The applicable law is the National Security Act. The Directive is enacted to pay lip service to tracking the requirements in that Act.

Sec 501 of the Act provides, “(a)(1) The President shall ensure that the congressional intelligence committees are kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States, including any significant anticipated intelligence activity as required by this title” and “(b) The President shall ensure that any illegal intelligence activity is reported promptly to the congressional intelligence committees, as well as any corrective action that has been taken or is planned in connection with such illegal activity.”

As an aside, this would have required that things like the killings of Jamadi and the nameless “young” detainee frozen to death in Nov 2002 and the kidnapping of el-Masri, etc. would have been required to be briefed to the full committees, even under the OLC opinions and their twisted language on illegality in various settings. It would also have required that, upon Diggs-Taylor’s determination of the illegality of the US Eavesdroppoing portion of “the prorgram” that there would have been full briefings.

It also is an area of huge problems that Congress needs to address, bc if the President only has to advise of illegality as determined by the President, or the President’s tame AG or corrupt OLC, then that’s not worth much.

Then 501 goes on to provide,

e) Nothing in this Act shall be construed as authority to withhold information from the congressional intelligence committees on the grounds that providing the information to the congressional intelligence committees would constitute the unauthorized disclosure of classified information or information relating to intelligence sources and methods.

(f) As used in this section, the term “intelligence activities” includes covert actions as defined in section 503(e), and includes financial intelligence activities.”

Moving on to the covert activities at issue, section 503 lays out the requirements for covert actions (as 502 does for actions not within the statutory definition of “covert” (which IIRC was something that Harman brought up in connection with the program and with pushing for full briefings to the full committees)

Working through 503 gets you to pretty much the same place that you got when you worked through the directive EW. The President isn’t allowed to authorize a covert action unless “the President determines such an action is necessary to support identifiable foreign policy objectives of the United States and is important to the national security of the United States, which determination shall be set forth in a finding that shall meet each of the following conditions … “

So there has to be that finding, somewhere. 503 requires that findings be in writing, unless there was an emergency requiring action before they could be reduced to writing, but in that case they still have to be promptly reducted to writing. Other than when there was an emergency verbal finding that was then promptly reduced to writing, no finding can authorize prior acts.

Contractors who are directed to participate in covert activities are required to be subject to the rules and regulations of either the CIA or the other applicable agency directing the covert action (so, for example, if telecoms were acting as contractors for NSA this would require that they be boun by NSA rules and regs – nice to see the contract where that happened, eh- as well as psydist’s on contract to CIA being subject to CIA rules)

Findings may not authorize any actions that would violate the Constitution or statutes (how they expect to enforce that is pretty up in the air when the President is allowed to say that it isn’t violation of the Constitution or statute as long as, for examples, crimes of assault and torture murder were ‘good faith’ crimes of assault and torture murder.

Under 503(b)1 the DCI is tasked with keeping the committee informed, including about “significant failures” (al-Libi comes to mind, el-Masri being the “wrong guy” etc.) The DCI (which is a term that needs updating) is only required to turn over info requested by the committees, and that needs fixing – to require turnover to smaller groups briefed as well.

While the President is supposed to get info to the full committees before covert actions are started 503(c)1, he gets an out for “extraordinary circumstances affecting vital interests of the United States” and in those situations the statute states that the “finding may be reported to the chairmen and ranking minority members of the congressional intelligence committees, the Speaker and minority leader of the House of Representatives, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, and such other member or members of the congressional leadership as may be included by the President” You can make the “may” v. shall argument there, but you still end up at the same place that you do in the post and at comment 3 –

the statute still requires that the President provide a

statement of the reasons for not giving prior notice

when the info is provided to the committees.

If the intel committee chair and ranking member are briefed (whether to the exclusion of others or as a part of a committee briefing) “a copy of the finding, signed by the President, shall be provided to the chairman of each congressional intelligence committee. “

To my knowledge, no one has been asking Rockefeller, Harman, Pelosi, etc. whether or not they were given Presidential findings on torture programs whey they were briefed as required by statute.

Not only that, but when the intel committees are getting the briefing to the exclusion of others on the committee, they are supposed to get not only the Presidential finding, but also the President’s statement of WHY they are the only ones getting the briefing.

When access to a finding is limited to the Members of Congress specified in paragraph (2), a statement of the reasons for limiting such access shall also be provided

503(c)4.

So while the statute gets you to many of the same places as the directive, it is the statute that is the legal requirement on the Executive, not the NSDD which is a requirement within the Exec.

So based on the statute, there was probably never any covert exemption allowance for the President to refuse to brief the full intel committees on interception of US citizen in the US communications, as that is not a covert activity. OTOH, impeachment was off the table for this significant violation of th NSA.

Based on the statute, when Pelosi, Rockefeller, Goss et al did get their briefings as chairs and ranking members of the intel committees, they should have been provided with a Presidential finding if covert action was going to be or was already taking place to “interrogate” the “detainees” in “black sites” They should also have been given the Presidential statement of the “extraordinary circumstances affecting vital interests of the United States” which was his grounds for failing to brief the full committees on the torture programs that were being used not only against KSM, but to collect “mosaic” background information from people including wholly innocent GITMO detainees.

So far, I haven’t seen any of these guys talking about the briefings mentioning whether they did or did not recieve the findings and statements with those briefings. I’d say those might go a long way to answering the issue of whether it should or should not have been assumed that a) the torture programs were going to take place or already in possession, and b) whether these Intel chairs and ranking members were bothering to even request from the briefers the statutorily required documentation.

all fwiw

I like the earlofhuntington’s ideas @63, but I agree that some of this may go nowhere, considering the conservative mentality in that part of the state. All avenues are worth a try. And never neglect what you may be able to accomplish simply by writing about this on various blogs and pestering legislators or administrators and so on.

In order to make a complaint to the Licensing Board, a complaint that would stick, you would need specific information about whether and to what degree he acted in ways that were unethical (if Ohio includes ethics as part of its licensing requirements) during his time at Guantanamo and Abu Graib. You need specifics. (Plus, was he licensed in Ohio at the time?) Sounds to me you’ve got “some specifics” or enough to go on to make a complaint. Licensing Boards, however, will sometimes take a complaint only from a citizen who suffered consequences due to malpractice or something along those lines.

Three other things suggest themselves. You could, as a citizen who pays taxes to a state institution, question your taxes going for someone who may have participated in or directed (or authorized) torture of detainees in American custody. So you could question the institution employing such a person. And you could contact your state representative about this as well. Additionally, you could contact the local press to find out if they are interested in an article on this OR what about local political bloggers who might want to take up this cause and investigate it or just push it on their blogs?

Seems to me you have a number of options here. Get specifics if you can. Or get others invested in finding out more and asking questions. Especially since he works at a public institution, you have more options in trying to bring this to the attention of people.

Since you’re a “concerned citizen” – who’s been “very troubled by what you’re finding out about the role of psychologists in the torture of detainees in American custody.”

See if you can find out if he’s tenured. If they simply hired him as an administrator, without giving tenure, there may be serious doubts you could raise, which might lead the institution to want to distance itself from burgeoning allegations and so on.

The court of public opinion can be very powerful. And might get the ball rolling.

Good luck here.

the republicans take a small respite of releaf whenever there is a game

Unless Bush is exposed, prosecuted and punished for his Crimes, All of US should be wary that Tyranny-Through-Secrecy might come back to Haunt US again in the future.

might?

I saw the word “might” in there, let me edit;

Unless Bush is exposed, prosecuted and punished for his Crimes, All of US should be wary that Tyranny-Through-Secrecy might WILL come back to Haunt US again in the future.

there