The DNI Is Well-Meaning. Really. Except with Those He Claims Want No IC.

The LAT has an article on the acrimony between Mike McConnell and Democrats over FISA. In it, McConnell’s backers insist in his good faith in his negotiations with Democrats.

A spokesman for McConnell said that the director’s dealings with Congress were "always in good faith."

"He values the relationship with Congress," said the spokesman, Michael Birmingham. "He works at it, and he invites and welcomes the oversight they provide."

[snip]

"I think the fact that it was open and argumentative at times was very positive," said Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.). "I think he improved his relations [with the committee] just by communicating."

[snip]

"I feel he’s an honorable person," Ruppersberger said. "Some of my peers feel he’s compromised. I would say that on the majority side, we were not happy with some of the positions he took."

But the article also lists the many attacks McConnell has made against Democrats. Apparently, in a secret meeting leading up to the House vote, Democrats aired those complaints. And McConnell responded by attacking HPSCI members for being insufficient cheerleaders for the Intelligence Community (I really do hope he attacked both parties equally, since Crazy Pete Hoekstra is one of the loudest critics of the Intelligence Community).

Democrats accused McConnell of making exaggerated claims and of doing the bidding of the Bush administration, according to officials who attended the event. McConnell bristled at the Democrats’ charges, and chastised members of the committee for failing to defend the intelligence community amid a barrage of bad press. [my emphasis]

Incidentally, can someone point out where in the Constitution it requires Congress to defend Executive Branch incompetence in the press? That McConnell would even make such a complaint reveals his rather stunted understanding of the role of Congress.

Given McConnell’s apparent attempt to make nice with Congress, though, I’m utterly mystified by the comments he made in a speech at his alma mater, Furman University in South Carolina, last Friday, about the negotiations with the Senate.

We had a bill go into the Senate. It was debated vigorously. There were some who said we shouldn’t have an Intelligence Community. Some have that point of view. Some say the President of the United States violated the process, spied on Americans, should be impeached and should go to jail. I mean, this is democracy, you can say anything you want to say. That was the argument made.

First of all, did McConnell really miss that even the biggest hippie in the Senate–Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold–started every floor speech by supporting not only the IC, but the importance of spying on terrorists? Who, who, Mike McConnell, "has that point of view" that doesn’t want an IC?

More importantly, until McConnell gets the fact that when Presidents break laws, they usually (unless Congress abdicates its responsibilities) should be held accountable for breaking those laws (McConnell used the Constitution as a prop throughout his speech, but apparently missed the whole point about rule of law). The President didn’t just violate the process–he violated the law, all under a veil of secrecy in which not even his top DOJ officials approving the program knew what he was doing. Until McConnell realizes the gravity of that, he’s simply not going to understand the Democrats’ position.

To be fair, elsewhere in the speech, McConnell gave a remarkably candid of the threats facing the US, noting that the fight for energy is our biggest challenge, and noting that Tim McVeigh is a dangerous terrorist every bit as much as Osama bin Laden.

let me just talk about threats. One of the – and you maybe haven’t thought about it this way – one of the biggest challenges that we have as a nation is access to energy. You think about that. Now, we’re all sitting here enjoying the comforts of this campus and room and there is an air conditioner and there is an elevator. And we all have credit cards and we all buy gas. All that runs off energy. Well, you think about where does energy come from? Predominantly, it comes from areas that are pretty unstable.

So until we invent an alternative to fossil fuel – and we will some day – we’re going to figure out hydrogen someday, but the estimates are 30 to 50 years – so I would say in the interim, in the meantime, a more stable Middle East, access to energy are one of the things that’s going to be most important to us as a nation – and not only us in the United States, but the people of the markets we engage with: Europe and China and India. And it’s one global economy. If one thing I can leave you with is a thought is that when I grew up, we had great saltwater moats and friendly neighbors north and south. Today, it’s one globe and I can have somebody get sick in Hong Kong and have an epidemic breakout in New York City 10, 12 hours later. So it’s the global – it’s the connectedness of the world.

Now, terrorism is a terrible thing. There are radical elements in every society, every society. We have our own Timothy McVeigh. We’ve had, you know, those kinds of issues. With a global network, what al Qaeda’s been able to do is to connect the radical elements and maintain a dialogue and to show what they do and to talk about what they do and train.

Still. It’s one thing to be able to admit the amazingly banal truth that our security efforts largely pivot on oil, and yet another to make a good faith effort to work with Congress in our security efforts.

