Lawmakers Want Administration on Record About FISA

[sabra]

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=1964722&C=america

Lawmakers Want Administration on Record About FISA

By REUTERS


U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday called on the White House to explain publicly why it contended an existing law governing electronic surveillance in the United States was inadequate for tracking al-Qaida.

The House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence this week opened hearings to examine four proposals to change the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which Democrats and Republicans say has been violated by President George W. Bush’s domestic spying program.

...

But lawmakers said the Bush administration needs to set out its own position about proposed changes on the public record.

"As we move forward on at least three or four proposals out there now, we are going to need the help of the administration on the public record as to their feedback," said Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the intelligence committee’s Republican chairman.

"I can’t see how we move forward effectively on legislative proposals without a statement from the administration."

[Atman]

1. Making the ILLEGAL LEGAL -- one of Hitler's first orders of business.

If Congress must find a way to re-write the law because the president wasn't following it, doesn't that mean the president broke the law? Why are they wasting time on "fixing" his lawbreaking instead of charging him with the crimes he has been proven to have committed?

[Independent_Liberal]

5. How much longer until they introduce legislation to make dissent illegal

and set up concentration camps to execute minorities and dissenters? Somebody needs to show the Republicans that that's the path they're on. If you ignore history, you are doomed to repeat it.

[ShockediSay]

2. Answer is "I'm commander in Chief AND"

too much thinking and paperwork involved

(approximately Hayden's answer)

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

3. "Ex post facto ass-covering is our specialty,"

said Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan.

Hoekstra added: "If the administration won't tell us what ass-coverage they need us to legislate...we're at an impasse."

[TomInTib]

4. Just imagine what kind of programs have NOT surfaced.

No matter how bad things may look, the reality is worse.

[eridani]

6. Kucinich weighs in

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2761/
Tice has not been fighting his uphill battle to testify alone. Reps. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), respectively, chairman and ranking minority member of the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations, wrote to Hoekstra on March 6, saying that if he did not intend to investigate Tice’s claims, they would do so under their own jurisdiction. “The allegations made by Mr. Tice are very serious. We plan to investigate his claims as thoroughly as possible, but we would appreciate your input by March 10, 2006, before we proceed further,” they wrote. According to a senior staffer on the Committee on Government Reform, Hoekstra didn’t respond, nor did he tell them that he planned to have staffers meet with Tice. The staffer said that the subcommittee learned of the March 17 meeting from Tice himself.

<snip>

Tice says that such a determination has been made regarding the programs he wants to testify about. He also says that the NSA maintains secrecy by conducting exclusively internal reviews instead of going to Congress. It is not clear that the executive branch constitutionally has the power to withhold clearance from committee members who wish to hear about special access programs, but the tactic has been largely successful so far.

Shays and Kucinich have worked to reverse the trend. On May 17, the day before Hoekstra wrote a letter to President Bush criticizing the intelligence community’s failure to fulfill its legal duty to keep the House and Senate Intelligence committees apprised of its activities, Reps. Shays and Kucinich sent their own letter to Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, director of the NSA, about Tice’s situation. They cited a House Rule that mandates that their subcommittee “shall review and study on a continuing basis the operation of Government activities at all levels with a view to determining their economy and efficiency.”

Essentially, Shays and Kucinich were telling Alexander that they intended to hear Tice whether or not the NSA granted them official clearance; that their right to hear him was written into their own rules. They gave a May 26 deadline for providing “a more complete legal analysis from NSA on the basis for its objections, if any, to the Subcommittee proceeding in the manner proposed.” According to the senior staffer, the NSA never replied. But Tice says that he has not been asked to testify, nor has he been contacted recently by anyone from the subcommittee. Shays, however, continues to push for legislation that would give greater protection to national security whistleblowers.

[Toots]

7. and here it is months later and nothing from either the Administration or

NSA. Complete stonewalling and not a peep from the MSM.