After promising to answer Pelosi's inquiry, which was first posed back in December, the administration stonewalled for the next several months and simply failed to furnish this most innocuous information. Now, it has decided that it will refuse to publicize this information, suddenly - and absurdly - insisting that even this information, simply revealing which Congressional representatives received these "repeated" briefings - is highly classified and cannot be disclosed. According to a letter written yesterday by Pelosi to National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley:
On December 22, 2005, I wrote to you requesting the dates and locations of, as well as the names of members of the Senate and House of Representatives who attended briefings on the National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program discussed by the President in his December 17, 2005 radio address. You responded on December 29 informing me that you had asked the Director of National Intelligence to provide me with the information I had requested.
The NSA Director has advised me that the information I sought has been sent to the House Intelligence Committee for secure storage because it was “classified and compartmented.” It is my understanding that the information provided is confined to a list of names of those who attended the briefings and the dates on which the briefings occurred. This is not national security information by any definition, and I therefore find the decision to classify it to be inconsistent with classification standards and completely without merit.
As Pelosi notes, the claim that the identity of those who were briefed is "classified" is particularly frivolous given that it is the administration itself who publicized the alleged existence of these briefings by continuously claiming that they provided such briefings "dozens" of times.
The administration, of course, has long been using its religious embrace of secrecy as a means of blocking any investigation into the NSA program -- refusing, for instance, to disclose to Congress even the most innocuous facts (.pdf) about the warrantless eavesdropping program, including how many Americans were subject to warrantless surveillance or which administration officials were briefed about the program and when. And now it is invoking claims of secrecy for the most patently non-classified information, such as which members of Congress received all of the briefings which they claim they gave and on what dates those briefings were given.
Over the last couple of days, The Chicago Tribune published two excellent articles on the administration's unprecedented abuses of its secrecy powers. As former Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Bob Graham said in the second article:
The theme of insularity and secrecy is pervasive . . . They are adopting a position that the American people cannot be trusted with information that is critical to their well-being.
That is the world-view of this administration in a nutshell. Americans need not know anything that their Government is doing, because their Government is Good and seeks only to protect them. And those who defend the administration's conduct believe the same - we need no oversight of the President, nor do we need to know what he is doing, because he is Good and only wants what is best for us.
That rationale works as long as most people trust the President. Now that most Americans decisively do not, the trust which justifies this wall of secrecy has vanished, and the administration's ability to conceal its conduct is diminishing as well. Although it's very late in arriving, and is clearly the by-product of the fact that the President is weak on all fronts, the media seems increasingly, and finally, willing to report on at least some of the abuses of power to which we have been subjected for the last five years.
A very long time ago, there was a concept known as The Informed Populace. According to this concept, as long as the people were completely and accurately informed, they could make informed and well-reasoned decisions about national policies.
ReplyDeleteThat's a dead issue now. Many people have no clue about what's going on outside their front doors, and some could care less, trusting in the government of "the other guy" to take care of business.
Although most Americans no longer trust the president, and the administration’s ability to conceal its conduct is diminishing, I don’t think that a media increasingly willing to report on these abuses will change the administration’s behavior at all. If anything, they will become more secretive. (We are seeing that in the purges at the CIA and State Department)
ReplyDeleteWe are certainly approaching some sort of constitutional crisis in this country. If the Democrats take back Congress, it will be a full blown crisis – with the administration refusing to comply with the flurry of subpoenas that undoubtedly will be forthcoming.
Quite simply, they have committed too many crimes and engaged in such massive fraud at all levels of government to possibly comply. Just how far they will go to continue to cover-up their crimes is a cause for great concern.
First up, congrats on the book Glenn! I haven't purchased my copy yet, but I plan to this weekend. Can't wait to read it. Second up, these "veils" of secrecy are consistent with the way BushCo has run the presidency since they began. What concerns me is that no main stream (or alternative) media outlet has sat down and done a comprehensive review of all of the wrongdoing. It's a lot to take in at once, but if there were a big fat series in a magazine or newspaper, I think the apathy might finally turn to anger (especially with all this talk about 3 years worth of energy crisis unless we roll back EPA clean air standards, drill in the arctic and off the CA coast and "drive less"). Does BushCo have Hoover-tapes on these Senators, or what?
ReplyDeleteThe administration's insistence on secrecy appears to be at comical variance with the known facts at times, but the comic dissonance points at what is really going on.
ReplyDeleteIf the government can erect a wall of secrecy that extends beyond what needs to be classified in the national interest, it builds a place for manufacturing facts. Government pronouncements that are not open to scrutiny are very tough to refute. Just look at the time, effort, and frustration spent at this and other sites to define, triangulate, and tease out inklings of information that should be right out in the open for all to see.
Secrecy is a bid to monopolize information and to shape it according to whim or will. Emerging from behind the wall of secrecy, a lie is initially indistinguishable from the truth.
