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Hayden Says He Informed Congress of Surveillance Program

Scorpion89

Scorpion89

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Hayden Says He Informed Congress of Surveillance Program - Political News - FOXNews.com

Former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden angrily struck back Saturday at assertions the Bush administration's post-9/11 surveillance program was more far-reaching than imagined and was largely concealed from congressional overseers.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Hayden maintained that top members of Congress were kept well-informed all along the way, notwithstanding protests from some that they were kept in the dark.

"One of the points I had in every one of the briefings was to make sure they understood the scope of our activity 'They've got to know this is bigger than a bread box,' I said," said Hayden, who also previously headed the National Security Agency.

"At the political level this had support," said the one-time CIA chief, jumping foursquare into an escalating controversy that has caused deep political divisions and lingering debate on the counterterrorism policies of an administration now out of power.

Hayden was reacting to a report issued Friday by a team of U.S. inspectors general which called the surveillance program in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks "unprecedented." The report also questioned the program's legal rationale and the excessive secrecy that enshrouded it.

Hayden, who in 2001 designed and carried out the secret program, told The AP he is distressed by suggestions that Congress was not fully informed. He said that he personally briefed top lawmakers on the entire surveillance operation and said he felt that they supported it.

Well as I suspected all along the Gang of Eight knew all along what was going on and there was no hiding of anything by the Bush Adm.
 
Gen. Hayden may want to hold his statements....

Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project
NY Times - 07/12/2009

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.
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Better part is at the end -

Representative Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat of Illinois on the House committee, wrote on Friday to the chairman, Representative Silvestre Reyes, a Democrat of Texas, to demand an investigation of the unidentified program and why Congress was not told of it. Aides said Mr. Reyes was reviewing the matter.

“There’s been a history of difficulty in getting the C.I.A. to tell us what they should,” said Representative Adam Smith, a Democrat of Washington. “We will absolutely be held accountable for anything the agency does.”

Mr. Hoekstra, the intelligence committee’s ranking Republican, said he would not judge the agency harshly in the case of the unidentified program, because it was not fully operational. But he said that in general, the agency had not been as forthcoming as the law required.

“We have to pull the information out of them to get what we need,” Mr. Hoekstra said.
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So while Gen. Michael Hayden is stating Congress was fully informed, we have the current Director informing the Senate and House intelligence committees that there were programs they were not aware of. Now how do these get reconciled? For me the problem is the agency just has not had a stellar record of late, and by late I mean the past 4-5 decades!

Question I have; should the CIA have an oversight agency (i.e. Internal Affairs) or Ombudsman? I do not care to be cynical, but I think the current issue is that the CIA is not forthcoming, and the Senate and House are not achieving their role as oversight properly.
 
sam_w said:
Gen. Hayden may want to hold his statements....

Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project
NY Times - 07/12/2009



Better part is at the end -



So while Gen. Michael Hayden is stating Congress was fully informed, we have the current Director informing the Senate and House intelligence committees that there were programs they were not aware of. Now how do these get reconciled? For me the problem is the agency just has not had a stellar record of late, and by late I mean the past 4-5 decades!

Question I have; should the CIA have an oversight agency (i.e. Internal Affairs) or Ombudsman? I do not care to be cynical, but I think the current issue is that the CIA is not forthcoming, and the Senate and House are not achieving their role as oversight properly.
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I guess you missed the part in the OP were Dir.Hayden talks about his meetings with Congress. So you and everyone else understands, not all of Congress gets to see what the CIA/NSC/NSA/DoD are doing they way it is setup is the Gang of Eight along with the President and Vice President get briefings from the above listed agencys after that it is up to the Gang of Eight to decide what if anything the rest of Congress is going ot be informed on.

This is how it's been done since President Ford and Carter re-wrote the rules on Intel Briefings from these agencys. It's been working fine till Speaker Pelosi came along and started her bitching If anything I think Congress needs to go back and read who and how they are brief and who gets these briefs.
 
