The first congressman to battle the NSA is dead. No one noticed, no one cares. (Mark Ames 2-4-14

[bobthedrummer]

Pando Daily post about Otis Pike's passing)
http://pando.com/2014/02/04/the-first-congressman-to-battle-the-nsa-is-dead-no-one-noticed-no-one-cares

I care, does anyone else?

[grasswire]

1. very good article

Every DU-er should read and absorb.

[riderinthestorm]

2. K&R nt

[Wilms]

3. ^

[RainDog]

4. Never knew about him. Here's some text from the piece

Last month, former Congressman Otis Pike died, and no one seemed to notice or care. That’s scary, because Pike led the House’s most intensive and threatening hearings into US intelligence community abuses, far more radical and revealing than the better-known Church Committee’s Senate hearings that took place at the same time. That Pike could die today in total obscurity, during the peak of the Snowden NSA scandal, is, as they say, a “teachable moment” —one probably not lost on today’s already spineless political class.

In mid-1975, Rep. Pike was picked to take over the House select committee investigating the US intelligence community after the first committee chairman, a Michigan Democrat named Nedzi, was overthrown by more radical liberal Democrats fired up by Watergate after they learned that Nedzi had suppressed information about the CIA’s illegal domestic spying program, MH-CHAOS, exposed by Seymour Hersh in late 1974. It was Hersh’s exposés on the CIA domestic spying program targeting American dissidents and antiwar activists that led to the creation of the Church Committee and what became known as the Pike Committee, after Nedzi was tossed overboard.

...Pike was less interested in sensational scandals like Church’s poison darts and foreign assassination plots than he was in getting to the guts of the intelligence apparatus, its power, its funding, its purpose. He asked questions never asked or answered since the start of the Cold War: What was America’s intelligence budget? What was the purpose of the CIA, NSA and other intelligence agencies and programs? Were they succeeding by their own standards? Were taxpayers getting their money’s worth? Were they making America safer?

Those were exactly the questions that the intel apparatus did not want asked. The Church Committee focused on excesses and abuses, implying that with the proper reforms and oversights, the intelligence structures could be set right. But as the Pike Committee started pulling up the floorboards, what they discovered quickly led Rep. Pike and others to declare that the entire intelligence apparatus was a dangerous boondoggle. Not only were taxpayers getting fleeced, but agencies like the NSA and CIA were a direct threat to America’s security and democracy, the proverbial monkey playing with a live grenade. The problem was that Pike asked the right questions—and that led him to some very wrong answers, as far as the powers that be were concerned.

[El_Johns]

6. +1

[jsr]

11. He sure asked the right questions.

[Luminous Animal]

5. K&R

[Octafish]

7. Pike Committee Report never was released.

The American people aren't in the (need-to-know) loop.

Pike (and Church) opposed the evil at the heart of the secret government. They were about the last Congressional leaders tio do so.

http://books.google.com/books?id=bh4Fcwwrpb0C&pg=PA143&lpg=PA142&ots=7Gdrgw_QSQ&focus=viewport&dq=pike+committee+revelations&output=html_text

[Octafish]

15. The Lost Legacy of Otis Pike

Former Rep. Otis Pike died Monday at the age of 92, stirring recollections of his courageous efforts in the 1970s to expose abuses committed by the CIA, a struggle that ultimately bogged down as defenders of state secrecy proved too strong, as ex-CIA analyst Melvin A. Goodman writes.

By Melvin A. Goodman
ConsortiumNews, January 22, 2014

EXCERPT...

The Pike Committee also recommended the creation of a statutory Inspector General for the intelligence community, but this proposal was considered too radical at the time. In the wake of the Iran-Contra disaster, the idea of a statutory IG was revived, but CIA Director William Webster was opposed because he believed that such an office would interfere with operational activities. Senate intelligence Committee Chairman David Boren, D-Oklahoma, also was opposed because he thought the office of an IG would be a rival to his committee. Fortunately, two key members of the intelligence committee, John Glenn, D-Ohio, and Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, believed that a statutory IG was essential, and Boren had to give in.

