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Rep. Porter J. Goss


Self Description

October 2005: "Porter J. Goss became Director of the Central Intelligence Agency on 21 April 2005. He served as the 19th Director of Central Intelligence from 24 September 2004 until 21 April 2005.

Previously, Mr. Goss represented the 14th Congressional District of Florida for almost 16 years. He was chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 1997 until his nomination as DCI in August 2004. He served for almost a decade as a member of the committee, which oversees the intelligence community and authorizes its annual budget. During the 107th Congress, Mr. Goss co-chaired the joint congressional inquiry into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. He was the second Director of Central Intelligence to have served in Congress.

Mr. Goss was a U.S. Army Intelligence officer from 1960 to 1962. He served as a clandestine service officer with the Central Intelligence Agency from 1962 until 1972, when an illness contracted on duty forced him to retire. While in the CIA's Directorate of Operations, he completed assignments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe.

After leaving the CIA, Mr. Goss and his family settled in Sanibel, Florida, where he was a small business owner and founded a newspaper. He was elected to the Sanibel City Council in 1974 and served there until 1983, including three years as mayor. From 1983 until 1988, Mr. Goss was a member of the Lee County (Florida) Commission, where he served as its chairman from 1985 to 1986.

Mr. Goss holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in classics and Greek from Yale University. He was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, on 26 November 1938. He and his wife, Mariel, have four children and 11 grandchildren."

http://www.cia.gov/cia/information/Goss.html

Third-Party Descriptions

July 2006: Much of Hoekstra's letter to Bush outlined the chairman's objections -- which were widely known -- to the appointment of Stephen R. Kappes as CIA deputy director under Hayden. Kappes quit the CIA in 2004 in a dispute with then-Director Porter J. Goss. Goss preceded Hoekstra as House intelligence committee chairman, and many Republicans remain loyal to him.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/08/AR2006070800897.html

May 2006: 'When the president nominated Porter Goss [as CIA director in September 2004], he sent Goss over to get a rogue agency under control,' Steven Simon, a colleague of McCarthy's at the National Security Council from 1994 to 1999, said Goss's aides told him. Simon said McCarthy's unusually public firing appeared intended not only to block leaks but also to suppress the dissent that has 'led to these leaks. The aim was to have a chilling effect, and it will probably work for a while.'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/13/AR2006051301311.html

February 2006: Meanwhile, the FBI is investigating the sources of information for the New York Times article disclosing the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance operations. And the CIA has an internal investigation to discover sources for articles in The Washington Post on CIA secret overseas prisons for suspected terrorists. CIA Director Porter J. Goss told Congress he hoped that eventually journalists who report leaks would be put before federal grand juries and forced to reveal their sources.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/16/AR2006021602186.html

October 2005: The CIA will not seek to hold any current or former agency officials, including ex-director George J. Tenet, responsible for failures leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, CIA Director Porter J. Goss said yesterday, despite a recommendation by the agency's inspector general that he convene an 'accountability board' to judge their performance.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/05/AR2005100501503.html

Relationships

RoleNameTypeLast Updated
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Organization Oct 12, 2005
Member of (past or present) Republican Party (U.S.) / Republican National Committee Organization
Employee/Freelancer/Contractor (past or present) US Army Organization Oct 12, 2005
Member of (past or present) US House of Representatives Organization
Student/Trainee (past or present) Yale University Organization Oct 12, 2005
Appointed/Selected by President George W. Bush Person May 15, 2006

Articles and Resources

Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at:
Nov 12, 2009 Welcome Home, War!: How America's Wars Are Systematically Destroying Our Liberties

QUOTE: surprisingly few Americans seem aware of the toll that this already endless war [on terror] has taken on our civil liberties.

 TomDispatch
Sep 08, 2006 The Long Intelligence Haul: Real reform doesn't take five years. It takes a generation.

QUOTE: there is near-universal agreement today that political pressure corrupts intelligence analysis...But overhauling U.S. intelligence to better prevent false negatives represents a much greater challenge.

 Slate
Jul 09, 2006 Bush Is Pressed on Reporting Domestic Surveillance

QUOTE: the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee has told President Bush that the administration is angering lawmakers, and possibly violating the law, by giving Congress too little information about domestic surveillance programs...which include warrantless wiretaps of some Americans' international phone calls and e-mails as well as the massive collection of telephone records involving U.S. homes and businesses.

