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What oversight do the U.S. intelligence agencies have? I'm asking this seriously. Why do you think they have more oversight than Wikileaks? When the United States Director of National Intelligence lies under oath to Congress, like James Clapper did, with no repercussions, it boggles my mind you would even bring up oversight. Oversight is not a winning argument when it comes to U.S. intelligence agencies. It is, for all intents and purposes, non-existent. I suppose one person could come along, like Trump, and overhaul the whole system. But that is about like Assange overhauling Wikileaks. I'd say they have similar oversight, but Wikileaks has a far, far, far better track record.

They have quite a bit of oversight, actually. Both the legislative and the executive branch of the government have multiple forms of oversight on US intelligence agencies - there are several commitees devoted exclusively to making sure that information published is accurate, relevant, and complete, and which have the power to punish intelligence agencies if it is not the case (through hits to their budget, demotion/disciplinary action, and of course, changing their leadership, as Trump is threatening to do): [en.wikipedia.org]

It is a very common conspiracy-theorist talking point that James Clapper lied under oath, but there are many other explanations for his statement, he could have been mistaken, or misinformed, or misguided. Either way, he faced repercussion for his actions, but neither the Republican-led Congress nor the Democratic-led White House decided to remove him for his "perjury" - suggesting that there's more to it than "he lied and got away with it".

Wikileaks, on the other hand, has nothing holding them responsible for anything they post, and although you may believe that they have a good past record in their releases, not everybody agrees with you. For example, if they truly weren't a politicized entity, they should have released the RNC's emails alongside the DNC's - wikileaks had access to both, but only chose to embarass the Hillary campaign, suggesting a big political axe to grind.

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I get that "oversight" is a kind of catch phrase for people who favor big brother government, and they sometimes default to that line of thinking when they have no real argument to stand on.

Actually, I think oversight is a very important concept, because without it, we get corruption at all levels of the government, Russia/China style. There are many parts of the government which I do think need *more* oversight. For example, police accountability. I happen to think our policemen, especially the ones in large cities with powerful unions, get away with far too much shit, and are protected by too many things to hold them truly accountable for the same crimes that they are supposed to protect people from. This is one of the checks and balances that is supposed to kill big brother type government.

I think it's also a critically important way to understand any political organization - its why I trust the New York Times, which has won multiple pulitzer prizes, employs huge numbers of fact checkers, and refuses to publish bad rumors and bullshit, over highly politicized talking points regurgitated by Breitbart and all the other white supremacist groups like Stormfront. Its why even legitimate right-leaning news organizations like Fox News and Bloomberg have repudiated a lot of the stuff Breitbart and the rest have published - because they're simply not based on fact.

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Are you just vomiting liberal talking points on the forums?

Actually, I just like arguing with people, and it just so happens that this forum is full of people who disagree with me, so I have more fertile ground than most.

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No, despite what they teach in civics class and what we all hope for, there is no evidence for meaningful oversight of U.S. intelligence agencies.

I feel that statements like these are what's killing this country - because you say all these words that simply aren't true, that you haven't bothered doing any research about, and you have no idea what you're talking about. When I'm about to say things like this, I DO RESEARCH FIRST TO BACK MY WORDS UP: [fas.org]

Literally, five seconds on google would show you exactly why you're wrong - these agencies have tons of oversight and have been slapped with huge lawsuits in the past when they overstepped their bounds.

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Your blind trust and loyalty seem to be taken for granted. It's okay to be a doormat--as long as you know you're being a doormat. That's fundamental Christianity there: "Jean Valjean my brother you no longer belong to evil. With this silver, I have bought your soul."

Personally, it sounds to me like most of this forum is just blindly trusting Trump and Russia, while refusing to acknowledge reality. Its not like its ONLY the liberals who think he's compromised by Russia - even most of the Republicans - HIS OWN PARTY - have been demanding more active investigation into this. This isn't a LIBERAL talking point anymore. This is a talking point for EVERYBODY but Trump's most blind and willful followers.

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I'm not saying you're wrong about the DNC hack. The Russians might be behind all of this. It is your arguments that are terrible. They lack substance. They are not grounded in reality. I'm not a Trump fanboy. I am open to being convinced. In all honesty, I want to be convinced one way or the other. I hate sitting in the gray area saying, "This is possible, but that is possible too." But I'm not willing to jump on bandwagons to ease this discomfort.

I feel like this is fundamentally a problem with your knowledge - there is a lot of research and analysis out there - I've brought you tons, you've brought me a few interesting articles - if my explanations aren't enough to convince you, fine we can disagree.

But this refusal to acknowledge that my points of view are even the slightest bit legitimate, despite me offering you a LOT of facts and a LOT of evidence, is a little terrifying. And it's not even just me alone who thinks this is right - even the smartest, most educated, and most well-informed REPUBLICANS agree with me.

It's like even though I can offer you a lot of evidence that 2+2 = 4, you refuse to acknowledge ANY POSSIBILITY that I might be right, because I'm on the other side of this political line in the sand and you can't conceive of the idea that anybody past that line knows what he's talking about.