The Compromise Intelligence Authorization
As DDay noted, it looks like we’ll finally have an intelligence authorization bill. The bill is a partial win for Speaker Pelosi, as it makes full briefing to the Intelligence Committees within six months of the start of a program the default (though the Administration can still avoid doing so if it provides written rationale). And it includes at least a nod to Pelosi’s demand that GAO be giving some authority to review intelligence programs. Steven Aftergood calls the GAO access “a foothold.”
The Act (in section 348) requires the Director of National Intelligence to prepare a directive on GAO access to intelligence community information — thereby setting the stage for a stable new role for the GAO in intelligence agency audits and reviews.In a letter to Congress (reprinted in the record of the floor debate) withdrawing the threat of a veto, ODNI General Counsel Robert S. Litt stressed that the new directive would not imply any change in existing law or GAO authority. He added that the new directive would also conform with “relevant opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel.” However, the only OLC opinion on the subject is from 1988, and it argued that GAO access to intelligence information is “precluded” by law. It hardly seems likely that the new directive would affirm that view.
Instead, the required directive should be seen as analogous to the recently updated Pentagon directive that permitted GAO access to highly classified special access programs,
It remains to be seen whether this compromise will give Congress enough new oversight powers to prevent the abuses that happened under Bush (and heck–I assume the Gang of Four, if not the Gang of Eight–has signed off on assassinating US citizens solely on the President’s say so, so it’s not clear that oversight will be any use in protecting the Constitution). But Jeff Stein reports both Pelosi and DiFi declaring victory, while the White House and DOD remain silent. Here’s Pelosi:
“In passing the Intelligence Authorization Act last night, the Senate upheld our first responsibility – to ensure the security of the American people – while addressing two key objectives,” Pelosi said in a statement Tuesday.
“It expands and improves the congressional notification process for covert action and provides the framework for GAO access to intelligence community information so that the GAO can conduct investigations, audits, and evaluations as requested by Congress,” Pelosi said.
Again, I remain skeptical, but at least this is better than nothing.
Think of it this way. Under these rules, the Bush White House would have had to tell the entire Intelligence Committees they were systematically torturing prisoners by February 1, 2003 (or at least admit in writing they hadn’t and wouldn’t inform the committees, rather than altering documents after the fact to pretend they had). Technically, they would have to have informed Congress of the September 17, 2001 finding dubiously used to authorize the torture program by March 17, 2002. As it happened, they apparently didn’t brief any Democrats that they were torturing prisoners until February 5, 2003, at which point the one they did brief (Jane Harman) objected in writing (and asked whether the President had signed off on the policy, which presumably meant she had never been briefed on the actual finding). We know Bob Graham had been proposing oversight of the interrogation program by that point, backed by a majority of the committee, even though he had no clue they were torturing (though Tony Blair apparently did). So it’s possible Congress would have at least demanded more information sooner about the torture under this system.
That may not have been enough to forestall Dick Cheney’s torture program. But it might have subjected it to at least a little more review.
At which point–as presumably has happened on Presidential hit lists–the blame for our egregious abuse of the Constitution would be more widely shared.
Congratulations, Intelligence Committees: you now share in the moral responsibility to protect the Constitution. Please take that responsibility seriously.
Nobody in the leadership really wants oversight, IMO. if they did, they could have obtained it with the tools they had available. Holding up legislation, subpoena’s, contempt citations, impeachment and so on.
Boxturtle (Impeachment(v): The act of giving the president a fresh baked peach pie in hopes he’ll be nicer)
Oversight bad.
Plausible deniability good.
I don’t think congress or the executive cares about deniability anymore. They’ve gotten away with everything and there seems to be this agreement “If you don’t investigate us, we won’t investigate you”.
Boxturtle (The upcoming GOP congress will at least investigate ObamaLLP. Better than what we’ve got)
While you’re right about the lessening of it’s importance, particularly since Reagan {OFG’s #4 would be an archetypal example of that lawlessness), there still do seem to be things they don’t want to be tied to, e.g. torture and torture-related murder, if for nothing other than good P.R. reasons.
All that legal nonsense, not so much…
Torture, as long as it’s limited to Scary Brown Moslems, is pretty popular from teabaggers to moderate republicans. Actual quote from one of my neighbors: “We oughta be waterboarding them on live TV. If the ragheads fear us, they won’t fsck with us”. And this is a nice guy, the sort of fellow you’d want as a neighbor.
