[Peace-discuss] Nancy Pelosi and state secrets

[Morton K. Brussel]

A pretty good indictment…

Published on Tuesday, October 16, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
What Did Pelosi Know About NSA, and When Did She Know It?
by Ray McGovern

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has admitted knowing for several years  
about the Bush administration’s eavesdropping on Americans without a  
court warrant. She was briefed on it when she was ranking Democrat  
the House Intelligence Committee when Bush and Cheney took office.  
But was she told that within days of their taking office, the  
National Security Agency’s electronic vacuum cleaner had already  
begun to suck up information on Americans-criminal law and the  
Constitution be damned?

In a Washington Post op-ed of Jan. 15, 2006, Pelosi, with a uniquely  
long tenure on the Intelligence Committee, acknowledged that she was  
one of the privileged handful of lawmakers who were briefed.  
Referring to her seniority as ranking member, she wrote in her Post  
apologia sans apology, “This is how I came to be informed of  
President Bush’s authorization for the NSA to conduct certain types  
of surveillance.” She then proceeded to demonstrate her remarkably- 
one might say unconstitutionally-subservient attitude toward the  
Executive Branch:

“But when the administration notifies Congress in this manner, it is  
not seeking approval. There is a clear expectation that the  
information will be shared by no one, including other members of the  
intelligence committees. As a result, only a few members of Congress  
were aware of the president’s surveillance program, and they were  
constrained from discussing it more widely.”

How did the American people react upon reading in the New York Times  
in Dec. 2005 of this glaring infringement on their Constitutional  
rights. Most responded as they have been conditioned to react-out of  
the old fear-factor shibboleth: “After 9/11/2001 everything changed.”

Yes, just as after 2/27/1933, the night of the burning of the German  
Parliament (Reichstag) in Berlin, everything changed.

As Sebastian Haffner, a young German lawyer and insider wrote from  
Berlin at the time:

“What one can blame them [German politicians and populace] for, and  
what shows their terrible collective weakness of character, is that  
this settled the matter. With sheepish submissiveness the German  
people accepted that, as a result of the fire, each one of them lost  
what little personal freedom and dignity was guaranteed by the  
Constitution; as though it followed as a necessary consequence. If  
the Communists burned down the Reichstag, it was perfectly in order  
that the government took “decisive measures.”

“Defying Hitler, a Memoir,” p. 121

And if the terrorists attacked on 9/11, it was perfectly in order  
that the Bush administration took “decisive measures” of similar  
kind. Shamefully, far too many American politicians exhibited  
sheepish submissiveness, when the White House PR machine pulled out  
all stops to exploit the trauma brought on by the attacks of 9/11.
Now we have learned that it is even worse. The eavesdropping abuses  
began as soon as the Bush administration came into office - well  
before 9/11.

In recent days, thanks to an enterprising reporter for the Rocky  
Mountain News, we find that the president, vice president, and CIA  
director-not to mention the credulous crowd around Nancy Pelosi-have  
all been regurgitating a king-sized whopper aimed at providing  
“justification” for the NSA program. Administration PR consultants  
made this easy by inventing a clever-if retroactive-label to the  
program: The “Terrorist Surveillance Program.” Nothing to fear,  
folks, unless you’re telephoning or emailing Osama bin-Laden.

Whopper? Well yes. It turns out that seven months before the threat  
of terrorism garnered much White House attention (despite the best  
efforts of then-counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke to install it  
on everyone’s screen-saver, so to speak), the administration  
instructed NSA to suborn American telecommunications companies to spy  
illegally on Americans.

Qt the time, the general counsel of Qwest Communications advised  
management that what NSA was suggesting was illegal. And to his  
credit, the then-head of the company stuck to a firm “No,” unless  
some way were found to perform legally what NSA wanted done. Qwest’s  
rivals, though, took their cue from the White House, adopted a  
flexible attitude toward the law, and got the business. They are now  
being sued. Lawsuit filings claim that, seven months before 9/11,  
AT&T “began development of a center for monitoring long distance  
calls and Internet transmissions and other digital information for  
the exclusive use of the NSA.”

Adding insult to injury, draft legislation now being pushed by the  
White House would hold AT&T and other collaborators harmless for  
playing fast and loose with our right to privacy in order to enhance  
their bottom line. For its principled but, in government eyes,  
recalcitrant attitude, Qwest apparently lost out on lucrative  
government contracts.

Yes, Before 9/11

These illegal operations, including those prior to 9/11, were enabled  
by Michael Hayden, then head of NSA and now director of CIA. Hayden  
has been out in front “justifying” illegal eavesdropping by what  
happened on 9/11. Did he know the illegal activities started before  
then? Of course; he was ordered to orchestrate them.

Did he know they were illegal? Another no-brainer. While director of  
NSA, Hayden had emphasized what had long been known as NSA’s First  
Commandment: “Thou Shalt Not Eavesdrop on Americans.”

