#126: Who Watches the Watchmen?

Tech Policy Podcast

TechFreedom

Technology

4.8 • 45 Ratings

🗓️ 20 September 2016

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We know from the Snowden leaks that the NSA and other intelligence agencies are watching us. But who watches the watchers? Congress is responsible for overseeing intelligence practices, but is it doing its job effectively? A growing number of experts thinks not. What can be done to strengthen oversight and protect journalists and whistleblowers? Nathan Leamer, Outreach Manager at the R Street Institute, and Daniel Schuman, Policy Director at Demand Progress, join the show to discuss. For more, see their report.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tech Policy podcast. I'm Evan Swartzropper. On today's show, Who Watches the Watchmen?
0:10.9	We had a podcast about a year ago with Nathan Leamer from the R Street Institute, and we were talking about oversight of the intelligence community.
0:17.7	Since the Snowden and Revelations of June 2013, there's been a big imperative to reform the oversight of the intelligence community. Since the Snowden revelations of June 2013, there's been a big imperative to reform
0:23.0	the oversight of the intelligence community. Like I said, who's the watcher? Well, in this case,
0:27.5	it's Congress, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. And we're talking about reforming
0:32.5	the way that Congress oversees the intelligence community. So joining me to discuss this is
0:37.0	a friend of the show,
0:38.0	Nathan Leamer, outreach manager at the R Street Institute. Nathan, thanks for joining.
0:41.4	Thanks for having me. And joining Nathan is Daniel Schumann, policy director at demand progress.
0:46.2	Daniel, thanks for joining. A pleasure. So gentlemen, before we jump into the report that you guys
0:52.0	came out with and some more immediate things. Give us a brief history
0:55.6	of House Intelligence Oversight. I mean, we had the Cold War throughout the entire second
1:01.0	half of the 20th century. Surveillance has been around long before the internet with wiretapping
1:06.6	and things like that. So how have the watchmen been watched before?
1:12.2	Not particularly well. So the House Intelligence Committee is actually a new creation
1:16.1	was created in the late 70s. And what brought it about were a series of revelations around
1:21.3	really bad behavior by the government, assassinations of foreign leaders, domestic spying, engaging in, like, infiltrating
1:29.2	domestic political activities, the Nixon administration, the Johnson administration, a whole
1:32.9	bunch of really sort of bad things. Congress rightfully freaked out, had a select committee
1:38.8	that looked into this called the Church Committee and the Pike Committee. They found a whole
1:41.3	bunch of really bad things, and they thought, well, maybe we should actually get our act together and look at this
1:45.9	in a more consistent kind of way.
	...

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