John Negroponte gave his first national security hearing today to members of the Senate and it was a war. Democrats raged about the threats of the domestic surveillance program against American citizens. The Republicans simply said, "They're not doing that."

From the New York Time article:

Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the Senate Intelligence Committee's ranking Democrat, compared the administration's public disclosures of limited information about the N.S.A. program in the six weeks since it was first disclosed to what he described as a similarly misleading use of intelligence before the war in Iraq.

"I am deeply troubled by what I see as the administration's continued effort to selectively release intelligence information that supports its policy or political agenda while withholding equally pertinent information that does not do that," Mr. Rockefeller said.

Another Democrat, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, said the administration had engaged in "consistent stonewalling" to prevent the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees from carrying out their oversight duties. Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, suggested the administration's public accounts of the eavesdropping program were contradictory, noting that President Bush had described the agency's interception, without court warrants, of "a few" messages, while Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, had referred to "thousands" of messages.

But none of the Republicans on the panel joined the Democrats in their criticism. And in a statement issued later, Senator Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who is chairman of the committee, accused Mr. Rockefeller and other Democrats of derailing the discussion about security threats with their concerns about the eavesdropping program.

"I am concerned that some of my Democrat colleagues used this unique public forum to make clear that they believe the gravest threat we face is not Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, but rather the president of the United States," Mr. Roberts said. "There is no doubt in my mind there are marching orders to the minority members of this committee to question and attack, at every opportunity, the president, the vice president, the secretary of state, attorney general and now members of our intelligence agencies."

You know what... I'm beginning to think the biggest threat to our national security is the administration. They start wars we don't want and get our people killed. They wreck our economy, spy on their citizens and all kinds of other things they do to hurt the American people. We don't need a dictator... a fascist authoritarian running the show. We need someone intelligent who, on occasion, will follow the law.


Technorati Tags: wire tapping, Bush, John Negroponte, Rockefeller, Roberts

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