Jan Schakowsky: Dick Cheney's program validates Nancy Pelosi

[babylonsister]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24815.html

Jan Schakowsky: Dick Cheney's program validates Nancy Pelosi

By ALEX ISENSTADT | 7/12/09 5:09 PM EDT

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Asked if Panetta's charge – which does not seem to directly relate to the question of what the CIA Pelosi about waterboarding – offered validation to the speaker's complaint of being misled by the agency, Schakowsky responded: “Absolutely.”

Schakowsky, who chairs the House Intelligence Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, said that it only reinforced the need for the launch of formal investigation into the CIA’s practices.

“What it does is really propel a prompt investigation,” Schakowsky said. “An explicit decision was made at the highest levels not to report this program.”

The Times article also reported that "high-level N.S.A. officials who were responsible for ensuring that the surveillance program was legal, including the agency’s inspector general and general counsel, were not permitted by Mr. Cheney’s office to read the Justice Department opinion that found the eavesdropping legal, several officials said" — a charge that had previously been leveled in New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer's book "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals."

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano declined to comment on the Times report Saturday evening, saying, “It’s not agency practice to discuss what may or may not have been said in a classified briefing."

“When a CIA unit brought this matter to Director Panetta’s attention, it was with the recommendation that it be shared appropriately with Congress. That was also his view, and he took swift, decisive action to put it into effect,” Gimigliano said.

[RainDog]

1. please, wheels of justice, grind.

we as a nation have to return to rule of law. we have gone so far from our stated intentions for being. the pendulum has to swing back hard and bring the balance of power level and on to peace-loving and very powerful democracy - this extends all the way to the individual voter whose economic power/ability to decide where tax dollars are spent has been beaten down by policies that favor a few. that's not healthy for democracy. that's a step backward. our goal should be moving toward greater democracy - that's the part of our history we need to build on.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Personal freedom. rule by a majority without tyranny of the minority. checks and balances on power.

Life in balance.