Dems Get Tough On NSA Wiretaps?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in General Politics, Law, The War On TerrorismWASHINGTON - The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee told
President Bush Wednesday that the White House broke the law by withholding information from the full congressional oversight committees about a new domestic surveillance program.In a letter to Bush, Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said the National Security Act requires the heads of the various intelligence agencies to keep the entire House and Senate intelligence committees “fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States.”
Only in the case of a highly classified covert action can the president choose to inform a narrower group of Congress members about his decision, Harman said. That action is defined in the law as an operation to influence political, economic or military conditions of another country.
“The NSA program does not qualify as a ‘covert action,’” Harman wrote.
Well, that’s certainly a line in the sand.
Now, I doubt it’ll bear any real fruit, but it’s good to hear some Dems come out and say something about it besides, “Impeach him.” I mean, I know they’ve said other things already, and this latest news will probably only bring more calls for the I-word on the left side of the blogosphere, but let’s focus on the law. Because frankly, if a law has been broken, then that should be investigated and prosecuted.
Do you agree?
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 5th, 2006 and is filed under General Politics, Law, The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 5th, 2006 at 8:47 am
justin,
doesn’t the prosecution come through impeachment? While I agree that investigation needs to be done, but what it comes down to is Bush’s word against the law. Some one will need to decide which is correct. I don’t think you can talk about prosecution without impeachment in this case, as the president said that he was the one who reviewed and decided to keep the program in operation.
January 5th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
Actually, I’m not sure about that. I know that Clinton didn’t get impeached, but he was still up for prosecution for lying about the Lewinsky thing. That is until he did a deal to essentially admit he lied in exchange for the charges being dropped by the special prosecutor who replaced Starr.
I would imagine he could be prosecuted by not impeached, especially given the Republican majority right now.
Anybody else know anything about this?
January 5th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
I know that he can be prosecuted, but I don’t really see that as an option in this case. This case is only begining to be cracked opened, and the vast majority of it is still Top Secret. I don’t think he will be convicted during his impeachment, but then again, he’s annoying alot of people. He would need a 2/3 majority to be convicted of the impeachment I don’t see this occurring.
Clinton was convicted on Article one of his Impeachment regarding his lying to the Grand Jury about Monica.