And it seems that Mike McConnell simply doesn’t have it in him to deal with people who want both security and the rule of law.

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26 replies
  1. JimWhite says:

    When McConnell is advocating for retroactive immunity for those firms that violated the law, he undoubtedly is one of those lawbreakers. When nominated to be DNI, he was at Booz Allen Hamilton, a major player in datamining and data analysis. From Rockefeller’s nomination speech:

    Upon retiring from the Navy, Admiral McConnell went to work for Booz Allen Hamilton where he has been a senior vice president for intelligence and national security. He also is currently chairman and chief executive officer of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, an industry group that works with the Government looking for ways to solve some of our complex intelligence problems.

    Why does the press never point out McConnell’s conflict of interest?

    • john in sacramento says:

      Just what I get for living on the West Coast … I’m always late to the party

      When McConnell is advocating for retroactive immunity for those firms that violated the law, he undoubtedly is one of those lawbreakers. When nominated to be DNI, he was at Booz Allen Hamilton, a major player in datamining and data analysis. From Rockefeller’s nomination speech:

      Upon retiring from the Navy, Admiral McConnell went to work for Booz Allen Hamilton where he has been a senior vice president for intelligence and national security. He also is currently chairman and chief executive officer of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, an industry group that works with the Government looking for ways to solve some of our complex intelligence problems.

      Why does the press never point out McConnell’s conflict of interest?

      John Young @ cryptome is invaluable

      http://cryptome.org/spy-mike-flog.htm

      And I forget how I got on the listserve, but there are a lot of nuggets in the DoD contract email they put out every day to help you ‘follow the money’… like this one

      Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc., of Herndon, Va., is being awarded a contract for $6,304,373. This action provides for the Information Assurance Technical Analysis Center to research a state-of-art 3D facial recognition biometrics program and prepare a final technical report. At this time $289,855 has been obligated. 55CONS/LGCD, Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., is the contracting activity (SP0700-98-D-4002, Delivery Order 0332).

  2. earlofhuntingdon says:

    The law is what you use against opponents of heightened security; in Confucian fashion, it defines authority, not the citizenry’s rights in opposition to it, a concept unimaginable to Confucius. (Just getting ready to deal with our must trusted creditor, though Sun Tzu might be more useful.)

    Ryan Singel does a marvelous, three-point reversal on Jane Harman claim that “Nobody told me this shit was illegal”.

    http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/

    • JTMinIA says:

      Your view of Confucianism appears to be too narrow for me. While I agree that the obligations of the citizen to the state don’t include any real discussion of the limits of the state’s power, if you read the other half — i.e., that which concerns the obligations of rulers to the ruled — you will see quite a few limits. And remember: if a magistrate accused a citizen of a crime, but could not prove it, then the magistrate suffered the same punishment that would have been given to the accused. The key here is that Confucianist thinking stresses the people involved (apples to apples) and not the citizens vs the state (apples to a big orange).

  3. Mary says:

    I have to wonder if Booz Hamilton wasn’t a part of the retooling to “teh program” just as it was pulled into the SWIFT program to try to allay concerns by offering an “independent audit” function there. In which case, McConnell may have a very direct and very vested interest – if Booz Hamilton was “in on” the illegal program and particpated in anyway -even in an audit or oversight function, that would open a few interesting doors.

    Probably not the case, but I certainly hope some of these intel committee guys asked him about it, under oath even if behind closed doors.

    And I’d love to see him asked under oath about just which members of Congress have told him that the US doesn’t need an intelligence community.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      If the next president cuts outsourcing or slows its growth, Carlyle is not using its private investors’ money wisely. That is, unless continuing to hide their and their president’s faux pas has cash value. I wonder if Carlyle’s being considered as the Bush family’s own investment bank has any bearing on that point?

  4. marksb says:

    Gosh it’s good to have you back EW!

    Not to grind a pet ax, but as you say,

    Still. It’s one thing to be able to admit the amazingly banal truth that our security efforts largely pivot on oil, and yet another to make a good faith effort to work with Congress in our security efforts.

    It just pisses me off that we sit around with the best minds, labs, and tools for inventing and perfecting mass production of the most advanced silicon chips in the world, yet we have no serious program to develop and massively deploy photovoltaics on every rooftop in our country.

    Forget the cost savings. Forget the pollution relief or the lowering of greenhouse gasses. It’s the security of our nation! The very survival of our country as an independent, successful entity!

