Intel oversight critical, officials say

FORT BLISS, Texas, Dec. 13 (UPI) -- Top U.S. military and intelligence officials met recently in Texas to discuss privacy rights among other topics during an intelligence oversight conference.

Intelligence, North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command officials among others met to discuss Department of Defense agencies that conduct intelligence and how to give proper oversight during an evolving technological environment, U.S. Northern Command reported.

"Intelligence oversight is a keystone of U.S. Northern Command's mission; it is mission critical," NORAD/USNORTHCOM Director of Intelligence Michael Noll said in a statement. "A significant failure of intelligence oversight would be, at a minimum, an intelligence mission failure and possibly a command mission failure.

"Our structure for approaching intelligence oversight is fairly straight forward: it is a tripod --the judge advocates help us understand law and policy, the intelligence directorate trains its personnel and executes the program and our inspector general inspects the program."

Officials called safeguarding the privacy rights of U.S. persons critical to the Defense Department and that the intelligence oversight program is an effort to "ensure that all military intelligence, counterintelligence, and intelligence related activities are conducted in accordance with applicable laws, presidential executive orders and Department of Defense directives and regulations," the release said.