If there’s an innocent explanation for this, I’m anxious to hear it.
Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee are complaining that the National Security Agency has played politics in support of the secret program to intercept phone calls between alleged terrorists in the United States and abroad.
On July 27, shortly after most members of the committee were briefed on the controversial surveillance program, the NSA supplied the panel’s chairman, Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), with “a set of administration approved, unclassified talking points for the members to use,” as described in the document.
Among the talking points were “subjective statements that appear intended to advance a particular policy view and present certain facts in the best possible light,” Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) said in a letter to the NSA director.
That’s putting it mildly. Supposedly non-partisan officials with the NSA, whose job descriptions probably don’t include “produce talking points to help Republicans look good,” wrote up instructions for Republican lawmakers to say things such “I can say the program must continue” and “There is strict oversight in place … now including the full congressional intelligence committees.”
Indeed, Republicans were also told to say, “Current law is not agile enough to handle the threat posed by sophisticated international terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda” and “The FISA should be amended so that it is technologically neutral.”
In other words, the NSA was supposed to offer lawmakers guidance on classification. Instead, with the administration’s blessing, the agency was used to promote the line the Bush gang wanted to hear.
It seems to be something of a pattern.
Indeed, since Bush took office, there have been far too many instances in which federal agencies, which are supposed to be objective and impartial, have been misused for partisan gain.
Tom DeLay, for example, used civil servants at Bush’s Treasury Department to work up an attack of John Kerry’s tax plan. Bush appointees pressured officials in HHS to hide the truth about the White House Medicare plan. Questions have been raised about whether the CIA was misused in smearing Richard Clarke after he criticized the president’s counter-terrorism efforts. In April 2004, we learned that Treasury has issued a series of controversial press releases with a Bush-campaign tagline.
And, of course, federal officials at the Department of Homeland Security misused agency websites to help attack Kerry during the presidential campaign.
Now, the NSA is writing talking points for Republican senators. Raise your hand if you’re surprised.