Well, the real problem isn’t any component of the CIA so much as it is reining in the
leadership. Like when Clapper (or was it Brennan?) was director and ordered CIA personnel to hack into the Intelligence Committee’s computers on Capitol Hill to see what incriminating evidence they had. The CIA’s inspector general investigated and recommended disciplinary action (if not outright termination), but the then-deputy director (Avril Haines, the
current DNI) overruled the IG and nothing happened.
Giving the agencies’ IG offices more teeth would be the answer, not to mention actually enforcing the law against high-ranking officials consistently would be the real remedy. Most of the really egregious stuff comes at the direction of the White House or at least with its tacit approval (something the Church and Pike Committees found when this stuff was going on 50 years ago). It isn’t the
agencies that are the problem, it’s a couple of people who need to be made examples of.
I keep telling people we’re just reliving the 1970s but nobody believes me…
en.m.wikipedia.org
The biggest irony is that a lot of what the Committee found is that the White House (under both parties) was letting it happen. The tensions are still there, but it comes down to really needing to, again, hold the president and his senior people accountable (hence why the House’s Weaponization of the Federal Government is important). Problem is it’ll only last until the next time the Democrats take over.
And as far as states go? They don’t have the constitutional authority to do what you’re talking about (since it very explicitly puts the responsibility for the national defense under the purview of the federal government). And the Constitution was designed
specifically to rein the states in so they didn’t try setting their own foreign or trade policies and undermine the Union. Nor do they actually have the capability to do what you’re talking about. Or…
Oh, state agencies are
by far more corrupt than the feds.
Seriously,
@StormEagle , you want Gavin Newsom, or Phil Murphy, or J.B. Pritzker calling the shots and having the power to spy on people? Yeah that will totally end well for the country…they’ll be waging covert wars against other states and individuals who disagree with them.
(Points at the Articles of Confederation and Shays’ Rebellion). Now imagine that happening even more often.
Now, on the other hand, undoing the worst excesses of the New Deal and Woodrow Wilson’s stunts before him, as well as making sure executive branch leadership is held accountable, is doable. The problem is you need to get a Senate that isn’t directly elected by people, because it needs to put the interests of the states ahead of political factions in the country. That means abolishing the 17th Amendment, but it’s long outlived any usefulness it once had.
It’s not a contest of any sorts; prior to Pearl Harbor we had the FBI, but for foreign intelligence we were mainly reliant upon the Office of Naval Intelligence (the Army wasn’t really big enough to matter before then). We didn’t have a dedicated foreign intelligence service, and so when Pearl Harbor hit we were
really behind the 8-ball. That was why the CIA was formed in the first place (the other IC agencies came into being for specialized purposes akin to Army or Naval Intelligence). What
should have happened after 9/11 was the CIA being given primacy to coordinate Intelligence matters, but instead we got another layer of bureaucracy.
To be fair, the probable solution with the FBI is just splitting off the Intelligence Branch and creating something akin to MI5 in Britain (under suitable accountability of course); prior to 2009, the FBI’s reputation as a law enforcement agency was pretty good -and indeed, the field personnel generally are very,
very ashamed of the leadership in Washington. So splitting off the Intelligence function and having it function as a law enforcement agency again would probably be a better move (disclaimer: When this was under debate in the mid-2000s, I disagreed with it, figuring the FBI’s ethos would be enough to keep its worst impulses in check. I was wrong).
And yes, people love to bitch about Ruby Ridge and Waco, but those clusterfucks weren’t the FBI’s fault: They were ATF fuckups that Clinton and Janet Reno ordered the FBI to clean up. With Ruby Ridge, even Danny Coulson (the head of counterterrorism at the FBI and the founder of the Hostage Rescue Team) thought the planning for the arrest operation was absolute shit and was vehemently against it.
With Waco, Reno and especially Jamie Gorelick (remember her?) were pushing Clinton to order a raid because of the TV coverage and over budgetary concerns. Which wasn’t helped by the differences in philosophy and approach between HRT operators and the FBI negotiators that kept sending mixed signals.
But again, that wasn’t due to the FBI doing it on their own hook; it was terrible direction from the President and Attorney General (sound familiar?)
First of all, that is a clear violation of the Constitution, because SCOTUS has no authority over the executive branch. Not to mention,
we have a system of accountability in place, called the Senate and House Intelligence Committees. The solution is to require them to
do their fucking jobs. Again, that was what came out of the Church and Pike Committees; it’s just that Congress has forgotten that it’s more than just a bunch of social media influencers.
Second of all, putting a bunch of lawyers with zero understanding of how espionage works in charge of having to vet even the acquisition of new computers or office space, or whether we can send any spy satellites over North Korea, is a colossal waste of everyone’s time and resources, especially in situations where you may need a decision in minutes.
The fundamental problem of intelligence agencies is that there is an inherent tension between an open democracy and the secretive world of espionage that is difficult to reconcile at the best of times.
Congress is
supposed to exercise effective oversight, but many of them don’t, and so we are stuck with the current mess. And as far as “replacing Kissinger’s cronies” goes, that did happen; it was just that, as an overreaction to the abuses of yesteryear, too many restrictions were placed on intelligence operations over legal and moral concerns, which meant that 9/11 was able to occur. Which set off a repeat of the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, which was allowed to grow and result in the messes of the 1970s.
And to get back on the actual topic of this thread…it’s why I have zero faith in Trump actually
doing anything. He’s only interested in using it against anyone he considers an enemy, rather than wholesale reform so that
nobody can misuse this authority. But that’s a much larger problem, and if one is going to crack down on this, they need to have a laser focus, be patient, and have a solid plan to counter any resistance. And Trump has none of that.