Intel oversight

Who will watch the watchers in our intelligence agencies? Liberals aren't interested in that job

I’m just old enough to remember when liberals and major media organizations believed America’s national security apparatus had to be closely monitored to protect our civil liberties.

The liberals and journalists brought to light the horrific abuses of power that J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI and the National Security Agency undertook in the 1960’s against Martin Luther King and others. A couple years ago they were shocked at revelations that shoddy forensic analysis by the FBI crime lab had contributed to more than one-quarter of 329 DNA-exoneration cases since 1989.

In the 1970s, liberal crusaders such as the late Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, exposed controversial CIA covert actions against foreign leaders and U.S. citizens. More recently, while many liberals deplored Edward Snowden’s leaks revealing how extensive U.S. government snooping has become, they also agreed that information he revealed showed the need for reforms.

But all of that was forgotten this week as Washington liberals rushed to microphones to demand that the “Nunes memo” – from Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. – be kept from the American people. Their sympathetic friends in the media were quick to give their complaints blanket and largely unskeptical coverage.