    Why is Germany leading the world in solar cell deployment? Why does Denmark lead the world in manufacturing and deploying wind energy? Why not the US?

    Gosh this makes me mad.

    • emptywheel says:

      I’ve been talking about the opportunity cost of the Iraq war for years.

      What if we had invested 3 trillion in alternative energy? Where would we be now?

      • Bushie says:

        To add to your post & #5, not only invest in alt. energy, but actually have a national plan to reduce carbon dioxide and increase gas mileage on autos and SUV’s. Read an article yesterday, stating Venezuela has stopped shipping any oil to the US in favor of China, so there goes a little fuel from our greedy grasp!

        • bmaz says:

          Well, yeah, and how about actually educating and having the educational infrastructure to do so for the next wave of talent necessary for all this. It often seems that the only thing exceptional about this country lately, at least it’s leadership, is it’s arrogance, blindness and depravity.

        • Petrocelli says:

          That would be their plan, if they wanted a democracy. What BushCo have sought all along was a monarchy and the willingness of the (majority of) American people to follow blindly has been the most surprising thing for those of us watching it unfold, outside of your borders.

  5. Neil says:

    I know this is an off topic to EW’s thorough analysis and disarming conclusions but I need to say it anyway: Is it normal for a retired admiral to wear his dress blues every time he appears in public? And since he is retired, why does he?

    I remember watching a press conference at which McConnell was describing the standard for wiretapping American citizens, he kept saying “reasonable suspicion” was the appropriate standard, you can imagine my jaw was on the floor.

    We don’t know if this guy ever took civics or where he learned about fourth amendments rights. We know that he shows no restraint characterizing the opposition – congress people who don’t want an intelligence community – and mostly that he probably won’t get it until his allegiance to the Constitution and rule of law is comparable to his allegiance to the commander in chief.

    • mlk19569 says:

      Neil,

      I asked my husband the same thing when I saw him on MTP on Sunday. Why the heck is he wearing his uniform? I thought that was part of the bargain they struck for approving him in the position of head of the CIA?

  6. Mary says:

    Hugh @4 – I’m glad you noted that wasn’t an April Fool’s bc I thought you were joking.

    So does Carlyle feel that comfy with the govt contracts Booze will be getting from the Dems, or that needy to have control over the records and info in that part of Booze?

  7. Mary says:

    Hayden is the head of the CIA, McConnell is DNI. I heard Hayden make those arguments about the 4th amendment not requiring warrants and probable cause to wiretap Americans on American soil (haven’t heard McConnell but wouldn’t be surprised if he said the same).

    Back on McConnell, apparently Feingold has called him out on his “there were some who said we shouldn’t have an intelligence community” fairy tale.
    http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi…..rted_s.php
    Seriously – if McConnell can take the input from the debates and synthesize it in that manner to come up with that kind of unsupported, nonsensical statement —- can someone explain WHY he is a good choice to be processing and decisionmaking on all our covert intelligence? The man seems daft or derelict or dishonorable or all three.

    And I think Hayden should be out of uniform as head of CIA, but more importantly he should be out of uniform in his role as a dissembler and disinformer of the nation and, sadly, of its men and women in the military who have gone to die and be maimed so that he can stay in tight with Bush.

    IIRC, Hayden is the one who was pal-sy with Feinstein and her husband, but I may misremember that.

    From Harman’s piece at TPM Cafe, I thought this was interesting:

    I tracked down NSA Director Michael Hayden, who was shopping for holiday presents in Annapolis, and asked him to brief the full Intelligence Committee later that day. He said yes, provided the White House signed off. Bush Chief of Staff Andy Card at first agreed, but called me back an hour later saying the briefing was off.

    The National Security Act REQUIRES the briefing of the full intel committees, but Hayden told her he would only follow the law if Bush “signed off” on him following the law. That’s pretty incredible. What a disgrace to his uniform.

    • Neil says:

      Hayden is the head of the CIA, McConnell is DNI. I heard Hayden make those arguments about the 4th amendment not requiring warrants and probable cause to wiretap Americans on American soil (haven’t heard McConnell but wouldn’t be surprised if he said the same).

      You are right Mary. It was Hayden not McConnell. Sorry everyone. Need more coffee.

