NYT: Republican Senator Defends Briefings on Domestic Spying

[hang a left]

Republican Senator Defends Briefings on Domestic Spying


By SCOTT SHANE
Published: January 6, 2006

WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 - In a sign of growing partisan division over domestic eavesdropping, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday defended the Bush administration's limited briefings for Congress on the secret program and accused the committee's top Democrat of changing her position on the issue.

Also Thursday, 27 House Democrats sent a letter to President Bush asking for information about the National Security Agency eavesdropping program, including whether communications from or to members of Congress and journalists were intercepted.

The Intelligence Committee chairman, Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, was responding to a statement Wednesday by Representative Jane Harman, Democrat of California, that the law requires that the full House and Senate Intelligence Committees be informed of the N.S.A. program. By briefing only the Republican and Democratic leaders of both houses and of the committees, the administration violated the law, Ms. Harman wrote in a letter to the president.

In a letter to Ms. Harman, Mr. Hoekstra said the briefings were in compliance with the National Security Act of 1947, which says the committees should be informed of intelligence activities, though "with due regard for" the need to protect secrets.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/06/politics/06nsa.html

[flyarm]

1. ohhh i just love this part!! not!!!!!!!!

does this piss anyone else off??

>But Mr. Bush has said he authorized the intercepts under his power as commander in chief.<

bush is not my damn commander in chief..until or unless he delcares martial law..he is only commander in chief to the military..not to civilians...he is not my damn commander in chief..he is my employee! and he broke "my laws" and " my constitution!"...fly

[Demit]

2. Yes it does piss me off. The media needs to point that out, that

the relevance of the term Commander-in-Chief pertains to the armed forces only. Bush seizes on it as a synonym for dictator which, of course, is what he has openly admitted he aspires to be.

[leftchick]

3. Isn't He a Republican Congressman?

Not a Senator??