Cross Posted on Daily Kos 

This isn’t meant to be a piece critical of how Representative Harman and Senator Rockefeller dealt with the fact that they knew that the CIA tapes of the detainee interrogations existed back in 2003. As Representative Harman said:

Given the nature of the classification, I was not free to mention this subject publicly until Director Hayden disclosed it yesterday.

Now, I’m sure there are many a liberal blogger who is screaming that this is a BS excuse. “It’s their moral duty to disclose this information to the public!” they will or are saying I’m sure.

I have two problems with this, however. First off, we typically like our Congresscritters NOT doing illegal things – especially things which could hypothetically damage national security by leaking classified documents. I’m sure it’s happened in the past, but breaking the law to uncover something isn’t exactly a glorious thing, especially if you’re an elected representative.

There is an even more important reason than this, though, why I think a habitual leaking of classified information by these select Congressmen and Senators would be bad in the long run: it gives the Administration a perfect excuse not to give them any information at all. You could very easily see an argument that if Congress can’t keep secret things secret, then they shouldn’t be given the access to secrets. I think this would be the single most dangerous repercussion to people like Representative Harman “snitching.”

Instead, I think the very system of the “gang of 4″ or the “gang of 8″ is broken on it’s face. Giving 2 members on either the House or Senate intelligence committee access to classified information may technically fulfill the White House’s requirement for Congressional oversight, but it is an oversight in name only.

The reason is because if a House member or a Senator sees something in these classified briefings which alarms them, there is no legal way for Congress to act to investigate and correct the situation. None. The only way they could do it is for the Representative or Senator to break the law and leak the information.

While going after a Senator for leaking information which ends up being damning to an administration may not be a politically viable thing to do, Congress should never be put into a situation where there is no legal way for it to investigate something that’s going wrong.

Classified information like this is only useful for the purposes of Congressional oversight if the entire committee is given that information and is able to hold hearings on that issue – even if those hearings are conducted in secret and are classified themselves.

Also, I think there must be some way for the intelligence committee to be able to declassify information themselves if they deem it necessary – perhaps with a 2/3 vote or something.

But giving a piece of classified information to 4 Congressmen & women, then ignoring any warnings they may raise, but preventing them from doing anything other than writing angry letters (which are themselves classified) if the administration does something dumb or illegal isn’t any sort of meaningful oversight.