Legal Commentary

Cheney Linked to Planned Covert CIA Program

By Jeralyn

The New York Times reports on a covert program planned by the CIA that Dick Cheney ordered be kept secret.

The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

....Mr. Panetta, who ended the program when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, briefed the two intelligence committees about it in separate closed sessions the next day.

[More...]

The program apparently never went "fully operational."

Intelligence and Congressional officials have said the unidentified program did not involve the C.I.A. interrogation program and did not involve domestic intelligence activities. They have said the program was started by the counterterrorism center at the C.I.A. shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but never became fully operational, involving planning and some training that took place off and on from 2001 until this year.

Cheney's former advisor David Addington is back in the news too, with respect to the NSA wiretap program released yesterday:

A report released on Friday by the inspectors general of five agencies about the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program makes clear that Mr. Cheney’s legal adviser, David S. Addington, had to personally approve every government official who was told about the program. The report said “the exceptionally compartmented nature of the program” frustrated F.B.I. agents who were assigned to follow up on tips it turned up.

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.

Jane Mayer had an excellent article in 2006 on Addington as the man behind Cheney. Laura Rozen at Washington Monthly has more today on Addington and Cheney. The Public Record brings John Yoo into the mix on the NSA warrantless wiretapping program. Yoo apparently doesn't think much of the Fourth Amendment.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on July 11, 2009 (boomark / email).