Church Committee Members Say New Group Needed To Watch NSA

Trailrunner7 writes "In a letter sent to President Obama and members of Congress, former members and staff of the Church Committee on Intelligence said that the revelations of the NSA activities have caused 'a crisis of public confidence' and encouraged the formation of a new committee to undertake 'significant and public reexamination of intelligence community practices.' In the letter sent Monday to Obama and Congress, several former advisers to and members of the Church committee, including the former chief counsel, said that the current situation involving the NSA bears striking resemblances to the one in 1975 and that the scope of what the NSA is doing today is orders of magnitude larger than what was happening nearly 40 years ago.

'The need for another thorough, independent, and public congressional investigation of intelligence activity practices that affect the rights of Americans is apparent. There is a crisis of public confidence. Misleading statements by agency officials to Congress, the courts, and the public have undermined public trust in the intelligence community and in the capacity for the branches of government to provide meaningful oversight,' the letter says."

Nothing to do with the church.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

Re:Church?

[spafbi]

Ahem... from wikipedia: "The Church Committee was the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church (D-ID) in 1975." ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]

Re:Church?

[leftover]

The committee was chaired by a Congress-critter named Church. Nothing whatever to do with religion.

Nancy Pelosi stated that they were afaid to fix it

[stox]

“You don’t fight it without a price because they come after you and they don’t always tell the truth."

http://blogs.rollcall.com/218/... [rollcall.com]