ational Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC)
has obtained documents revealing that to date the Executive
Branch has refused congressional requests to be briefed on
illegal black operations conducted by the NSA, and has
denied these representatives access to relevant witnesses
and documents. To view these documents
click here.
The term "national security" has become talismanic,
conferring extraordinary powers on the President whenever it
is uttered. It insulates the executive branch from
congressional oversight and reduces the Constitution to
advisory status. The circularity of the term’s operation is
frequently overlooked. Information and programs are
classified according to presidential orders and when
Congress or the judiciary seeks such information they are
told that because the information is classified, national
security forbids disclosure. Even the Code of Federal
Regulations identifies national security information as
information that is classified pursuant to executive orders.
In other words, the material is classified and unavailable
because the President says so; no reasons need to be
supplied. This prevents Congress from having access to the
material, for even the two select committees for oversight
of intelligence activities are shunned when they request
documents.
In this
link
you see various letters from members of Congress and the
executive branch, with bureaucrats refusing information to
the two intelligence oversight committees because the
committee members do not have appropriate clearances. Of
course, clearances, like classified information, are
exclusively controlled by the President. So if he does not
want oversight of anything he has made secret he simply
refuses Congress clearance to see the material. This is the
modern version of Royal Prerogative that was argued by
Parliament against Charles I in 17th century
England and was finally, so we thought, put to rest in the
United States by the Constitution. "National security" has
converted the presidency into a limited monarchy with the
power to deny the people, through their elected
representatives, accountability for executive actions.
These letters show that oversight of Special Access Programs
(SAPs) at the Department of Defense is nonexistent because
no one in congress has a high enough security clearance. It
highlights the nightmare that Russ Tice, former National
Security Agency (NSA) intelligence analyst and a member of
NSWBC, went through to find someone in congress to whom he
could address illegal and unconstitutional activity
involving the super secret realm of “black world” programs
and operations. Mr. Tice
attempted
to bring these concerns to the House and Senate Intelligence
Committees. Those attempts were rebuffed by the NSA and the
chairmen of the intelligence committees themselves. To date,
Russell Tice has not been allowed to address a full
committee in closed session, or even a single member of
congress, about the abuses in these SAP programs.
National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, founded in
August 2004, is an independent and nonpartisan alliance of
whistleblowers who have come forward to address our nation’s
security weaknesses; to inform authorities of security
vulnerabilities in our intelligence agencies, at nuclear
power plants and weapon facilities, in airports, and at our
nation’s borders and ports; to uncover government waste,
fraud, abuse, and in some cases criminal conduct. The NSWBC
is dedicated to aiding national security whistleblowers
through a variety of methods, including advocacy of
governmental and legal reform, educating the public
concerning whistleblowing activity, provision of comfort and
fellowship to national security whistleblowers suffering
retaliation and other harms, and working with other public
interest organizations to affect goals defined in the NSWBC
mission statement. For more on NSWBC visit
www.nswbc.org
©
Copyright 2006, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.
Information in this release may be freely distributed and
published provided that all such distributions make
appropriate attribution to the National Security
Whistleblowers Coalition.
