Susan Collins On NSA PRISM Briefings: No Access To 'Highly Compartmentalized Information

[avaistheone1]

Source: Huffington Post

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters in the Capitol Monday that as the top-ranking Republican on last year's Homeland Security Committee, she expected she would have been briefed on the National Security Agency's PRISM surveillance program, but was not. Even as a member of this session's intelligence committee, she said, she had not been briefed before the panoramic snooping program run by the NSA was revealed by The Guardian last week.

Collins said the Obama administration's argument that she could have requested a briefing falls short, because she had no knowledge on which to base a request. "How can you ask when you don't know the program exists?" Collins wondered, chuckling at the absurdity.

As Collins said she understands it, Senate leaders and the top intelligence committee members got briefings. "The rest of us did not. At the time, I was the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, so I'd think that I would've had more information about that since I had, along with Joe Lieberman, a monthly threat briefing. But I did not have access to this highly compartmentalized information," she said. "If they're talking about there being widespread knowledge [of PRISM in Congress], there was not."

HuffPost's Sam Stein reported earlier that "Obama administration officials held 22 separate briefings or meetings for members of Congress on the law that has been used to justify the National Security Agency's controversial email monitoring program, according to data provided by a senior administration official."

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/10/susan-collins-nsa-briefings_n_3418866.html

[dkf]

1. Full congressional oversight huh?

I call BS.

Looks like full oversight of maybe 4-8 people if that.

Is Obama going to say he just learned this from the newspapers?

[struggle4progress]

23. Collins has been in the Senate for over a decade and a half by now, and Congress is a branch

of government, coequal with the Executive branch

The Senate, rather than the Executive Branch, established the Senate Intelligence Committee and the rules governing it. If Senators are unhappy with the results, part of the remedy may be for the Senate to modify its intelligence oversight procedures

The laws governing NSA data collection were passed by Congress, and the apparatus for such data collection are funded by Congress acts. So, again ,if there is some unhappiness in Congress about the laws Congress passed and the activities that Congress funds under those laws, perhaps Congress should revisit the laws and the funding

[Major Hogwash]

24. She's a neocon toadie.

I think this is her last hurrah, she won't be re-elected for sniveling now about this issue.
She was one of the neocon toadies who gave Bush everything he wanted -- the wiretapping bill that worked retroactively to cover his ass for spying without going to the FISA court before that became public news.
Plus, she voted for both of the wars Bush started without even blinking an eye.

[napoleon_in_rags]

2. Wow.

You know, its one thing when details of an investigation aren't given to elected representatives, but the entire existence of programs? So the law says that the people who make the laws (congress) aren't allowed to know they programs that passed by law into existence? That is some weird stuff right there.

[dkf]

3. Susan Collins is **ON** the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Since the beginning of this year...

She has learned more from Snowdens leak than she has been briefed on as a member of the committee that OVERSEES THE PROGRAM.

[joshcryer]

27. According to her. They can't say what they know.

We know that the Senate Intelligence Committee for Iraq knew that they didn't have WMDs for example. But they didn't openly come out and condemn it.

[Kolesar]

4. excerpt is written like excrement

vague references using pronouns, etc

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Oh noes! Pronouns!

I found the excerpt quite easy to understand. Your post, however, is incomprehensible. You've managed to communicate that you don't like the excerpt, but haven't got across a single reason for anyone else to feel the same.

Shit - sorry - a rewrite:

muriel_volestrangler found the excerpt quite easy to understand. Kolesar's post, however, is incomprehensible. Kolesar has managed to communicate that Kolesar doesn't like the excerpt, but hasn't got across a single reason for any other people to feel the same.

Better?

[Kolesar]

7. You are not making good use of your Tuesday... eom

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Thanks to you (nt)

[Kolesar]

9. I am eating breakfast

You are wasting your life writing whatever that was you wrote. I suppose it is stimulating to you.

[Ash_F]

17. Said the poster whines about pronouns.

[Kolesar]

19. ^Another non-donor cruises in from infowars.com ... eom

[premium]

22. oooooooooooh, non donor.

I guess that means that we have worthy to say because some of us don't donate to DU.
Nice smear there Kolesar.

[Ash_F]

26. Do ho ho 'non-donor'..that's a new one

DU 2013 ~The One Percent~

[MADem]

6. Well, she voted for the Patriot Act. All of this stuff was put into place when her pal

George was the President.

I love the passive attitudes of some of these lawmakers. If you are curious about your work at all, demand the same frigging briefs that the chair/ranking get--don't wait for chair and/or ranking to decide what you are "allowed" to see.

Pisspoor excuses for leaders, some of these legislators.

[UpInArms]

11. all but Feingold voted for that treasonous piece of shit legislation

They should all be thrown from office.

[4bucksagallon]

10. Susan you're my Senator but with that "R" after your name,

and the fact you and Joe Lieberstick were so close I wouldn't trust you either.

[Zorro]

12. Shouldn't Michelle Bachmann have been briefed on the program?

She's on the House Intelligence Committee.

[savalez]

20. She probably was but forgot.

[tridim]

13. Thanks for your report, Republican liar Sen. Susan Collins from Maine. nt

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

14. Next Report: How many times Collins skipped the meeting

Come on. You know this is coming.

It's going to turn out the Collins had multiple opportunities to be briefed on the issues, but she was busy sucking up to corporate campaign contributors.

[starroute]

15. Being a mere intelligence committee member doesn't give you access

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Eight

The Gang of Eight is a common colloquial term for a set of eight leaders within the United States Congress who are briefed on classified intelligence matters by the executive branch. Specifically, the Gang of Eight includes the leaders of each of the two parties from both the Senate and House of Representatives, and the chairs and ranking minority members of both the Senate Committee and House Committee for intelligence.

The President of the United States is required by 50 U.S.C. § 413(a)(1) to "ensure that the congressional intelligence committees are kept fully and currently informed of the intelligence activities of the United States." However, under 50 U.S.C. § 413b(c)(2), the President may elect to report instead to the Gang of Eight when he thinks "it is essential to limit access" to information about a covert action.

The individuals are sworn to secrecy and there is no vote process.

I also found a story from 2009 which suggests that even being the ranking member of an intelligence committee doesn't mean you get the straight scoop.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/65027-pelosi-claim-that-cia-lied-validated-by-intel-panel

The CIA may have misled Congress at least five times since 2001, two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee said Tuesday.

Intelligence subcommittee Chairwomen Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) are leading an ongoing investigation into what they described as a practice of incomplete and often misleading intelligence briefings, which arose in the wake of CIA Director Leon Panetta’s June 24 admission that intelligence officials failed to notify Congress about a top-secret program to assassinate al Qaeda leaders. . . .

One of the instances being closely examined by the two Democrats is the September 2002 briefing on enhanced interrogation techniques that became the basis for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) claim that the CIA lied to her. Findings on this point could bolster Pelosi’s case.

The Speaker came under fire after she said at a testy press conference in May that the CIA had lied to her and other members during a 2002 briefing about its use of waterboarding on detainees. Pelosi was the ranking member of the Intelligence panel at the time.

[Bluenorthwest]

16. If the Intelligence Committee wanted to be informed they should have been new hires at

Booz instead of United States Senators. Who do they think they are?

[JoePhilly]

18. So upset she waited til now to complain

[pmorlan1]

21. A tale of two administrations

This is exactly what we heard about the Bush administration's briefings about the torture program. Back then Democrats were rightfully outraged. Now...where is the massive outrage? All of us should be all over this.

[treestar]

25. "She expected"

That may not be the procedure.