Intelligence Oversight Research Articles

Social media intelligence: The national security–privacy nexus

Globally, changes in technology have always shaped the intelligence collection environment. South Africa is no different. The emergence of satellite imagery had a significant influence on the Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) capabilities and, similarly, the emergence of the telegram and later the telephone had and equally significant effect on the Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) environment. With communications being revolutionised by mobile technology that include recording, geo-positioning and photography, collection and distribution are ubiquitous. Smart mobile communication technology is also the driver of social media everywhere, at all ages, state, and non-state, non-stop. More recently, Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT) has had the same significant influence on the collection of intelligence in general. Globally several examples of the successful exploitation of SOCMINT can be found internationally, it would be surprising if South Africa is not a statistic of this phenomenon yet. Initially, many organisations viewed (and some still do) SOCMINT as an Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) tool. However, when considering the South African intelligence landscape, the concepts democracy, transparency, and intelligence oversight are calibrating factors to bear in mind. It is also important to consider the influence of the national legislative framework governing the use of SOCMINT in South Africa by state and non-state actors. It then becomes clear that issues such as personal legal right to privacy means that SOCMINT is probably no longer covered by the scope of the OSINT definition and that intelligence organisations collecting social media content and producing SOCMINT should adhere to the legislative framework governing the collection and use of social media content and the production of SOCMINT.

The Hughes-Ryan Amendment and Intelligence Oversight: An Inflection Point in an Oppositional Relationship

ABSTRACT The Hughes-Ryan Amendment provided the foundation of modern intelligence oversight. It firmly established executive ownership of covert action, challenging the concept of internal plausible deniability. Moreover, it shifted the relationship between the executive and legislative branches in terms of intelligence, allowing Congress a toehold on what had been considered an almost purely executive branch function. While Hughes-Ryan’s importance is indisputable, its roots and catalyst have seldom been explored in detail. This article describes the political context of the Hughes-Ryan amendment, discusses how and why it was introduced and passed when it was, and explains the outcome of this legislation. It introduces a unique analytical framework to explain this process, exploring the dynamics of congressional behavior and institutional constraints to explain why the change that occurred, while definitive and impactful in the intelligence world, was limited in scope.

The Tug-of-War over Drone Strike Oversight: Congress and the Politics of Drone Warfare during the Obama Presidency

Despite the increasing use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in counter-terror operations, executive-legislative relations, intelligence oversight, and war powers regarding drone strikes have received scarce scholarly interest. Our article contributes to filling this gap and focuses on the politics of congressional oversight of drone warfare—in particular those operations conducted by the CIA (Title 50 operations) during the Obama administration. We apply the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) to conduct an interpretive case study and shed light on our central research question: How can we explain the timing and limited extent of changes with regard to congressional oversight of drone strikes during the Obama presidency? While this policy area is traditionally depicted as one of executive dominance and legislative acquiescence, we analyze how congressional entrepreneurs used a policy window in the wake of John Brennan’s confirmation hearings for CIA Director in 2013 to set the agenda on congressional oversight of drone strikes, and thereby contest executive policy-making. Congress enacted limited changes to drone strike oversight and pressured President Obama to increase transparency. At the same time, further limitations, most notably to consolidate drone strike oversight by ending the CIA drone program, were defeated by senior leaders in Congress. Our study thus contends that congressional entrepreneurs played a key role for both change and continuity regarding drone warfare oversight.

Oversight and governance of the Danish intelligence community

ABSTRACT The study of intelligence communities, and oversight thereof, outside the English-speaking world remains relatively underdeveloped. One of the most instructive cases the Danish intelligence community and its oversight architecture. Denmark conforms to neither the ‘big bang’ of intelligence oversight during the 1970s and 1980s nor to subsequent security sector reform (SSR) amongst so-called ‘new democracies’ beyond broadly following Loch Johnson’s pattern of ‘fire-fighting’ oversight. Instead, the governance of Danish intelligence was shaped by specific features of Denmark’s constitution combined with legacies of the country’s experience of Nazi occupation, its geopolitical position during the Cold War and post-1945 social change.

‘Familiar but not intimate’: executive oversight of the UK intelligence and security agencies

ABSTRACT Studies of the relationship between ministers and UK intelligence agencies have tended to focus on the government’s use of intelligence, while studies of intelligence oversight have focused almost exclusively on the work of parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee. This article examines the role of the executive in the oversight of the UK intelligence and security agencies. It traces the evolution of ministerial accountability for the UK intelligence and security agencies and raises questions about the capacity of ministers to provide effective scrutiny in this area, focusing on ministers’ knowledge and understanding of intelligence, ministerial workload and potential conflicts of interest.

Intelligence oversight systems in Uganda: challenges and prospects

ABSTRACT This paper highlights deficiencies in Uganda’s national security civilian intelligence services’ oversight systems and their implications for the democratic governance of the security sector. It argues that the intelligence sub-sector in Uganda still lags behind as far as adhering to democratic governance norms is concerned. The legislature and civil society organizations which are supposed to ensure that intelligence organizations operate within the rule of law find veritable challenges due to some legislative ambiguities. The paper recommends that the laws governing intelligence services should be amended to give more definite mandates to the legislature and other oversight bodies.