I think the only reason they aren’t campaigning on a “Bring back the Rack” platform is because their religious wing would be forced to denounce it as unseemly.
Boxturtle (Except maybe the Southern Baptists)
Harman, Rockefeller, Pelosi – the lot has never actually *used* their oversight in any meaningful way, let alone put an end to violations of law and constitution through the power of the purse. They have not tried to defund, not tried to sugest defunding, not gone public, not threatened to go public.
Let’s be clear – they did not need this to stop torture. They did not need this to try. They did not have to be briefed. They could have asked, point blank, they could have taken the answers – or lack thereof – public, and all they had to fear for was their incumbency, and maybe censure.
Their oath is to the constitution, not to their career and their worthless hides. These people are a disgrace, unworthy of their office and unfit to be part of civilized society. Every time they seek to distract from their dereliction of duty, they seek yet more changes to the law to address issues long addressed, making matters worse and substituting effective oversight with legislative kabuki.
The only possible benefit would be increased culpability on briefers and briefed. But The Gang knows very well they will never be held accountable, so they see a win – more CYA burden placed on the CIA.
Yes, this one is better than nothing.
And I keep hearing different things about the GAO part.
Still though, you’re 100% bottom line right about the if they sign off on assassinating American citizens, what won’t they sign off on??
I was in the Space Division of HQUSAF at the Pentagon in the mid 80’s and got infuriated to the point of resigning over a squabble back then. The US (and Soviets) were in the middle of a “space arms race” that threatened to break us both. Congress was determined to stop this arms race, and President Reagan was determined to go full steam ahead. Congress voted to ban all space based weapons testing. Reagan vetoed it. And I’ll swear till the day I die Congress overrode that veto (yet I can’t find any Congressional proof of that) because that is what led to my resignation. Congress overrode the veto, and testing space based weapons was against the law of the land. The Pentagon (with the blessing of the Executive) merely moved it from one black world area to another and kept plodding right along.
I then and ever since have tried, in vain, to come up with some explanation of how that’s Constitutional. And I can’t. And I can’t with the assassinating of American citizens either.
Here’s a neat little thought experiment I wish more would try. Imagine you’re alive and the year is 1793. And President George Washington addresses Congress and declares he has the authority to assassinate American citizens with no due process. How might that have gone over then? Why should it go over any different now?
WTF has happened to this country?
Only if it’s actually followed. Watch what Pelosi DOES, not what she SAYS.
Boxturtle (Healthy distrust of politicians in general and Pelosi in particular)
You don’t mean to suggest, Boxurtle, that Pelosi might simply say, “Take EVERYTHING off the table, clear it off completely, it’s time to celebrate our profitable, our very profitable, victory over reason, tolerance, and understanding, we are going to have a party and I want everyone to notice the beautiful tablecloth … not those ugly and unpleasant “things”, in particular, that keep being put on it!”
DW
I think she’ll say a lot and do almost nothing.
Boxturtle (Thinking about it, has Madam Speaker ever even written a Sternly Worded Letter?)
I think so too, BoxTurtle.
(Why, that is a very good question, and I think we should insist upon an answer, assuming that it is not a state secret, of course … I imagine there will be quite a number of those, “looking forward” …)
DW
As far as I know, GAO is a good organization. I’d rather have GAO lawyers looking directly at government operations than politicians.
from the GAO website:
“GAO Attorneys Do Work That Matters
GAO attorneys provide legal advice and services, act as quasi-administrative law judges, serve as experts on federal appropriations law and are in-house counsel to GAO’s management.”
It’s a sorry process when the ODNI counsel is telling Congress what it can and cannot audit. (Another plug for demanding a top-to-bottom comprehensive national security institution review as dramatic as 1947, and presumably insisting on some dramatic downsizing to fit the threat.)
It does not matter. They are still going to get in front of cameras and say:
“Nobody could have predicted…”
If they follow the rules.
Does everyone believe the rules have been followed so far, the last 50 years? What good is this?
That is the batshit craziest line. I haven’t even read ew’s whole post, that line just flew at me and scratched my eyes out. These secret liars and killers and crooks with an endless budget and endless paranoia and a get-out-of-court free pass can plan and plot and conspire and contract and act and do anything they want and get a six-month head start before they have to let a committee in Congress in on anything they’re up to? Tell me again why we have a Congress? Tell me again why we have a Constitution?