The CIA’s Office of the IG operated effectively until recently, when the Obama administration inexplicably moved to weaken the IGs throughout the intelligence community, particularly in the CIA. The current chairman of the congressional intelligence committees, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, and Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Michigan, apparently do not understand the importance of a fully engaged IG to their own efforts to conduct genuine oversight.

The Pike Committee understood that CIA’s role in the FBI’s counterintelligence programs (COINTELPRO) was particularly intolerable in a democratic society, and that the political operations conducted by the CIA were in violation of its charter, which prohibited the Agency from conducting domestic operations.

The programs that CIA Director Richard Helms had denied not only existed, but they were extensive and illegal. President Gerald Ford’s senior advisers, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, encouraged the President to established the Rockefeller Commission to examine the CIA in an attempt to derail both the Church and Pike Commissions and thus obfuscate many of the efforts to disrupt the lawful activities of Americans advocating social change from 1956 to 1971.

Unfortunately, little of the Pike Committee’s work in these areas was known to the public because most of its hearings were closed and its final report was ultimately suppressed. Today, the NSA is conducting domestic surveillance in violation of its charter with no serious response from the chairmen of the intelligence committees.

Rep. Pike made a special effort to give the Government Accountability Office the authority to investigate and audit the intelligence community, particularly the CIA. But the GAO needs authorization from Congress to begin an investigation, and the oversight committees have been particularly quiet about genuine oversight since the intelligence failures that accompanied the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Rep. Pike and Sen. Church were junkyard dogs when it came to conducting oversight; the current chairmen are advocates for the intelligence community and lapdogs when it comes to monitoring the CIA.

The sad lesson in all of these matters, particularly the work of the Pike Committee, was that Congress tried to conduct serious reform in the wake of abuses during the Vietnam War as it did in the wake of the Iran-Contra scandal, but its legacy has been lost.

CONTINUED...

http://consortiumnews.com/2014/01/22/the-lost-legacy-of-otis-pike/

[bobthedrummer]

20. That reminds me- John McCain wants a "select" committee of his peers to be formed too

McCain Proposes New Select Committee on NSA Leaks (Steven Aftergood 2-5-14 Secrecy News post)
http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/2014/02/mccain-select

[Octafish]

21. Another Intervention? A Variant?

''Intervention'' is the code word McCain used for Dallas.



These three DUers noticed:

Hootinholler:

Anyone else notice McCane referred to the Kennedy assasination as an intervention?


chimpsrsmarter

From the debate-McCain" before the intervention of the tragedy at Dallas."


stubtoe

The "intervention" at Dallas?

President Kennedy was not killed by an intervention.
It appears he was killed by an act of the state --
or people in authority or with --
acting together to change national leadership.
And that is what is so hard for people to believe.
Perhaps less so these days, thanks to Snowden.

Do you think McCain wants to open up the secret agents and secret agendas to the light of citizen scrutiny?

While that'd be the kind of intervention democracy, the nation and the Constitution most need; transparency is not what would benefit those interested in tyranny, along with privatized profits.

[bobthedrummer]

22. I think McCain is reusing an old one use code pad. I wasn't aware he termed President Kennedy's

assassination an "intervention". Btw, all three of those links opened to "an error occurred during processing" on the public library computer network that I use (which is linked to an "unidentified network" as well as the Internet).

Fwiw, I try not to overstate my feelings about my former Sen. Russ Feingold being linked to McCain Feingold 2002 legislation supposedly reforming corporate donations.

I think he still sings "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran" in the shower and that he is HUGE on racial codewords.

He is no Otis PIKE, is he?

[steve2470]

8. k&r nt

[jsr]

9. Recommend

[spanone]

10. k&r...

[RobertEarl]

12. A True Statesman

If the world had another billion like him, all would be well.

