Project Censored: Nomination for the ``Ten Best Censored Stories of 1990''

*Intelligence Authorization Act:  Subverting the Constitution*

   At 3:30 a.m., on Saturday, August 4, 1990, a small group of Senators, in an
unrecorded voice vote, passed a bill (SB 2834) that fundamentally alters our
constitutional system and threatens the continued viability of our democratic
experiment. With minor revisions, and no media attention, the bill was passed
by the House of Representatives in the hectic closing days of the 101st
Congress, and subsequently signed into law by President George Bush.
         This new law not only disregards the explicit language of the
Constitution of the United States but also makes legal the kinds of abuses that
shocked the nation in the Iran-contra debacle -- including the use of private
companies and foreign countries to finance and conduct covert actions.
       The Intelligence Authorization Act, and specifically Title VII, the
``Oversight of Intelligence Activities'' section, amends the National Security
Act of 1947 in such a way that the President of the United States is granted
powers and financial provisions for covert action which are unprecedented.
      The misnamed ``oversight'' section:
      --authorizes the President to conduct covert operations, an authority
never before explicitly recognized in Legislation, and erroneously asserts that
this Presidential power has a constitutional basis;
      --explicitly denies any power on the part of the Congress to disapprove
covert actions;
      --provides that the President may use any Federal agency or entity, not
just the CIA, to fund or conduct covert operations. This step would vastly
expand the resources available for such operations and make oversight even more
difficult;
      --allows the President to use third countries and private contractors to
conduct or fund covert operations. The use of third parties was a key source of
Iran-contra abuses and allows the President to bypass the congressional ``power
of the purse'' in our constitutional system;
      --requires the President to make a finding prior to initiating a covert
action and deliver that finding to the Congress, but allows the President to
withhold key details of an operation from Congress, either by asserting that
such information is extraordinarily sensitive or by claiming executive
privilege. Withholding information was the primary method used by the executive
branch to limit Iran-contra prosecutions.
      This bill, which became law without any national debate, anchors covert
operations in statutory law as a permanent instrument of United States foreign
policy for the first time in history. While touted as a reform bill to address
the abuses revealed in the Iran- contra scandal, this ``reform'' now authorizes
virtually every abuse.
      While national attention was focussed on the Mideast crisis and the
federal budget, Congress abdicated its role in the political process and
transferred significant authority over the United States Government to former
CIA director, now president George Bush and to what Bill Moyers has called the
"secret government" endangering our Constitution.

      SOURCE: CHRISTIC INSTITUTE ACTION ALERT, via PeaceNet, 9/12/90,
``Analysis of Covert Operations Bill,'' by Sara Nelson, pp 3-5; 101st Congress,
U.S. Senate, S.2834 Bill, 7/10/90, pp 1-30.