Also Rep. Hoekstra was on Bill O'Reilly

WASHINGTON, July 8 � In a sharply worded letter to President Bush in May, an important Congressional ally charged that the administration might have violated the law by failing to inform Congress of some secret intelligence programs and risked losing Republican support on national security matters.

The letter from Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, did not specify the intelligence activities that he believed had been hidden from Congress.

But Mr. Hoekstra, who was briefed on and supported the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program and the Treasury Department's tracking of international banking transactions, clearly was referring to programs that have not been publicly revealed.

Recently, after the harsh criticism from Mr. Hoekstra, intelligence officials have appeared at two closed committee briefings to answer questions from the chairman and other members. The briefings appear to have eased but not erased the concerns of Mr. Hoekstra and other lawmakers about whether the administration is sharing information on all of its intelligence operations.

A copy of the four-page letter dated May 18, which has not been previously disclosed, was obtained by The New York Times.

I have learned of some alleged intelligence community activities about which our committee has not been briefed, Mr. Hoesktra wrote. 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 added: The U.S. Congress simply should not have to play Twenty Questions to get the information that it deserves under our Constitution.

Frederick Jones, a White House spokesman, declined to comment on the concerns raised by Mr. Hoekstra but said that we will continue to work closely with the chairman and other Congressional leaders on important national security issues.

A spokesman for Mr. Hoekstra, Jamal D. Ware, said he could not discuss the activities allegedly withheld from Congress. But he said that Mr. Hoekstra remained adamant that no intelligence programs could be hidden from oversight committees.

Chairman Hoekstra has raised these issues with the administration to ensure that the Intelligence Committee is able to conduct its job of oversight, Mr. Ware said. Intelligence officials have committed to being forthcoming with Congress, and Chairman Hoekstra is going to hold them to their word.

Mr. Hoekstra's blunt letter is evidence of a rift between the White House and House Republican leaders over the administration's perceived indifference to Congressional oversight and input on intelligence matters. Mr. Hoekstra wrote that he had shared his complaints with House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, and that the speaker concurs with my concerns.

A spokesman for Mr. Hastert declined to comment.

The letter appears to have resulted at least in part from the White House's decision, made early in May, to name Gen. Michael V. Hayden to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, with Stephen R. Kappes as his deputy. The letter was sent the day of General Hayden's confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Mr. Hoekstra (pronounced HOOK-stra) complained publicly about the choices when they were announced, but his private letter to Mr. Bush was much harsher. He warned that the choice of Mr. Kappes, who he said was part of a group at the C.I.A. that intentionally undermined the administration, sends a clear signal that the days of collaborative reform between the White House and this committee may be over.

Mr. Hoekstra also expressed concern about the intelligence reorganization under John D. Negroponte, the first director of national intelligence, who he said was creating a large, bureaucratic and hierarchical structure that will be less flexible and agile than our adversaries.

Mr. Hoekstra's views on oversight appear to be shared by some other Intelligence Committee members.

I think the executive branch has been insufficiently forthcoming on a number of important programs, Representative Heather A. Wilson, Republican of New Mexico, said in an interview. She would not discuss any programs on which the committee had not been briefed, but she said that in the Bush administration, there's a presumption that if they don't tell anybody, a problem may get better or it will solve itself.

Ms. Wilson said she shared deep concerns about the pace and direction of intelligence reforms overseen by Mr. Negroponte's office. We have some troubled programs, she said.

American intelligence agencies routinely conduct many secret programs, but under the National Security Act, the agencies are required to keep the Congressional intelligence committees fully and currently informed of all intelligence activities. Even in the case of especially sensitive covert actions, the law requires briefings for at least the leaders from both parties of the committees and the House and Senate.

As the administration has asserted broad presidential authority to fight terrorism, concerns about Congressional oversight and checks and balances between the branches of government have become increasingly heated. Democrats complained that the administration's failure to brief the full Intelligence Committees on the N.S.A. warrantless eavesdropping, which focuses on the international communications of Americans and others inside the United States, was a violation of the National Security law. Some members of Congress said they had been briefed on the Treasury Department's bank monitoring program, which examines international money transfers through a Brussels-based consortium, only after The New York Times began making inquiries in recent months.

But the assertion that other intelligence activities had been hidden from Congress is particularly surprising coming from Mr. Hoekstra, who defended the administration's limited briefings on the N.S.A. program against Democratic criticism.

