by Dr. Binoy Kampmark
Scoop (New Zealand), February 7, 2014
EXCERPT...
In his ribbing, and at times abrasive questioning, Pike sought to extract a seemingly invisible National Security Agency from the budget. “Can members of Congress find the NSA in the document you prepared?” fired Pike at James T. Lynn, director of the Office of Management and Budget. The response: “It is not to be put in the budget of the United States.” No concealment, insisted Lynn, was taking place. “This is in conformance with the law.” Pike was unrelenting: “When you can’t find it in the budget, but you tell us it is there, I submit that it is legitimate to characterize that as being concealed.”
The revelations as to what the NSA was up proved juicy – and alarming. Colby conceded under questioning by Congressman Aspin that the NSA was engaged in the tapping of Americans’ phone calls. This precipitated a remarkable move – drawing the head of the hitherto invisible NSA, Lew Allen Jr., before the committee.
Allen’s conduct provided the blueprint for subsequent NSA chiefs: mendacity under fire, hedging and hair splitting qualifications. Yes, the agency was “legally” engaged in wiretapping American communications despite legal restrictions posed by such statutes as the 1934 Communications Act. No, the it was not technically eavesdropping on domestic or overseas communications because its trawling program was not “targeted”. Ever the NSA dilemma: caught between the vice of illegality and incompetence.
Dragging the NSA from the shadows of policy and cost proved a herculean task. If we are going to split hairs using the copybook of NSA directors, we might well argue that it is an unauthorised body, the vigilante on the bloc. Pike’s efforts to get the NSA to produce its “charter” – the National Security Council Intelligence Directive No. 6 in August 1975 – showed that up all too well. Even Washington’s politicians were not privy to the contents of the agency’s governing document.
SNIP...
It made Pike a target of opprobrium. Rogovin was incandescent. “Pike will pay for this, you wait and see – we’ll destroy him for this.” And he, and various others, did. The report was quashed in the House by a mere vote, leaving it to the mercy of selective publication. (A full copy was later published in Britain.) The Committee, along with staff, was tarnished with the brush of irresponsibility, and Pike with the mantel of a manic radical hostile to institutions. This proved an odd outcome, especially for a solid conservative who had been a stickler for propriety.
CONTINUED...
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1402/S00032/between-illegality-and-incompetence-otis-pike-and-the-nsa.htm
Thank you for grokking, Hassin Bin Sober! Something I've since learned since posting the OP: Mr. Pike had a reputation in Congress more as a conservative than as a liberal Democrat.
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