UNDERACHIEVING OVERSIGHT

Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, named to head the CIA, is expected to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee today, where he will be grilled on the extent of the National Security Agency’s recently revealed surveillance program. But many of the committee’s questions may be best answered by the commander-in-chief and by congressional leadership.

The oversight committees of Congress, including Senate Intelligence, apparently do not have oversight of this nation’s spy programs – most members do not appear to know some of the programs exist. Even if the program described by USA Today last week, in which the NSA had built a database of millions of people’s domestic calling records, is legal and necessary, domestic spying to root out terrorism deserves extraordinarily careful controls. That’s why these congressional committees are there and why the White House’s decision to largely shut them out raises suspicions.

The response from the administration that a few key members of Congress knew about the program is inadequate. Congress is effective only as a body, able to decide policy and budgets, demand hearings and draw public conclusions. Telling several members in secret and, naturally, requiring their silence doesn’t constitute oversight.

With the exception of Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, who is distracted by the fact of the NSA leaks rather than their content, congressional Republicans must wonder how they came to be so distrusted by the White House that it refuses to treat them as part of an equal branch of government. The Bush administration, provided with majorities in both houses since its beginning, has never been especially communicative with Congress, but the slow revealing of NSA activity leads to an inevitable question for Gen. Hayden: What else have the nation’s spy programs undertaken without telling Congress?

As for Sen. Roberts’ interest in leaks, he might consider that they occur precisely because those people doing the leaking believe no one, certainly not Congress, is keeping an eye on the spy programs. With a stronger oversight role, the leaks might dry up.

Gen. Hayden may or may not prove to be qualified to run the CIA, but the issues expected before Congress today have less to do with his abilities than with a prolonged disconnection between the White House and Congress. Phone tapping isn’t the half of it.