An official familiar with recent exchanges between the intelligence agencies and the House committee said Friday that General Hayden had twice briefed the full committee and had addressed Mr. Hoekstra's questions about the intelligence activities referred to in the letter. The C.I.A. director promised a free flow of information, and Mr. Hoekstra, who initially objected to placing a military officer in charge of the C.I.A., said he would work closely with the agency's new leadership.

The official, who spoke of the briefings only when granted anonymity because they were classified, declined to say anything about what the activities were or which agencies they involved.

Officials with both Mr. Negroponte's office and the C.I.A. declined to comment specifically on Mr. Hoekstra's letter. But Carl Kropf, a spokesman for Mr. Negroponte, said that over the past year his office had engaged in hundreds of briefings, meetings and discussions with Congressional committees.

He added, We value this dialogue with Congress, and we will continue to provide the committee with the information they need to fulfill their responsibilities.

Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, a spokeswoman for General Hayden, said that the director believes in the important oversight role Congress plays, and he will continue regular and transparent interactions with members.

Since his appointment as committee chairman in August 2004, Mr. Hoekstra has been a critical ally of the White House on intelligence matters. He has supported the administration's most controversial policies, including its treatment of terrorist suspects, and he has balked at Democratic demands for an investigation of pre-war intelligence on Iraq. He has defended the legality and necessity of the N.S.A. program and the bank monitoring.

Mr. Hoekstra has been one of the strongest advocates in Congress for a crackdown on leaks of classified information to the media, a cause championed by both Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

But in recent months, Mr. Hoekstra has begun to express some disaffection. In March, he joined the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, Representative Jane Harman of California, in a public critique of Mr. Negroponte's performance. He criticized intelligence officials for initially resisting his demand that thousands of captured Iraqi documents be posted on the Web. Like other House Republicans, he bristled when Porter J. Goss, a former House colleague, was forced out as C.I.A. director in early May.

Most recently, Mr. Hoekstra strongly criticized a news briefing arranged by Mr. Negroponte's office on an Army report that 500 pre-Gulf War chemical shells had been found scattered around Iraq. On June 29, Mr. Hoekstra, who had said the finding established that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, made public an angry letter to Mr. Negroponte calling the briefing inaccurate, incomplete and occasionally misleading and asserting that attempts were made to downplay the significance of relevant facts.

A spokesman for Mr. Negroponte's office said he had not yet replied to the complaint.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/washington/09hoekstra.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5088&en=29084f54639e845b&ex=1310097600&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

I cant stand to watch O'Reilly, he tries to portray that he knows everything and yet he is just a blow-hard..Someone who professes to know all but knows nothing..

The right jumped all over Dan Rather when he made a mistake one time, yet they don't even whimper over something even more irresponsible and egregious happening twice with O'Reilly.

BIll O'Reilly is a mysoginistic, race-baiting bigot who believes that everyone who is a guest on his show should kiss HIS butt. IMO he gives real journalists a really bad image and should have been kicked off Fox eons ago

I don;t think he should have done that. To pretend that Fox is actually a news outlet does the voters a disservice. But hey, that;s the kind of guy he is.

I was cheering that Bill is BACK! I've been fit to be tied over his lingering lethargy for the last period of months, and have written to complain, too.

There's a lot more on the web about Barney Frank and how filthy he is (in more ways than 1) this whole thing. He should've been put in jail along with Chris Dodd and Palsen, etc. Barney Frank's former lover worked for this outfit before they split many years ago. I've read so much on it that I don't recall which place I read it, but obviously you won't find any of this investigative stuff on the driveby channels. Even FNC doesn't put some stuff out there, which ticks me off. But I find it, anyway between the conservative blogs, sites, talk radio, etc. And these sources can be easily checked, so the libs can throw all the hissy fits they want. If they honestly think it's okay to give literally ANY party a free pass just b/c it has your letter or preference behind it, that's just nuts! I'm dying to clean out the RINOs in "my" party. They don't belong there.

Okay, I almost laughed myself to death watching these two morons go at it last night. My favorite part of the interview would have to be:

O'REILLY: Massive neglect? Let's take a look at that bit of overstatement. Halfway through President Clinton's tenure in office, the poverty rate was 13.7%. Halfway through President Bush's tenure the rate is 12.7, a full point lower.

