Porter Goss Becoming the Head of Central Ex-Agent Harrassment
Dear CIA Director Goss:
You were once a member of the U.S. Congress. You represented constituents and swore an oath to defend and protect our system of government, our Constitution.A secrecy-obsessed national security bureacracy may be a necessity on some fronts, but democracy requires that it be limited. Attempting to squelch retired CIA personnel from speaking to the public or media is absolutely outrageous and inconsistent with our form of democracy.
You are completely out of line and have forgotten what your oath to this nation was all about.
You are fast becoming a caricature of a person so obsessed with leaks that you break the system in order to save it. Your harrassment of former CIA staff is unacceptable and your attempts to stifle the civil society of this country is antithetical to what democracy is about.Turn this harrassment policy you have launched against former staff around.
Don't become the Dr. Strangelove of national intelligence and the CIA.
Sincerely,
Steven Clemons
The Washington Note
This is what I had to send to the CIA Director this morning after reading Demetri Sevastopulo's important piece that ex-CIA agents are being harrassed and threatened by Goss for any "unauthorized" meetings with the press or media.
Sevatopulo writes:
The Central Intelligence Agency has warned former employees not to have unapproved contacts with reporters, as part of a mounting campaign by the administration to crack down on officials who leak information on national security issues.A former official said the CIA recently warned several retired employees who have consulting contracts with the agency that they could lose their pensions by talking to reporters without permission. He added that while the threats might be legally "hollow," they were having a chilling effect on former employees.
The CIA called the allegations "rubbish". Jennifer Millerwise Dyke, spokeswoman for CIA director Porter Goss, said former employees with consulting deals could lose their contracts for violating the CIA secrecy agreement by having unauthorised conversations with reporters. But she stressed that under current law, "termination of a contract does not affect pensions".
The clampdown represents the latest move in what observers describe as the most aggressive government campaign against leaks in years. The Justice Department is investigating the disclosure to the media of secret overseas CIA prisons and a highly classified National Security Agency domestic spying programme authorised by President George W. Bush. Last week, the CIA fired Mary McCarthy, an intelligence officer, for allegedly leaking classified information and having undisclosed contacts with reporters.
Mr Goss has increased the number of "single issue" polygraphs -- lie detector tests aimed at ferreting out leaking employees. A second former official said Mr Goss was trying to "scare everybody" by using polygraphs aggressively.
Elizabeth Rindskopf Parker, former CIA general counsel, said Mr Goss was "obviously taking a much more forward-leaning stance than any of us have seen for years". But another former intelligence official said the agency was simply returning to a "more conservative regimen" to remind employees that they work for a secret organisation.
The bottom line that Porter Goss needs to know is that former agents and CIA officials go into journalism, think tanks, work on the Hill, work for corporations, or go into numerous NGOs. They are part of a vast, networked group of former CIA staffers who try to meld back into society after working "on the inside".
Certainly, some material they know is classified and should not be disclosed unless those in power are engaged in serial abuses of power -- which I think parts of this administration are, particularly when it comes to policies dealing with torture, rendition, and the secret detention and disappearing of prisoners.
But to try and shut down all "unauthorized" meetings and discussions with the media is like putting them in a silo for the rest of their lives. This is outrageous and assures that if he doesn't change course -- which I hope he does -- when Goss finally leaves the CIA, he will leave as one of the single most detested directors there.
And everything he is doing now will be reversed. This "police state" stuff has gone far too far.
Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note.
Has Larry Johnson heard from Goss or his minions? Are there things Democrats in Congress while still in the minority do to progress both the publics right and need to know and former CIA members First Amendment rights?
Daniel A. Greenbaum
April 27, 2006 6:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's hardly surprising that Porter Goss would use the machinery of the CIA, under the guise of national security, in a partisan way to protect the abuses of the Bush Administration.
At the time of his confirmation, former CIA Director Stansfield Turner said it was the "worst appointment that's ever been made because that's an office that needs to be kept above partisan politics."
Yet Goss was confirmed by a vote of 77-17.
Given what was at stake, perhaps a filibuster would have been appropriate.
April 27, 2006 7:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, Larry got a letter - he's quoted in the linked article confirming this.
I'd be interested to know if Valerie Plame got a letter.
April 27, 2006 7:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Look at the vote totals. You need the support 41 senators to maintain a filibuster.
Demand the Truth for America
April 27, 2006 7:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Porter Goss is still subject to the same oath of office. If he is preforming acts against defending the Constitution then he is voliation of that oath.
That could be and impeachable offense, GOP control of Congress ensures that will not happen.
Demand the Truth for America
April 27, 2006 7:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's my point. Democrats caved without a fight, thereby confirming a person that was likely to engage in the type of repressive conduct as CIA Director that we are seeing now.
