Watchdogs: The Badges and Suits Who Guard Us and Our Money

Surviving our complex world often comes down to: Who's got your back?

With that in mind, PDI today introduces a regular new feature spotlighting America's watchdogs -- government and sometimes non-government groups that work to keep us safe, oversee how our democracy actually operates, and investigate wrongdoing.

Most watchdogs' work is obscure and out of sight until a crisis like tainted hamburger meat or toxic lead paint on children's toys or 9/11 explodes in headlines. Failures are easier to see than the day-to-day successes of just doing the watchdog job.

But sometimes, watchdogs become celebrities.

This year's best example of that is the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Prior to CBS's fictional hit TV series starring Mark Harmon, NCIS watchdogs were unknown to most Americans.

NCIS is real and is indeed the Navy's primary law enforcement group, headquartered at Washington, D.C.'s Navy Yard, with personnel "on the ground" in Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq – almost everywhere the Navy and Marines deploy. NCIS focuses on three main missions: counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and investigating crimes like sexual assaults and narcotics trafficking that impact the Navy and Marine Corps.

In 2009, NCIS worked about 9,500 investigations. About 8,000 were criminal, 1,000 were counterintelligence related, with about 250 related to counterterrorism. About 50 investigations can be classified as "cyber" related -- though these days, almost everything has a "cyber" component. Few of those real investigations receive TV or news coverage that comes close to the media exposure given the fictional NCIS watchdogs. One way to get a sense of what NCIS does is to check out their wanted fugitives.

When it comes to real watchdogs, the TV images most Americans flash on are not NCIS agents or other heroic badges. America's most famous TV watchdog moments come not from car chases but from high-ceiling, klieg light bright hearing rooms in the marbled halls of Congress.

From organized crime hearings led by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-Tenn.) to Communist-hunting hearings led by Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-Wisc.), from Watergate to Iran-Contra, from White House gate crashers to Wall Street bank busters, for decades Americans have watched thousands of witnesses parade past investigating and oversight committees of Congress.

Congress is a schizophrenic watchdog for America because Congress both creates and oversees government programs. The party that controls Congress dominates the watchdogging done by its committees and subcommittees, though senators and congressmen from both parties have been known to create "investigations" or "oversights" without the full approval of whatever party claims a majority on Capitol Hill.

Tomorrow, Thursday Feb. 4, the U.S. Senate's Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations (PSOI), one of Congress' most legendary watchdogs, is scheduled to hold a hearing on keeping foreign corruption out of America. The scheduled witness list indicates the scope of the problem and the direction the subcommittee's investigation will take.

One irony of our politics is that for problems as huge as foreign corruption or organized crime or Wall Street shenanigans, the actual number of congressional watchdogs is small.

As with most congressional committees, we could take all PSOI's lawyers, investigators, professional staff members, staffers loaned out or detailed to the subcommittee from senators' personal office staffs, receptionists, recorders, administrative aides, and a few interns and still fit the whole crowd into a grade school classroom.

True, congressional committees often have subpoena power and can draw on the General Accounting Office for investigative help, but on the Hill, our watchdogs are small prides, not rumbling packs.

And all those staffers reflect the political makeup of Congress, which means PSOI's Chairman is Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) while its minority is led by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). The subcommittee exists under the full Senate Committee On Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, chaired by Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) as the ranking minority member.

As for what PSOI's hearing will reveal about the impact of foreign corruption on America...that's another's day's story, one that's probably only a glimpse of the tip of a dangerous and nasty iceberg.

In recent years, PSOI watchdogs have looked at the impact of shell companies on America, unfair credit card practices, tax dodging and money laundering, and manipulation of oil and energy prices.

In coming months, PSOI watchdogs will probably take an investigative bite at America's financial crisis.

But today, some of the more important government eyes on our financial woes are not on Capitol Hill.

One of America's newest watchdogs is the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board – RATB – created less then a year ago in the financial recovery legislation to track waste, abuse and fraud in the government's $787 billion economic stimulus programs. When you wonder where the money went, RATB is a great place to look for answers. And if you think somebody is ripping off the stimulus and recovery system, its webpage tells how to share your suspicions via telephone, e-mail and the classic stamped letter handed to your friendly neighborhood postman.

RATB is lean machine, with some 40+ employees in a 7^th floor suite of rented offices about a block from the White House. The heart of RATB's watchdog activities is the ROC: the Recovery Operations Center, a team that deals with reported waste and abuses.

"Reported" is key: the ROC doesn't patrol our streets for bad guys or waste; they process reports from tipsters and refer the most solid leads to 29 offices of inspector generals in other federal departments. Currently, RATB is working with those IG's on 141 active investigations of possible abuse and misuse of our billions of dollars.

Watchdogs don't always live up to their duties; sometimes they get it wrong, and seldom on their own save the day. Their work can be unpopular because it brings discomforting news to all of us and perhaps legal or economic problems to some of us. Partisans of all persuasions are experts at twisting watchdogs' work to fit their own agendas. But when watchdogs get a chance to do their best, we're all safer for having them on the job, even if -- like the press, like us here at Politics Daily -- they are, after all, only human.