 Washington Post
May 14, 2006 Fired Officer Believed CIA Lied to Congress: Friends Say McCarthy Learned of Denials About Detainees' Treatment

QUOTE: ...another CIA officer -- the agency's deputy inspector general...was startled to hear what she considered an outright falsehood...during the discussion of legislation that would constrain the CIA's interrogations. That CIA officer was Mary O. McCarthy, 61, who was fired on April 20 for allegedly sharing classified information with journalists...

 Washington Post
May 13, 2006 Secrecy Privilege Invoked in Fighting Ex-Detainee's Lawsuit

QUOTE: For at least the fifth time in the past year, the Justice Department yesterday invoked the once rarely cited state secrets privilege to argue that a lawsuit alleging government wrongdoing should be dismissed without an airing

 Washington Post
Feb 17, 2006 Senator May Seek Tougher Law on Leaks: Intelligence Chairman Roberts Says Measure Vetoed by Clinton Could Be Model

QUOTE: The chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said yesterday that he may add language to the fiscal 2007 intelligence authorization bill to criminalize the leaking of a wider range of classified information than is now covered by law....Clinton vetoed a measure by Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) that would have broadened the law that criminalizes release of "national defense information." Civil liberties groups and news organizations, which argued that the legislation would chill their ability to get information from officials, lobbied for the veto, which Clinton exercised in 2000.

 Washington Post
Dec 30, 2005 Covert CIA Program Withstands New Furor: Anti-Terror Effort Continues to Grow

QUOTE: GST includes programs allowing the CIA to capture al Qaeda suspects with help from foreign intelligence services, to maintain secret prisons abroad, to use interrogation techniques that some lawyers say violate international treaties, and to maintain a fleet of aircraft to move detainees around the globe....The administration's decisions to rely on a small circle of lawyers for legal interpretations that justify the CIA's covert programs and not to consult widely with Congress on them have also helped insulate the efforts from the growing furor...

 Washington Post
Nov 02, 2005 CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons: Debate Is Growing Within Agency About Legality and Morality of Overseas System Set Up After 9/11

QUOTE: ...the CIA has not even acknowledged the existence of its [secret detention] sites. To do so, say officials familiar with the program, could open the U.S. government to legal challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and increase the risk of political condemnation at home and abroad.

 Washington Post
Oct 06, 2005 CIA Rejects Discipline For 9/11 Failures: Goss Cites Fear Of Hurting Agency

QUOTE: The CIA will not seek to hold any current or former agency officials, including ex-director George J. Tenet, responsible for failures leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, CIA Director Porter J. Goss said yesterday, despite a recommendation by the agency's inspector general that he convene an "accountability board" to judge their performance.

 Washington Post
Apr 28, 2005 Panel Questions Patriot Act Uses

QUOTE: ...the public is not comfortable with roving wiretaps, delayed notification searches and new authorities to obtain the library, credit card and health records of individuals who are not the subject of a criminal investigation but who might be of intelligence value in terrorism probes.

 Washington Post
Aug 21, 2002 Ashcroft Assailed On Policy Review: Lawmakers Say Oversight Is Blocked

QUOTE: Lawmakers on the House and Senate judiciary committees are complaining that Attorney General John D. Ashcroft is blocking attempts to review Justice Department counterterrorism policies...

 Washington Post
Aug 14, 2002 Justice Dept. Balks At Effort to Study Antiterror Powers

QUOTE: The Justice Department has rebuffed House Judiciary Committee efforts to check up on its use of new antiterrorism powers...

 New York Times
Aug 09, 2002 Polygraph Hypocrisy

QUOTE: ...there is some possibility the polygraph can produce useful evidence when it is used in a highly targeted and restricted fashion...But it is this particular variant of use that Shelby and some of his colleagues now resist so indignantly.

 Washington Post
Aug 02, 2002 FBI Leak Probe Irks Lawmakers

QUOTE: FBI agents have questioned nearly all 37 members of the Senate and House intelligence committees...as part of a broad investigation into leaks of classified information related to the Sept. 11 attacks

 Washington Post