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Espionage is back
Suddenly, foreign espionage is back on Congress’s agenda.
A deep recession seemed likely to focus government attention on domestic issues, except insofar as the national economy is globally interconnected. But even with jobs and retirement savings evaporating, spying and related issues are hogging some headlines.
Harman is reported to have been audiotaped by the National Security Agency agreeing to seek lenient treatment for the lobbyists in exchange for help securing the chairmanship of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Harman categorically denies any intervention on the lobbyists’ behalf and any quid pro quo.
This story, reported by CQ and The New York Times, casts a shadow on Capitol Hill, and inevitably returns a spotlight to Harman’s rocky relations with Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Speaker’s decision to pass her over for the Intelligence chair after the Democrats recaptured the majority in the 2006 election. There will now be weeks or months of follow-up stories.
At the same time, The Wall Street Journal reports that computer spies broke into the Pentagon’s $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project and stole valuable details about the U.S.’s most costly military program. It is not certain who is responsible for this high-level hacking, but the finger of suspicion is pointed at China. China denies it, saying such suggestions are “intentionally fabricated to fan up China threat sensations,” according to the Journal.
This story follows several recent others in which overseas powers are implicated in illegal cyber intelligence-gathering both for strategic and commercial purposes.
Harman needs to clear her name, and with her letter to Holder began her efforts to do that. But the matter cannot but raise questions at the Office of Congressional Ethics, which could look into the matter in parallel with any federal investigation.
Meanwhile, the panel that Harman hoped to lead, which is now headed by Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), and its Senate counterpart need urgently to examine the country’s espionage defenses and check what needs to be done to strengthen them against the dangers presented by a world full of enemies and rivals in the Internet age.
The U.S. is being challenged on several fronts; its economy has been weakened, its finances are awry, its armed forces are stretched, its rivals are increasingly powerful and its detractors are crowing.
After a two-week break, Congress returned in a sober mood. The sudden run of questions about espionage have added to the heaping helping of serious issues on its plate.
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