Intelligence committee withheld key file before critical NSA vote, Amash and Holt claim
Intelligence committee withheld key file before critical NSA vote, Amash claims
Republican who led Congress revolt against surveillance insists members did not see document before 2011 Patriot Act vote
Spencer Ackerman in Washington
theguardian.com, Monday 12 August 2013 22.37 BST
...
Justin Amash, the Michigan Republican whose effort to defund the NSA's mass phone-records collection exposed deep congressional discomfort with domestic spying, said the House intelligence committee never allowed legislators outside the panel to see a 2011 document that described the surveillance in vague terms.
The document, a classified summary of the bulk phone records collection effort justified under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, was declassified by the Obama administration in late July.
The Justice Department and intelligence agencies prepared it for Congress before a 2011 vote to reauthorize the Patriot Act, and left it for the intelligence committees in Congress to make the document available to their colleagues.
"It is not acceptable for the intelligence committee, or any other committee, to withhold critically important information pertaining to a program prior to the vote," Amash told the Guardian.
While the document does not go into great detail about the program, first revealed by the Guardian through documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, it does tell legislators that NSA is collecting phone records in "bulk" from Americans. The Obama administration and intelligence agencies have pointed to the availability of the document as an example of keeping Congress fully informed about controversial NSA surveillance.
...
"I was not aware of the document," Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat, told the Guardian.
...
"Nobody I've spoken to in my legislative class remembers seeing any such document," Amash told the Guardian. "We checked back with the committee, and it was not offered to members."
...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/12/intelligence-committee-nsa-vote-justin-amash
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=583562278349849&set=a.173968155975932.31945.173604349345646&type=1&theater
[hr]
User avatar for AhBrightWings
AhBrightWings
17 June 2013 2:12pm
My question: given the enormity of what you are facing now in terms of repercussions, can you describe the exact moment when you knew you absolutely were going to do this, no matter the fallout, and what it now feels like to be living in a post-revelation world? Or was it a series of moments that culminated in action? I think it might help other people contemplating becoming whistleblowers if they knew what the ah-ha moment was like. Again, thanks for your courage and heroism.
Answer:
I imagine everyone's experience is different, but for me, there was no single moment. It was seeing a continuing litany of lies from senior officials to Congress - and therefore the American people - and the realization that that Congress, specifically the ***Gang of Eight***, wholly supported the lies that compelled me to act. Seeing someone in the position of James Clapper - the Director of National Intelligence - baldly lying to the public without repercussion is the evidence of a subverted democracy. The consent of the governed is not consent if it is not informed.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023033003
[hr]
The Gang of Eight
Background
The President of the United States is required by 50 U.S.C. § 413(a)(1) to "ensure that the congressional intelligence committees are kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States." However, under 50 U.S.C. § 413b(c)(2), the President may elect to report instead to the Gang of Eight when he thinks "it is essential to limit access" to information about a covert action.[not verified in body]
...
The individuals are sworn to secrecy and there is no vote process
The term "Gang of Eight" gained wide currency in the coverage of the Bush administration's warrantless domestic spying program, in the context that no members of Congress other than the Gang of Eight were informed of the program, and they were forbidden to disseminate knowledge of the program to other members of Congress. The Bush administration has asserted that the briefings delivered to the Gang of Eight sufficed to provide Congressional oversight of the program and preserve the checks and balances between the executive and legislative branches.[1]
Members of the Gang of Eight (intelligence)
United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence:Mike Rogers (R): (Chair)
C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D): (Ranking member)
United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:Dianne Feinstein (D): (Chair)
Saxby Chambliss (R): (Ranking member)
Leadership in theUnited States House of Representatives:John Boehner (R): (Speaker of the House)
Nancy Pelosi (D): (Minority leader)
Leadership in the United States Senate:Harry Reid (D): (Majority leader)
Mitch McConnell (R): (Minority leader)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Eight_%28intelligence%29
= new reply since forum marked as read
