Page 2 - Intelligence Function News Today

Some questions. why would the u.n. ambassador who was not traditionally having an intelligence function be seeking to so-called unmask over 260 people? what was the purpose? what was the goal? and why was this done? these are all questions we have to get answers to, bill. >> bill: what was she looking for, right? molly, do you have an answer for that, by the way? what could have been so highly important to put in this number of requests? >> i think its important to remember that u.s. citizens ar...

I served in it, they are not going to give it to you unless they feel you have a reason. >> dana: >> dana: its hard to understand why someone would need to unmask and get information about the trump campaign when you are at the nations. that is the part to me that i dont think is understandable. speak out right. this goes back to, lets raise the questions and have a thorough investigation. why these individuals were unmasking. i made it clear, one of the evidence is shown, the fact that you have...

You know, as a tight team. he ran a very tight ship. it was not loosely run. he held people accountable. he put in a lot of the metrics systems that are there, he reform the the entire intelligence function. if you remember after 9/11, they wanted to take counterterrorism and intel basically away from the fbi and its because of mueller ares success that that actually stayed. >> and he started just a couple days before 9/11.ares success actually stayed. >> and he started just a couple days before...

Having a security clearance. or you wouldnt be able to come back into the government and assume a role with an intelligence function, which is very much what he did. its also one of the most basic tenants of intelligence, which is you dont accept money from a foreign government, particularly one thats an adversary. that sets up the russian government to compromise a person thats very well-known, known in the intelligence community and someone who can influence back into the u.s. population. it i...

Respect him says going to the white house and yet were supposed to have oversight. thats the executive branch of government. the executive branch has intelligence function that congress has to get information from in order to still do that stuff so the idea of going to the executive branch does not violate the idea that were not practicing oversight over the administration. i think -- i think you can do both, because, again, the administration is where a lot of the intelligence is collected and ...

Intelligence, everybody knows that we have to reform this function, theres got to be some changes made in the intelligence function. we are bringing in here a very experienced person with a deep background in national security. he was nearly the secretary of defense during the george w. bush administration, but secretary rumsfeld was, obviously, selected for that position. hes highly respected and highly regarded. and given his years of experience, i think hes being brought in there -- no one to...

>> senator bayh? >> i think the congressman raises a good point. these practices, enhanced interrogation techniques were stopped five or six years ago. theres a national consensus that we dont do this sort of thing anymore. what you have here is the committee and the staff understandably feeling the institutional role of the intelligence function and the senate intelligence committee is important and needs to be robust. on the other hand, john brennan has an agency hes got to run. you have to be...

The big brother aspect to all of that? >> i wouldnt go that far. i mean i think the government needs to have intelligence function that help to protect the country but of course any function like that, any programs have got to comply with the constitution of the united states of america. so i think that you know these revelations raise a lot of questions that you said anmentioned, this is going to be debated an torn open between capitol hill and the white house and other places. its the start of...

Something else. it was -- it was an unusual ten years that i was there. so i was ready to move on. >> unusual ten years to say the least. you know, very intense and difficult work that you guys do. i want to switch gears here and talk about the boston bombings. you know, you said that the fbi behaved more like a law enforcement agency than an intelligence gathering agency. and i just wanted you to dive in and explain that a little bit if you can here, looking at what we saw and a lot of talk abo...