Intelligence Agencies under Parliament Scrutiny?
A PIL is filed in the Supreme Court that Intelligence Bureau (IB) , (RAW) , National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) etc. are snooping on the privacy of the citizens and were operating without any legislative mandate. The PIL also pleaded that the funding of these intelligence agencies was being done from the consolidated fund of India, and so their accounts should be brought under the scanner of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India. The Supreme Court has issued notice to the Central Government and Intelligence Agencies.
Should Intelligence Agencies be under Legislative scrutiny? The most powerful Intelligence Agency in the World - CIA was created by the National Security Act in 1947. There is an Inspector General, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, responsible for independent oversight of the CIA.The CIA Office of Inspector General (OIG) is an independent office that is headed by the Inspector General and promotes economy, efficiency, effectiveness and accountability in the management of CIA activities by performing independent audits, inspections, investigations and reviews of CIA programmes and operations. The OIG also seeks to detect and deter fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement. The OIG advances the Agency's mission by providing findings and recommendations expeditiously to the Director, the Agency and the Congressional intelligence committees. If the CIA can be supervised and scrutinised, there is no reason why the Indian Intelligence agencies should not be under legislative sanction and Audit Scrutiny.
Interestingly the CIA website has a kid's page for children which has some interesting games, including one on decoding.