Spy Briefings Failed to Meet Legal Test, Lawmakers Say (NYT)

[kpete]

Spy Briefings Failed to Meet Legal Test, Lawmakers Say
By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: December 21, 2005

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 - The limited oral briefings provided by the White House to a handful of lawmakers about the domestic eavesdropping program may not have fulfilled a legal requirement under the National Security Act that calls for such reports to be in written form, Congressional officials from both parties said on Tuesday.

The White House has refused to describe the timing and scope of the briefings, except to say that there were more than a dozen. But among the small group of current and former Congressional leaders who have attended the high-level gatherings conducted by Vice President Dick Cheney at the White House, several have described them as sessions in which aides were barred and note-taking was prohibited.

All told, no more than 14 members of Congress have been briefed about the program since it took effect in 2001, the Congressional officials said. Now lawmakers from both parties are debating whether those members-only briefings provided a sufficient basis for oversight of an activity that is only now coming under intense Congressional scrutiny.


The law requires that the executive branch notify members of Congress about continuing intelligence activities, not that it seek their consent. President Bush and other senior administration officials have argued that the briefings they provided fulfilled that legal requirement. But in interviews, some current and former members of Congress said they believe that the strict restrictions allowed lawmakers little latitude to block activities they opposed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/21/politics/21intel.html

[acmejack]

1. Unfortunately they have probably sat on this story since 2002.

The NYT has crapped on it's readers for the last time, IMO.

Disclaimer, I still like to work their Sunday crossword.