Russell Tice was on
Caterine Crier Live. This is a very good thing. Tonight while you were all watching Keith, I watched Catherine Crier Live where she talked to NSA whistleblower Russell Tice and author James Banford about the
NSA domestic spying scandal. Having James Bamford there to explain things was a perfect way to do this, as then Russell Tice couldn't be claimed to be spilling the beans. Russ Tice looked great and was well spoken, a little like Scott Ritter imho.
Russell Tice told of his history
(see this diary), of how he was demoted and abused after he had questioned the wisdom(?) of having a person born in China with the level of top secret clearances that were afforded her in this most secret of our Intelligence agencies. This is the first I've of seen him on TV and out in public. This is huge to me because of the "dozen or so" people who have been talking to the NYT, and the problem of govt. whistleblowers with top secret clearances, and my outrage from the treatment of Amb. and Mrs. Wilson. Read on...
This may be an important step in bringing this out to the public attention, although the audience for Catherine Crier isn't as large as Keith etc. Still, she did a super job of stating the issues here and did a grand smackdown on GoP'r shill Victoria Toensing last night, my mostly pith
comment today here. Catherine Crier earns my gratitude for bringing them on her show and for doing a great job of debunking this issue. Make it a stop in your TV habits.
The level of secret clearances that the person Russ Tice has complained about, are apparently not available to elected civilians in Congress or the Senate, nor their staff people. This may be to some degree wise, but it leaves a large problem for proper oversight. Something needs to be done so there is
proper oversight.
Russ Tice has been offering to testify to Congress about the spying agency.He's saying the testimony needs to be conducted with the appropriate precautions.
NSA domestic spying scandal.
That's what I'm calling it, because that's the essence of the problem: warrantless domestic surveillance by electronic means of anybody the NSA and whoever literally calls the shots for them. There has been no satisfactory explanation or assurance that this is not happening, and the truth is taking the form of a
rolling disclosure. This is my opinion based on the tendencies of this adminintration as so clearly demonstrated by their disclosure of Valerie Plame's identity and their subsequent reluctance to come clean.
Another tendency was so clearly demonstrated by their refusal to comply with the senate demand for the
NSA intercepts seen by and requested by
John Bolton. What that would have revealed was the end run around not only the very compliant FISA court warrant procedures, but the inner NSA rules and oversight. The `end run' was apparantly the use of a loophole allowing domestic spying for "training purposes". I think that also the contents of these `training' surveillances were supposed to be discarded after some brief time. This an obvious backdoor built in to the regulations and is just one of many things needing to be overseen by proper elected civilians.
"Trust me" just isn't good enough.
See Armando's thorough FP diary today for more from the
James Risen book. Further rolling disclosures to follow I'm bettin'.
So now my pet issue, in conclusion:
It has not been made clear that there is any satisfactory elected civilian oversight other than (probably) VP Cheney and his staff, who are saying "trust us". I'm saying that proper elected civilian oversight does
not include anyone on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Some of these Senators were `informed' but because of the secrecy couldn't do anything about it. Sen Rockafeller wrote a note by hand to the VP in protest . That the others on this committee weren't informed, what the WH is claiming this to be "advice and consent", also says to me that he (Sen Rockefeller) had neither the technical expertise nor the clearances- this meaning among any of these Senators or their staff people. This needs to be fixed and with the current attention paid to this issue, by just such people as Catherine Crier , and by you, there is the possibility this can be done. This all stems from the absolutely heroic efforts of whistleblowers like Russell Tice and the dozen around the NYT story .
Considering the Patriot Act is before us as well as Judge Alito's confirmation hearings, and that Sen Spector is in the middle of both issues, I'm hopeful.