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25 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 765 (2001-2002)
Unleashing the Rogue Elephant: September 11 and Letting the CIA be the CIA

handle is hein.journals/hjlpp25 and id is 793 raw text is: UNLEASHING THE ROGUE ELEPHANT:
SEPTEMBER 11 AND LETTING THE CIA
BE THE CIA
FREDERICK P. HITZ
Media outlets have argued that the United States has had an
intelligence failure, decrying the intelligence community for
failing to warn the American people of the September 11
attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and on the
Pentagon in Virginia. In addition, there is constant clamor that
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been unwisely stifled
since the Church Committee hearings of 1975-761 and the
resultant executive orders of Presidents Ford, Carter, and
Reagan that sought to govern the conduct of intelligence
activities.2 There is a cry to unleash the CIA from its perceived
legal and policy restrictions and permit it to fight the terrorist
threat facing the United States on terms that will succeed
against this pernicious force. Some of this impetus comes from
a rash of recent studies such as the report of the bipartisan
National Commission on Terrorism (NCT), which urged the
Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) to modify the Agency's
* Lecturer in Public and International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School,
Princeton University; Lecturer, University of Virginia School of Law; Inspector
General, Central Intelligence Agency, 1990-1998. Assistance in the preparation of
this Article was provided by students in my graduate seminars at the Woodrow
Wilson School of Princeton University and the University of Virginia School of
Law: Rob Gandolfo, David Holmes, Matthew Klein, William Martin, Courtney
Mills, Deji Okediji, and Brad Simmons at Princeton; and Shreve Ariail, Chris
Freise, Ilana Greenstein, Rees Morgan, Kari Chandler Munro, and Rob Watts at
the University of Virginia. I thank each of them for their contributions.
1. The hearings were conducted by Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho) after
revelations by the CIA and in the media of CIA violations of rights of American
citizens, etc. See SELECT COMM. TO STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS WITH
RESPECT TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES, ALLEGED ASSASSINATION PLOTS INVOLVING
FOREIGN LEADERS, S. REP. No. 94-465 (1975).
2. President Ford promulgated Executive Order (E.O.) 11,905, which was
followed by E.O. 12,306 under President Reagan. See Exec. Order No. 11,905, 41
Fed. Reg. 7703 (Feb. 18, 1976); Exec. Order No. 12,306,46 Fed. Reg. 29,693 Uune 1,
1981). These orders were superseded by E.O. 12,333, which was promulgated by
President Reagan and is still in effect. See Exec. Order 12,333, 46 Fed. Reg. 59,941
(Dec. 4,1981).

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