Who Owns What in America
Nancy Pelosi, current Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, published an op-ed this weekend in The Washington Post, calling for wider sharing of classified information between the White House and Congress as a means to better oversight by the Congress of intelligence-gathering activities understaken by the White House. This, of course, in light of the president's authorizing the National Intelligence Agency to go ahead with likely illegal — and certainly undemocratic — electronic surveillance of Americans.
I won't argue with her proposal or with her rather tepid accusation of presidential abuses of power, which abuses have become overt and egregious. However, I will take her to task for a bit of her rhetoric. When she wrote
The products of our intelligence agencies belong to the government, of which Congress is an equal branch. The executive branch operates intelligence programs and activities, and Congress oversees and pays for them — and thus has a responsibility to ensure that they are effective and carried out in a manner consistent with the Constitution, our laws and our values.
[Nancy Pelosi, "The Gap in Intelligence Oversight", The Washington Post, 15 January 2005.]
I feel certain that what she meant to say was that the "products of our intelligence agencies belong to the American People", that "Congress oversees intelligence gathering as representatives of the American People", and that "the American People pay for intelligence activities".
Undoubtely it was just an oversight, a slight slip of the finger in her word processor as she prepared her remarks.
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on Wednesday, 18 January 2006 at 01.09
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We're on the soft edge of a semantics quagmire here.
Jeff, Area 51, Air Force 1 and W and Laura's bunk all in some sense belong to the American people. Our money paid for them all, certainly. Just don't try to drop into Area 51 for look see; forget about hitching a ride on Air Force 1, even if it happens to be going your way; and whatever you do, don't get caught in, under or even near the presidential sack.
Ownership, possession and free use are somewhat related but distinct things.
While I appreciate your point, in one sense, I accept the sense in which Pelosi refers to ownership as the practical, operative one. Intelligence data and methods accessible by all the ultimate owners of those quickly become common knowledge. At that point, they're essentially worthless as intelligence data and methods.
I couldn't agree more with Pelosi's statement about oversight responsibility.