Like the little Dutch boy with his thumb in the dike, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Holland, MI) chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence makes a his feeble attempt to plug the talking points of the Bush Administration in an Op-Ed in the LA Times.
Hoekstra's behavior will not save Dick Cheney's dike of deception, nor does it defend the principals of our American Republic. Hoekstra now finds himself up to his neck in a flood of troubling revelations such as the Porter Goss created chaos that reigns in the Intelligence Community and levels of the abuse of executive power that runs deep within the Bush Administration.
He also calls on those with concerns on the legality or nature of such programs to approach his and other committees in Congress. The fact is at least one NSA whistleblower personally went to Hoekstra's office and Pete had his staff turn him away.
Our response to Peter Hoekstra's May 13 Op-Ed in the LA Times and details about his inaction to stop the undermining of our civil liberties and his enabling of the abuse of Presidential power below the fold...
Ignore the Real Issues, Bash the Whistleblowers
Peter Hoekstra claims the NSA domestic program(s) constitutional and that the real harm is created by those who "leaked" the existence of the programs. In his Op-Ed in LA Times he covers the talking points defending the Bush Administration's misuse of NSA assets in the collection of phone records of domestic calls of millions of US citizens.
Hoekstra claims the programs are saving lives, totally constitutional, too secret to talk about... blah, blah, blah.
But then Hoekstra hangs himself
Near the end of the Op-Ed Hoekstra writes:
I regret that I see little sign of intolerance for unauthorized disclosures of intelligence to the media from some of my Democratic colleagues today. If an individual with knowledge of the Terrorist Surveillance Program thought it was wrong or illegal, he or she could have gone to the intelligence oversight committees under the procedures established by law. By going to the media, the leaker broke the law and the oath he or she swore to protect the nation's legitimate secrets.
Then the night before his Op-Ed appeared in the LA Times, Hoekstra was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer May 12, 2006, on the NSA scandal:
BLITZER: Let's get some more now on these latest allegations of domestic spying. For that, I'm joined by the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Peter Hoekstra, of Michigan.
Mr. Chairman, welcome to THE SITUATION ROOM.
REP. PETER HOEKSTRA (R-MI), CHAIRMAN, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Hey, thank you. Good to be here
BLITZER: I take it you have been fully briefed on this program as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
HOEKSTRA: I have been fully briefed over the last 18 months as long as I have been in this role. That's absolutely right.
BLITZER: And the ranking Democrat, Jane Harman, you say has been fully briefed as well?
HOEKSTRA: That is correct
BLITZER: Do you have any problem at all with what is going on?
HOEKSTRA: No. I think we need to recognize we are in the first war in the information age. We need to be creative. We need to use our domination of information to our advantage. We're doing it. We're doing it legally.
BLITZER: When people came over to brief you and others, the so- called "Gang of Eight," as they're called, the leaders of the intelligence committees, the leaders of the Senate and House, clearly behind closed doors, did anyone raise objections, Republicans or Democrats?
HOEKSTRA: Well, I think, you know, this has been going on, one version or another, for four and a half years.
BLITZER: Since 9/11?
HOEKSTRA: Yes, since 9/11. If there were concerns, there were lots of opportunities and really the responsibility of the leadership to say, we disagree with this program, we are going to stop it or you're going to change it. It's our responsibility if we see something that's illegal to stop it. And obviously the program has been going on for four and a half years in one fashion or another.
It sends a clear signal that people walked out of those meetings believe the program was legal, essential, and it was making a difference.
BLITZER: So the ranking Democrats, whether Jane Harman or Jay Rockefeller on the Senate side, or Nancy Pelosi, or Harry Reid, based on everything you know over these years, did not complain?
HOEKSTRA: If they -- that's my understanding. If they had a problem with the program, it was their responsibility. And as far as I can tell, they never expressed a concern. And they never -- none of them ever called me and said, "Hey, Pete, we've got a concern. We've got to stop this."
[emphasis added]
Wait a minute, that's double-speak Pete talking. If someone has a concern? Like maybe the guys actually working on the NSA program who think it is illegal?
