House Creates Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
The House of Representatives on this day created a Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
The creation of permanent intelligence committees in both the Senate and the House to oversee the intelligence agencies was among the important post-Watergate reforms arising from the investigations by the Senate Church Committee (January 27, 1975) and the House Pike Committee (February 19, 1975).
Since the creation of the CIA and the NSA in the late 1940s, those agencies had minimal oversight from Congress. In fact, the chairs of the committees involved regarded their mission as protecting the agencies’ secrecy. This cloak of secrecy allowed both the CIA and the NSA to engage in activities that were illegal and in violation of international law.
In later years, however, journalists and scholars questioned the effectiveness of the committees, arguing that they had been captured and/or manipulated by the CIA. The Senate had created its Select Committee on Intelligence in May 1976. The term “Select” means that committee members serve on a rotating basis, unlike standard Congressional committees.
Learn more about the investigations of the intelligence agencies: Kathryn Olmstead, Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI (1996)
Learn more about the NSA from the foremost expert: James Bamford, The Puzzle Palace (1982); The Shadow Factory (2008)
Read about the spying under President Bush: Eric Lichblau, Bush’s Law: The Remaking of American Justice (2008)
Learn more about CIA abuses: Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (2008)
Read the Senate Church Committee reports on the abuses of the CIA, FBI and other agencies: http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/contents/church/contents_church_reports.htm