WASHINGTON - Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts said Friday the Bush administration's domestic spying is within the president's inherent power under the Constitution, and he rejected criticism that Congress was kept in the dark about it.
The program is "legal, necessary and reasonable," the Kansas Republican wrote in a 19-page letter, taking a particularly expansive view of the president's authority for the warrantless surveillance.
"Congress, by statute, cannot extinguish a core constitutional authority of the president," Roberts wrote.
Presidents from George Washington to George W. Bush have intercepted communications to ascertain enemy threats to national security, Roberts told the chairman and ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Roberts' letter came just three days before that panel was to question Attorney General Alberto Gonzales about the surveillance.
All eight Judiciary Committee Democrats urged Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., to call more top Bush administration in for questioning, including former Attorney General
John Ashcroft and ex-Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey. Comey reportedly objected to parts of the program.U.S. Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., second from right, with fellow Sens. John Warner, R-Va., right, and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, left, talk to National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, second from left, before the start of a hearing, to examine global terrorism, on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Feb. 2, 2006, in Washington. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said Thursday that the al-Qaida terror network remains the 'top concern' of the U.S. intelligence community, followed closely by nuclear activities of Iran and North Korea. Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., third left, and CIA Director Porter Goss, third right, talk behind. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Okay, so Roberts says he was informed on the domestic spying program, and how he says it is all legal--of course, Roberts is also the head of the intelligence committee, and a Republican. And now he's trying to put pressure on Specter to drop any congressional investigation into the White House involvement on this domestic spying--at the same time that the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are calling for Specter to question senior White House officials--including Ashcroft, Gonzales, and Comey. In short, we have one Senate committee telling the other Senate committee how to do its job in oversight. What is even more ironic is that the Intelligence Committee is telling the Judiciary Committee what is constitutionally legal, and what isn't. Of course, we also have the Intelligence Committee parroting the same White House talking points. Does this make sense? Continuing on:
Roberts said the Bush administration's notification of just eight members of Congress fulfilled the legal requirement that the legislative branch be kept fully and currently informed.
Roberts has received a dozen briefings on the program; the committee's ranking Democrat, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, half that many.
Rockefeller says he has not received enough detailed information about the surveillance to make a judgment about its legality, and that the full committee should be briefed.
A closed-door hearing is scheduled for Feb. 9, with testimony from Gonzales and Gen. Michael Hayden, the principal deputy director of national intelligence and a former National Security Agency director.
Rockefeller did not receive enough detailed information regarding the spying program? He received half as many briefings as Roberts? Gee--what briefings did Rockefeller not receive that Roberts was privy to, and what information was contained in those briefings? Why was Rockefeller not informed of some of these briefings that Roberts was privy to? Even more, why was the full committee not completely briefed, as Roberts was supposedly--considering that Roberts is claiming that the domestic spying program is legal in his view.
Now for some fun White House spin on the matter. Continuing on:
With Congress preparing to plunge into a hearing focused exclusively on the warrantless wiretapping, Vice President Dick Cheney said exposing the effort has done "enormous damage to our national security." The New York Times revealed the program's existence in December.
"It, obviously, reveals techniques and sources and methods that are important to try to protect," Cheney said. "It gives information to our enemies about how we go about collecting intelligence against them. It also raises questions in the minds of other intelligence services about whether or not they can work with the United States intelligence service, with our CIA, for example, if we can't keep a secret."
Cheney said he agreed with CIA Director Porter Goss, who told a Senate hearing on Thursday that such leaks are undercutting U.S. intelligence efforts. "I thought Director Goss was rather restrained in his comments, but he was absolutely correct," said Cheney.
Cheney's remarks came in a radio interview with conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham.
So, Cheney--if I'm getting this right--by not informing Congressional Democrats on the domestic spying issue, we would have been able to keep the secret spying program in place, allowing us to catch the terrorists. But now that the domestic spying program has been revealed by the New York Times, and that congressional Democrats are demanding an investigation into this program, our national security has sustained enormous damage, where the terrorists know how we collect intelligence information, and that the rest of the world's intelligence services will not trust our intelligence services because we apparently can't keep a secret from our Congressional Democrats, or the American public? Is that what you're saying?
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