Loch Johnson, Regents Professor in the School of Public and International Affairs, described how Congress seemed to be caught off guard by this year’s revelations of domestic spying by the National Security Agency in an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
“Congress tends to be a reactive institution,” he said. “It really takes a shock in the intelligence system in order to have members focus full attention on the issues at hand.”
This slow reaction, Johnson said, is not anything new.
“It’s an old story of not really being focused enough on accountability until something goes wrong,” he said.
