Hugo Teufel III on the Death of Otis Pike

The New York Times reports today that former Representative Otis G. Pike died yesterday, January 20, 2014, in Vero Beach, Florida.  He was 92.  In 1975-76, Pike chaired the House Select Committee on Intelligence, also known as the Pike Committee. Born in 1921 in New York, Pike fought in World War II, serving in the Pacific as a United States Marine Corps fighter pilot.  After the war, he graduated from Princeton University.  In 1948, he graduated from Columbia Law School.  He practiced law in New York and was a justice of the peace, before running for the U.S. House of Representatives.  Pike served nine terms in Congress, from 1961 until 1979, when he decided not to run for re-election.  In addition to serving on the House Select Committee, he was also a member of the House Armed Services Committee.  In 1969, he conducted a House inquiry into the North Korean seizure of the USS Pueblo.  In retirement, Pike wrote a newspaper column for Newhouse Newspapers for 20 years. The Pike Committee operated in parallel with the Senate’s Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, chaired by Senator Frank Church, to investigate abuses by the Intelligence Community and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  At around the same time, President Ford convened the United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States, also known as the Rockefeller Commission, for its chair, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller.  The three entities---The Pike Committee, the Church Committee, and the Rockefeller Commission---were important because they were the first bodies to conduct meaningful oversight of the intelligence community since enactment of the National Security Act of 1947. The relationship between the Pike Committee and the Executive Branch was contentious.  A report of the Pike Committee’s findings was classified and never made public officially.  Administration officials disputed much in the report and the full House of Representatives voted to keep the report classified, unless the President certified that the report did not contain information that would adversely affect intelligence activities.  No certification from the Administration was forthcoming. In 1976, CBS reporter Daniel Schorr obtained a copy of the report, which he reported about, and showed, on television.  Schorr also leaked the report to the Village Voice, which published excerpts.  Schorr became the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation and was suspended by CBS.  During the investigation, Schorr asserted his First Amendment rights and refused to divulge his source for the report.  The House Committee decided against a contempt citation and Schorr later resigned from CBS. Though initially unavailable in the US, the entire proceedings of the Pike Committee were published in England.  At present, three volumes of the committee’s hearings and a draft report on the NSA’s electronic surveillance efforts are available online through the Mary Ferrell Foundation. Hugo Teufel III is an attorney focusing on privacy and civil liberties matters, with both public and private sector experience. He is also a judge advocate with the District of Columbia Army National Guard. From 2006 until 2009, Mr. Teufel served as the Chief Privacy Officer for the US Department of Homeland Security.