Pincus, Walter. "CIA Cited for Not Disclosing Covert Action." Washington Post, 10 May 2007, A13. [http://www.washingtonpost.com] Pincus, Walter. "CIA Cited for Not Disclosing Covert Action." Washington Post, 10 May 2007, A13. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
On 9 may 2007, the HPSCI said that "the CIA violated the law last year when it failed to inform the panel of 'a significant covert action activity.'" In its report on the fiscal 2008 intelligence authorization bill, the committee said that "'[d]espite agency explanations that the failure was inadvertent, the committee is deeply troubled over the fact that such an oversight could occur, whether intentionally or inadvertent.'... The committee gave no hint of what the covert activity involved."
Pincus, Walter. "Senate Realigns Intelligence Procedures: New Reform Statute Calls for Some Change." Washington Post, 23 Dec. 2004, A21. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
In the next Congress, the "Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will have ... a much larger staff," with each of the 15 panel members "entitled to choose a new staff member." These "staffers were added because the committee was going to handle both legislation that authorizes intelligence activities and appropriations legislation that funds them." However, this plan has changed. Although the committee "will continue to authorize intelligence programs,... a new subcommittee on intelligence within the Senate Appropriations Committee will handle the money.... The addition of the staffers is just one of several new provisions of the intelligence reform law."
Priest, Dana. "Congressional Oversight of Intelligence Criticized: Committee Members, Others Cite Lack of Attention to Reports on Iraqi Arms, Al Qaeda Threat." Washington Post, 27 Apr. 2004, A1. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
"Responsibility for congressional oversight is vested in the House and Senate select committees on intelligence.... But as described by former members and outside experts, the committees' performance in oversight and investigations has deteriorated."
Priest, Dana. "Intelligence Panel Votes To Abolish Term Limits: Senators Seek to Strengthen Oversight of CIA." Washington Post, 5 May 2004, A27, [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
According to committee members, [t]he Senate Select Committee on Intelligence ... voted unanimously" on 4 May 2004 "to abolish the eight-year term limits imposed when the panel was established 28 years ago.... The proposed change, which must be passed by the Senate, is contained in the Intelligence Authorization Act markup for 2005 and has the tentative backing of the leadership of both parties, committee sources said."
Roemer, Tim. "How to Fix Intelligence Oversight." Washington Post, 20 Dec. 2007, A29.
In this Op-Ed piece, the former Indiana congressman and 9/11 commission member states that "[i]n their current structure, congressional intelligence committees are fundamentally ill equipped to effect real change." He argues that authorizing and appropriating powers should be combined into a single committee, as recommended by the 9/11 commission.
Rundquist, Paul S., and Christopher M. Davis. S.Res. 445: Senate Committee Reorganization for Homeland Security and Intelligence Matters. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 15 Oct. 2004. [Available at: http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/RS21955.pdf.]
Passed by the Senate on 9 October 2004, this resolution eliminates the 8-year term limit on intelligence committee membership; reduces the size of the committee from 17 to 15; renames the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee to Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; and transfers to the renamed committee jurisdiction over matters relating to homeland security, with certain limitations.
Savage, Charlie. "President Weakens Espionage Oversight: Board Created by Ford Loses Most of Its Power." Boston Globe, 14 Mar. 2008. [http://www.boston.com]
President Bush issued an executive order in late February 2008 stripping the Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB) of much of its authority. President Ford created the IOB "following a 1975-76 investigation by Congress into domestic spying, assassination operations, and other abuses by intelligence agencies."
Schwarz, Frederick A.O., Jr. "The Church Committee and a New Era of Intelligence Oversight." Intelligence and National Security 22, no. 2 (Apr. 2007): 270-297.
The author was the Church Committee's chief counsel. Here, he persuasively argues the continued relevance of the lessons that came out of the Committee's work. Salient points include: "in times of crisis even constitutional democracies are likely to violate their laws and forget their values"; "too much was collected from too many for too long"; and "[i]t was not evil that caused us to do what we ought not to have done. It was zeal , fostered by excessive secrecy; vague instructions and implicit nudges or winks joined to pressure for results without attention to means; and oversight that was either lacking altogether, empty, or knowingly chose to turn a blind eye."
Shenon, Philip, and Eric Lipton. "9/11 Panel Members to Lobby for a Restructured Congress." New York Times, 21 Dec. 2004, A20.
Snider, L. Britt. "Congressional Oversight of Intelligence After 9/11." In Transforming US Intelligence: Challenges for Democracy, eds. Jennifer Sims and Burton Gerber, 239-258. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2005.
Solomon, John. "In Intelligence World, A Mute Watchdog: Panel Reported No Violations for Five Years." Washington Post, 15 Jul. 2007, A3. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]
In a report in May 2007, the Justice Department told the House Judiciary Committee that the President's Intelligence Oversight Board [IOB], "the principal civilian watchdog of the intelligence community," sent no "reports to the attorney general of legal violations during the first 5 1/2 years of the Bush administration's counterterrorism effort."
Walker, Matthew B. "Reforming Congressional Oversight of Intelligence." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 19, no. 4 (Winter 2006-2007): 702-720.
Discusses current legislative oversight problems; critiques the 9/11 Commission's recommendations; and makes additional recommendations.
Zegart, Amy. "Outside View: Hill Intelligence Unreformed." United Press International, 30 Aug. 2007. [http://www.upi.com]
"Six years after Sept. 11, the least reformed part of our intelligence system sits not in Langley, Va., or the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building, but on Capitol Hill.... Today there are more committees involved in intelligence oversight than ever. Committee term limits in the House remain. And radical intelligence overhaul still requires battling, and defeating, the powerful armed services committees.... It is all well and good for Congress to be demanding accountability from the CIA and other intelligence agencies. But accountability starts at home. Until Congress overhauls itself, intelligence reform will remain elusive."
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