Very important. I have been digging on C_A and lawmakers/spying on US Citizens INSIDE US.
Here is a speech, that has since been erased from C_A website. Had to go to wayback machine but I found it. Went back all the way to 2006 on WBM to get it. Please read.
http://web.archive.org/web/19970606092812/http://www.odci.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/ddi_speech_032097.html
Speech given "Sharing Secrets w/ Lawmakers" (Part 1)
[CIA Public Affairs Logo]
DDI Speech 03/20/97
Sharing Secrets With Lawmakers:
Congress as a User of Intelligence
Intercultural Center Auditorium
Georgetown University
John C. Gannon
Deputy Director for Intelligence
Good morning . . . I am delighted to be here to help kick off this pathbreaking conference on "Sharing Secrets with Lawmakers."
I am proud to say I'm an analyst. So, it didn't take me long after arriving here this morning to recognize that some of you were beginning to suspect that I'm not George Tenet. Looking out at you now, in fact, reminds me of some my encounters on the Hill when stern and suspicious eyes fix on me as if to say this guy ain't what we ordered. And it is sometimes downhill from there . . .
So first, let me tell you George, too, is disappointed that he could not be here this morning. Somehow in the past 24 hours his calendar got turned upside down and his personal focus on Congress took a dramatically different turn. George is a former staff director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who worked on intelligence in the White House before coming to CIA as Deputy Director in 1995.
George's nomination by President Clinton to be the next DCI is, in my view, and the view of many of my colleagues, a fitting tribute to a smart guy who knows and loves the intelligence business and cares deeply about the fine people who make intelligence an honorable profession. It's also a visible reminder of how well we in the intelligence community and Congress work together.
And second, let me tell you how pleased and excited I am to substitute for George at this particular conference in which I and all the people who work for me–the Directorate of Intelligence–have a strong interest. I am not only a willing participant, but an enthusiastic one and I plan to stay after my speech to share in your discussions.
The focus of this conference is how Congress uses intelligence. The jumping-off point for our discussion today is the recently published study on this topic by Britt Snider. Britt, who will speak to you shortly, is a good friend to many of us both in the Intelligence Community and Congress. He brings a wealth of experience to this issue, and his monograph on the evolution of Congress as a user of intelligence, and how that process works today, is an important, relevant, and groundbreaking work.
The subject demands more attention than it has received. Britt's study is in a sense overdue.
Almost everyone interested in national security policy is aware of the important role of the Congress in the oversight of intelligence activities. There has been tremendous evolution in Congress' oversight responsibility–from an informal, low-key arrangement to a more structured, professional, and formalized process. How oversight has improved over the years and how it works today–extremely successfully, in my view–has been the subject of many fine studies.
But the role of Congress as a consumer of intelligence is less well known. To some, it may seem a new and perhaps a radical idea. In fact, its neither.
I know that from my own experience as an analyst and a manager in the Directorate of Intelligence that Congress is a legitimate and responsible intelligence consumer. I first briefed Congress two decades ago while working as an analyst of Latin American affairs. And since becoming DDI, I have participated in more than fifty briefings and hearings before Congress.
Now sometimes I forget how much fun it is to brief Congress. Members sometimes ask nit-picking questions that are annoying to us analysts who like to think we deal with the big picture. Some members actually grill us with rapid fire questions that can reduce our usual DI eloquence to a gasping stammer and I can cite personal experience. But it's okay. Colleagues from any of our four directorates returning from the Hill will invariably tell you: "it went great!" That's CIA's code for mere survival.