[COMMENT According to statistics obtained from the U. S. Census site, when Bill Clinton began his term as President in 1993, the poverty rate was 15.1%. By the time Clinton left office the poverty rate was 11.7%. By 2002, under George Bush the rate began to rise again to 12.1% in 2002, 12.5% in 2003 and 12.7% in 2004.

According to the Christian Science Monitor this most recent increase was unforeseen by analysts who expected the number to drop along with unemployment and may indicate a disturbing trend. While the poverty level for Asians declined and it remained stable for Hispanics and African-Americans, the only group that saw an increase was non-Hispanic white Americans living in the midwest. In other words there are 1.1 million poorer red state residents this year than there were last year.]

O'REILLY: In 1996 the Clinton budget allotted $191 billion for poverty entitlements. That was 12.2% of the budget. ... However, the Bush 2006 budget allots a record-shattering $368 billion for poverty entitlements - 14.6% of the entire budget - a huge increase over Clinton's spending. Did the elite media mention that? Jesse Jackson mention that? Of course they didn't. Because it's much more convenient for Evan Thomas and others to imply that America under President Bush has turned its back on the poor. But it's absolute nonsense. Even in the midst of the war on terror [Note: Did he mean the war of choice in Iraq?], this country is spending a massive amount of money tryin' to help the poor. So why the lie? Because political gain can be made off the suffering of others, that's why. Those who oppose the Bush administration don't care about the truth. They only want to advance their own agenda, so once again the No-Spin zone rides to the rescue.

Hard-working Americans are providing the poor with Medicaid, food stamps, supplemental security income - that's free money - child nutrition programs, welfare payments, child daycare payments, temporary assistance to needy families, foster care, adoption assistance and health insurance for children. But, it will never be enough for the Jesse Jacksons and Howard Deans of the world. Never! If they told you the truth, they'd go out of business.

Now, I fully expect to be attacked by the far-left media for tellin' you all this. I'm sure they'll label me a racist, a shill for Bush, stuff like that. But, I don't care. The dollars don't lie. We are a generous nation. And that is the truth.

Most of the poor in this country WORK, many of them hold down two and three jobs. If you want to read a damning book on this topic, I suggest you get Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickeled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America. Ms. Ehrenreich went underground and worked at minimum wage jobs for a year. She discovered a few unpleasant facts about life on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. Self-satisfied, replete, rich men like Bill O'Reilly sit in their posh offices and scare hard-working Americans into believing that their taxes go to indigent scofflaws who sit at home guzzling beer, smoking pot, eating chips and watching TV. Those of us closer to homelessness know this is not the case.

When he mentioned that SSI (social security supplemental income) is free money, he neglected to say that it is money that goes to disabled Americans or that providing health coverage for children reduces trips to the emergency room!

Sometimes I wonder how many poor people Mr. O'Reilly actually knows or has associated with on a long-term basis? For the past 15 years I've been involved in a local program that offers music scholarship to needy families. In that time I've taught 7 different children from 7 different poverty situations and I came to know the families personally. Most of the adults in the family work really hard. Sometimes the kids worked, too, after school. Some had parents trying to break a drug habit (yes, they held down a job) or schizophrenic parents (who were incapable of working) or an abusive parent (who worked, then took it out on the family), but most were blessed with caring parents who were doing the best to provide for their children against almost impossible odds.

So when I hear guys like O'Reilly spout their simplistic tripe implying that the poor are sucking the lifeblood out of hard-working Americans, I see red.

Also, I don't trust O'Reilly's numbers on entitlement programs simply because he never once used the words inflation-adjusted dollars. If he was simply quoting raw numbers, I'd like to remind him that 15 years ago the dollar went farther. Additionally, he did not indicate through graphics or verbally whether or not there was parity between the two budgets, i.e., was he citing figures that included exactly the same programs in both figures?

Given O'Reilly's dubious track record, one cannot accept his statements without independent verification.

Try watching the morning news at 6 a.m. or during the day until 5-6 p.m. That's the news I'm talking about.

O'Reilly and the others are like Chris Matthews, Keith Oberman, and all those other fellas. They are more like a political talk shows. That's not news.

Also Rep. Hoekstra was on Bill O'Reilly

Ally Told Bush Project Secrecy Might Be Illegal