  8. Praedor says:

    Ahem. McConnell mentioning McVeigh as a terrorist every bit as dangerous as Bin Laden, though true, sets off warning bells. The reason he mentioned it is not because it is objectively true, but because he has an ulterior motive: He wants free reign to spy on Americans to find future McVeighs.

    In a word: NO. No illegal, warrantless spying on Americans for ANY reason whatsoever. You want to listen to American’s phones or read their mail or email? GET A WARRANT! It really IS that simple. McConnell can never be understood by listening to the words he actually speaks. One must get at the motive for WHY he is saying such and such at that moment. What is he after? That is the question to always ask about the criminals in the IC.

    McConnell is simply seeking carte blanche to spy on all of us on the assumption that somewhere in the mix is another McVeigh. Well, there is, that is certain, but we all have to suck it up and accept the risk because that is what a free society is all about. There is risk involved in freedom – that is part of the cost but the value of freedom ALWAYS makes up for the cost. McConnell doesn’t get that anymore than he gets the fact that Congress doesn’t have to kiss the Executive’s ass and doesn’t have to defend his ass or any other agent of government anywhere or at any time.

    McConnell is unfit to serve the American people and must go.

  9. R.H. Green says:

    My attention was drawn to the notion that oil comes from areas that are unstable. That word,”unstable” seems ominous. I think it means “unreliable”, from a business viewpoint, as in: unplannable access to resources or markets. Our history is replete with “gunboat diplomacy” and other military adventures organized to insure such stability. Thus we have a rationale for the endless war footing, hundred-year occupations, spreading democracy, etc.
    Furthermore, after the immediacy of the need for “stable” supplies of oil, we have need for “stable’ supplies of fresh water, which if anyone has been noticing, is also getting scarce.

    • bmaz says:

      Not to mention that we are by far the largest destabilizing force there lately. Crikey, they will sell the freaking oil, the only problem is that Cheney and his buds won’t make as much money. That’s what the battle is over.

  10. AZ Matt says:

    Concerning comments made at the Furman University speech:

    Feingold Calls Out Intel Chief For Saying Dems Want To Imprison Bush

    The Honorable J.M. McConnell Director of National Intelligence Washington, D.C. 20511

    Dear Director McConnell:

    I have received a copy of your March 28, 2008, speech at Furman University. In it, you described Senate action on the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, stating:

    “We had a bill go into the Senate. It was debated vigorously. There were some who said we shouldn’t have an Intelligence Community. Some have that point of view. Some say the President of the United States violated the process, spied on Americans, should be impeached and should go to jail. I mean, this is democracy, you can say anything you want to say. That was the argument made. The vote was 68 to 29.”

    As you correctly noted, the bill was the subject of vigorous debate. Many members of the Senate expressed serious concerns about the lack of checks and balances included in the legislation and the potential impact of the new authorities on the privacy and civil liberties of Americans. Many Senators were also concerned that retroactive immunity for companies alleged to have cooperated with the President’s warrantless wiretapping program would undermine the rule of law.

    However, I am not aware of any Senator saying or suggesting that “we shouldn’t have an Intelligence Community” or that President Bush “should be impeached and should go to jail.” I would therefore appreciate your providing a list of all statements made by Senators during the debate that you believe support these assertions. If there are no such examples, you should issue an immediate correction and an apology.

    While all sides of this debate deserve to be heard, to falsely attribute statements to United States Senators serves only to mislead the American people. It also undermines your credibility and that of the position of Director of National Intelligence.

    Sincerely,

    Russell D. Feingold
    U.S. Senator

  11. Hmmm says:

    The DNI is giving voice to The One Percent Doctrine. I would observe that the One Percent Doctrine is incompatible with the Fourth Amendment. One may draw any number of interesting and useful conclusions from that.

  12. R.H. Green says:

    Bmaz @19
    What you suggest is that it’s not about oil supply, but about control of the oil supply market, not about bringing stability, but control of stabilty. One could extend this to say the issue is not about about stabilty in home mortgages, but control of stability in mortgage markets. Thus we get calls for “enforcement action”.
    I suppose this could extend to the thinking of a political strategist as well: it’s not about getting votes, but about controlling the voting. Heh, or even controlling the justice system, not merely a particular case or two. Sound familiar?

  13. Mary says:

    25 – Don’t think of it is late – think of it as starting phase 2 of the party.

    19 – that’s it exactly and that is also why the US has traditionally PREFERRED to have a centralized, strong dictator “one stop shop” rather than democracies to deal with.

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