Newsweek: Rep. Jane Harman claims the GOP hyped a flimsy intel report to sell new surveillance law

[sabra]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20998206/site/newsweek/page/0/

The Capitol Hill Terror Attack That Never Came
A Democrat claims the GOP hyped a flimsy intel report to help sell the president's surveillance bill. A top Republican says hogwash.

Web exclusive
By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek


Sept. 26, 2007 - A leading House Democrat has charged that congressional Republicans promoted “bogus” intelligence about a reputed terror threat on Capitol Hill last summer, inflaming debate over the Bush administration’s proposal to dramatically expand the U.S. government’s electronic surveillance powers.

Rep. Jane Harman, who chairs a key homeland-security subcommittee, has provided new details this week about an alarming intel report in August that warned of a possible Al Qaeda attack on the Capitol. The report, which was quickly discredited, was circulated on Capitol Hill at a critical moment: just as the administration was mounting a major push for a new surveillance law that would permit the U.S. intelligence community to intercept suspected terrorist communications without seeking approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

In the days before the vote on the surveillance bill in early August, the U.S. Capitol Police suddenly stepped up security procedures, and one top Republican senator, Trent Lott, seemed to allude to the report when he claimed that “disaster could be on our doorstep” if the Congress didn’t immediately act. Inside the Congress, “there was a buzz about this,” Harman told NEWSWEEK. “There was an orchestrated campaign to basically gut FISA , and this piece of uncorroborated intelligence was used as part of it.”

...

At first, Harman said, NCTC staff “claimed to have no idea what the Republican members were referring to,” according to an Aug. 14, 2007, letter she sent to the Vice Admiral John Scott Redd (Ret.), director of the counterterrorism center. But after two days, officials tracked back the information to the unreliable report about an attack on the Capitol and passed it along to Harman. That document “made clear that the source of the information was not credible,” Harman wrote in her letter. Harman still wasn’t satisfied: “Misrepresenting intelligence for the purpose of scoring political points does nothing to enhance the public’s trust in either our institutions or our political process,” she wrote in her letter to Redd. “Equally frustrating, however, was the NCTC’s silence while one of your products was being misrepresented and misused for political gain. This is not how you or anyone else in the Intelligence Community should be doing business, and it severely undermines your credibility going forward.”

[Virginia Dare]

1. Trent Lott called for Congress to be shut down until after 9/11..

there needs to be a serious investigation into where this crap was coming from, my guess is all trails lead back to Dick Cheney.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. Why is this story not on the front page of every paper in the country?

Why is Congress not moving to impeach these bastards? What does it take to outrage America?

I swear if bush murdered a baby live on prime time TV, by the next day, they would be swift boating the baby. :grr:

[rurallib]

3. What is she (or Pelosi) going to do about it?

If nothing then this is yet another story of the corrupt administration getting away with illegal or unethical acts that will go into the dustbin of history. And prove yet again that Dems have no backbone.
Gee, I think had CLINTON done this it would be the lead story for MONTHS.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. She should be investigating

She should have started investigations months ago.

[riverdeep]

4. The only thing resembling mainstream TV following this?

Keith Olbermann. He had her on either last night or the night before to talk about this. It's so transparent at this point.