But in testimony at his confirmation hearings, Hayden said that in  
the wake of 9/11 he “could not not do” what the president wanted him  
to do with the “Terrorist Surveillance Program.” The hypocrisy is  
well nigh unbearable.

Martinet

When the program was revealed in the press in late 2005, Hayden  
agreed to play point man with smoke and mirrors. (Small wonder that  
the White House later deemed him the perfect man to head the CIA.)

Nevertheless, a whiff of conscience showed through his nomination  
hearing, though, when he flubbed the answer to a soft-pitch from  
administration loyalist, Sen. Kit Bond, R-Missouri:

“Did you believe that your primary responsibility as director of NSA  
was to execute a program that your NSA lawyers, the Justice  
Department lawyers, and White House officials all told you was legal  
and that you were ordered to carry it out by the president of the  
United States?”

Instead of the simple “Yes” that was in the script, Hayden paused and  
spoke rather poignantly-and revealingly: “I had to make this personal  
decision in early October 2001, and it was a personal decision…I  
could not not do this.”

Why should it be such an enormous personal decision whether or not to  
obey a White House order? No one asked Hayden, but it requires no  
particular acuity to figure it out. This is a military officer who,  
like the rest of us, had sworn to defend the Constitution of the  
United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; a military  
man well aware of the strictures against obeying an unlawful order.

President George W. Bush assured us on Jan. 23, 2006, “I had all  
kinds of lawyers review the process.” Right. The same ones, no doubt,  
who were busy devising ways to “legalize” torture and indefinite  
detention without due process.

No American, save perhaps retired Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, who as NSA  
director was present at the creation of the Foreign Intelligence  
Surveillance Act (and who has said the Hayden-approved activities are  
illegal), knew FISA better than Hayden. Nonetheless, Hayden conceded  
that he did not even require a written legal opinion to satisfy  
himself that the surveillance program, to be implemented without  
warrant and without adequate consultation in Congress, could pass the  
smell test.

Small wonder that one of Hayden’s predecessors as NSA director, upon  
learning what Hayden had agreed to do, said angrily, “He ought to be  
court-martialed.”

And who was the NSA general counsel at the time? Robert L. Deitz, who  
is now a “trusted aide” to CIA Director Hayden. Deitz, we learn from  
recent news reports, has just been launched on an investigation of  
the CIA Inspector General-yes, that’s right, an investigation of  
CIA’s statutory Inspector General John Helgerson, who apparently does  
not fit in with the elastic ethos Hayden and his immediate  
predecessors brought to the agency.

It appears Helgerson is not a “team player,” resisting, as he has,  
the reintroduction of the Nixonian dictum “It’s legal if the  
president says it’s legal.” He has been taking his job too seriously  
for Hayden’s taste-conducting honest investigations into abuses like  
torture. Fortunately for Helgerson and the rest of us, Hayden cannot  
fire him, which is handy proof of the wisdom of having statutory  
inspectors general.

Congress’ Role; and Pelosi’s

What was Pelosi doing all this time?

When the illegal eavesdropping was exposed, many asked why the  
administration did not simply go to Congress to secure changes in the  
already flexible FISA law, if such were needed. In an unguarded  
moment at a press conference on Dec. 19, 2005, Alberto Gonzales let  
slip that the administration did take soundings in Congress:

“This is not a backdoor approach. We believe Congress has authorized  
this kind of surveillance. We have had discussions with Congress in  
the past - certain members of Congress - as to whether or not FISA  
could be amended to allow us to adequately deal with this kind of  
threat, and we were advised that that would be difficult, if not  
impossible.”


Dear Madam Speaker

Were you one of those with whom Gonzales had discussions? Whether you  
were or you weren’t. In either case it appears you were derelict in  
your duty.

It is time to fish or cut bait. If the Bush administration did not  
inform you regarding eavesdropping on Americans before 9/11, you need  
to reflect now on what such disregard for the laws and Constitution  
on matters of this importance means for future of our Republic, and  
cease covering up for the White House. Familiarize yourself with the  
orderly process the Founders wrote into the Constitution to address  
this kind of abuse of power. It is called impeachment; there is no  
reason to be afraid. You may wish to locate a copy of the  
Constitution and read Article II, Section 4:

“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United  
States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and  
Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

I cannot believe that, with your pedigree and schooling, you now  
forget the difference between the indicative and the subjunctive  
mood. The Founders did not. The Constitution does not say the  
president “may be” impeached, unless the speaker of the House decides  
for some reason to keep impeachment off the table. Given the long  
train of abuses and usurpations of this administration, you have no  
choice but to begin impeachment proceedings, Madame Speaker, if  
protecting our rights under constitutional government means anything  
to you.

If the Bush administration did keep you fully informed and, out of  
obeisance to the executive branch you acquiesced and said nothing,  
you should lay down your duties as House leader forthwith and  
consider resigning from the House before you further endanger our  
freedoms.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the  
ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. He was an Army  
infantry/intelligence officer from 1962-64, and then a CIA analyst  
for 27 years. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals  
for Sanity (VIPS)

A shorter version of this article appeared first on Consortiumnews.com.
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