US Spy Agencies Crush Congressional Demand for More Employee Scrutiny
SputnikNews.com
30.12.2015
Despite pledges of increased transparency, the US intelligence community successfully fought a Congressional measure that would require agencies to give more details about personnel who have been promoted or fired.
The measure was designed to bring additional scrutiny to instances of senior personnel being promoted to top positions, despite wide-ranging problems.
The CIA, in particular, has faced criticism over the promotion of employees involved in the torture of prisoners or botched operations to capture terrorist suspects.
A provision drafted by the Senate Intelligence Committee this year would have required intelligence agencies provide names of those being promoted to top positions and disclose any “significant and credible information to suggest that the individual is unfit or unqualified.”
That language faced intense opposition from the Director of National Intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., according to officials involved in the matter who spoke to the Washington Post. As a result, the wording was watered down by Congress this month and now requires Clapper and the intelligence community only to furnish “information the Director determines appropriate.”
Some US officials told the Post that Clapper objected to the measure because it would generate a larger bureaucratic workload. But others said that US spy chiefs chafed at the idea of subjecting their top officials to congressional scrutiny, warning that candidates for certain jobs would probably withdraw.
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