DICK

You know that super-secret CIA anti-terrorism program that was so secret that even CIA director Leon Panetta just found out about at the end of June? That program that was so secret the CIA still won't tell the public what it involved? The New York Times is reporting that the orders to conceal the mystery program from Congress or the public for eight years came from then-Vice President Dick Cheney.


Well, I'm shocked.


Panetta apparently ended the program as soon as he learned of it on June 23, and the next day briefed the leaders in Congress. (This is a mere several weeks after Panetta came to the defense of the intelligence community after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the CIA of lying to Congress about the use of waterboarding. Remember all the conservative commentators who blasted Pelosi, called her a liar and demanded her resignation? I do.)


Though the existence of Mystery Program came to light late this week, we still don't know exactly what it was. Per the Times article, the White House has a legal obligation to inform Congress even of covert operations. This doesn't mean that the director of the CIA has to publicly address all 535 members of both houses. Instead, there's an enclave known as the "Gang of Eight," consisting of top administrators in intelligence and defense, as well as leaders in Congress. It's a bipartisan group legally bound to keep classified material classified. In other words, it's not like the Bush Administration concealed Mystery Program or anything else out of fear that Pelosi would immediately air it all in a press conference. There's this little fail-safe we call "federal prison" to guard against that.


And what about an anti-terror spying program that we do know about? Well, the inspectors general from five different agencies studied the Bush-era warrantless wire-tapping program and found that "extraordinary and inappropriate" secrecy about its existence prevented it from being used by the very law enforcement and intelligence officers it was supposed to help.


The program "may have" contributed to successful counterterrorism efforts, some intelligence officials told the investigators. But too few CIA personnel knew of the highly classified program to use it for intelligence work, the report stated, while at the FBI, the program "played a limited role," with "most . . . leads . . . determined not to have any connection to terrorism."


To recap: our government (assisted by telecom corporations) invaded the privacy of individuals without probable cause - selling out some of this country's oldest and most profound principles -and they didn't even get anything useful out of it. Up to this point I have not been in the camp that wants President Obama and Congress to investigate the Bush Administration's apparent abuses of executive power. But here we're talking about a subversion of due process - the thing that separated the U.S. colonies from the British Empire - and a total disregard for the system of checks and balances that's been our country's saving grace for over 250 years. Congress makes and alters laws, not the president. (The sad thing is that, with a Republican majority in Congress for much of his tenure, Bush probably could've gotten official approval for much of what he wanted to do. But that would've meant a public debate, and apparently the Bush Administration was too good for that.)


I'm of the mind that a blanket investigation of the previous administration sets a bad precedent... but these allegations are clearly so eggregious that Americans, and the world, deserve an explanation. Of course I don't want to see Congress and federal agencies bogged down in a wide-ranging investigation of the last eight years. They have too much else to do. But recent precedent gives us a perfect solution: President Obama should appoint an independent counsel to investigate charges that people with the Bush Administration subverted established law. No impeachments (they're already out of office anyway). But we can't just pretend that none of this happened.


Yes, it will be expensive. But if President Clinton's sex life was worthy of an independent counsel's years-long inquiry, than how can this not be?