Pelosi's questions are important to everyone who hopes to survive this administration.
Although it's very late in arriving, and is clearly the by-product of the fact that the President is weak on all fronts...
ReplyDeleteFrom pure optimism I've decided that the secrecy and the weakness are not coincidentally related. It would be very pessimistic indeed to think we "just got lucky" that the President, in addition to being opaque, is also weak.
From what I've seen in my profesional experience, strong, competent people are very overt about what they are doing and how they're doing it. That's even to people who are going to be damaged by it.
It's just not a coincidence that an administration so secretive also is so bad at its job.
". . . refusing, for instance, to disclose to Congress even the most innocuous facts (.pdf) about the warrantless eavesdropping program, including how many Americans were subject to warrantless surveillance . . ."
ReplyDeleteSadly, it probably isn't going to be quite so 'innocent' when we do find out how many people were subjects.
Other than point out the WH stonewalling - is there anything that can be done to compel production of the info?
ReplyDeleteWhile this is not a criminal proceeding (yet!) - US v. Nixon seems
to set up a pretty serious firewall on
"national security" confidentiality.
- is the only "check" on this withholding by the WH the political process?
Ben
The "Informed Populace" was the first thing that was targeted when the MSM became the "catapult" for the propaganda. Consolidated ownership now means that the echo-chamber is more efficient than ever and multi-media makes it more effective.
ReplyDeleteTo really see this, we need to take a "functional perspective" on U.S. history. Many forget that the American Revolution was actually fought against the monarch's corporations.
It started in subtle ways, starting with the "lie" that corporations have all the rights of individuals, yet no one is actually responsible.
Then, America's self-suffiency, thifty lifestules had to be changed vy promotion of consumerism via a "mass-market."
Once American's accepted the fact that they were no longer do many things for themselves (make/repair clothes, cook, help others by sharing skills and labor), the market became ready for tighter "segmentation".
Each of us is treaded like a specific group and products are marketed to that psychographic characteristis (all the talk about demographics is a distraction, its really about psychographics). Today's technology makes "narrowcasting" popular.
Fed a steady diet of fear and hate, the public becomes totally mallable. And if that isn't good enough, we have vote-flipping software for the "accountability moments."
Chimpy is not our problem, he is just the moron who plays the role assigned -- he is a figurehead and target to distract.
Professor Foland, you write It's just not a coincidence that an administration so secretive also is so bad at its job.
ReplyDeleteYes, you really are an optimist :)
The frightening story is how very good they have been at their job.
Or, I should say, their job.
And secrecy is probably the main reason that they have been so good at their job.
It is unfortunate that the "scope of work" of the job did not include representing the best interests of the American People or upholding the Constitution of the United States.
Those types of things could have been done openly.
Can they be asked if they were 'briefed', seeing as how their identities are public record?
ReplyDeleteThey can be asked, but if they answer, they go to jail.
It's the New American Way.
Glenn wrote:
ReplyDelete"That rationale works as long as most people trust the President. Now that most Americans decisively do not, the trust which justifies this wall of secrecy has vanished"
I would argue that even trust in the president by a vast majority of the population doesn't justify secrecy, although it may "work" in the sense such a president could use it to successfully justify secrecy to his loyal followers. Secrecy is only justified when national security is at stake, and as the whole NSA wiretapping issue illustrates, the executive branch alone should not be entrusted to make such determinations.
Obviously you never saw back to the future.
ReplyDeleteIf the terrorists ever get their hands on a time machine, they could then use that information to travel back in time and spy on those briefings to learn our techniques and change their behavior and their fortunes in the future, just like Bif and the sports almanac.
Seriously, in order to release this information, you have to assume that never at any point in the future will the terrorists ever gain the ability to travel back in time. And really, can you or Nancy Pelosi really guarantee that?
Glenn: Off-topic note. I suggest that you begin to create a databse with email addresses of all on this forum. Thereby you can send out a mass mailing when you're in our area on your book tour.
ReplyDeletePerhaps your publicist might be the best person to do this. Of course, I am suggesting that this be done in all confidentiality and anonymity.
Who knows, perhaps you can even start your own, by-subscription newsletter! :-) I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it's certainly worth considering... You'd have to sell it to the rest of us who might not have the cash to pay for the inside poop!
The short, not so sweet.
ReplyDeleteThe Potemkin perfomance art will continue in the executive branch so long as ordinary people accept that our elected officials, not to mention their agents, can say one thing and do exactly the opposite. What they consider necessary, others may call cynical and yet others criminal. When it becomes a battle for basic information between the we know best crowd and the huddled masses known as we the people, we have already lost. The surprise is how few people care.
heretik: The surprise is how few people care.
