Who Needs To Know What?

The news wires are humming with a statement from Gen. Michael Hayden that members of Congress were kept well-informed of agency activities regarding surveillance and other agency activities following the World Trade Center attack in 2001. Hayden's remarks deserve attention as he was the man in charge at the National Security Agency (1999-2005) and Central Intelligence Agency (2006-2009) while the questioned activities took place.

Let me say at the outset that any readers who think the NSA and CIA have been deceiving or lying to Congress over the past eight years on this issue are intoxicated on the conspiracy Kool Aid to the point of delusion. Yes, Richard Nixon did abuse his authority by using the CIA to thwart the FBI's investigation of the Watergate burglary. Yes, subsequent congressional investigations in the mid-70s revealed that the CIA had acted outside its legal authority. In the thirty years since these indiscretions, many safeguards and redundant systems have been put in place to assure us that the agencies operate within the law. To think that the CIA would lie outright to members of Congress with any conceivable confidence they could get away with it for eight years stretches the imagination. Even for members of Congress, "need to know" does not imply one needs to tell everything to everybody. After all, it is called a "briefing." Furthermore, there will - and should - be many shades of gray about "black" programs. Why should this not apply to activities of a more transparent nature?

I think there is great danger for any political party to repeatedly question the integrity of our intelligence agencies unless the evidence is beyond question. This is especially true when polls show that the original accuser, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and her defenders have the confidence of less than 20% of Americans. I venture to guess that the CIA and NSA enjoy a far higher level of confidence, as does the U.S. military. So who do we believe? I'll place my confidence in the career military officer any day. If Democrats in Congress who speak before thinking insist on playing with this fire when only one out of five Americans trust them, they deserve to get burned.