Party politics and intelligence: the Labour Party, British intelligence and oversight, 1979-1994

ABSTRACT For much of the 20th Century, intelligence and security was a taboo subject for Parliamentarians. While Labour backbenchers had suspicions of the secret state, there was a long-held bipartisan consensus that debates on intelligence were ‘dangerous and bad’. Yet by the 1970s, new disclosures on the activities of foreign intelligence and domestic surveillance eroded this consensus with the Labour Party willing to push for greater accountability and oversight of the UK’s intelligence agencies. This article looks at how, through the campaign to reform intelligence oversight, Labour pushed for changes reflected in later legislation. It also explores Labour’s attitudes to intelligence.

Lessons from the Post-Totalitarian Transformation of Intelligence Services

The editors are delighted to present studies on transformation processes in the structures, legislation, management, and oversight of intelligence and state security services in Hungary, Indonesia, Poland, the South African Republic, and Ukraine.1 Various contributors felt encouraged to share data and analysis on ongoing processes of intelligence reform and the evolution of surveillance. Yet, as the authors note, the weakness of civilian control could induce the services to continue using this extended power in the post-Covid situation. [...]contributors alarm that regulatory activities of many countries, including the EU, in the realm of Artificial Intelligence do not match the pace of development of these technologies. Skilled in research, policy analysis, and project management, she holds a Master of Science degree in Public Policy Analysis from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Too responsible to run for president: Frank Church and the 1976 presidential nomination

ABSTRACT In 1975, Senator Frank Church led the first US Senate review of the conduct of the United States intelligence community, popularly known as the Church Committee. The committee identified a plethora of constitutional abuses by the intelligence community in the early Cold War that shocked the nation, and initiated wholesale reform of congressional intelligence oversight. Conservative critics used Church’s subsequent campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1976 as evidence of his use of the investigation to further his presidential aspirations. Using newly-discovered archival evidence and oral history interviews, this article establishes that such conclusions are erroneous, and that Church knowingly sacrificed his ambitions to maintain the committee’s public standing. Furthermore, it argues that contemporary and later criticism of Church’s conduct was aimed at negating the impact of the Church Committee’s report and protecting the intelligence community from unwanted reform.

City council and national security: oversight of local counterterrorism and security intelligence

ABSTRACT Following 11 September 2001, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) established and expanded counterterrorism and security intelligence capacities to an extent unprecedented for an American local government. These powers necessitated new legislative oversight responsibilities. While the NYPD’s efforts to address terrorism have received scholarly attention, City Council oversight of those efforts has not. This study helps fill that gap by examining the amount and nature of City Council – specifically the Committee on Public Safety – oversight hearings pertaining to terrorism and its mitigation. It also discusses additional City Council oversight options and needed research directions.

Intelligence Oversight and Effectiveness in New Democracies

Scholarship on the inherent tension between intelligence and democracy has paid limited attention to new democracies, especially those transitioning from military regimes. There, it is more challenging to bring intelligence services under democratic control without sacrificing their efficiency in exchange for oversight. This research note analyses these challenges in the Brazilian case, contributing to the scholarship on intelligence in Latin America. The case study demonstrates that the restructuring of intelligence in Brazil resulted in a spread-out intelligence system with many agencies, aimed at avoiding monopolisation and politicisation with formal oversight mechanisms put in place. Nonetheless, Brazilian society and politicians still do not trust intelligence, and lack a clear understanding of its functions for a democratic state. While intelligence reform in Brazil still has a long way to go regarding intelligence effectiveness and efficiency, it indicates how intelligence reform is a central part of a successful democratic transition.

Of intelligence oversight and the challenge of surveillance corporatism

ABSTRACT This article examines the experience of oversight during the last fifty years in order to inform current debates in both the older and newer democracies. First, there is a discussion of certain key concepts: intelligence governance including control, authorisation and oversight; second, the difficulties facing oversight, specifically, how these can be alleviated by a structure involving both parliamentary and specialist bodies and, third, the challenges presented by the structures of surveillance corporatism and its reliance on bulk collection. It is concluded that this new intelligence architecture requires a form of decentred regulation of and by state and corporate actors.

FOIA and the national security scholar as fire alarm oversight

ABSTRACT Congress may engage in intelligence oversight by authorizing third-party requesters as ‘fire alarms’ to promote transparency under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). FOIA authorizes requesters to sue federal agencies to ensure their cooperation with requests for agency records. This article considers judicial review and the national security scholar’s role as fire alarm oversight by examining the litigation for the Pfeiffer Bay of Pigs CIA operation history, draft volume V. The article illustrates a compliance gap that requesters and courts can close by canvassing the advantages that scholars, especially historians, enjoy in enabling judicial oversight that promotes executive agency transparency.

