Friday, October 14, 2005
More Secret Powers
More Secret Power Given to Federal Government.
The administration has been working overtime on establishing major new intelligence operations and agencies. Almost all of these are unaccountable to anyone except the president (and, I presume, his closest cohorts); as far as money goes, nobody has to answer about where it’s spent. Congress writes checks on taxpayers’ money and that’s that.
It’s the power, though, that’s really scary. The government keeps on gathering more and more power over the population. They don’t want the power to help us: they want the power to police us. This is not the sideways power of regulatory agencies, but the raw power of a police state. Considering the Republicans’ constant theme song of getting the government out of peoples’ lives, this sort of power-grab is hypocritical—but mainly it’s just frightening. John Negroponte is one of the men responsible for the establishment of the Death Squads in Central America.
washingtonpost.com
CIA Spies Get a New Home Base
Agency Will Set Up the National Clandestine Service
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 14, 2005; A06
Intelligence officials yesterday announced establishment of a National Clandestine Service at the CIA, saying the step is necessary because of the dramatic expansion in U.S. human intelligence collection abroad since Sept. 11, 2001.
The NCS, which will be based at the CIA, will carry out that agency's espionage, taking over what has been called the Directorate of Operations, and will coordinate, though it will not actually direct, the increasing spying and covert activities conducted worldwide by the Pentagon and FBI, officials said.
"This is another positive step in building an intelligence community that is more unified, coordinated and effective," Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte said in a statement yesterday.
President Bush had ordered increases of 50 percent in the number of CIA case officers and analysts, and there has been similar, if not greater, growth since the late 1990s in Pentagon and FBI human intelligence collection operations, the officials noted.
That growth requires greater coordination of efforts and "has for the first time since 1947 forced us to redraw the lines," said a senior intelligence official, one of two who briefed reporters yesterday on the condition they not be identified by name. One official was from Negroponte's Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees all U.S. intelligence agencies; the other was from the CIA.
Yesterday's announcement gives CIA Director Porter J. Goss another title, national humint manager, incorporating the intelligence community's shorthand for human intelligence, which refers to information collected from people rather than from technical sources such as electronic intercepts. The director of the National Clandestine Service will report to Goss, but the new agency's work will be overseen by Negroponte's staff.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
The administration has been working overtime on establishing major new intelligence operations and agencies. Almost all of these are unaccountable to anyone except the president (and, I presume, his closest cohorts); as far as money goes, nobody has to answer about where it’s spent. Congress writes checks on taxpayers’ money and that’s that.
It’s the power, though, that’s really scary. The government keeps on gathering more and more power over the population. They don’t want the power to help us: they want the power to police us. This is not the sideways power of regulatory agencies, but the raw power of a police state. Considering the Republicans’ constant theme song of getting the government out of peoples’ lives, this sort of power-grab is hypocritical—but mainly it’s just frightening. John Negroponte is one of the men responsible for the establishment of the Death Squads in Central America.
washingtonpost.com
CIA Spies Get a New Home Base
Agency Will Set Up the National Clandestine Service
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 14, 2005; A06
Intelligence officials yesterday announced establishment of a National Clandestine Service at the CIA, saying the step is necessary because of the dramatic expansion in U.S. human intelligence collection abroad since Sept. 11, 2001.
The NCS, which will be based at the CIA, will carry out that agency's espionage, taking over what has been called the Directorate of Operations, and will coordinate, though it will not actually direct, the increasing spying and covert activities conducted worldwide by the Pentagon and FBI, officials said.
"This is another positive step in building an intelligence community that is more unified, coordinated and effective," Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte said in a statement yesterday.
President Bush had ordered increases of 50 percent in the number of CIA case officers and analysts, and there has been similar, if not greater, growth since the late 1990s in Pentagon and FBI human intelligence collection operations, the officials noted.
That growth requires greater coordination of efforts and "has for the first time since 1947 forced us to redraw the lines," said a senior intelligence official, one of two who briefed reporters yesterday on the condition they not be identified by name. One official was from Negroponte's Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees all U.S. intelligence agencies; the other was from the CIA.
Yesterday's announcement gives CIA Director Porter J. Goss another title, national humint manager, incorporating the intelligence community's shorthand for human intelligence, which refers to information collected from people rather than from technical sources such as electronic intercepts. The director of the National Clandestine Service will report to Goss, but the new agency's work will be overseen by Negroponte's staff.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
