Emptywheel's take on Obama's threat to veto bill to notify more than the "gang of eight"...

[cascadiance]

... and have requirements to notify the entire intelligence committee on covert ops instead.

From:

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/07/08/obama-and-gang-of-eight-veto-threat-fundamental-compact-my-ass/

Obama says he'll veto the Intelligence Authorization Bill if it includes measures to expand notification on covert ops outside of the Gang of Eight. Laughably, he says the Gang of Eight notification requirement has been a "fundamental compact between Congress and the President."

(quote from report)

With all due respect, Mr. President. But are you fucking nuts?!?!?!

The Gang of Eight briefing system has been a central instrument of abuse of power, by which the President does things that violate fundamental tenets of the Constitution, but gets legal "sanction" for those things by telling eight four people who are all but hamstrung to do anything about those things. And when people "lie affirmatively" to you, you can't really say that's part of "comity" or a "fundamental compact." The Gang of Eight briefing system has been neither an element of "comity" nor a "fundamental compact" but rather a keystone of a dysfunctional, abusive relationship that guts our Constitution.

And Obama wants to keep it that way.

What's this about? Michael Isikoff and James Zogby also talked about this today on "Viewpoint with James Zogby".

Damn Obama, where's the "transparency" we've been promised? Seems like a bad move after all the hell we're getting now about the lying the CIA has done to congress, and the hell Pelosi went through earlier on that, you'd want to make sure there was less likely a chance of that sort of distortion happening in the future!

[bumbum]

1. Transparency? He has transparency! More & more of us are seeing right through Obama! NT

[flyarm]

2. Censors come out at Gitmo war crimes hearing

Censors come out at Gitmo war crimes hearing

Associated Press — “A reference to harsh treatment at CIA prisons brought out Guantanamo’s censors Thursday as an official of the war crimes court abruptly cut the sound to prevent spectators from hearing classified information.

“Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, a lawyer appointed by the Pentagon to defend 9/11 suspect Ramzi bin al Shibh, began discussing the prisoner’s treatment before he was taken to Guantanamo in September 2006 when the censor hit the switch.”

Link.

http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/07/censors-appaer-at-war-crimes-haering/



more transparency ..........notttttttttttttttttt

k&r..so you can keep count!!!!!!

[cascadiance]

3. Yeah, just as i expected. Two unrec's already..

Disturbing that we still have people that value party loyalty over the principles of honest and transparent democratic governments.

[mmonk]

4. I added a recommend. More people of conscience will as well.

[cascadiance]

16. I wonder if Harman's shenanigans can be attributed to the limitations of the "gang of eight"...

... being in effect too powerful in terms of the chain of secrecy.

Think about it for a minute.

She in effect "sold" her power to Gonzo, AIPAC, and others to help stop the publication of the New York Times story on domestic spying before the 2004 election which might have swung things to Bush's favor, in exchange for pressure applied to Pelosi's office to give her an intelligence committee chair position, and presumably put her in line to be in that "gang of eight". Had those restrictions not been in place, perhaps she wouldn't have bent over that far backward in terms of doing favors to get that position.

Secondly, Dianne Feinstein was really miffed when Jane Harman wasn't selected as head of the CIA, which ultimately was given to Leon Panetta, who we ultimately have to thank for getting this CIA breach out in the open for us all to know about. What would have happened if we had Harman in instead of Panetta? This assassination squad, etc. might still be in operation now!

[jgraz]

5. K&R

Hopefully, the unrec'ers won't be successful in keeping this off the GP.

[Hydra]

6. Another Rec for you

Because President Obama is painting a MASSIVE FAIL with his support of Bush Admin BS. We all know The Bush Admin was abusing power rather than "protecting us"- What's Obama's excuse?

[cascadiance]

7. Thanks, more people seem to be rec'ing it now...

I did notice something strange though on this thread. If you are in this thread or look at the general discussion thread page, it shows one set of rec's (currently +16), but it always shows two more rec's on the greatest page (+18)... Hm... Why is that? Is perhaps one counter checking IP addresses for duplicates and the other isn't?

[cascadiance]

8. Another weird thing is that Google is now showing last post here made "yesterday"...

http://www.google.com/search?q=zogby+isikoff+gang+of+eight&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Hmm... That is strange, I just started this thread in the last hour... Perhaps their daily spider just hit it, and are counting on this message to stay up until tomorrow at this time.

[scheming daemons]

9. In general, I agree with you... but are there ANY situations where utmost secrecy is required?

Any?


You KNOW there are... . the problem with Cheney wasn't the "gang of 8"... it was that he wasn't even telling THEM!.

[cascadiance]

12. Well, if Obama's going to insist that it only be the gang of eight...

Then it seems to me that he has to make the case that he's expecting the ABSOLUTE TRUTH being told to that gang of eight, and therefore one should assume that there would be legal consequences if they aren't being told the truth.

So maybe,... Just MAYBE! He might follow this with explaining why, criminal prosecutions of Cheney and others in the CIA for lying to congress will proceed, given these expectations! One can only hope that might be the good side effect if that is what his goal is.

On the other hand, if he does either veto this or cows the congress into not moving forward with this change AND the Justice Department doesn't prosecute Cheney and his gang, then that would seem to add to the complicity quotient here!

[Oilwellian]

10. I am not happy about this

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.

The non-partisan Congressional Research Service released a legal analysis on January 18, 2006, concluding that the Bush administration's refusal to brief any members of Congress on the warrantless domestic spying program other than the Gang of Eight is "inconsistent with the law".

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales repeatedly made references to the "Gang of Eight" when being questioned about the warrantless surveillance/ domestic spying while testifying at the Justice Department Oversight hearing held July 24, 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Eight

Why does Obama want to keep this piece of shit law in place? Where's the transparency he promised?

[MisterP]

11. to mods: if anybody here says "he has a big mess to clean up," can we get the poster

institutionalized?
(I mean, just hypothetically)

[Solly Mack]

13. K&R

[crickets]

14. K&R -nt

[inna]

15. rec#33, and kick! nt