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Patrolling by lawmakers and their staffs is of special importance in the closed world of
intelligence, where alarms are unlikely to sound until a major scandal or disaster strikes. For the
rest of the government, interest groups and media reporters are more readily able to develop
contacts with bureaucrats inside the agencies. They can walk into the buildings, acquire a
telephone listing of who works where, make an appointment to meet with officials. As the
political science literature attests, most government agencies are permeated by external
influences—precisely what is meant by the phrase most often used to describe American
government: pluralism, whereby interest groups and individuals have access to and some say in
the shaping of public policy. All this is far less true with respect to intelligence agencies,
guarded as they are by high barb-wire fences, control gates, Jersey barriers, and other elaborate
security devices. There are some interest groups in the world of intelligence (companies like
Boeing that manufacture space-based surveillance platforms) and reporters do have sources
within the secret agencies, but both are far more limited in scope and number than for the rest of
the government. With respect to intelligence, lawmakers must patrol without much assistance
from lobbyists and journalists—until things go terribly wrong.
Effective patrolling by lawmakers depends on a clear annual statement by them about the
their expectations regarding each of the broad intelligence missions: collection-and-analysis,
counterintelligence, and covert action. Moreover, incentives must be created to encourage the
involvement of members of Congress in vigorous oversight, such as public praise by
Congressional leaders and the granting of key committee assignments and other perks on Capitol
Hill to dedicated overseers. Journalists and educators can assist by helping to explain to the
public the importance of accountability. Oversight should rely on fewer reporting requirements
Convention