Pelosi & Other Lower-Ranking Dems Knew of NSA Intercepts In 2001

You've got to be kidding me. Pelosi's own letter indicates she knew:

In the October 2001 letter, Pelosi said she was told in a briefing that month that the agency "had been operating since the Sept. 11 attacks with an expansive view" of its authorities "to the conduct of electronic surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and related statutes, orders, regulations and guidelines."

"I am concerned whether, and to what extent, the National Security Agency has received specific presidential authorization for the operations you are conducting," Pelosi, then the top Democrat on the intelligence panel, wrote Hayden.

Notice her problem doesn't seem to be with the program itself. It seems to be over whether it was lawfully approved by the President. Which it seems to have been.

Either that or her only real concern was whether or not she could later use this disclosure to make an opportunistic attack on Bush.

And she didn't say anything before now, did she?

posted by Ace at 08:24 AM

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