Dems push for changes on briefings

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been talking with House Intelligence Committee members about changes in the congressional briefing process that would broaden the number of members who get information and give them more latitude to challenge policies they oppose.

{mosads}Primarily, they’re looking at ways for Intelligence Committee members to get some of theinformation on covert operations now provided only to leaders of both parties in the “Gang of Eight.”

“It needs to change,” said Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee. “Hopefully, there will be some legislation coming down the line.”

Pelosi (D-Calif.) last week said there are too many restrictions on what members can do with the information from briefings, saying, “that is what has to change.” That has been a key point of contention between the Speaker and Republicans amid the release of memos on interrogation techniques that Democrats consider to be torture.

On Wednesday, Pelosi met with Intelligence Committee Democrats in a session that began in the committee’s secure room in the Capitol Visitor Center and extended into a session in the Speaker’s Ceremonial Office off the House floor. The Democrats also met with CIA Director Leon Panetta, who addressed a closed hearing of the committee Wednesday morning.

At least one committee member agreed that they should look at ways that members can register their dissent with intelligence policies they object to.

“We should also consider what happens if, once we’ve been briefed — what to do if we disagree about what we’ve been briefed on,” said Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.).

But lawmakers already have a way to register objections to intelligence policies with which they disagree, according to Democrats, Republicans and outside groups.

“If you discover an intelligence operation you consider a violation of law, there’s always something you can do,” said Steven Aftergood of the anti-secrecy Federation of American Scientists. “There are options.

It’s not as though you can say, ‘There’s nothing I can do.’ ”

Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.) also says there are steps that members can take if they disagree with a policy presented to them in a briefing.

“We have a constitutional ability and obligation to do something about it,” Murphy said. “You can tie it to the budget. You can tie it to another bill. There’s lots of ways to skin a cat.”

The executive branch has long been wary of providing classified information to members of Congress because of the fear it will be leaked. According to The Washington Post, federal investigators determined in 2002 that Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) had divulged to reporters information obtained in classified briefings. No charges were brought, but the matter was referred to the Senate Ethics Committee.

But members of both parties complained the Bush administration was too restrictive in its briefings. Democrats, for example, said Bush officials too often limited to the “Gang of Eight” — the top Democratic and Republican leader in each chamber and the party’s top members on the Intelligence Committee — information that should have been given to the full Intelligence Committee.

“Oversight requires a partnership between Congress and the executive branch,” Langevin said. “Clearly, the previous administration was not as responsible as they should have been on briefing. We are bound and determined to change that.”

{mospagebreak}{mosads}In the back-and-forth last week about who knew what about the so-called torture memos, Pelosi said she was powerless to do anything after being told that Justice Department lawyers determined waterboarding and other tactics had legal approval.

“You’re really a hostage if you’re notified that something has happened. They’re not asking for your thoughts,” Pelosi said in a CNN interview this week.

Pelosi, who was the ranking member on Intelligence during a 2002 briefing, suggested members are “more hamstrung by being briefed than they would be not briefed.”

But Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.), the top Republican on House Intelligence, said members of Congress can challenge policies they disagree with. He says he and Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) protested a policy to President Bush and got it changed. He wouldn’t say what the policy was, but said the episode occurred within the last two and a half years.

“This is nuts, this saying, ‘I couldn’t do anything,’ ” Hoekstra said.

In the most extreme scenario, Aftergood said, a lawmaker can take to the floor of the House and Senate and condemn the operation. Because of constitutional “Speech and Debate” protections, a member couldn’t be prosecuted even if he or she violated secrecy laws.

The most recent example of that may have been when then-Sen. Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) had the Pentagon Papers read into a committee record.

Short of that, Aftergood said, a member could introduce legislation to prohibit the conduct that was explained in the briefing.

Aftergood said that would draw outrage from executive-branch agencies, before noting that “members don’t work for the executive branch.”

It would also likely turn oversight of intelligence, already a ginger balancing act, into a grudge match.
Members can also write letters to the president protesting the policy or issue an instruction to the intelligence agency telling it not to engage in activity a member considers illegal. Legislators who don’t want to go public with legislation can also amend classified portions of the intelligence authorization bill to prohibit activities.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) took the route of writing to Vice President Dick Cheney in July 2003 to record his objection to the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program.

But, highlighting the constraints felt by legislators on the Intelligence Committee, he wrote the letter by hand and noted that he could not consult a lawyer or even his staff about what they’d heard.