Word: oversight
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Under the American system of legislative oversight, there is a built-in conflict between the lawmakers' need to assure themselves that the agency is responsive to democratic control and the CIA director's necessity to keep delicate operations secret as long as possible. Intelligence Committee members argue, with justification, that they can keep a secret when performing their legitimate oversight functions: because of the very nature of such "covert" activities as mining Nicaraguan harbors and blowing up oil tanks, knowledge about the CIA's role in these operations is likely to become public, but generally not through...
Part of the problem, some legislators concede, is that the Intelligence Committees are too large, and their members (16 House, 17 Senate) too busy with other assignments, to handle their important oversight role in a judicious manner. Says Senator Leahy: "We have got to find a way for Senators to be far better briefed on covert activity. It may require a couple of Democrats and a couple of Republicans who will meet several hours each week and then give a broad report to the full committee...
This alone, however, will not be enough to handle the far more serious underlying problem. No oversight arrangement will work, nor will any program to rebuild America's covert capabilities work, until a way can be found to dissipate the corrosive mistrust and suspicion that has built up between Casey's CIA and Congress...
...will be investigated by the House Ethics Committee, which could recommend that he be censured or expelled from the House. Meese has admitted that he failed to include a loan to his wife and a related stock purchase in his disclosure forms, but contends that the omission was an "oversight." Meese has filed amended reports, unlike Hansen, who has refused...
Scientists at other universities said that Harvard faced little or no competition for oversight role in NASA's selection process...