When you figger how many times Congress has stabbed CIA in the back and thrown them under the bus in the past few months, it's no wonder that CIA would feel the need to keep them in the dark on a few things. :rofl
 
Until there are hearings or depositions where someone like Gen. Michael Hayden are testifying under oath to get to the bottom of this issue of who knew what and when, I don't believe any of them. Statements to the press mean nothing if it's nothing more than a rat running from a sinking ship.
 
tumbleweed said:
Until there are hearings or depositions where someone like Gen. Michael Hayden are testifying under oath to get to the bottom of this issue of who knew what and when, I don't believe any of them. Statements to the press mean nothing if it's nothing more than a rat running from a sinking ship.
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And, that won't happen, because it will mean that the 8 of the Letter along with Pelosi, will have to testify, under oath, what they knew and when they knew it, plus risking the exposure of classified information. If the Dems thought there was a snowman's chance in hell of a real inquiry, they would drop this issue like a hot rock.
 
Pelosi lied, obviously to cover her ass, now the wagons are circling around her.

It's a shame the good people at the CIA are gonna fall for this, but that's life in a Liberal Government.
 
I trust the CIA to be truthful much more so than anyone working at the New York Times. The Times has been proven to lie over and over again for no reason whatsoever other than to sell papers. I don't care how many quotation marks are in the report. Furthermore, an unfounded attack on the CIA during a time of war is an attack on the U.S. military. Don't ask me to cite all the incorrect or untruthful information in the Times; I don't have the time or inclination. If you had paid attention you wouldn't have to be told. Start by googling New York Times lies. I got 412,000,000 hits. CIA lies only got 8,210,000 hits.

In my opinion, this all started at the beginning of the war when it became apparent that anything sensative could not be reported to congress or it would immediately appear in the New York Times (et.al.). Of course the administration tightened up on who heard what and no doubt informed some legislators about the laws regarding compromise of classified information during a time of war. As I recall, some of these "briefings" were held publicly. These ruffled feathers have never unruffled, and these individuals have been in direct conflict with the administration at every opportunity ever since. Their behavior borders on treason.

This newest attack on the CIA has to do with a program that was under consideration/development which was never put in operation. If they reported everything which qualified under my previous sentence the committee would have to sit 24/7. It came out probably only because a true patriot warrior's name appears in the file, V.P. Cheney.

When are these jerks going to stop attacking and demeaning our military for their own personal gratification and get on with what we elected them to do.
 
sam_w said:
Question I have; should the CIA have an oversight agency (i.e. Internal Affairs) or Ombudsman? I do not care to be cynical, but I think the current issue is that the CIA is not forthcoming, and the Senate and House are not achieving their role as oversight properly.
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Question I have: Do people really want to know what the CIA is doing at all times?

Spy services rely on secrecy. It's their stock in trade. If we don't want secrecy, then we need to ask ourselves if we want spies.
 
celticlord said:
Question I have: Do people really want to know what the CIA is doing at all times?

Spy services rely on secrecy. It's their stock in trade. If we don't want secrecy, then we need to ask ourselves if we want spies.
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Are you really that comfortable with any government agency having no oversight, even if it's in the name of your safety? What if Obama decided to tell us nothing at all...ever...under the guise of national security? What would you think of that? Your philosophy just seems an odd one, what with your repeated portrayal of Obama as "Dear Leader," a label that insinuates one whom one trusts so much as to give him complete leeway to do as he pleases as long as he does it for our good.
 
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Cardinal said:
Are you really that comfortable with any government agency having no oversight, even if it's in the name of your safety? What if Obama decided to tell us nothing at all...ever...under the guise of national security? What would you think of that?
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The real question is, do we want to institute a new layer of oversight on the CIA because Nancy Pelosi backed herself into a corner?

I think that's that part soooo many are missing.
 
MrVicchio said:
The real question is, do we want to institute a new layer of oversight on the CIA because Nancy Pelosi backed herself into a corner?

I think that's that part soooo many are missing.
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That doesn't answer my question.
 
Cardinal said:
That doesn't answer my question.
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That's because your question was flawed in it's premise. The CIA HAS oversight. Just because that oversight had one person lying doesn't mean it needs another layer of oversight.
 
MrVicchio said:
That's because your question was flawed in it's premise. The CIA HAS oversight. Just because that oversight had one person lying doesn't mean it needs another layer of oversight.
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My premise was "flawed" if you didn't first read what I was responding to.
 
