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Tuesday After Lunch is the cosmic time of the week.

The Senate Intelligence Committee grills Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, the president’s nominee to h

Interesting story, as usual. A couple of points:

Clarice Feldman’s analysis of what happened in regard to FISA and the Moussaoui laptop are wrong according the official record. After Moussaoui was captured, the FBI wanted, obviously, to get into Moussaoui’s laptop. They could try to get a criminal warrant or a FISA order. They decided to go for the FISA order and here’s their reasoning:

In Joint Inquiry interviews, FBI Minneapolis field office agents said that FBI Headquarters advised against trying to obtain a criminal search warrant as that might prejudice subsequent efforts to obtain a FISA Court order. Under FISA, an order warrant could be obtained if the agents could establish probable cause to believe that Moussaoui was an agent of a foreign power and that he had engaged in international terrorism or was preparing to do so. FBI Headquarters was concerned that if a criminal warrant were denied and the agents then tried to obtain a FISA Court order, the FISA Court would think the agents were trying to use authority for an intelligence investigation to pursue a criminal case.

However, the FBI personnel at the field office and those at the Radical Fundamentalist Unit at FBI headquarters were ignorant of FISA procedures:

The RFU agent told Joint Inquiry staff that, based on advice he received from the NSLU, he believed that the Chechen rebels were not a “recognized” foreign power and that, even if Moussaoui were to be linked to them, the FBI could not obtain a search order under FISA. The RFU agent told the Minneapolis agents that they had to connect Moussaoui to al-Qa’ida, which he believed was a “recognized” foreign power. The Minneapolis case agent later testified before the Joint Inquiry that he had had no training in FISA, but that he believed that “we needed to identify a – and the term that was thrown around was ‘recognized foreign power’ and so that was our operational theory…As the FBI’s Deputy General Counsel would later testify, the agents were incorrect. The FBI can obtain a search warrant under FISA for an agent of any international terrorist group, including Chechen rebels. Because of this misunderstanding, the Minneapolis field office spent valuable time and resources trying to connect the Chechen group to al-Qa’ida.”

So it wasn’t a question of oversight, it was a lack of training on FISA procedures by the FBI. The FBI goes on to make further mistakes:

“The Bureau’s focus shifted to arranging for Moussaoui’s planned deportation to France, planned for September 17. French officials had agreed to search his belongings and provide the results to the FBI. Although the FBI was no longer considering a FISA Court order, no one revisited the idea of attempting to obtain a criminal search warrant, even though the only reason for not attempting to obtain a criminal search warrant earlier – concern that it would prejudice a request under FISA – no longer existed.”

So when Clarice Feldman states: “Federal Judge Royce Lamberth’s criticisms and investigation of the FBI official charged under FISA with preparing FISA warrant requests had essentially shut down the process in the critical pre 9/11 period. This, in fact, was the reason why the agency had not sought a warrant to view the contents of Moussaoui’s computer, a search which as we now know might have prevented 9/11.” That simply doesn’t mesh with the record. The quotes I’ve given above are directly from the joint inquiry report.

Having corrected that, I largely agree with the rest of your piece on the politicization of the CIA and intelligence in general. I would add, however, that the executive also bears responsibility since each administration has its own views of what and how intelligence should be conducted. There is a pretty clear record of how changes in administration policy affect the intelligence process, and therefore intelligence agencies. This is especially true in regard to covert action and “controversial” collection efforts. The yo-yoing effects of changing administration policies are severely detrimental to the efficient production of intelligence, not to mention covert action. Both Congress and the Executive have a very limited vision and don’t understand the long-term consequences of closing operations and programs or creating capabilities. Afghanistan in the late 80’s and early 90’s is a perfect example. Pronouncements such as “we need more human intelligence” are equally ignorant – as if were possible to create more HUMINT with the wave of a wand.

Finally, there must be oversight of intelligence operations, especially ones that operate near the line of illegality, by a branch of government separate from the executive. FISA and the Congressional intelligence committees serve those roles, though improvements are obviously necessary.

…Co-Hosting a big party tonight, and since I’m an old man that doesn’t get to happen very often. I will try and pick up the slack when I check in through out the day by maintaining a link-fest here.

Let me start off with Ace’s hysterical post …

Maybe a better question is:

Do you trust members of congress with national intelligence information?”

Do you trust retiring CIA agents like Valerie Plame and their ‘retirement parties?

…..

Of course, these are the same people who, when given the opportunity to question Hayden out of the sight of the cameras and public scrutiny, stayed away. According to what I hear, only 7 showed up for the closed-door session yesterday! Is this anyway for Congress to discharge their “oversight” duties? I think not! Sometime later they will be back to bitching about not being informed. Morons!

Carol

Maybe a better question is:

Do you trust members of congress with national intelligence information?

As a group they seem more than willing to put political gain ahead of national security. Many times even if it treatens the very people that voted them into office. Unless I miss my guess, many of these people are violating the oath they took when they were sworn in.

If someone like Reid or even McCain were in a comparable public position in an Islamic country, do you think they would still be in office muchless alive.

The number one responsibility of the Federal Government is national security. It would be nice if these people in congress would at least act like they understood that.

A qualified ‘yes’ to that, in that I trust the Executive branch to be far less damaging to the Constitution than both the Legislative and Judicial branches, both of whom have shown such a cavalier attitude to the Constitution that I don’t even trust them to provide any semblance of reasonable and rational oversight to the most mundane activities. “Emanations from penumbras” my @ss. Our model of checks and balances from a triumvirate gov’t is clearly broken, and only getting worse.