It's worse than you think.
For the Senate leadership, the threat of prosecution for 4 trillion warrantless wiretaps was more than enough to pass an immunity bill. A self-immunization bill. The House still lingers on the edge of doing the right thing. All it has to do is nothing for a few more months. Easy, one might think.
And, if nobody ever calls it a self-immunization bill, all the better. Not colleagial to accuse your fellow lawmakers of committing felonies, particularly those in your own party. It's a bad thought. It can be very bad for your political career to say such things out loud.
For most of the Congressional membership, the unspoken threat of retaliation by senior leaders suffices in more than enough cases to pass the self-immunization bill. By about 60-30, with notable absences, in the Senate.
Blackmail of individual Senators by Bush-Cheney wasn't even necessary.
Self-Immunization? Congress? What am I going on about?
Clarification below . . .
***
The House and Senate leadership, both sides of the isle, was read-in to The Program, warrantless wiretapping being carried out jointly by NSA/CIA, and about waterboarding prisoners before the interrogation tapes were destroyed by the CIA.
That makes Harry and Nancy, along with the senior members of the Intel Committees and half a dozen others in Congress, potential co-conspirators in war crimes and assorted other felonies. Well, lots and lots of felonies, actually. Now, that's a bad thought.
It's easier to believe that all those Democratic Senators voted yes on the FISA bill Wednesday because they were being blackmailed by the NSA. Come now, it crossed your mind. Or, maybe you thought they were afraid of Bush and what's left of the GOP making a big election-year issue about "terra, terra." No. No. The Senators were just afraid for their cushy assignments and privileges. Afraid of Harry and the disapproval of their colleagues. (We expected better of you, Jim.) Wimpy, wimpy. Especially the ones who didn't show up. (That includes you know who.)
***
In intelligence lingo, to be "read-in" means that a classified program is revealed to you, and you agree to keep it secret under the terms of a standard government security agreement.
By law, all officially acknowledged covert programs are revealed to Congressional leaders designated to hold an intelligence oversight role. This group is known as "The Gang of Eight".
It's a very exclusive club, the keepers of the secrets. But, being read-in sometimes holds some risk. If the classified intelligence program isn't entirely legal, that potentially makes you a co-conspirator in a crime along with Administration officials.
Unless, you can make the crime go away.So it is for all involved in approving NSA Warrantless Wiretapping and CIA Torture, as well as those who carried it out. Nasty concept, that command responsibility. Nuremberg was a dangerous precedent.
It came out about two months ago that key Democratic leaders -- the senior Dems on the House and Senate Intel Commitees (Jane Harman and Jay Rockefeller) and the Minority Leaders in the House and Senate (Pelosi and Reid) -- were read into the detainee torture program back in September, 2002. (1) Along with four of their Republican colleagues. Harman claims, when she was told about it, she opposed destruction of the torture tapes. Rockefeller says he wasn't told in advance of the tapes destruction. (2) (Similarly, Rockefeller recently produced a dated, hand-written letter from a locked safe about the warrantless wiretapping Program after he was informed about that in July, 2003 (the letter basically says he didn't really understand what he was being told and agreed to).(3) Wimpy. Wimpy. Wimpy.
The fact is, the FISA revision law that passed the Senate contains wiretapping immunity is CYA by the leadership.
Inter alia. Everyone's still focused on telco immunity. But, the Bill also effectively grants immunity to the Gang of Eight, as well as Messrs. Bush, Cheney, Tenet, Hayden, et al. The rest of the members knew what the leadership will do to them if they don't go along with passage of the immunity legislation. It just wouldn't be colleagial to allow any of their own to actually be held accountable for such things. Then, there are all those telco lobbyists, and NSA contractors to consider.
Forget your conspiracy theories about the NSA having bedroom tapes of Senators. Not necessary (this time).
