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Showing posts with label CIA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CIA. Show all posts
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Monday, March 03, 2008
Panel witnesses press for GAO audits of intelligence agencies
Government and public policy experts Friday said legislation is badly needed that would affirm the right of GAO to audit programs and financial activities of the U.S. intelligence agencies, especially because their scope and complexity have grown enormously since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Such legislation has been introduced by Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, who chairs a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee on government oversight.
"It is my strong belief that the intelligence community could benefit from the Government Accountability Office's expertise in reviewing organizational transformations and management reforms," Akaka said during a hearing of his subcommittee Friday. "GAO has substantial expertise evaluating virtually all of the bread-and-butter management challenges that the intelligence community is confronting." Experts who testified at the hearing included GAO Director David Walker, National War College professor Marvin Ott and Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. They all said they support Akaka's legislation.
Akaka and Walker said they believe GAO has authority to audit the intelligence agencies. Akaka's bill would essentially allow Congress to clarify that such authority exists. The hearing did not include a witness from the intelligence agencies. Walker said the opposition by intelligence officials to allowing GAO to conduct audits goes back decades. He said he believes GAO could conduct audits of such things as management practices, personnel reforms and financial transactions without needing to review classified sources and methods or covert operations.
-Chris Strohm, GovExec.com
READ MORE...
"It is my strong belief that the intelligence community could benefit from the Government Accountability Office's expertise in reviewing organizational transformations and management reforms," Akaka said during a hearing of his subcommittee Friday. "GAO has substantial expertise evaluating virtually all of the bread-and-butter management challenges that the intelligence community is confronting." Experts who testified at the hearing included GAO Director David Walker, National War College professor Marvin Ott and Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. They all said they support Akaka's legislation.
Akaka and Walker said they believe GAO has authority to audit the intelligence agencies. Akaka's bill would essentially allow Congress to clarify that such authority exists. The hearing did not include a witness from the intelligence agencies. Walker said the opposition by intelligence officials to allowing GAO to conduct audits goes back decades. He said he believes GAO could conduct audits of such things as management practices, personnel reforms and financial transactions without needing to review classified sources and methods or covert operations.
-Chris Strohm, GovExec.com
READ MORE...
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Senators seek compromise bill to boost IG independence
As a CIA plan to investigate its inspector general draws congressional fire, a group of senators is working to quickly complete a compromise version of a bill to increase the independence of agency watchdogs.
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and ranking member Susan Collins, R-Maine, along with Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and possibly Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., plan in coming weeks to jointly file an IG bill that responds to White House objections to a bill previously introduced by McCaskill, according to staffers.
The new bill will not include a provision that allows IGs to send their budgets directly to Congress, aides said. That provision was in McCaskill's original bill to address concerns that some agency heads have tried to control IGs through budget cuts.
But in a Statement of Administration Policy that threatened a veto of the House bill, the White House and Office of Management and Budget said the language infringed on executive control of budget requests.
McCaskill aides said the bill will still protect independence by requiring that agency budgets note the difference between IG budget requests and the one granted. It will likely also contain language requiring that IGs inform Congress if a budget cut hampers their ability to function.
Committee members are also working on expanding the reasons for which IGs can be fired, in an effort to address White House concerns that a provision on firing would make it too hard to remove IGs even for good reason. The House bill passed with amendments that make similar changes to those planned for the Senate measure.
The statement of policy also objected to language codifying an IG council that now exists under executive orders. But the House did not address that concern and staffers said the new Senate bill will not.
-Dan Friedman, GovExec.com
READ MORE...
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and ranking member Susan Collins, R-Maine, along with Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and possibly Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., plan in coming weeks to jointly file an IG bill that responds to White House objections to a bill previously introduced by McCaskill, according to staffers.
The new bill will not include a provision that allows IGs to send their budgets directly to Congress, aides said. That provision was in McCaskill's original bill to address concerns that some agency heads have tried to control IGs through budget cuts.
But in a Statement of Administration Policy that threatened a veto of the House bill, the White House and Office of Management and Budget said the language infringed on executive control of budget requests.
McCaskill aides said the bill will still protect independence by requiring that agency budgets note the difference between IG budget requests and the one granted. It will likely also contain language requiring that IGs inform Congress if a budget cut hampers their ability to function.
Committee members are also working on expanding the reasons for which IGs can be fired, in an effort to address White House concerns that a provision on firing would make it too hard to remove IGs even for good reason. The House bill passed with amendments that make similar changes to those planned for the Senate measure.
The statement of policy also objected to language codifying an IG council that now exists under executive orders. But the House did not address that concern and staffers said the new Senate bill will not.
-Dan Friedman, GovExec.com
READ MORE...
Friday, April 06, 2007
IGs face more work as Democrats increase oversight
For government auditors, there’s new competition in town.
And it’s Congress.
Until January, inspectors general offices and Congress’ Government Accountability Office were effectively the only independent overseers of executive branch agencies in recent years, Ken Gold, director of Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute, said April 4 during a panel discussion at the Excellence in Government Conference. But these officials now have company from committee chairs with pent-up desire to investigate the Bush administration, he said.
Gold said cuts in the mid-1990s to congressional committee staffs and new fund-raising requirements on members mean Congress may struggle to sustain a high level of oversight. Nevertheless, the Democratic-run Congress has altered life for IGs, who as executive branch appointees are required to report to Congress and who have already had to straddle “a barbed-wire fence,” between the two branches, he said.
CIA Inspector General John Helgerson, speaking at the panel discussion, said the new Congress has sharply increased requests for his testimony and for reports prepared by his office.
Helgerson also said that in recent years, requests from both Congress and the Office of Management and Budget have steadily reduced his time for reviews initiated at his own discretion. Congress sometimes legislates that inspector general offices review certain programs, while OMB has asked IGs to play a bigger role in annual reports on areas like data security and financial audits.
- Daniel Friedman, Federal Times.com
READ MORE...
And it’s Congress.
Until January, inspectors general offices and Congress’ Government Accountability Office were effectively the only independent overseers of executive branch agencies in recent years, Ken Gold, director of Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute, said April 4 during a panel discussion at the Excellence in Government Conference. But these officials now have company from committee chairs with pent-up desire to investigate the Bush administration, he said.
Gold said cuts in the mid-1990s to congressional committee staffs and new fund-raising requirements on members mean Congress may struggle to sustain a high level of oversight. Nevertheless, the Democratic-run Congress has altered life for IGs, who as executive branch appointees are required to report to Congress and who have already had to straddle “a barbed-wire fence,” between the two branches, he said.
CIA Inspector General John Helgerson, speaking at the panel discussion, said the new Congress has sharply increased requests for his testimony and for reports prepared by his office.
Helgerson also said that in recent years, requests from both Congress and the Office of Management and Budget have steadily reduced his time for reviews initiated at his own discretion. Congress sometimes legislates that inspector general offices review certain programs, while OMB has asked IGs to play a bigger role in annual reports on areas like data security and financial audits.
- Daniel Friedman, Federal Times.com
READ MORE...
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