April 27, 2006 8:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
When DCIs defended their Intelligence Professionals
Long ago, in what oldsters in the Community still regard as the "Golden Age of American Intelligence", DCIs protected their intelligence staff from the ravages of ideological threats from the political processes in Washington.
None met this standard better than Allen Dulles. When Sentator McCarthy threatened to turn his career-destroying machine against a group of CIA case officers and analysts, Dulles went directly to Eisenhower.
He asked the President to use the full force of the White House to force McCarthy to back off. Eisenhower was initially reluctant, but Dulles insisted.
The Republican Senator from Wisconsin bowed to Eisenhower, and shifted his blowtorch to targets in the Army and the State Department, leaving the Agency almost unscathed.
There was a time when clandestine officers (and analysts) could count on their senior officers for support and protection from the politicians.
Porter Goss has set a new low in the standards of leadership at the Agency, falling grossly short of the standards set by his predecessors in the "Golden Age".
Professor John Stuart Blackton
April 27, 2006 8:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
You may be right on wanting a filibuster. The Democrats in office all to often have no backbone. Perhaps my statement is not strong enough, they never have a backbone.
I would never vote for someone who is not qualified for a position, but that is just me.
I would also, if I were a Senator, file a Federal suit against all Presidential "Recess Appointments."
Bush used it for a means to get around the Senate. This is not what the Constitution allows. Bush also tried to appoint some judge and make a case that the "Recess Appointment" was good to until the end of 2008 (Jan 2009). He position was that since the House and Senate had their procedural (ritual) meeting that they have every ten days to prevent the need for approval of adjournment by the other chamber of Congress that meant that Congress had already started the session of Congress thus adding two years to the Judges term of appointment without being subject to Senate Consent.
If Bush’s rational is right then there is no “Pocket Veto”. That means that every law that was passed by Congress and subjected to a “Pocket Veto” is actually a legal law. This is not what the Foundering Father wrote in the Constitution. They wrote:
Article I, Section 7,
Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States: If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.
President Bush likewise has signed a bill that was not passed by the House, but was to his liking, and taking the position that since I as President have signed the bill it is law. His signature is not required to make a law. The passage by both chambers of Congress is. Thus the President has again violated the above section of the Constitution.
So what we have is a Constitutional crisis that this President has clearly thrown out this section of the Constitution twice and no one has taken him to task.
We clearly have a problem with a President who does not follow the Constitution and is operating outside the law.
Demand the Truth for America
April 27, 2006 8:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
All these people do is politics and corruption.
April 27, 2006 9:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
I forgot that a recess appointment is:
Article 2, Section 2
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
Please note that the words are: "that may happen during the Recess of the Senate".
All Vacancies that may happen during is very specific wording. It is not by accident. It means the President can fill vacanies that happen while the Senate is in Recess. Filling vacanies at all other times is subject to "by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, ...provided two thirds of the Senators present concur;
Demand the Truth for America
April 27, 2006 9:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
It can't be said often enough, but government officials speak out when they have lost confidence in their leadership.
The fact Goss is on this neo-Stalinist authoritarian rampage, gagging and browbeating agents for the simple reason that they were once agents, should not only be seen as vindictiveness on the part of the Bushies. Rather, it seems they recognize that they have lost control of the agency, and are trying to contain the damage.
However, I can only imagine the reaction of, say, Vince Cannistraro and other Cold Warriors to being threatened by King George and his wimpy minions. I expect some might view this as a challenge to speak out even more often.
April 27, 2006 9:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
J. McCutchen "JmacSF"
San Francisco. CA
Of cousre none of this would be possible without the aid of the GOP Cover-Up Congress under tireless leadership of Pat Roberts.
April 27, 2006 9:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
And while all this time and energy goes toward reining in, punishing and generally intimidating employees and retired emplyees where is the effort to improve intellligence?
Where is the management that knows how to build a better organization?
Thank you JSB and SC.
April 27, 2006 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
This "police state" stuff has gone far too far.
The CIA complaining about living in a police state! Now, that is funny.
April 27, 2006 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
There was a time when clandestine officers (and analysts) could count on their senior officers for support and protection from the politicians.
Yeah; wouldn't want those un-American irresponsible pandering politicians like Frank Church, Otis Pike, and Leo Ryan interfering in how the President's secret army of unaccountable thugs runs the security state, would we.
April 27, 2006 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
At least try to put Goss' actions in context. I can't remember a situation where groups of retired intelligence professionals like this one:
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0822-12.htm
are calling for active intelligence officers to leak classified data. This group includes Larry Johnson who posts on this site.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veteran_Intelligence_Professionals_for_Sanity
Had activities like this taken place under ANY other administration (pick a party) do you really think the DCI would sit with his hands folded and done nothing?
April 27, 2006 3:49 PM | Reply | Permalink