One thing that has hampered the CIA's mission is the oversight conducted by Congress. Congress does not need to know everything the CIA does because Congress, for one thing, is a massive sieve. They can't keep secrets. Let the CIA do its mission. Intelligence gathering should be given a lot of latitude. Let the CIA do their job, and that is making the US a safe place to live.

The problem is that the CIA does a poor job of its mission.

I would agree that Congress needs to butt out; however, that does not help the CIA and its failure.

That may be the most chilling, Orwellian comment yet.

Let Big Brother do his job. Don't ask questions.

The worst problem, is that very often the CIA has participated in a lot more than "intelligence gathering."

Just to name two:

- assassinations of foreign leaders

-subversion/overthrow of democracies in favor of dictators

That smell in the air is not freedom, it's "blowback."

These things done to other people in the world (in our name) do not make the US a "safe place to live." They are making us the most hated nation on earth.

MERC:

One thing that has hampered the CIA's mission is the oversight conducted by Congress. Congress does not need to know everything the CIA does because Congress, for one thing, is a massive sieve. They can't keep secrets. Let the CIA do its mission. Intelligence gathering should be given a lot of latitude. Let the CIA do their job, and that is making the US a safe place to live.

Simplicity, it must be bliss. Two points to consider. One is that the Constitution says a little something about Congressional oversight. [But who cares about that anymore?] By your logic, maybe we should let the CIA destroy all evidence of that too, eh? The second is that this dreamy-eyed view of the CIA is painfully ignorant of the actual history of the institution. The CIA may protect the US, but it has hardly made it a safe place. [Hello 9/11!] Furthermore, if the CIA has made the US safe, a dubious claim to be sure, it certainly has made the rest of the world a dangerous place. See, for a few quick examples, CIA involvement in Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, Cuba, Iran, and the Congo.

You mean allow them to screw up everything instead of just most things? Why not just put them in charge of everything? That way, we wouldn't need a goofball president and a Congress full of partisan bickerers. We tax everyone 100 percent and give it all to the CIA. We'll be safe then, you bet!

Yes, because the White House never leaks anything, right?

Riiiiight.

MERC:

One thing that has hampered the CIA's mission is the oversight conducted by Congress. Congress does not need to know everything the CIA does because Congress, for one thing, is a massive sieve. They can't keep secrets. Let the CIA do its mission. Intelligence gathering should be given a lot of latitude. Let the CIA do their job, and that is making the US a safe place to live.

You know what? When you think about it, a representative democracy is kind of a pain in the ass, really, from an efficiency perspective, when what you're trying to go for is a "unitary executive." So why don't we jettison freedom of speech and the press, abolish Congress altogether, along with that pesky Supreme Court, and just crown "W" King George the IV? It has a certain historic irony, no?