The House leadership has considerably less discipline over the members than in the Senate, so there may be some chance that immunity doesn't make it through to a conference Bill. So it is in this context -- which nobody wants to talk about, apparently -- the Speaker and the current head of the House Intel Committee, Sylvestre Reyes, announced yesterday that they won't push the Senate version of the bill through the House. (4) Will we see some other version? When and if that does (or doesn't) happen, we'll know whether Congress succeeds in immunizing itself, as it did with passage last year of the Military Commissions Act, otherwise known as the McCain Torture Amnesty Act.
We'll see. All this certainly points out the fact that the intelligence oversight process in the U.S. Congress is broken, and if left to its own devices, isn't going to mend itself.
___________________________________________________
Crossposted at:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/2/14/173922/361/689/4569551. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/08/AR2007120801664.html "In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody," the Post wrote. "For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk."
"Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill," the Post added. "But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said."
2. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2007/12/hayden_says_cia_videotapes_des_1.php
Hayden says CIA videotapes destroyed
Hayden Says CIA Taped Interrogations of 2 Terror Suspects in 2002, Destroyed Tapes in 2005
PAMELA HESS
AP News
Dec 07, 2007 08:16 EST
The CIA destroyed videotapes it made in 2002 of two top terror suspects because it was afraid that keeping them "posed a security risk," Director Michael Hayden has told agency employees.
Hayden's revelation to the CIA employees became public Thursday and it caused a commotion on Capitol Hill where members of the Senate Intelligence Committee immediately vowed to conduct a thorough review. A leading human rights group voiced alarm about it.
In his message to agency workers, Hayden said that House and Senate intelligence committee leaders had been informed of the existence of the tapes and the CIA's intention to destroy them to protect the identities of the questioners. He also said the CIA's internal watchdog watched the tapes in 2003 and verified that the interrogation practices were legal. Hayden said the tapes were destroyed three years after the 2002 interrogations.
Rep. Jane Harman of California, then the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, was one of only four members of Congress in 2003 informed of the tapes' existence and the CIA's intention to ultimately destroy them.
"I told the CIA that destroying videotapes of interrogations was a bad idea and urged them in writing not to do it," Harman said. While key lawmakers were briefed on the CIA's intention to destroy the tapes, they were not notified two years later when the spy agency actually carried out the plan. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said the committee only learned of the tapes' destruction in November 2006.
Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., who was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee from August 2004 until the end of 2006, said through a spokesman that he doesn't remember being informed of the videotaping program.
"Congressman Hoekstra does not recall ever being told of the existence or destruction of these tapes," said Jamal D. Ware, senior adviser to the committee. "He believes that Director Hayden is being generous in his claim that the committee was informed. He believes the committee should have been fully briefed and consulted on how this was handled."
Jennifer Daskal, senior counsel with Human Rights Watch, said that destroying the tapes was illegal. "Basically this is destruction of evidence," she said, calling Hayden's explanation that the tapes were destroyed to protect CIA identities "disingenuous."
The CIA only taped the interrogation of the first two terror suspects the agency held, one of whom was Abu Zubaydah. Zubaydah, under harsh questioning, told CIA interrogators about alleged 9/11 accomplice Ramzi Binalshibh, President Bush said publicly in 2006.
Binalshibh was captured and interrogated and, with Zubaydah's information, authorities in 2003 captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the purported mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
Hayden said that a secondary reason for the taped interrogations was to have backup documentation of the information gathered.
"The agency soon determined that its documentary reporting was full and exacting, removing any need for tapes. Indeed, videotaping stopped in 2002," Hayden said.
The CIA is known to have waterboarded three prisoners since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but not since 2003. Hayden banned the use of the procedure in 2006, according to knowledgeable officials.
The disclosure of the tapes' destruction came on the same day the House and Senate intelligence committees agreed to legislation prohibiting the CIA from using "enhanced interrogation techniques." The White House Thursday threatened to veto the bill.
SNIP
Source: AP News
3. Sen. Rockefeller CYA note to himself and Cheney re: The Program, 7/17/2003
4. http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7010037504
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