ReplyDeleteI am not so sure they don't care. It's more that they expect their elected leaders, as well as the press, to maintain sufficient oversight to stem abuses. That's the job many people think that they pay these people for. How else will they know, thereby having reason or information upon which to form an opinion expressing the fact that they care?
What we've seen, obviously, is the politicians and press failing in their job descriptions. For various reasons--expediency and cravenness in the case of the politicans, desire for career and fame in the case of the press--these two watchdogs have failed to perform up to their job descritpions.
the claim that they "repeatedly briefed" a few members of Congress about the program (as though illegal behavior somehow becomes proper as long as you share vague details ...)
ReplyDeleteThis isn't how one responsible branch of government deals in good faith with another. It's how a dumbassed teenager asks to use the family car, purportedly to go to the local hangout, but with the real intention of using the permission sought to excuse later totalling the car in street races.
A whole lot of these spiralling scandals and adventures could have been avoided -- or minimized later -- if Congress would realize the Executive Branch functions like a malevolent adolescent (even down to the detail of anticipating s/he can't be held responsible like an adult, so let's go for broke.)
Would classifying the list of Congresspeople who were (apparently) briefed come under the heading of 'classifying to hide a crime'?
ReplyDeleteJust sayin'.
Anonymous at 1:59 p.m.:
ReplyDeleteThat post has whitehouse.gov written all over it.
Pelosi, as is her usual wont, is off on a partisan witchhunt. It would be utterly idiotic for the Administration to play along with her. Anybody except a rabid Democrap will see through this tranparent ruse.
ReplyDeletePaul Rosenberg says:
ReplyDelete"From the American POV, it's utterly ludicrous that the list of people briefed about secret programs should itself be classified."
But of course. Every Monday we should have a list of all secret meetings posted with locations, agendas, list of participants, and minutes of the previous meeting.
Sarcasm aside this is one example of why we are a representative republic not a direct democracy. We elect people to take care of these things for us. Currently a majority of Republicans have been repeatedly elected over the Democrats. Possibly the disingenuous cries of "tell us secrets, we promise not to tell anyone else" doesn't ring true.
It's long, long past due. I, for one, am not going to stand for it any longer. Continue to put pressure on your congressmen. Even though I get trite responses from my "esteemed" senators, Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett, at least I know they are reading the letters I send them and they know I'm damn angry. I gave hell to my newspaper for patronizing us with their spun headlines and partial reporting, too. I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore. As Digby said, this is our country and we're taking it back.
ReplyDeleteWalt said -
ReplyDeleteA very long time ago, there was a concept known as The Informed Populace .... That's a dead issue now. Many people have no clue about what's going on outside their front doors, and some could care less, trusting in the government of "the other guy" to take care of business.
.
I think it is actually worse than that -- we now have people who are actively being misinformed by the media outlets, websites and blogs on the right.
People will spend all day on their computer getting misinformed.
"That rationale works as long as most people trust the President."
ReplyDeleteIrregardless of whether or not I/we trust the president, this does not work.
Apart from my parents, anyone or anything that has power over me/us absolutely has to have transparency to a very large degree. The fact that anything is secret (ala Cheney's secret energy conference in 2001) better damn well be proven to the nth degree.
The fact that this administration has almost absolute power over me makes it even more so.
I've Got a Secret
ReplyDeleteWe're still checking with the judges. But it seems that Elizabeth Dole, head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee has won the Simon Marshall Award for Unintentional Candor in Presentation of the Republican Message.
It all started earlier this evening when TPM Reader HH was on the receiving end of one of Dole's blast emails begging contributions for the Republican senate committee.
Says Dole, in her pitch: "If Democrats take control of the Senate in '06, they will cancel the Bush tax cuts, allow liberal activist judges to run our courts and undermine all Republican efforts to win the War on Terror. Even worse ..." Now, here you know it's got to be bad. Even I got a little worried and considered sending in some money since losing the War on Terror for America would already be a pretty bad thing for the Democrats to do. But ... well, let's rejoin Dole in mid-moonbat. "Even worse, they will call for endless congressional investigations and possibly call for the impeachment of President Bush!"
And there you have it. Democrats won't stop at surrendering to the terrorists. They'll go as far as investigating President Bush!
That is the election, at least from the vantage point of the White House and the party they control. The president can't afford to lose either house of Congress. Because they've just got too many bad acts and secrets to conceal.
It's even more important than the War on Terror.
-- Josh Marshall
When was it ever officially determined that it was illegal to listen in to calls with suspected terrorists outside the US?
ReplyDeleteAlso wasn't only one party of any communication actually in the US, while the other party was outside our country?
So what's it going to be for the October surprise? The Golden Gate Bridge, the BART tube in San Francisco, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, or an attack on the NY subway system. Dems don't care. They're part of it. Oh, I know, the Senate chambers get bombed. Anyone remember the Reichstag fire? Hope I'm wrong.
ReplyDelete