Expanding Congressional Notification List

[Pangloss]

This is the sort of thing that, had it happened during the Bush administration, would have been pounced on as an example of our civil rights being trod upon.

 

Note the last paragraph of this article:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/11/cheney.surveillance/

 

The White House opposes a measure that would increase the number of briefing participants from the current eight to 40 members of Congress. A White House memo warned President Obama's senior advisers would recommend a veto of the bill if it contained the expanded briefing provision.

 

I think Obama is right, and Congress needs to take its single-digit approval rating and buzz off. What do you all think?

[bascule]

I'm really confused:

 

This is the sort of thing that, had it happened during the Bush administration, would have been pounced on as an example of our civil rights being trod upon.

 

Why? I'm really not sure what you're getting at here. Whose civil liberties are being violated and how?

 

Also, this would seem to be the larger issue at play:

 

CIA Director Leon Panetta testified to a congressional committee that he was told former Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the intelligence agency to withhold information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Sunday.

[Pangloss]

Yes, it may be a larger issue, but it's not the one I wanted to talk about in this thread. You can start a thread to discuss Dick Cheney and his link to counterterrorism if you want. This one is about congressional notification of secret intelligence. Thanks.

 

In answer to your question, the accusation might have been something like "he wants to ensure that the number of congressional members kept in the loop remains small so that he can control them politically and reduce their influence on a vote that he doesn't like". The same accusation could be leveled against the Obama administration, but it won't be because he's an angelic liberal Democrat (played by Tom Hanks) instead of a sinister conservative Republican (played by Anthony Hopkins).

 

Isn't politics fun?

[bascule]

In answer to your question, the accusation might have been something like "he wants to ensure that the number of congressional members kept in the loop remains small so that he can control them politically and reduce their influence on a vote that he doesn't like". The same accusation could be leveled against the Obama administration

 

Your argument seems to be littered with hypotheticals.

 

For what it's worth this issue doesn't bug me. Certainly not the way things like preventative detention and domestic spying do.

 

I still think overall Obama is doing a good job but he is certainly not without his foibles.

 

but it won't be because he's an angelic liberal Democrat (played by Tom Hanks) instead of a sinister conservative Republican (played by Anthony Hopkins).

 

Isn't politics fun?

 

Obama is not immune to moonbat rage

[Pangloss]

Hypotheticals that seem to be borne out pretty often, with Bush-bashing that follows questionable logic quite common even around this forum.

 

Do you feel that the congressional notification list should be expanded, or left where it is?

[bascule]

Do you feel that the congressional notification list should be expanded, or left where it is?

 

I think it'd be fine with it is if the people being notified (e.g. Pelosi) were more competent.

[iNow]

Hypotheticals that seem to be borne out pretty often, with Bush-bashing that follows questionable logic quite common even around this forum.

Wow... So now a discussion about how scientists perceive that the Bush administration impacted/stifled their work is "Bush bashing" based on "questionable logic?" Please tell me you're not being serious.

 

 

 

 

 

Do you feel that the congressional notification list should be expanded, or left where it is?

I think it'd be fine with it is if the people being notified (e.g. Pelosi) were more competent.

... and less likely to leak it. I'm sure that's part of the issue. Their incompetence extends to their ability to prevent high level information from reaching media and internet outlets.

[The Bear's Key]

I think Obama is right, and Congress needs to take its single-digit approval rating and buzz off.

I disagree totally. Even though Pelosi and Reid should buzz off, the White House needs to be more transparent.

 

Really, even if Obama were a "saint" (definitely not), anything he proposes should hinge on the following question: would I be comfortable letting a Rove/Cheney/Bush gang do the same? For a lot of their power-grabs and secrecy for the White House has remained virtually untouched by Democrats, it would seem. Thus a future (Rove-prepped?) leader will find it easy to continue where they left off -- deep in unconstitutional territory, and neocons have the ball.

 

Care for another eight years of that shit?

 

If anyone can offer to show us where the checks and balances are to prevent government secrecy from morphing into political tyranny, I'm all ears.

[bascule]

... and less likely to leak it. I'm sure that's part of the issue. Their incompetence extends to their ability to prevent high level information from reaching media and internet outlets.

 

My main beef with Pelosi is she had knowledge of waterboarding but failed to recognize what it represented at the time.

 

Of course this in no way excuses the Bush administration for being the perpetrators of torture, for which I wish they were still held accountable but so far Congress has been likewise incompetent to prosecute.

 

I'll be happy when Bush and Cheney are jailed.

[Sisyphus]

My first instinct is that the number should be increased, possibly to every member of Congress. If I was a representative and was Constitutionally obligated to provide oversight on and vote on legislation while being kept in the dark about relevant details, I'd be very annoyed. As a representative I'm supposed to be providing oversight on behalf of my constituency, not the party leadership that just tells me to trust them. If security is that big of a problem that members of Congress can't be trusted, then maybe we should hold politicians actually responsible for leaks.

[Pangloss]

Perhaps, but it's important to recognize that that will not be 535 people. It's more on the order of ten or fifteen thousand, including staff. And whomever they decide to inform amongst their masters over on K Street. That won't be a smaller number, either -- it'll be a larger one.

 

Tracking leaks in that environment will be next to impossible.

[john5746]

 

Tracking leaks in that environment will be next to impossible.

 

Yeah, all those call girls/boys won't keep their mouths shut either.

[Sisyphus]

Perhaps, but it's important to recognize that that will not be 535 people. It's more on the order of ten or fifteen thousand, including staff. And whomever they decide to inform amongst their masters over on K Street. That won't be a smaller number, either -- it'll be a larger one.

 

Tracking leaks in that environment will be next to impossible.

 

Yeah, that's probably true. But need it be? Does Nancy Pelosi's staff get all that information, and if so are they actually entitled to it? How effective would more draconian accountability be? If, say, we establish precedent for prosecuting leaky Congressmen for espionage...

 

Yeah, actually, that might create more problems than it solves.

[Pangloss]

I would love to see a congresscritter taken to jail for leaking secret information. I don't think that's ever happened, and for sure the history there is not good. Probably the most infamous example of this issue arising in recent decades was when Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who was on the Senate Intelligence Committee, showed a classified document to a reporter during the media frenzy of Iran-Contra, which lead to his departure from that committee (his only penalty for breaking the law). Numerous reports have surfaced over the years suggesting that he actually leaked a number of documents and that his leaks may have endangered intelligence operatives, but nothing ever stuck and the whole subject has been muddied by ideological politics (he has the nickname "Leaky Leahy", which I've read came from Rush Limbaugh).

 

Of course it works both ways -- you also don't want the administration outing people who take positions that oppose them in order to thwart congress's will (e.g. Valerie Plame).

 

Such is the nature of politics in democracy. Wee.