Now it has become clear that Dick Cheney specifically ordered the C.I.A. to keep this program secret from the Congress:
The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency's director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.
The report that Mr. Cheney was behind the decision to conceal the still-unidentified program from Congress deepened the mystery surrounding it, suggesting that the Bush administration had put a high priority on the program and its secrecy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07...
It appears that Cheney used the vague language of the National Security Act of 1947 to shred the Constitution without clearly breaking any laws:
The law requires the president to make sure the intelligence committees "are kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States, including any significant anticipated intelligence activity." But the language of the statute, the amended National Security Act of 1947, leaves some leeway for judgment, saying such briefings should be done "to the extent consistent with due regard for the protection from unauthorized disclosure of classified information relating to sensitive intelligence sources and methods or other exceptionally sensitive matters."
In addition, for covert action programs, a particularly secret category in which the role of the United States is hidden, the law says that briefings can be limited to the so-called Gang of Eight, consisting of the Republican and Democratic leaders of both houses of Congress and of their intelligence committees.
Of course, they used the fear of their own failures in preventing the 9-11 attacks that they were warned about to create this program:
In the tense months after Sept. 11, when Bush administration officials believed new Qaeda attacks could occur at any moment, intelligence officials brainstormed about radical countermeasures. It was in that atmosphere that the unidentified program was devised and deliberately concealed from Congress, officials said.
Even Republicans have been forced to admit that only in the fervor of the Bush Administration's failure on 9-11 could the secret programs have been concieved. But of course in typical Republican style, they will not be "too harsh" in judgement over secret activities with no oversight:
Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House intelligence committee, said last week that he believed Congress would have approved of the program only in the angry and panicky days after 9/11, on 9/12, he said, but not later, after fears and tempers had begun to cool.
Mr. Hoekstra, the intelligence committee's ranking Republican, said he would not judge the agency harshly in the case of the unidentified program, because it was not fully operational. But he said that in general, the agency had not been as forthcoming as the law required.
Democrats in Congress want to change the laws, but disappointingly President Obama is warning them not to go too far:
Democrats in Congress, who contend that the Bush administration improperly limited Congressional briefings on intelligence, are seeking to change the National Security Act to permit the full intelligence committees to be briefed on more matters. President Obama, however, has threatened to veto the intelligence authorization bill if the changes go too far, and the proposal is now being negotiated by the White House and the intelligence committees.
Representative Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat of Illinois on the House committee, wrote on Friday to the chairman, Representative Silvestre Reyes, a Democrat of Texas, to demand an investigation of the unidentified program and why Congress was not told of it. Aides said Mr. Reyes was reviewing the matter.
While I believe that the full scope of the shredding of the Constitution should be made known I hold little faith in them ever being held accountable. Now, however those who were calling for the impeachment of Bush/Cheney do not seem quite as radical.
I hope Congress will get to the bottom of all this, and that President Obama will allow it to be done. I do not see why he would want to inherit such an unConstitutional practice and keep it alive. Lets let the Republican Party be the party of blindly following failed leaders that have no respect for the Constitution or the rule of law while circumventing the Congress. Democrats should take the lead in respecting the institutions our country was founded upon.
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