From committees of parliamentarians to parliamentary committees: comparing intelligence oversight reform in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK

ABSTRACTSome form of legislative oversight of intelligence has become the norm in most democratic states. The near universal acceptance of the need for democratic oversight does not, however, mark the end of a process of intelligence accountability. In many states following a period of establishment and then consolidation, intelligence oversight mechanisms have begun to evolve as oversight committees have sought extra powers and developed new roles. This article examines reforms in parliamentary intelligence oversight committees in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK, focusing on the form, mandate, membership, powers and resources of the committees as well as their engagement with other parliamentary actors.

Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control. by Stephen Kinzer, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2019. 368 pp. $30.00.

<i>Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control</i>. by Stephen Kinzer, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2019. 368 pp. $30.00.

The last forum of accountability? State secrecy, intelligence and freedom of information in the United Kingdom

The official mechanisms of intelligence oversight and accountability in the United Kingdom are arguably disjointed and ineffective. Thus, informal actors such as journalists, have played a more significant role. In addition, a rise of whistleblowers and leakers, such as Chelsea Manning, have highlighted the importance of online archives as an avenue for accountability. The United Kingdom is legally bound to place official documents on the public record at the National Archives. Sensitive material on intelligence and other security subjects majorly impedes the bulk release of documents. Inevitably, the inclination to ‘weed’ sensitive material from mundane documents has resulted in a costly declassification process. Evidence suggests that historians successfully investigated these subjects through the use of archives, despite the efforts of officials to obfuscate. This article argues that historians increasingly constitute the last forum of accountability and that routine declassification is an important, but neglected aspect of our machinery of intelligence oversight.

Data-driven Intelligence Oversight. Recommendations for a System Update

Intelligence services around the world are driving the evolution of surveillance technology – a rapid, bold, and multi-faceted development. Many countries will run the risk of conducting irrelevant intelligence oversight processes if they fail to incorporate supervisory technology more systematically. The growing volumes of data used in the intelligence sector overwhelm the de facto guarantees of legal safeguards and effective oversight. Modern data analysis entails numerous risks in terms of data abuse and circumventing legal requirements. A lack of up-to-date tools, resources, and technical expertise serves to further undermine effective oversight. Oversight bodies need an update. They need to adopt tech-enabled instruments to respond to the technological advancements driving the intelligence field. Since key European nations are currently preparing new intelligence reforms, we hope that oversight bodies will embrace a paradigm shift from paper-driven to data-driven reviews. To advance this process, we would like to propose seven tools for data-driven intelligence oversight that should become part of a reform agenda across Europe. Each tool represents a viable solution to a concrete oversight challenge. Many build upon direct access to operational systems, which enables oversight bodies to conduct unannounced checks as well as (semi-)automated audits on intelligence agencies’ data processing. Some of our proposed tools are already being used by intelligence oversight pioneers, while others have been borrowed from good practices in other sectors, such as financial supervision and IT security. We invite policymakers, intelligence agencies, and oversight bodies to discuss these tools and develop context-specific strategies for data-driven intelligence oversight. In order to successfully implement these tools, we advise oversight bodies not to regard them as substitutes for traditional oversight mechanisms; instead, they should be viewed as necessary additions to existing toolkits and inspection processes. The hard work of improving oversight will require more than amending existing laws. There has been an overreliance on purely legal solutions to tech-inflicted challenges for too long. This report shows that legal requirements cannot be effectively enforced if the corresponding practical measures are not taken. A concerted effort is thus needed to identify better instruments that complement the legal frameworks and establish accountability.

Intelligence Control and Oversight in Poland since 1989

ABSTRACTThe article presents Polish intelligence services from institutional perspective. The development of oversight and control system, which started in 1989, is still an ongoing process. Based on almost 30 years of experience it can be said that in Poland intelligence services are not about special tasks or privileges. They are rather a group of institutions which are subject to specific institutional oversight and control and are called special services. This paper focuses on institutional mechanisms of oversight and control and shows its most important elements: intelligence services, oversight institutions and institutions of control.

Toward ‘normal’ politics? Security, parliaments and the politicisation of intelligence oversight in the German Bundestag

Security has often been considered a special kind of politics that presents a particular challenge for liberal democracy, whether due to securitised states of exception or technocratic risk management. This article examines whether and how parliaments can be sites of politicisation, moving security from exceptional and technocratic politics toward more ‘normal’ democratic politics. Moving beyond the narrow focus on decisions over the use of military force, the examination focuses on the ‘hard case’ of parliamentary oversight of intelligence agencies and provides a case study on the German Bundestag. Overall, it finds that a strict divide between security and normal politics is overly simplistic, even when it comes to intelligence. There is evidence for politicisation that reveals patterns of normal politics through an increasingly institutionalised framework as well as public, increasingly controversial debates, including a good deal of partisan politics. However, debates tend to center on institutional and legal issues as well as symbolic skirmishes after specific events of high visibility, while many restrictions are deeply entrenched in parliamentary conventions and attitudes.

Book Review: Zachary K Goldman and Samuel J Rascoff (eds), Global Intelligence Oversight: Governing Security in the Twenty-First Century

Book Review: Zachary K Goldman and Samuel J Rascoff (eds), <i>Global Intelligence Oversight: Governing Security in the Twenty-First Century</i>