Frist Threatens Senate Intelligence Committee, Shuts Down NSA Spygate Investigation
Wednesday March 8, 2006
Category: Law Enforcement, Crime, and Punishment | War on Terror
The Senate Select Intelligence Committee is structured in such a way as to give substantial power to the vice-chair, who generally comes from the minority party. This ensures a committee that is nonpartisan, or at least bipartisan, in approach. This spirit was reflected in the planned February 16th meeting, in which it was expected that three Republican members of the committee would join with Democratic members to create a majority calling for formal hearings on the NSA spying scandal. Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS), chair of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee and a loyal supporter of the Bush administration, immediately called off the February 16th meeting and a later meeting was scheduled for March 7th.
On March 3rd, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist wrote an open letter to Senate Minority leader Harry Reid in which he threatened to restructure the committee, reducing the power of the vice-chair and essentially allowing the majority party to dictate its agenda, if it pursued hearings on the NSA spying scandal.
At yesterday's meeting, the strategy worked. Without further comment or investigation, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee agreed to submit to a White House proposal cancelling all future public hearings regarding the NSA spygate allegations. One consolation is that the White House proposal does allow for private oversight by a seven-member committee--but because any findings made by the committee would be sealed, no clear mechanism exists by which the administration could be held publicly accountable for civil liberties violations.
The White House, in consultation with Frist and Roberts, does support "in broad concept" the idea of a bill that would allow for warrantless wiretapping with a 45-day grace period after which a retroactive warrant must be obtained. The difficulty with this legislation is that a bill, called the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, already exists to allow for warrantless wiretaps with a 48-hour grace period. The Bush administration admits that it has not obeyed this law in its handling of warrantless domestic surveillance. Unless the new legislation mandates public hearings in cases where warrantless wiretaps are performed, there is no reason to believe that there would be any consequences to violating the new legislation, just as there do not appear to be any consequences to violating previous laws restricting the use of warrantless surveillance.
The Senate Select Intelligence Committee is structured in such a way as to give substantial power to the vice-chair, who generally comes from the minority party. This ensures a committee that is nonpartisan, or at least bipartisan, in approach. This spirit was reflected in the planned February 16th meeting, in which it was expected that three Republican members of the committee would join with Democratic members to create a majority calling for formal hearings on the NSA spying scandal. Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS), chair of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee and a loyal supporter of the Bush administration, immediately called off the February 16th meeting and a later meeting was scheduled for March 7th.
On March 3rd, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist wrote an open letter to Senate Minority leader Harry Reid in which he threatened to restructure the committee, reducing the power of the vice-chair and essentially allowing the majority party to dictate its agenda, if it pursued hearings on the NSA spying scandal.
At yesterday's meeting, the strategy worked. Without further comment or investigation, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee agreed to submit to a White House proposal cancelling all future public hearings regarding the NSA spygate allegations. One consolation is that the White House proposal does allow for private oversight by a seven-member committee--but because any findings made by the committee would be sealed, no clear mechanism exists by which the administration could be held publicly accountable for civil liberties violations.
The White House, in consultation with Frist and Roberts, does support "in broad concept" the idea of a bill that would allow for warrantless wiretapping with a 45-day grace period after which a retroactive warrant must be obtained. The difficulty with this legislation is that a bill, called the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, already exists to allow for warrantless wiretaps with a 48-hour grace period. The Bush administration admits that it has not obeyed this law in its handling of warrantless domestic surveillance. Unless the new legislation mandates public hearings in cases where warrantless wiretaps are performed, there is no reason to believe that there would be any consequences to violating the new legislation, just as there do not appear to be any consequences to violating previous laws restricting the use of warrantless surveillance.
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