John McCain Proposes A New Senate Committee To Do What The Intelligence Committee Is Supposed To Do

from the don't-we-have-that-already dept

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence came out of the Church Committee, which was set up to explore abuses by the intelligence community, and to create a more functioning oversight of the intelligence community. Of course, as we've seen over the years, what started out as an effort to rein in abuses and to make sure the intelligence community plays by the rules, has instead turned into a committee to basically be complicit in many of those abuses and to try to run interference in Congress against any attempt to stop them. Either way, it seems somewhat ironic that Senator John McCain, who is not currently a member of the Intelligence Committee, has now proposed a brand new "select committee" to explore Congress's oversight of the intelligence community. Think of it as a shadow intelligence committee.

The full resolution even notes:

Whereas senior officials in the intelligence community may have misled Congress or otherwise obfuscated the nature, extent, or use of certain intelligence-collection programs, operations, and activities of the National Security Agency, including intelligence-collection programs affecting Americans;

Whereas the provision of incomplete or inaccurate information by officials of the intelligence community has inhibited effective congressional oversight of certain intelligence-collection programs, operations, and activities of the National Security Agency, including intelligence- collection programs affecting Americans, and undermined congressional and public support of these programs;

That said, I wouldn't think of this so much as a new Church Committee at all. While the above sections do suggest some interest in reining in a rogue intelligence community, much of the other aspects of the proposed committee are focused on things like exploring how the Snowden leak happened in the first place, whether or not the NSA should stop using contractors, and whether or not the Snowden leaks "harmed" US spying methods (note that they don't seem to want to explore whether or not informing the public may actually help).

So, yes, this proposed committee seems more like the status quo, but at the same time, something of a slap in the face to the existing Intelligence Committee and the fact that it doesn't seem to have done its job.

Filed Under: congress, ed snowden, intelligence committee, john mccain, leaks, select committee, surveillance