Intellectual Property Law

As Thursday night crawled toward midnight in Washington, D.C., the House of Representatives prepared to go into a secret session, whose first rule is "Don't talk about the secret session."

But prior to the one-hour secret session, House members spoke a lot about the secret session.

For more than an hour they debated the nuances of a proposed secret session of the House that the Republicans wanted in order to share secret information about a secret wiretapping program that is being debated by Congress due to a secret ruling from a secret spying court about the legality of the President's secret spying program.

The House is scheduled to vote on legislation about spying and legal amnesty for partners in the president's secret wiretapping program tomorrow, though that vote was ostensibly scheduled for Thursday and could get postponed again.

The gavel and curtain fell on the secret session discussion a little after 7:30 pm D.C. time. C-Span went dark. and the secret session is expected, though not known, to begin at 8:00 pm

The secret session, according to a secret source, likely won't start until closer to 11 p.m., giving the Houe security guards time to do a security sweep.

It will take the guards two hours to search for secret wireapping bugs so that lawmakers can safely talk about secret wiretapping programs.
 

The session will be only the sixth secret session of the House of Representatives, and the first since 1983. (For more on the secret session, see this previous post).

New York Democratic Congressman Jose Serrano said he's not going.

"If I forget and mention some of that debate in this debate what kind of trouble am I in?," Serrano asked. "This makes American people think we don't want to discuss in public some things and may in fact strike fear into members to vote for a bill they should not vote for."

Under questioning prior to the debate, Republican whip Roy Blunt (R-Missouri) said he doesn't have new secret information, just secret information that only members of the intelligence committees have seen.

"I haven't suggested it is at the Top Secret level or at the program level," Blunt said. "This is information it would be helpful for all members to talk about. I'm not going to talk about the top secret part of the program, but I have some information that would help the debate that rises to the secret level."

While members can't later speak about any classified or unclassified information discussed in the meeting, Senate Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) clarified that members were free to say they went to the secret session.

Some Democratic lawmakers, such as Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) and Rep. David Scott (D-Georgia), questioned the timing and the motives behind the secret session.

"Is this not a political ploy?" Scott asked.

"Is this not a Trojan horse? Is this not a misuse of the House?" Scott asked, suggesting the Republicans will later use the session to vilify Democrats who votes against expansive wiretapping powers.

"Is it worth it to really undermine the openness in government?" Scott continued. "Our nation's history is littered with examples of secrecy when there should have been openness."

Blunt grew visibly weary of the questioning and the expectations, noting that the House had now discussed the secret session for longer the planned duration of the secret session.

"You could argue the discussion will be well worth the time," Blount said.

Perhaps Blunt has a photo of Osama Bin Laden imprisoned in Room 641a, who will be let out if the Congress forces the close down its spying rooms inside the United States..

Former Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich says he's not going either.

"Without referring to any content of any secret meeting I have been too, I have found from my own experiencing that secret meetings tend to be occasions for communication of information of dubious value," Kucinich said.

Since coat room attendants won't be allowed to the secret meeting, members will be told when the secret session begins via email, according to Hoyer. One assumes he means encrypted email, of course.