Porter Goss: “I did want to point out on a serious note that any Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, of course, enjoys a very…”

“I did want to point out on a serious note that any Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, of course, enjoys a very high privilege for serving here, but they also enjoy the opportunity to examine classified information, and I believe that that is a wonderful opportunity. I hope Members will take advantage of it; I mean that very sincerely because I think that they get a better impression of what our responsibilities in the area of national security are by examining classified information and material available to the committee then they do by reading various newspapers which inevitably have a slant or point of view and less than full information, or even watching C-Span which is always dramatic; excuse me, CNN which is always dramatic. But that is not really the point. The other point I wanted to make is this: We have clearly got a responsibility, the 15 Members of the House Permanent Select Committe on Intelligence. Oversight has come a long way, baby, since we first started to have oversight of the intelligence community.”