Green Party of New York State
http://www.gpnys.org/
Hawkins for US Senate
Media Release
For More Information: Howie Hawkins 315-425-1019, hhawkins@igc.org
Sally Kim, (518) 364-2968, green_sallyk@yahoo.com
May 15, 2006
Criticizes Clinton's Role in Passage of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act
(Syracuse) Howie Hawkins, a Green Party candidate for US Senate in NY, today said that the Senate should reject Michael
Hayden as CIA chief and initiate a complete restructuring of the US intelligence community.
"The Hayden nomination should provoke the Senate into a full-scale overhaul of the intelligence apparatus. Hayden spent his two-year tenure as head of the National Security Agency implementing a program of warrantless wiretapping. The NSA monitored the phone calls of tens of millions of ordinary Americans. That alone disqualifies Hayden," said Hawkins, one of the co-founders of the Green Party and the 1998 state comptroller candidate in New York, running with Al Lewis and Alice Green that gave the Green Party 50,000 votes needed to become an official party.
"While one should be concerned about Hayden's nomination increasing the control of the Pentagon and the military over the CIA's intelligence gathering, the real problem is not who heads the CIA so much as the structure of the US intelligence system, which encourages these kinds of violations of our rights and privacy," Hawkins added.
Hawkins criticized Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) for joining with the Bush administration in pushing through Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 he said, which "breaks down the last barriers between foreign intelligence operations and domestic law enforcement."
"Seeking to bolster her credentials as a so-called National Security Democrat, Hillary Clinton led a successful effort to goad a bloc of reluctant Republicans into passing the bill despite their concerns about civil liberties and centralizing the intelligence apparatus. While the creation of the intelligence czar captured the headlines, the small print in the bill included steps toward a national ID card with federal standardization of state drivers' licenses and ID cards, expanded government powers to conduct secret searches and surveillance, detention without bail for accused terrorists indicted by grand juries, and sharing secret grand-jury information with foreign and domestic law enforcement agencies," Hawkins said.
The bill passed in the Senate by 89-2, with only one Democrat voting against, and the House by 336-75, with only eight Democrats voting against. The votes were taken less than 24 hours after the final version of the 600-page bill was reported out joint House-Senate conference committee. "Like pygmies on the battlefield of history, we cower like whipped dogs in the face of political pressure when it comes to issues like intelligence reform," noted Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) at the time in casting his vote against the bill.
"The government needs a reliable, independent source of intelligence. The CIA failed to do its job in protecting the US from the terrorist attacks on 9/11, even though it had ample warnings from other governments and its own agents. It did a miserable job in standing up to Vice-President Cheney and others in the intelligence debacle over the existence of weapons of mass destructions in Iraq. The CIA has been corrupted by the culture of appeasing those in power, of saying what they want to hear. It was those traits that resulted in 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. Centralizing all intelligence agencies under one National Director of Intelligence just compounded this problem," stated Hawkins.
"Harry Truman was right when he said it was a mistake in setting up the CIA to do covert operations as intelligence gathering. The CIA has a disgraceful history of overthrowing democratically elected governments, propping up brutal dictators, and allying with drug warlords. We need to overhaul the CIA to refocus its mission on providing independent intelligence assessments to the President and Congress. Congress must reassert its constitutional war powers and outlaw covert operations by the CIA," Hawkins said.
