September 12, 2007 / by emptywheel

 

Our Blabby Director of National Intelligence

You’d think Conyers would be looking forward to having Mike McConnell in for testimony. After all, Conyers has faced such a long string of Administration witnesses who, basically, "do not recall," he ought to be happy to have one who blabs too much. But Conyers is putting McConnell on notice that he’s none too happy about that, either.

At the hearing held in our Committee last week, a number of seriousconcerns were raised by several members about your recent interviewwith the El Paso Times, in which you revealed “previouslyclassified details of government surveillance” activities. Especiallyin light of the Administration’s previous refusal to provide suchinformation to Congress, this selective disclosure of informationraises troubling questions that we ask you to address prior to yourscheduled appearance before the Committee next week to discuss proposedchanges to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Read the whole thing–Conyers has a bit of fun with McConnell’s big blabby mouth. Basically, though, Conyers is foregrounding McConnell’s testimony with the number of times the Administration has refused Congress any information on FISA, then turned around and leaked that information directly to the press.

I suppose it might make McConnell more uncomfortable when he reverts to the default Administration position, stonewalling on information. But it’s probably not going to change this Administration’s fondness for completely inconsistent treatment of classified information.

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Originally Posted @ https://www.emptywheel.net/2007/09/12/our-blabby-director-of-national-intelligence/