Maybe I should go back and read more. This can’t be right.
Aw gees. I am never going to understand this. I thought amendments to bills had to be submitted by congresspeople. But this guy —
— gets to submit amendments and threaten vetoes? I clicked on the letter and was going to print it out to read it and it’s over 60 pages long on my printer. Sure, the letter isn’t the whole thing, I’m just saying this is beyond me even if I try.
But also, more creepy, I recognize that guy’s name. He was part of “The Trentadue Mission” in the 1990s that I wrote comments about before. I can find them by searching “Eric Holder sucks” and following the links back:
Eric Holder SUCKS links to the comment with the link to Jesse Trentadue’s letter and 34-page PDF to Sen. Leahy asking to testify at Eric Holder’s confirmation hearing…
…and I’m guessing Litt is the guy (LITTROBE) who wrote the “Trentadue, trentadon’t” memo on page 23 of the PDF.
For more of the story you jump up a couple comments to get to the link to the whoooole obstruction of justice Oklahoma City bombing story as revealed by lawyer Jesse Trentadue’s pursuit of finding out why his brother Kenneth was murdered in federal custody in Oklahoma in 1995, and how he learned through the FOIAs and lawsuits about the coverup that Holder and Litt were involved in, as I heard it on Antiwar Radio.
It’s been a while since I wrote that long comment, and my brain is really very small, so what floats to my surface as I try to remember that is that incredible government strongarming took place to get Kenney Trentadue’s death be called a suicide by hanging. (Ya think?) Suiciding has been happening for a while I guess. Two other guys involved with Kenney Trentadue’s story suicided too in prison by hanging. Kenney Trentadue was apparently mistaken for John Doe No. 2 in the Oklahoma bombing. Then once McVeigh was caught, John Doe No. 2 was disappeared from the case and from McVeigh’s trial — I don’t think juries were allowed to hear any evidence about Doe No. 2 and so McVeigh got the death penalty. A video of the bombing that had been seen initially disappeared too. You’d think that that would be perfect evidence at a trial, but no. (Was John Doe No. 2 an informant and the govt had prior knowledge the bombing was going to happen? I think that’s part of what we are not allowed to know.) An Oklahoma news channel recreated the video though and the audio is in Antiwar Radio’s podcast archive. Guess what, John Doe No. 2 may have been the one who set the bomb off. Two guys were in the Rider truck, and McVeigh had walked away. I wish Rachel Maddow would read this. I wish she would look through Trentadue’s FOIA responses and see the Southern Poverty Law Center being named as an informant — a guy from the SPLC was her honored guest in her McVeigh Tapes special without ever explaining his expertise or bias.
…
Eric Holder and Robert Litt. Trentadue, trentadon’t. What a fucking cesspool these untouchables are. And Congress is swimming in it.
Re the videotape, actually videotapes, Jesse Trentadue FOIA’ed them and finally got them released… all with blanks of the actual bombing.
Mission accomplished I guess.
Youtube has the video that goes with the audio on Antiwar Radio with the news station’s recreation and report broadcast at the time of the missing video. It’s 7 minutes long and there’s no transcript so I did one:
It would be interesting to compare NewsChannel 4’s video recreation with the one done for the Rachel Maddow special on McVeigh where McVeigh is portrayed as acting alone, and her expert guest from the Southern Poverty Law Center never says, “Hey, we were informers for the FBI, where covering up John Doe No. 2 is required.” Great job, MSNBC.
And Congress never asked.
What I don’t get is the word “now.” Didn’t they already share that responsibility, as articulated in their oath of office?
Bob in AZ
Note to moderator: I was going to Spotlight this to Rachel Maddow and MSNBC, but all the choices there are tremendously out of date — she’s not there, Keith Olbermann’s not there, but I could spotlight it to dead Ed Bradley, or to Ted Koppel at Nightline. Who updates Spotlight? If Ed Bradley’s on it and Rachel Maddow isn’t, something’s wrong. Just saying, please fix?
We do not control spotlight; it is effectively a widget.
Can widgets be fixed by the Spotlight controller, whoever that is? It’s really too good an idea to let rust away and there must be a point in FDL including it.