What did members of Congress know about the CIA’s post-9/11 anti-terrorism surveillance program, when did they know it, and who told them? Those are the key questions behind an increasingly bitter feud between lawmakers, former members of the Bush administration, and CIA leaders. The ante was raised this weekend by former CIA director Michael Hayden, who told AP that he knows congressional leaders were briefed on the top-secret activities because he did the briefings himself. “At the political level, this had support,” Hayden emphasized. Democrats’ protestations that they were kept in the dark do not square with Hayden’s account. Somebody is obviously not telling the truth. Finding out exactly who is lying is of critical importance. Citizens deserve to know whether Hayden is covering up efforts by the Bush-Cheney White House to prevent Congress from exercising its constitutionally mandated oversight responsibilities, or whether congressional leaders are belatedly attacking, for political gain, the same programs they approved and that have successfully prevented another terrorist attack. Our national security literally depends on getting to the bottom of this controversy. Last Friday, a team of five inspectors general issued a report that questioned the legal basis for a Bush administration executive order regarding still-classified domestic surveillance operations designed by Hayden. The five IGs claimed the Hayden program went far beyond previously disclosed warrantless wiretapping activities authorized by Congress in 2008. The IGs apparently did not recommend an abrupt halt to what they clearly imply are illegal activities, only that they be “carefully monitored” in the future. Hayden, who also at one time was in charge of the National Security Agency (NSA), told the IGs that the information gathered was “extremely valuable” and provided an “early warning system” so that terror plots could be disrupted before any more Americans were killed. If so, this is exactly what the CIA and FBI were supposed to be doing, and it also happens to be a course of action recommended by the bipartisan 911 Commission. Hayden said he briefed congressional leaders every three months. If so, congressional acquiescence, particularly absent evidence that such “unprecedented” domestic intelligence gathering violated specific individuals’ constitutional rights, makes it harder to make the case that these programs operated outside the law. A full-blown congressional hearing, with everybody involved under oath, will allow the American people to decide for themselves who they can believe.
