Intelligence Manipulation Alleged

Newsweek reports:

A leading House Democrat has charged that congressional Republicans promoted “bogus” intelligence about a reputed terror threat on Capitol Hill last summer, inflaming debate over the Bush administration’s proposal to dramatically expand the U.S. government’s electronic surveillance powers.

Rep. Jane Harman, who chairs a key homeland-security subcommittee, has provided new details this week about an alarming intel report in August that warned of a possible Al Qaeda attack on the Capitol. The report, which was quickly discredited, was circulated on Capitol Hill at a critical moment: just as the administration was mounting a major push for a new surveillance law that would permit the U.S. intelligence community to intercept suspected terrorist communications without seeking approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

In the days before the vote on the surveillance bill in early August, the U.S. Capitol Police suddenly stepped up security procedures, and one top Republican senator, Trent Lott, seemed to allude to the report when he claimed that “disaster could be on our doorstep” if the Congress didn’t immediately act. Inside the Congress, “there was a buzz about this,” Harman told NEWSWEEK. “There was an orchestrated campaign to basically gut FISA [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act], and this piece of uncorroborated intelligence was used as part of it.”

Yet another example of the deeply cynical and dangerous way this administration and its supporters have manipulated the public, citing hyped and bogus terror threats for short term political gain. Good for Jane Harman for calling her colleagues on it.

More from Marcy Wheeler who noted Harman’s comments a few days ago.