Reply #7: Senator Byrd and Rep McDermott warned us

[Rose Siding]

I say again, let us not believe that we understand what has been included in this conference report. It is, in effect, a new bill that is very different from anything the Senate has considered to date. Common sense suggests that the Congress ought to hold hearings on the contents of this new bill, so that we may be informed by experts about its benefits and defects.
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The conference agreement creates senior intelligence positions, but exempts many of them from confirmation by the Senate. It eliminates the privacy and civil rights officers included in the Senate-passed bill, and it strips 18 pages of legislative text that would have created an Inspector General and Ombudsman to oversee the Intelligence Director's office. That language has been replaced with one paragraph, authorizing the Intelligence Director, at his discretion, to create or not to create an Inspector General, and provides the Director with the power to decide which, if any investigative powers, to grant the Inspector General.

That means the new Intelligence Director could exempt his office from Inspector General audits and investigations, and that the Congress would not receive reports from an objective internal auditor. The Congress is limiting its own access to vital information within this new Intelligence Office, and it will have, thereby, compromised an essential mechanism for identifying potential abuses within the new Intelligence Program.

Given the dark history of abuses of civil liberties and privacy rights by our intelligence community, I had hoped that the Congress would exercise more caution, but it has not done so in this legislation.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1208-37.htm

snip>
Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., was the only House member to vote "no" in either the Washington or Oregon delegations.

His spokesman, Mike DeCesare, said McDermott was concerned the bill would lead to further erosion of civil liberties.

"Jim's view is that if we had debated this four months ago, things like this could have been worked out," DeCesare said. "Instead this was rushed through at the last minute so a Republican president could claim a victory at the last moment of this Congress. And the security of Americans' freedoms has been watered down tonight."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20Congress%20Intelligence%20Gorton&dpfrom=th

Only a handful voted against it and we will live to regret it.