A key part of the administration’s defense for the scandal of Bush’s support for warrantless searches is the idea of oversight. Sure, Bush officials concede, there was never any judicial oversight as the law requires, but there was legislative oversight, which as far as they’re concerned, makes the program less problematic.
On Meet the Press over the weekend, Condoleezza Rice emphasized congressional briefings five times in response to questions about presidential authority. Similarly, Bush rejected the notion “unchecked” presidential power yesterday, in part because lawmakers were told about the activities.
“There is the check of people being sworn to uphold the law, for starters. There is oversight. We’re talking to Congress all the time, and on this program, to suggest there’s unchecked power is not listening to what I’m telling you. I’m telling you, we have briefed the United States Congress on this program a dozen times.”
As talking points go, this one has been in trouble from the start. Former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2001, said he had not been notified of the program. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, and then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle all said they received some information in briefings, but critical details were withheld.
But it’s the notes of Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) which are the most illustrative. Rockefeller, as the leading Dem on the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2003, was “briefed,” inasmuch as he was quickly told vague information about the program. He was deeply concerned about the program, but had no outlet for this apprehension, and was forbidden from even telling other members of his committee about what he’d learned.
Rockefeller made hand-written notes — the information was too sensitive to ask a staffer to type it — in which it’s clear he had profound reservations.
Rockefeller’s unease suffused the short letter. “Clearly, the activities we discussed raise profound oversight issues,” he wrote. Laws governing classified information barred him from sharing the information with lawyers, aides or other experts who might have helped him evaluate the information, he told Cheney.
“As I reflected on the meeting today, and the future we face, John Poindexter’s TIA project sprung to mind, exacerbating my concern regarding the direction the Administration is moving with regard to security, technology, and surveillance,” Rockefeller wrote. […]
Rockefeller, turning back to the NSA program in his letter, told Cheney: “Without more information and the ability to draw on any independent legal or technical expertise, I simply cannot satisfy lingering concerns raised by the briefing we received.”
Let’s not lose sight of why this matters. The president and other administration officials are pointing to these briefings as proof of oversight. But by no meaningful definition could anyone describe these meetings as “consultation.” A handful of lawmakers were told limited information. They could not ask questions to better understand the surveillance and their concerns about the program’s implementation were ignored.
Bush said at his press conference yesterday that congressional notification was a safeguard on unchecked power. That’s nonsense. Lawmakers wanted to limit the program’s scope and weren’t even given enough information to fully understand what was happening.
What the administration describes as a “briefing” was little more than cursory notification to a handful lawmakers whose concerns were irrelevant. That’s not oversight; that’s a joke.