Word: ig
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Hayden may now be learning that not all IGs are equal. The IG at his previous post as National Security Agency director was among a second tier of IGs, created a decade after the original IG Act of 1978. Appointed by the agency head, they have less independence and investigatory powers and function more like internal auditors than the original batch of IGs that are attached to major government departments such as the CIA. Eleanor Hill, a former Defense Department IG from 1995 to 1999, suggested that the NSA's domestic wiretapping scandal might have been avoided if there...
...critical means of congressional oversight, IGs have never been particularly popular with the executive branch. Virtually every federal agency testified against the draft IG Act legislation, with the Justice Department arguing it constitutionally violated the separation of powers. Two years later the Reagan Administration tried to eliminate the system altogether, and since then all administrations have tried gaming the system to avoid embarrassments...
...system has become so dysfunctional in recent years that Congress is trying to give it added protections. New legislation to buttress IG independence easily passed the House in October and is expected to pass the Senate in November, although the President has already threatened a veto. The bill would make each IG appointment a fixed seven-year term, which is renewable, and would allow dismissal only for cause. IG budget requests would also have to be submitted to Congress, an important provision in light of the fact that some IGs have actually shrunk their staff. Unfortunately these kind of safeguards...
...Being an IG is no easy task - some liken the job to straddling barbed wire, or to being a skunk at a garden party. The IG must maintain a good working relationship with the agency director but at the same time maintain independence. At the CIA, for instance, there is always tension when headquarters staff investigate field operatives, who often complain that the Langley suits don't understand field conditions, says Frederick Hitz, CIA IG from 1990 1998 and now a lecturer in public and international affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. "That accusation is leveled at every...
...Hitz views Hayden's investigation of his IG as a dangerous precedent that contains an implicit message to "call off the dogs" or go easier on his reporting. Helgerson has already rankled senior CIA staff, particularly with his examination of the agency's pre-9/11 intelligence failures, which broke with tradition by naming names, including CIA director George Tenet. Hayden fiercely resisted releasing even the executive summary of that report but was finally compelled to when Congress passed a law ordering...