Jihadis and Wiretaps and Moonbats! Oh, My! -- Part 16
(Updated & bumped)
(Click here for some earlier related posts.)
Key Democrat Says Spying Violated Law
Scott Shane, al-NYT
WASHINGTON, Jan. 4 - The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said on Wednesday that the limited Congressional briefings the Bush administration has provided on a National Security Agency eavesdropping program violated the law.
In a letter to President Bush, the representative, Jane Harman of California, said the briefings did not comply with the National Security Act of 1947. That law requires the House and Senate Intelligence Committees to be "kept fully and currently informed" about the spy agencies' activities.
The briefings on the program under which Americans and other people in the United States are selected for eavesdropping without court warrants were limited to the so-called Gang of Eight. That consists of the Republican and Democratic leaders of each house and of the Intelligence Committees. Because of turnover in those positions, 14 members of Congress attended one or more briefings.
Ms. Harman wrote in her letter that the law allowed briefings to be limited to the eight leaders only in cases of covert action. The National Security Agency program does not qualify as a covert action, which the law says does not include activities whose "primary purpose is to acquire intelligence," she wrote.
[Read on here.]
OK, first of all if you read the article you see that Rep. Harman didn't say the spying broke the law, she said she thinks more congresscritters should have been briefed on it because it wasn't "covert."
Merriam-Webster defines covert as "not openly shown, engaged in, or avowed : VEILED <a covert alliance> .. synonym see SECRET" Now how the hell could anyone -- other than a Democrat -- claim the NSA's electronic surveillance activities weren't "covert?"
***
While you're at it, check out this post at Power Line.
*** PM update:
Harman faults White House on NSA briefings
Katherine Schrader, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee told President Bush Wednesday that the White House broke the law by withholding information from the full congressional oversight committees about a new domestic surveillance program.
In a letter to Bush, Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said the National Security Act requires the heads of the various intelligence agencies to keep the entire House and Senate intelligence committees "fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States."
[...]
Responding in writing to Harman, House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., said Harman had never previously raised concerns about the number of people briefed on the program.
"In the past, you have been fully supportive of this program and the practice by which we have overseen it," he wrote. "I find your position now completely incongruent."
[Read the whole thing here.]
She must have been spending to much time with Sen. Kerry. She was for it before she was against it.
*** 2006.01.06 Update:
Michelle Malkin has comments and links here.
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