{Thanks for asking on the Field Trip EW}

I really do think that, although it is almost too late now, the Dem pushback needs to be that the briefing schedule itself is the CIA’s admission that it violated the National Security Act.

Graham points out there were people in the one briefing he received who would not have had clearance for briefings on EIT. Who were they? And where are they now?

Amazing. I agree Rayne, your “who and where” questions need to be asked.

The role of the two intelligence committees in “oversight” is another issue entirely. They are not only the congressional piece of crisis management (in their notification of a finding role), but they have broad oversight responsibilities for the functioning of the whole intelligence community, particularly in their role in determining the overall budget for all the agencies that are part of the community.

The problem of what critical information is shared with the committees is a long and sordid tale. Prior to the reforms in the wake of the Church Committee, very little information was shared. Essentially DOD briefed the Armed Services Committees (and the budget was largely buried in their appropriations), but State briefed the Foreign Affairs Committees, and Commerce briefed the Economic Committees. The Judiciary Committees assumed very limited interest in intelligence — pre Church it was just assumed that CIA and other such agencies “did what they had to do abroad” and their writ did not run in the US. We need to keep in mind the way these agencies define their mission — they are designated to steal secrets that are not readily available to US policy makers, and preferably steal them in such a way that the other sides don’t know they have been stolen. It was only post Church that legal boundaries were set on covert efforts at information stealing, or other aspects of covert programs such as assassination and dirty tricks. And, for the most part, it was post Church that the line between what was allowable overseas in missions was imported into the US — for instance in Casey’s off the shelf and off the books covert programs vis a vis Iran-Contra, as executed by Ollie North was imported into domestic governmental practice. In otherwords, where Church intended to draw bright lines — in fact it backfired, and the intent of Church was corrupted. Perhaps the worst corruption is the matter of informing congress in specific instances — which got interpreted in practice as to how to mis-inform congress, how to disempower Congress by providing them with misinformation, useless information, or how to slightly inform them, and then muzzle them.

Pelosi is probably right — Congress needs to go back to the 1947 National Security Act and look at the legal basis by which these corruptions have been sustained and nurtured, and amend that Act so there is clarity about Congress’s role in both the crisis management and oversight aspects of the Intelligence Function. Statute Law is nearly always better than Executive Orders — and it is the proper response to the liberty Bush and Cheney took with the powers of the Executive. But at the same time Congress has a long way to go demonstrating that it knows how to use decent intelligence to inform policy, and not to see it fundamentally as a hammer with which to wack the Executive or the opposition party. Just imagine Michelle Bachmann on the House Intelligence Committee — a position she has apparently been “promised” (by whom it is not clear) should she win one more election.

Graham points out there were people in the one briefing he received who would not have had clearance for briefings on EIT. Who were they? And where are they now?