Intelligence oversight
Also called: Parliamentary oversight of intelligence, Legislative oversight of intelligence agencies · Topic: Parliamentary Procedure, Committees and Privileges · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Intelligence oversight means an outside body regularly checks the work of a country's spy agencies, which collect secret information for the state. Usually this body is a committee of the legislature. Its job is to keep the agencies answerable to elected representatives, so that they serve the nation and not only the ruler. Because the agencies work in secret, the committee often meets in closed sessions. In India, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) answer to the executive, meaning the government of the day. No parliamentary committee is set up to oversee them.
Example
In 1975, the U.S. Senate set up the Church Committee. It found that the CIA, FBI and NSA had plotted to kill foreign leaders and had secretly watched political activists inside the U.S. After this, the U.S. created permanent congressional committees whose only job is to oversee intelligence work. Iran's SAVAK under the Shah shows the other extreme. It answered only to the regime and arrested, tortured and executed dissidents.
Don't confuse with
- Executive control of intelligence: here ministers and officials direct the agencies from inside the government. Oversight is a check from outside, by the legislature.
- Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC): an ad hoc committee, meaning one set up for a single task, such as the Bofors inquiry in 1987. It closes once it reports. Intelligence oversight needs a standing committee that keeps checking all the time.