"Could go"? More like did go, to YOU Mr. Hoekstra
In at least one case, that of Russell Tice, now former NSA analyst Hoekstra was informed of the "probable illegal" activities established and conducted under Michael Hayden's leadership at the NSA.
Tice, who sent his first letter to Hoekstra in December of 2005, personally delivered his most recent letter to Hoekstra's office on April 25, 2006 in which he again attempted to do just what Hoekstra now suggests in the LA Times. What was his response from Hoekstra? I don't have the clearances, sorry I can't help you.
UNCLASSIFIED
The Honorable Peter Hoekstra
United States House of Representatives
Chairman, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
2234 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
25 April 2006
Dear Chairman Hoekstra,
Over four months ago, on 16 December 2005, I wrote to you requesting to report to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) probable illegal conduct in the Intelligence Community (IC) regarding Special Access Programs (SAP)s. I made this request under the provisions of the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA). My concern was that probable unlawful and unconstitutional acts were conducted while I was an intelligence officer with the National Security Agency (NSA) and with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). I informed you that these acts involve the Director of the National Security Agency, the U.S. Air Force Deputies Chief of Staff for Air and Space Operations, and the U.S. Secretary of Defense.
When I finally met with your staff on 17 MAR '06, last month, they believed that I fall into a "gray area" between intelligence and military special programs. They acknowledged, as NSA asserted in January 2006 (letter provided) that neither you, or any member of your committee, nor they on the HPSCI staff were cleared at a high enough security classification level to review the SAP programs and operations in question. Nonetheless, they did believe the intelligence committees should be cleared because intelligence personnel were so intimately involved. Your staff believed that someone in the House Armed Services Committee might be able to talk to me but were not sure whom. Your staff also told me that they were going to look into the matter in more depth and get back to me. They additionally mentioned that they were going to work with NSA and the Department of Defense to have some members and staff of the HPSCI cleared into the SAPs that I was involved in. Since that time I have not heard from your staff.
I have recently been researching the question of jurisdiction. In doing so, I have stumbled upon a directive that seems to address the question of who in congress is cleared to know about these SAP programs. U.S. Code, Title 10, Subtitle A, Part 1, Chapter 2, Subsection 119 (Special Access Program: Congressional Oversight), dated 12 July 2005 (provided) states that the Senate and House Appropriations, Appropriations Defense Sub, and Armed Services Committees are responsible for reviewing "waved" SAP programs. No mention is specifically made in regard to the considerable intelligence missions associated with these SAPs.
With this Title 10 directive clearly addressing congressional oversight of SAPs, I have decided to make intelligence related inquires and requests that involve the SAP related ICWPA concern I need to report, to the aforementioned alternate committees. The very same request I made of you and the HPSCI over four months ago, I am now making to these alternate committees. They will be receiving letters from me in conjunction with this letter to you.
I still look forward to learning what you and your staff have determined as a result of the inquires spawned by our meeting last month. If you and any members or staff are granted permission from NSA to be read into the SAP programs that I was involved with, I am still willing to brief the HPSCI on my concerns of the intelligence missions surrounding these programs and operation.
Very Respectfully,
Russell D. Tice
Former Intelligence Officer,
National Security Agency
cc: The Honorable Dutch Ruppersberger
UNCLASSIFIED
[emphasis added]
Ask yourself, if the Chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence is not cleared for such programs, just how is oversight of such programs to be conducted?
Hoekstra again:
Second, the program fully complies with the law and the Constitution. It has been reviewed by executive branch attorneys, and congressional leaders from both parties -- including my friend and colleague Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) -- have been regularly briefed. Democratic leaders in the House and Senate have been aware of this program for several years yet never expressed any concerns until it was illegally leaked.
[emphasis added]
Says who? You? Are you saying that it is up to the individual members without Department of Justice or legal advice to decide what is "constitutional"? The Executive decides that on its own? Where's your copy of the US Constitution Pete? It's UNCLASSIFIED, maybe you aren't afraid to read that document.
