A new Church Committee?
Salon has obtained a confidential memo written for certain members of Congress that outlines a proposal for an inquiry modeled on the Church Committee; this modern version of Church would focus on the malfeasance of the Bush administration, and it hints at Constitutional and legal violations which go far beyond those already documented:
The proposal for a Church Committee-style investigation emerged from talks between civil liberties advocates and aides to Democratic leaders in Congress, according to sources involved. (Pelosi's and Conyers' offices both declined to comment.) Looking forward to 2009, when both Congress and the White House may well be controlled by Democrats, the idea is to have Congress appoint an investigative body to discover the full extent of what the Bush White House did in the war on terror to undermine the Constitution and U.S. and international laws. The goal would be to implement government reforms aimed at preventing future abuses -- and perhaps to bring accountability for wrongdoing by Bush officials.
While investigating the story, Salon also uncovered evidence of a warrantless domestic surveillance infrastructure much broader than previously disclosed. The story includes the PROMIS software program, originally written by Inslaw, Inc., back in the 1970's. For over two decades, Inslaw has been pursuing the government in court for misappropriating its software without paying any royalties. For most of that time, suggestions have swirled that PROMIS had been surreptitiously copied and modified specifically for use by the intelligence agencies, without any notice or royalties given to Inslaw.
The Inslaw/PROMIS story has taken some intriguing turns over the years; Salon's article adds a new chapter by suggesting that a derivative of PROMIS is being used right now to spy on Americans' financial transactions (and a whole raft of other data) without warrant or suspicion.
If this new Church-like investigation were to have both exhaustive scope and significant credibility, the inquiry would have to deal with many subjects, going back at least to the 1980's:
Getting a full picture on Bush's intelligence programs, however, will almost certainly require any sweeping new investigation to have a scope that would inoculate it against charges of partisanship. During one recent discussion on Capitol Hill, according to a participant, a senior aide to Speaker Pelosi was asked for Pelosi's views on a proposal to expand the investigation to past administrations, including those of Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush. "The question was, how far back in time would we have to go to make this credible?" the participant in the meeting recalled.
That question was answered in the seven-page memo. "The rise of the 'surveillance state' driven by new technologies and the demands of counter-terrorism did not begin with this Administration," the author wrote. Even though he acknowledged in interviews with Salon that the scope of abuse under George W. Bush would likely be an order of magnitude greater than under preceding presidents, he recommended in the memo that any new investigation follow the precedent of the Church Committee and investigate the origins of Bush's programs, going as far back as the Reagan administration.
An inquest such as this is the only way we can reclaim our (currently abrogated) right to protection from warrantless intrusion. A full accounting of Constitutional breaches by this and prior administrations would be merely the first step along the path toward Constitutional repair, but it would be the most important step.