The Bush administration’s predilection for secrecy and the failure of Congress to oversee intelligence and other government operations are a bad combination. Finally, a key lawmaker has had enough. In a terse letter, Rep. Peter Hoekstra, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, warned President Bush that he may have violated the law – and offended his supporters in Congress – by not informing them of intelligence activities. Rep. Hoekstra is right that Congress shouldn’t have to play “20 questions,” but if lawmakers don’t ask any questions, the administration has made it clear it won’t offer any answers.

In a four-page letter to the president, Rep. Hoekstra, a Republican from Michigan and longtime Bush ally, says he had been told by a government whistleblower of ongoing intelligence community activities which his committee had not been told about. “If these allegations are true, they may represent a breach of responsibility by the administration, a violation of the law, and just as importantly, a direct affront to me and the members of this committee who have so ardently supported efforts to collect information on our enemies,” he said. The letter was written in May, but made public this week.

Rep. Hoekstra reminded the president that the administration has the “legal responsibility to ‘fully and currently’ inform the House and Senate Intelligence Committees of its intelligence and intelligence-related activities.” He added: “The U.S. Congress simply should not have to play ‘Twenty Questions’ to get the information that it deserves under our Constitution.”

After the letter was sent, the House Intelligence Committee was briefed about the intelligence activities, which remain secret, Rep. Hoekstra said. The activity is not the National Secur-ity Agency’s domestic surveillance program or the Treasury Department’s tracking of international banking, which were recently revealed by news accounts.

The National Security Act requires that the House and Senate Intelligence Committees be “fully and currently informed of all intelligence activities.” In the case of covert operations, the law required that at least the leader from both parties on both committees be briefed. That apparently did not happen in this instance or with the NSA wiretapping because only the Republican Senate Intelligence Committee chairman appeared to know about the program.

Congress is effective only as a body, able to decide policy and budgets, demand hearings and draw public conclusions. Telling a couple members in secret and, naturally, requiring their silence doesn’t constitute oversight.

The only way Congress can do its job is by asking lots of questions – and insisting that they are answered.