HOME / hot document: Primary sources exposed and explained.

Name That Power Grab!

hot document:
entries
1

By Timothy Noah
Posted Monday, July 10, 2006, at 6:48 PM ET

On July 8 the New York Times' Eric Lichtblau and Scott Shane reported that Rep. Peter Hoekstra, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, sent a very testy four-page letter to President Bush a couple of months ago complaining that the Bush administration hid from Congress the existence of certain fairly substantial (and, the Times strongly suggests, potentially quite controversial) intelligence activities. The Times assured readers that these activities are not anything the public has yet heard about. What's striking is that Hoekstra has until now been almost pathologically gung-ho about the war on terrorism, as the first three pages of his letter make clear. But even Hoekstra has his limits, apparently.

To read the footnotes below, roll your mouse over the portions highlighted in yellow. If you would like to read the letter in its entirety, click here.

If you have a document you'd like to suggest for this column, please e-mail me at . Please indicate whether you'd like me to use your name.

The phrase "fully and currently" appears in the legislation creating the Senate intelligence committee but not, weirdly, in its House counterpart. In practice it has meant that the chairmen and ranking members of the two committees get briefed on all intelligence activities save "covert action," i.e., military or quasi-military operations undertaken by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Hoekstra even supported Bush's dubious claim that the National Security Agency may bypass the special courts established by Congress to grant warrants for such activities.
Intelligence-agency whistleblowers alerted Hoekstra to the mystery intel program's existence, Hoekstra said July 9 on "Fox News Sunday."
It's not clear whether Hoekstra's saying the mystery intel program violates the law or whether he's saying Bush's failure to inform Congress about its existence does so. From the context, though, he probably means the latter.
You and I, however, are stuck doing precisely that. Annoying fact: Since the New York Times story appeared, no reporter has yet asked at a White House briefing, "So, er, what IS this secret Bill of Rights-raping program you didn't dare tell Congress about?" Of course, press spokesman Tony Snow wouldn't (and probably couldn't) answer the question, but that's never stopped the press-room jackals before. Is it possible that Bush's campaign to portray the media as unpatriotic and irresponsible is actually starting to intimidate reporters?
hot document:
entries
1

By Timothy Noah
Posted Monday, July 10, 2006, at 6:48 PM ET
Print This ArticlePRINTEmail to a FriendE-MAILShare This ArticleRECOMMEND...Get Slate RSS FeedsRSS
Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.
What did you think of this article?
Join The Fray: Our Reader Discussion Forum
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES
TODAY'S PICTURES
TODAY'S CARTOONS
TODAY'S DOONESBURY
TODAY'S VIDEO
I want to hold your hand.89/091208_TP.jpg
Cartoonists' take on global warming.18/091208_TC.jpg
They shoot engineers, don't they?90/091208_TD.jpg