By Cliff Montgomery – July 15th, 2009
Congress in 2008 instructed intelligence agency Inspectors General to draft an unclassified study on the BushAdministration’s domestic spying program. That report was released on July 10th. It traces the beginnings andthe use of the spy program, and reviews the system’s inherent legal issues.
Also, a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) study entitled, Sensitive Covert Action Notifications:Oversight Options for Congress, raises questions on how the Bush Administration and Congressionalintelligence leaders handled information regarding Bush’s so-called “Terrorist Surveillance Program.”
The Bush White House initially limited its Congressional notification of the domestic spying program to the”Gang of Four”–an informal group made up of the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate and HouseIntelligence Committees.
The Gang of Four, which has no basis in statute, often is notified when an administration creates sensitivedata collection programs.
But Department of National Intelligence (DNI) head Dennis Blair told the Senate Intelligence Committee in hispre-confirmation responses to Congressional questions that the domestic spy program in fact was not a covertaction–and thus knowledge of its existence never should have been limited to such a tiny fraction oflawmakers.
CIA Director Leon Panetta in his pre-confirmation responses agreed that Bush’s spying program was not acovert action.
A CRS study released only yesterday, entitled, ‘Gang of Four’ Congressional Intelligence Notifications, relatesthat such information may freely be told to other lawmakers on the intelligence panels:
“There arguably is no provision in statute that restricts whether and how the Chairman and Ranking Membersof the intelligence committees share with committee members information pertaining to intelligence activitiesthat the Executive Branch has provided only to the committee leadership,” stated the report.
“Nor apparently is there any statutory provision which sets forth any procedures that would govern the accessof appropriately cleared committee staff to such classified information,” added the CRS study.
And in fact, “there have been instances when intelligence committee leadership has decided to inform the fullmembership of the intelligence committees of certain Gang of Four notifications.”
