While I am a liberal, I am not overly critical of the intelligence agencies. I would say that compared to many of my friends my response to a lot of the revelations regarding wiretapping were annoyance but holding out hope for statutory reform (real statutory reform, which has not happened). I understand the need to have detention.
But, this has gone too far. Lying to Congress may have occurred too. This is all very scary. It seems as though things are not operating, not only not within the bounds of the law, but in a sort of haphazard way. Much of this just does not make much sense as someone operating any agency.
It is the latter part that seems to be most problematic. Personally, what I think is has happened is that the White House itself tried to control too much, and wanted to hide everything. I personally do not feel that everyone, or even the majority of the CIA was some sort of horrific evil. What I do think happened though, is that the mix of a unitary executive theory, a penchant for secrecy, and just the normal mission of the intelligence community led to a perfect storm of craziness.
I know I am not entirely coherent here, but I do worry not only that the law was broken, but that the intelligence agencies may become demoralized and unable to perform their missions effectively.
No comments:
Post a Comment