Sleepy Pete's form of "See No Evil"
Sunday morning May 14, 2006 on Face the Nation , Sen Arlen Specter (R-PA) evaluates Hoekstra's committee's oversight performance:
Senator ARLEN SPECTER (Republican, Pennsylvania; Chairman, Judiciary Committee):
When Mr. Hadley says that the intelligence committees have been informed, that's only partially so. When the program was put into effect, the so-called "gang of eight" was informed. That's the leadership of both the House and Senate, and the chairmen in ranking on the intelligence committees.
Now, Bob, the statute requires that the committees, all of them be informed and they still haven't been informed. After we put pressure on with our hearings and legislation which we proposed, the administration started to brief a subcommittee of intelligence and part of the House committee, 11 members, but they still haven't complied with the act to inform the full intelligence committees as required by law. And there really has to be in our system of law, of government, checks and balance, separation of powers and congressional oversight. And, Bob, there has been no meaningful congressional oversight on these programs.
No-oversight covert operations and intelligence activities is now clearly the norm under the direction of Dick Cheney and his "shadow National Security Council (NSC)". That is why a powder-puff like Pete Hoekstra was selected as the chair of the House intelligence committee. He has no experience, no idea and no desire to know what is happening right under his nose. Pete is clearly in over his head, even as he stands with his thumb in the dike whining about leakers.
One wonders why Cheney and his crazies even bother to continue the shifting of assets to the DIA and other organizations, which have no Congressional oversight requirements of "black reconnaissance" and "battlefield preparation" activities, that some claim are going on in Iran. These covert tasks have traditional fallen to the CIA which is required to have oversight sight by see-no-evil committees like Hoekstra's.
Sticking it to those that speak out
In fact within the next budget for intelligence funding being prepared by Hoekstra, he has slipped in two provisions that will take away the pensions of those within our institutions that blow the whistle on illegal activities or go public after being ignored by public officials responsible for oversight like him.
There you go again Mr. Congressman
Hoekstra writes:
We are a nation at war. Unauthorized disclosures of classified information only help terrorists and our enemies -- and put American lives at risk.
We are NOT at war. Those of us old enough to remember know what "war time" is like, and the current struggle against a few extremists is not a war and our society is certainly not in a "state of war". The action in Iraq is the most expense attempt at nation building ever attempted, something Bush and his "Vulcans", particularly Condelezza Rice, said they would never do.
One reader of the LA Times calls the continuous State of War bluff:
It is time to call the bluff of the Bush administration and Republican water-carriers like Hoekstra: We are not a nation at war. The so-called war on terror has never been a war. It is a threat from a wide variety of autonomous groups that hate us. But it is not a war, and we cannot justify abandoning our laws to fight it.
There are other threats, equally dangerous. The founding fathers knew about them and created a system of checks and balances that Bush and Hoekstra want to circumvent. George Orwell knew about these threats too, and he wrote about a world in which governmental spying on citizens and above-the-law authoritarianism was the norm. Bush and Hoekstra are taking us down that road. They must be stopped.
The inaction of Congress, particularly by those citizens assigned to such key positions as the Chairman of a Select Intelligence Committee, to perform one of it's most fundamental roles, insuring the balance of power and maintaining the checks balances of the three branches of our government, the Executive, Legislature, and Judiciary not only endangers American lives, but the very existence of our democratic Republic for which so many lives have been sacrificed.
For Pete's Sake Pete
Mr. Hoekstra needs to stop reading White House talking points and stop thumbing his nose at our Constitution and perform the duties he has been assigned. He should decide where his allegiances lie, to the American People or to Dick Cheney and his crazies in the Executive Branch and a number of government agencies he is supposed to oversee.
If Hoekstra continues to refuse to act in these matters, he should deliver on his own promise and limit his term in Congress to 12 years and not seek reelection. The profound harm he is doing to our nation is much more significant than any "leaker" could ever achieve. His inexcusable behavior is the gravest of all threats to the democratic character of our free society.
"[We] should be encouraged to discern the clash of unbelieving influences in society with the holy standards of our Lord. This will help us make God-honoring decisions affecting ourselves, our children, our schools, our churches, and our country."
"The office of the state has been ordained to be God's minister for justice through the conscience of public officials who believe in his ordinances."
-- Abraham Kuyper, Dutch Calvinist Theologian and Politician, 1877