Cardinal said:
Are you really that comfortable with any government agency having no oversight, even if it's in the name of your safety? What if Obama decided to tell us nothing at all...ever...under the guise of national security? What would you think of that? Your philosophy just seems an odd one, what with your repeated portrayal of Obama as "Dear Leader," a label that insinuates one whom one trusts so much as to give him complete leeway to do as he pleases as long as he does it for our good.
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Me personally? I don't much care for spies or for spying. Ideally, I'd want to do without the CIA and spies. I prefer battles be fought openly, among warriors, with all the usual bits of blood and gore and associated remonstrations of honor and courage.

However, even Sun Tzu acknowledged the value of spies. When your aim is to defeat the enemy's strategy, it is helpful to know what that strategy is. That requires intelligence gathering. That requires spying. That requires spies.

The CIA is a necessary evil. Spies are something we must have to know the designs of other nations.

It is that paradox that begs the question: how to reconcile secrecy and spying with the rule of law? It is not an easy question, for while spies must operate in the shadows, governments must not--at least, not if they are to be held to account by the electorate.

The balance is found by recognizing the limits of law. US law is absolutely binding in US sovereign territory. US law is of no consequence anywhere else. Not only are foreign nations not beholden to US law, US citizens are not beholden to US law when not on US soil. The limit of the law is the sovereignty of nations.

If the duties of the CIA are kept beyond the scope of US law, there is no reason for them to appear before Congress, whose scope is limited to US law.

Thus, my preference is to give the CIA a discrete and limited mission--gathering information about the movements and intentions of foreign forces, including terrorist organizations--and give them carte blanche for that mission. How they gather that information is entirely up to them: no oversight, no laws, no testimony before Congress. The only ground rules: 1) their reports had better be accurate; 2) their people had better not get caught. Like the line from the old Mission:Impossible show: "if any of your team are killed or captured, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions."
 
Cardinal said:
Are you really that comfortable with any government agency having no oversight, even if it's in the name of your safety? What if Obama decided to tell us nothing at all...ever...under the guise of national security? What would you think of that? Your philosophy just seems an odd one, what with your repeated portrayal of Obama as "Dear Leader," a label that insinuates one whom one trusts so much as to give him complete leeway to do as he pleases as long as he does it for our good.
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While that's obviously an extreme, I'm completely comfortable with not knowing much about what the CIA does.

Here's a handy little fact - the CIA commits approximately 100,000 major crimes per year while they are overseas. All of Congress knows this. Do you think they should be forced to report on those things to everyone and send their operatives back here to face trial, or do you think that that's sort of the point of the CIA?
 
celticlord said:
Me personally? I don't much care for spies or for spying. Ideally, I'd want to do without the CIA and spies. I prefer battles be fought openly, among warriors, with all the usual bits of blood and gore and associated remonstrations of honor and courage.

However, even Sun Tzu acknowledged the value of spies. When your aim is to defeat the enemy's strategy, it is helpful to know what that strategy is. That requires intelligence gathering. That requires spying. That requires spies.

The CIA is a necessary evil. Spies are something we must have to know the designs of other nations.

It is that paradox that begs the question: how to reconcile secrecy and spying with the rule of law? It is not an easy question, for while spies must operate in the shadows, governments must not--at least, not if they are to be held to account by the electorate.

The balance is found by recognizing the limits of law. US law is absolutely binding in US sovereign territory. US law is of no consequence anywhere else. Not only are foreign nations not beholden to US law, US citizens are not beholden to US law when not on US soil. The limit of the law is the sovereignty of nations.

If the duties of the CIA are kept beyond the scope of US law, there is no reason for them to appear before Congress, whose scope is limited to US law.

Thus, my preference is to give the CIA a discrete and limited mission--gathering information about the movements and intentions of foreign forces, including terrorist organizations--and give them carte blanche for that mission. How they gather that information is entirely up to them: no oversight, no laws, no testimony before Congress. The only ground rules: 1) their reports had better be accurate; 2) their people had better not get caught. Like the line from the old Mission:Impossible show: "if any of your team are killed or captured, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions."
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Well, I'm confused now. When you said, "Question I have: Do people really want to know what the CIA is doing at all times?", did "people" refer to the American citizen or to congress?
 