[Jesus Malverde]

13. Great read thanks!..nt

[El_Johns]

14. Good article.

[el_bryanto]

16. That title made me think it was a conspiracy article; but it isn't.

Well worth reading.

Bryant

[bobthedrummer]

17. Otis Pike was told in no uncertain terms that there would be retribution for even asking

some of the most basic questions about the US national security community. He seemed flabbergasted that there was no oversight, no accountability to we, the people despite what charters, offices of inspector generals, and the other so-called "safeguards" (including the House special investigatory committee he wound up chairing) existed on paper.

This was a direct result of the administration of Richard M. Nixon, which had greatly expanded illegal and criminal violations of our rights as citizens under the broad shield of national security that became criminal domestic operations at the local, state and federal level.

This was in the era of John Edgar Hoover and his personal/confidential files, the FBI's various COINTELPRO's, the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration's behavior modification operations, the CIA's domestic programs, the pentagon's involvement in domestic "surveillance", etc.

It is a direct result of no reforms that the Pike Committee called for ever being taken that we now live in a 21st century police state here in the United States of America. Those threats of retribution worked through the decades, but I'm thankful for Pike's bravery and what he attempted.

In this post-Snowden, Manning, Wiki Leaks, PATRIOT ACT friendly fascist world we find ourselves in it is time to demand our rights and our power be restored to US, the rule of law be applied to all, and not be afraid of threats of retribution any longer from the criminals operating in so called "national security".

Btw, I'm glad to see what others who care have posted in this thread.

[liberal_at_heart]

18. well said.

[G_j]

19. this is very sad

and scary...
thank you for posting

[bobthedrummer]

23. When the CIA's Empire Struck Back (Lisa Pease 2-6-14 Consortium News post on Pike)

http://consortiumnews.com/2014/02/06/when-the-cias-empire-struck-back

[Octafish]

24. No One Watches The Watchers

Thanks, bobthedrummer! From Lisa Pease:

Pike’s prophetic statement was soon ratified by the fact that although former CIA Director Richard Helms was charged with perjury for lying to Congress about the CIA’s cooperation with ITT in the overthrow of Chilean President Salvador Allende, Helms managed to escape with a suspended sentence and a  $2,000 fine.

As Pike’s committee report stated: “These secret agencies have interests that inherently conflict with the open accountability of a political body, and there are many tools and tactics to block and deceive conventional Congressional checks. Added to this are the unique attributes of intelligence — notably, ‘national security,’ in its cloak of secrecy and mystery — to intimidate Congress and erode fragile support for sensitive inquiries.

“Wise and effective legislation cannot proceed in the absence of information respecting conditions to be affected or changed. Nevertheless, under present circumstances, inquiry into intelligence activities faces serious and fundamental shortcomings.

“Even limited success in exercising future oversight requires a rethinking of the powers, procedures, and duties of the overseers. This Committee’s path and policies, its plus and minuses, may at least indicate where to begin.”

The Pike report revealed the tactics that the intelligence agencies had used to prevent oversight, noting the language was “always the language of cooperation” but the result was too often “non-production.” In other words, the agencies assured Congress of cooperation, while stalling, moving slowly, and literally letting the clock run out on the investigation.

The Pike Committee, alone among the other investigations, refused to sign secrecy agreements with the CIA, charging that as the representatives of the people they had authority over the CIA, not the other way around.

CONTINUED...

[bobthedrummer]

25. I think Michael Hastings would have cared. Anyone here remember him? He's also deceased. I care.

What Was Hastings Working On? (by Christian Stork, a Who What Why Original Investigation posted August 7, 2013)

"At the time of his death in a mysterious one-car crash and explosion, journalist Michael Hastings was researching a story that threatened to expose powerful entities and government-connected figures. That story intersected with the work of two controversial critics-the hacktivist Barrett Brown and on-the-run surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Any probe into Hastings untimely death needs to take into account this complex but essential background."
http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/08/07/connections-between-michael-hastings-edward-snowden-and-barrett-brown-the-war-with-the-security-state