GEORGETOWN LAW SCHOOL
SEMINAR ON THE WORK OF THE CHURCH COMMITTEE
REMARKS OF FORMER VICE PRESIDENT WALTER MONDALE
SEPTEMBER 24, 2013
Many of us remember reading the shocking news disclosed in the New York Times, accusing the
CIA of a massive spy operation aimed at American citizens. Reports of other abuses soon followed, igniting a firestorm which led to the creation of the church committee.
The Committee’s efforts marked the first time in the history of this nation, or any other, that intelligence agencies would be subject to the thorough investigation to which these agencies were subjected.
Our reports were the most thorough, publicly- disclosed, studies ever covering the most sensitive elements of these agencies’ work. Our reports yet remain a central source of information on this subject. Our work was bi-partisan; the FISA Bill passed the senate BY 95-1. The Carter
Administration, with an involved Vice President, worked with the agencies to shape the final measures which, I believe, were innovative, unprecedented and bold.
We tried to grapple with the tension between secrecy and security and to the accountability to the law. We believed that only in this way could we assure an effective accountable intelligence community.
I Chaired the domestic task force charged with investigating alleged abuses against Americans by the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, the Army, the Post office, the IRS, the White House and more. as you know, we unearthed an astonishing range of abuses conducted under code names like cointelpro, chaos, minaret and shamrock, the houston project and others.
I won’t review our findings except to cite one astounding example that helps answer the complaint often heard that innocent people need not worry about unauthorized investigations. I refer to the FBI’s secret war against Dr. Martin Luther King.
Dr. King had violated no laws. He was a gentle apostle of non-violence. Yet Hoover and the
Bureau thought KIng to be the “most dangerous negro leader.” At different times they sought to damage his marriage, block his Nobel peace prize, prevent a papal visit and at one point a bureau inspired letter appeared to suggest that he commit suicide.
These abuses were bi-partisan. These presidents saw the intelligence agencies as extensions of their private power, as indeed they were. What those presidents and Hoover also shared was a fear that they had to break the law in order to protect our nation; that is, the law weakened us. The

campaign against King and the other intelligence excesses showed that we had created a secret unaccountable world within our own government accountable to no one.
Our committee:
- found that there was no inherent authority, in the name of “national security,” authorizing a president or any agency to violate the law and we reaffirmed that the rule of law governs the operations of the intelligence agencies in the United States;
- We created the Senate and house intelligence committees with authority to oversee government operations, to hear and recommend nominations, oversee budgets and to serve as an indispensable instrument for accountability to the congress, the public and to the law;
- The FBI director’s term was limited to one ten –year term;
- We recommended that electronic surveillance, mail opening, and physical searches in the u.s. should be authorized in the United States only by the FBI, and only pursuant to a judicial warrant before the FISA court. No other agencies, including the nsa, would have such domestic authority;
There are things we did not recomend. WE did not recommend a State Secrets Act, or statesecret-type prosecutorial policies. WE did not see censorship to be any part of the answer. And, if we had seen how the so-called state secrets privilege was to be abused, to prevent legal accountability, i hope we would have recommended reforms like those proposed by Senator Leahy.
We did not deal with the issue of privatization of intelligence operations, now such a commanding reality, because it was not then a problem. But as the Snowden affair makes clear, it is a huge problem today.
It has been over 3 decades since these unique institutions have been created. Many of us think they worked well for several years at least while there were committee members and staff present who had gone through all of this. But how confident can we be that these institutions are functioning as intended today?
Some of us believe it is time to create another church type committee to look at these issues again. We certainly have enough warnings.
Surely the committee should investigate what many of us see to be the illegal collection of so called Meta-data which contradicts exactly what the fisa law was intended to accomplish. HOw could this have happened? What can be done about it? Let us also hope the court will side with our amicus brief.
What are we to make of Mr. Clapper’s denial to the senate committee that the NSA was collecting the very data that we now know the agencies have been collecting for years? And it is comforting to be told, after we learned the truth, that his answer was the “least untruthful” public
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response he could give. We now know that that so-called “meta data” surveillance is widely conducted against almost everybody.
Are the intelligence committees fulfilling their unique, admittedly difficult, responsibility to hold these agencies accountable to the Congress and the public? Or do our committees serve more as buffers against public pressure than as servants of the congress and of public accountability?
And how are our fisa courts working? We heard from one FISA judge that the agencies sometimes withhold essential information from the court. Are the FISA judges drawn in a way that assures its independence from the executive? Does the court issue some opinions on matters that should be left to courts of general jurisdiction? Does the court see itself as a protector of the agencies or as an agent of accountability to the law?
I regret to say that I doubt the FISA laws and institutions we created function the way we had expected and I fear that many of the abuses we thought we had ended may now be, perhaps in different ways, very much with us again. again.
We need another Church Committee to fully explore these compelling issues. It’s time to look
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