The president, feeling the heat, has changed his mind and says he welcomes congressional investigations into his authorizing of the National Security Agency's warrantless gutting of the Fourth Amendment.
"There will be a lot of hearings and talk about that," Bush says, "but that's good for democracy," a form of government on which he has been insufficiently briefed. Also testifying will be Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Since he orchestrated Bush's 2002 blank check to the NSA, Gonzales's testimony will essentially consist of him applauding himself.
At the open hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee (the Senate Intelligence Committee's hearing will be closed), Gonzales says he will not discuss "the operational aspects" of this "highly classified program."
There is, however, a former NSA officer who is eager to testify at an open hearing. Russ Tice, a former technical-intelligence specialist with NSA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, was also involved in the agency's SAPs (special access programs), which—Bill Gertz reported in the January 12 Washington Times—"are the most sensitive U.S. intelligence and weapons programs and are exempt from many oversight mechanisms used to check other intelligence agencies."
Russ Tice has been warned, however, by Renee Seymour, director of NSA's special access programs, not to testify about secret electronic intelligence programs because they are so super-secret; she emphasizes that "neither the staff nor the members [of the congressional committees] are cleared to receive the information covered by the special access programs."
Russ Tice, Bill Gertz also reports, was a source for the New York Times story that has created the continuing fervor over Bush's further extension of his unilateral powers as commander in chief to do whatever he wants to protect our otherwise democratic and constitutional values. [thanks, Tom P]
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