Intellectual Property Law

Congress Holds Rare, Secret Spying Session Thursday - Update

By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets

The House of Representatives will shutter C-Span's cameras Thursday afternoon and evict citizens and reporters from the chambers to hold an extremely rare, one-hour secret session where Republicans say they will present information about the current spying debate that cannot be publicly discussed.

The secret session, only the sixth in the House's history and the first since 1983, comes just hours ahead of a planned vote pushes until Friday a vote on a new proposal from House Democrats who oppose giving amnesty to telecoms that helped President Bush's warrantless, domestic wiretapping program.

House Democrats also want more court oversight over how the NSA operates wiretaps placed inside the United States. Such taps have been largely illegal for the past 30 years, but both the House and Senate were persuaded to give the NSA the power to install wiretaps in phone and internet switches, as well as on the servers of email providers like Microsoft and Google.

Those taps are not supposed to be used to target Americans, but can collect their communications if an American communicates with someone suspected to be a foreigner.

According to a 2004 Congressional Research report (.pdf), members and staff may not divulge information from secret sessions, and the staff must sign secrecy oaths. Secrecy violators can be punished with fines, loss of seniority and even expulsion.

Unless the House votes otherwise, a transcript won't be available for thirty years.

House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Missouri) requested the session, which House Majority leader Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) agreed to so that "the Members may hear this information," according to a Hoyer press release.

Rep. Rush Holt (D-New Jersey), a critic of immunity and a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, warned that the Republicans better have something important to share.

"I believe in the use of secret sessions in the House when they are intended to truly educate members on the issues and provide them with valuable classified information," Holt said. "Secret sessions should not be used as a cynical, delaying tactic to block the House from voting on critical legislation that would strengthen our intelligence collection efforts and protect the American people from warrantless surveillance."

"I will be interested to see if Mr. Boehner truly has new classified information on this program to share with members of the House, and I will seek the opportunity to inform my colleagues of what I have learned about this program and the President?s actions in this matter."

Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) is skeptical this is more than a delaying tactic. He helms the House Judiciary committee and has seen many of the classified documents.

"There must be a very high bar to urge the House into a secret session for the first time in 25 years," Conyers said in a press release. "I eagerly await their presentation to see if it clears this threshold. As someone who has seen and heard an enormous amount of information already, I have my doubts."

Republicans and Democrats will each control 30 minutes of the one-hour debate, after which the secret session will be dissolved and the web streams will resume.

See Also:

• Senate Approves Telco Amnesty, Legalizes Bush's Secret Spy Program
• NSA Must Examine All Internet Traffic to Prevent Cyber Nine-Eleven ...
• Secret Spy Ruling Contaminates Debate
• FBI Recorded 27 Million FISA 'Sessions' in 2006
• Can the NSA Wiretap in Iraq Without A Warrant?

Full post as published by Threat Level on March 13, 2008 (boomark / email).