What this whole thing really comes down to is that it's a fight between a bunch of people who are frantically looking for a political advantage. Because many of them know that the total truth will never come out, they're free to exaggerate or outright lie about some things without worry of being caught. Beyond that, many of the people talking about this **** have absolutely no idea what happened to other people.

If Nancy Pelosi says she never heard something and neither did a lower ranked Dem on the Intelligence committee, then that lower ranked dem is going to back up Nancy despite the fact that he has no idea whether she's telling the truth or not.

The idea that we're ever going to "get to the bottom of this" is just crazy. If we actually did, it would be a sad day for the country.
 
RightinNYC said:
While that's obviously an extreme, I'm completely comfortable with not knowing much about what the CIA does.

Here's a handy little fact - the CIA commits approximately 100,000 major crimes per year while they are overseas. All of Congress knows this. Do you think they should be forced to report on those things to everyone and send their operatives back here to face trial, or do you think that that's sort of the point of the CIA?
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Unless I'm mistaken, this thread was on the issue of whether congress was properly notified of the CIA's actions, not you or me.
 
Cardinal said:
Are you really that comfortable with any government agency having no oversight, even if it's in the name of your safety? What if Obama decided to tell us nothing at all...ever...under the guise of national security? What would you think of that? Your philosophy just seems an odd one, what with your repeated portrayal of Obama as "Dear Leader," a label that insinuates one whom one trusts so much as to give him complete leeway to do as he pleases as long as he does it for our good.
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I'm not comfortable with government agencies having no oversight. I'm even less comfortable with the overseers using that privilege to cover their own political asses.
 
Cardinal said:
Well, I'm confused now. When you said, "Question I have: Do people really want to know what the CIA is doing at all times?", did "people" refer to the American citizen or to congress?
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If you distinguish between the two, you need a refresher civics course.

Congress are the elected representatives of the people. Nothing they do should be conducted in secret. What Congress knows, the whole of America should know. If the whole of America should not know, Congress should not know.
 
Cardinal said:
Unless I'm mistaken, this thread was on the issue of whether congress was properly notified of the CIA's actions, not you or me.
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And you and I have no clue whether Congress was actually properly notified or whether Nancy is just jerking you around because she wants to stay speaker.

When there are only 9 people who know the truth, it's easy to stretch it.

edit: Do you think all 535 members of Congress should be told all the details of those 100,000 crimes? Or do you think that it makes more sense for the CIA to limit the details and limit who in Congress gets to hear it?
 
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celticlord said:
If you distinguish between the two, you need a refresher civics course.

Congress are the elected representatives of the people. Nothing they do should be conducted in secret. What Congress knows, the whole of America should know. If the whole of America should not know, Congress should not know.
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Well, that's not exactly how I feel, but that's clearly how you feel, which means that government, when it claims to do something for your security/well being, doesn't require oversight. This makes your label of Dear Leader for Obama rather inconsistent.
 
RightinNYC said:
And you and I have no clue whether Congress was actually properly notified or whether Nancy is just jerking you around because she wants to stay speaker.
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I know, that's why I'm not actually interested in playing he said/she said. I'm more interested in the personal philosophy of how transparent, and in what manner, government and government agencies should be. Personally, I don't think it's realistic for we, the unwashed masses, to know certain things like ongoing cia operations. However, we do elect congress, whom we instill a certain amount of our trust, to oversee such things so they don't operate wholly contrary to our principles (and to our personal civil liberties). If our own representatives are not allowed in on the joke, as it were, then we have to stop so much as pretending that we live in a republic.

RightinNYC said:
edit: Do you think all 535 members of Congress should be told all the details of those 100,000 crimes? Or do you think that it makes more sense for the CIA to limit the details and limit who in Congress gets to hear it?
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Do you have a particular reason for why all 535 members shouldn't? Or, perhaps a better questions might be, what qualifications does a congressman need in order to be on an oversight committees? Does it come to down to seniority, political jockeying, or legitimate training?
 
Cardinal said:
Do you have a particular reason for why all 535 members shouldn't? Or, perhaps a better questions might be, what qualifications does a congressman need in order to be on an oversight committees? Does it come to down to seniority, political jockeying, or legitimate training?
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It has nothing to do with training. Look at the members who are on the committee.
 
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