WHO WATCHES THE WATCHERS?

摘要

An experiment in the United States designed to introduce accountability ("oversight," in the political science term) into the hidden domain of intelligence agencies is now in its 43rd year, having been initiated in 1975. All democracies have had to wrestle with the challenge of tolerating secret services within otherwise relatively transparent governments, because these espionage agencies are necessary for the gathering of information about potential threats to a nation. Yet democracies pride themselves on privacy and liberty, while spies operate in darkness with heavily veiled budgets and an engagement in operations that can be controversial - overthrowing foreign regimes, for instance, even democratically elected ones, as was the case when President Richard Nixon directed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to topple the Chilean government led by a freely elected President, Salvador Allende, in the seventies. Sometimes these operations can raise deeply troubling moral issues, such as the CIA resorting to the use of torture and rendition against suspected terrorists in the aftermath of 9/11, with little effect other than to stain the reputation of the US around the world.