Bush expands role for national intel chief

President Bush's new executive order revising rules for intelligence agencies expands the national intelligence director's powers and may further erode the CIA's traditional autonomy. The order, revised in secret and signed on July 30, is drawing criticism from civil liberties groups and even lawmakers from the president's own party. House Republicans on the intelligence committee walked out of a briefing the next day by the national intelligence director, Mike McConnell, on the order to protest what they consider the White House's pattern of disrespect for congressional oversight. The committee believes it has not been consulted or informed about critical intelligence matters. These include the executive order; Israel's bombing of an alleged Syrian nuclear facility last summer; changes in US intelligence on Iran; the administration's warrantless wiretapping program; and the CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes. "This president is making it impossible for Congress to do oversight of the intelligence community," the committee's top Republican, Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, told The Associated Press. "The only effective oversight that can be done is out of the executive branch. And this is the fox guarding the chicken coop." The American Civil Liberties Union quickly condemned the order, saying it seems to authorize the intelligence agencies to focus more on domestic spying than before. "We have secret laws governing secret agencies that are engaging in secret spying against Americans, and they're using our own tax dollars to do it. This isn't keeping us safer it's only making all Americans suspects in the eyes of the government," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU's legislative office in Washington. The order directs the attorney general to develop guidelines so intelligence agencies have access to information held by other agencies. That potentially could include the sharing of sensitive information about Americans. For 50 years, the CIA has set the policy and largely called the shots on pursuing and managing relationships with foreign intelligence and security services. But the latest version of Executive Order 12333 gives the national intelligence director new power to oversee those relationships, including how much information and the type of information to be shared with a foreign government; the CIA still will carry out day-to-day contacts. The intelligence director is also gaining oversight of covert operations, an area where the CIA has been the traditional authority. The executive order gives the national intelligence director, a position created in 2005, new authority over intelligence information collected that pertains to more than one agency. The order also gives the national intelligence director's office new power of the purse: It was granted the authority to make acquisition decisions on certain national intelligence programs. "The complete lack of consultation with Congress on these sweeping changes is yet another example of this administration's disregard for checks and balances," said the ACLU's Fredrickson. "This kind of concentrated power, exercised in secret, is a lit fuse with our Constitution likely in danger of being burned."