Lawmakers Look for a Smarter Way to Get Intelligence

[babylonsister]

Lawmakers Look for a Smarter Way to Get Intelligence
By Tim Starks, CQ Staff


Congressional leaders are pondering new guidelines for the classified briefings lawmakers receive from intelligence agencies.

Prompted by the dispute over how much she and other Democratic leaders knew about the Bush administration’s interrogation methods, Speaker Nancy Pelosi met April 28 with Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee to discuss who should receive intelligence briefings and what lawmakers should do if they have objections to classified activities.

“When there’s an objection, how do you record it?” asked Brendan Daly, a Pelosi spokesman. “We may have a new policy on that.” Daly said the lawmakers reached no conclusion on that at this week’s meeting.

There is now at least one way for lawmakers to take issue with classified programs — a classified letter like the one Jane Harman , D-Calif., wrote in objection to the harsh methods after she became the top Democrat on the Intelligence panel. But Daly said the question is what more lawmakers can do.

“If you want to take it to another place, who do you call, the chief justice?” Pelosi, D-Calif., asked rhetorically during an April 28 CNN appearance. “The president of the United States, whose policies these are? You have no recourse, or else you are breaking the law.”

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http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docid=news-000003106593

[FiveGoodMen]

1. Catch-22 (just on the headline)

[IntravenousDemilo]

2. Probably the smartest way is to read a book. n/m