed considerably worse during the interim.

On the other hand, the GAO's reports do at least make it clear to the American public exactly what's wrong with nearly everything the government spends its money on. It's very limited accountability that does nothing to change the underlying agency ethos, but at least it prevents them from pretending these problems don't exist.

Being in-house should naturally raise concerns about the GAO's objectivity. Unfortunately, considering the nature of the agency's intelligence work, there's probably no way around that. But the first step in renewing this layer of oversight is to remind Congress of its existence. It has the power to order a GAO investigation, but until it does, the office will continue to gather dust and the NSA's internal problems will worsen -- or at least go unnoticed by Congress.

Aftergood points out that James Clapper has ordered the agency to be responsive to GAO inquiries, apparently in the eventuality that it ever gets back to the business of asking questions.
In Intelligence Community Directive 114, issued in 2011 following years of stagnation in GAO oversight of intelligence, DNI James Clapper instructed U.S. intelligence agencies to be responsive to GAO, at least within certain boundaries.

“It is IC policy to cooperate with the Comptroller General, through the GAO, to the fullest extent possible, and to provide timely responses to requests for information,” the DNI wrote.
Of course, Clapper's definition of "responsive" probably differs greatly from the normally-accepted usage of the word. Having Clapper condone cooperation with an agency that exists to find flaws and misconduct is a bit underwhelming. The NSA's top men have been less than cooperative in the many hearings since the Snowden leaks began, most often recycling old talking points and insisting on discussing it in the context of one program (Section 215) when everyone else is clearly focused on another area.

Still, whatever the GAO finds (that somehow doesn't get blotted out with black ink) will provide more useful information for its Congressional overseers. This certainly shouldn't be used in place of more independent oversight committees, but it should prove to be a valuable addition. The real question Congress needs to answer is why it has ignored this option for so many years.
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Filed Under: congress, gao, nsa, oversight, surveillance


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  • icon
    weneedhelp (profile), 8 Jan 2014 @ 10:44am

    Just accept the fact that in 10 years we will look like China and Russia. Too many PPL are just trying to keep food on the table and oil in the basement... they have no time or finances to fight the good fight.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Ninja (profile), 8 Jan 2014 @ 10:50am

      Re:

      Much like what's happening here the Congress is more than happy to fold and wiggle their tails at the Executive. And people are busy trying to survive.

      The "good fight" will most likely hit the doors sooner or later. For everybody. It'll be worse if it gets to this point though.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2014 @ 10:46am

    On the upside, at least the GAO had the sense to not pay people to sit around and do nothing in the NSA office.

    Though I'd say that the real problem isn't that the GAO office at the NSA is empty and unused, but that the rest of the office space at the NSA isn't in a similar state.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      John Fenderson (profile), 8 Jan 2014 @ 11:16am

      Re:

      The GAO is one of the very, very few government agencies that still operates in a largely competent way, independent of politics.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    out_of_the_blue, 8 Jan 2014 @ 10:54am

    Actually, "many angered legislators" is a major part of the myth.

    "Many" surely doesn't exceed TEN out of 535. There's enough money floating around DC to buy EVERYONE and totally: only a couple thousand people, they're aren't even expensive, already mostly lured by power. Even if lures failed, threats and actual harm are certain: Mel Hancock, JFK Jr, Sonny Bono, Paul Wellstone, Gabby Gifford (and/or the federal judge gunned down then too); correlation between actual opposition to The Establishment and untimely end is high. Even reporting it is, as Michael Hastings died in mysterious flaming car wreck.

    The dis-value of distractions such as this piece are that the full horror isn't clear and so the public remains complacent thinking they've a champion somewhere, when do not. Writer slipping in notion that there IS even an opposition: "many angered legislators", is so trivially not true that can't be distinguished from propaganda.

    "New media" outlets are just like "old media" outlets except aren't yet known to be Establishment outlets, but that's the way to bet. Don't trust anything you read.

    06:51:30[h-602-3]

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      out_of_the_cornhole, 8 Jan 2014 @ 7:24pm

      Re: Actually, "many angered legislators" is a major part of the myth.

      not a bad post blue

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Guardian, 8 Jan 2014 @ 11:18am

    when does it become treason?

    no really mister american when doe sit become treasonous what they do ?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2014 @ 11:25am

    Congress has been convinced to spend money in the wrong places. No one cared that the NSA was exceeding it's boundaries as long as it lied that everything was ok and there were no major problems that money couldn't fix.

    Here is the source of the budget problems the Repubs are always going on about. It isn't the government is spending the money left and right, it's that the house is financing everything that sounds good.

    The GAO isn't going to report good news all the time. Easier to listen to the lies of the NSA that tells them everything is going great... if only they had more money and more politicians in their pocket.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2014 @ 3:37pm

    The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. The Revolution Will Be Live, And It Will Put You In The Drivers Seat. So much for the Obama legacy. He once was a card carrying member of our illustrious Con-gress himself.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    toyotabedzrock (profile), 8 Jan 2014 @ 5:28pm

    Because they are old and senile?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2014 @ 5:57pm

    Dammit Obama! Quit cutting jobs!

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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