CRS, NSA and the Question of Congressional Notification
Last week, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) lashed out at the Congressional Research Service for asserting that the Bush Administration may have had a legal responsibility to notify more than just eight members of Congress regarding the NSA surveillance activity.
Rep. Hoekstra, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, did not merely suggest that the CRS might be wrong; he claimed that the agency was actually biased against Bush Administration policy (“Mau-Mauing the Congressional Research Service”).
In fact, however, it is increasingly clear that Rep. Hoekstra is the one who misunderstood and misrepresented the requirements of the law.
Sen. Mike DeWine (R-OH) put the matter plainly at a February 6 Senate hearing on the NSA surveillance program, explaining that the statute which permits limited notification to eight members of Congress is relevant only to covert actions, and not to the NSA program.
“When you look at that section [50 USC 413(b)], the only thing this references as far as what this Group of Eight does is receive reports in regard to covert action. So that’s really all it is. It does not cover a situation like we’re talking about here at all,” Sen. DeWine said.
“We all have a great deal of respect for these eight people… They’re leaders of the Congress. But there’s no statutory authority for this group, other than the section that has to do with covert operation, and this [the NSA activity] is not a covert operation as defined in this specific section.”
“I don’t mean to be impolite… I guess I’m just kind of a strict constructionist, kind of a conservative guy, and that’s how I read the statute,” Sen. DeWine said.
See, relatedly, “Hoekstra blasts CRS for ‘bias'” by Jackie Kucinich, The Hill, February 7.
From use to testing to deployment, the scaffolding for responsible integration of AI into high-risk use cases is just not there.
OPM’s new HR 2.0 initiative is entering hostile terrain. Those who have followed federal HR modernization for years desperately want this effort to succeed.
January saw us watching whether the government would fund science. February has been about how that funding will be distributed, regulated, and contested.
This rule gives agencies significantly more authority over certain career policy roles. Whether that authority improves accountability or creates new risks depends almost entirely on how agencies interrupt and apply it.