Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
My colleague Spencer Ackerman pokes fun at Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan over his release of classified information concerning whose communications are being intercepted by the NSA.
Check out Rachel Maddow going hard on Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) for publicly revealing that the U.S. intelligence community is intercepting the communications of al-Qaeda-sympathetic cleric Anwar Aulaqi, a former U.S. preacher now in Yemen whom Fort Hood murder suspect Nidal Malik Hasan apparently contacted before the shooting.
Here's the Maddow video:
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Ackerman continues:
Students of Hoekstra know that this kind of recklessness is nothing new. In 2006, when he chaired the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the man actually wrote in The Wall Street Journal that unnamed members of the U.S. intelligence community were "perhaps" leaking classified information to the press to "help al Qaeda."...So then it's naive to rule out the possibility that Hoekstra, now in the business of leaking classified information to the press about al-Qaeda sympathizers being surveilled, is "doing this to help al-Qaeda." Good to know.
I'd also point out that the identity of those being surveilled is considered so secret that it is the basis for invoking the state secrets privilege in several court cases. It's so secret that the government claims that it can't even be revealed to a federal judge with security clearance. Yet Hoekstra casually blurts it out on camera.
Politics
Comments
Isn't this fucking asshole running for Governor of Michigan?
Posted by: SLC | November 12, 2009 9:45 AM
And this treasonous bastard wants to be my governor? Ed, since the Democrats are going to run an brainless party functionary, we need to make sure Pete goes down in the primaries, so maybe the Republicans can give us a decent gubernatorial candidate (an extremely long shot, in this state, but our only hope right now).
Posted by: James Hanley | November 12, 2009 9:53 AM
Pete Hoekstra was lambasted on TV for giving away what the NSA is doing. I bet he thinks that's just like being kicked in the nuts for giving away someone's personal secrets.
Posted by: Katharine | November 12, 2009 10:18 AM
I think Chris Hayes brings up a good point, though he didn't point fingers at any one party. Most of us in this forum want to see congressional oversight committees take a more aggressive, adversarial role towards the Executive Branch.
However, when Republicans owned the Congress and the Executive branch they provided none and therefore the Executive Branch violated the Constitution as a matter of policy while the people were purposefully kept in the dark as much as possible given the lack of oversight by Congress. Now that Rep. Hoekstra is in the minority, his blabbing makes the case that the Executive Branch can't divulge as much as we'd like given people like Rep. Hoekstra purposefully have no discretion in what we divulges.
This is related to the old question I had for most of President Bush's tenure that I will apply to Rep. Hoekstra. Is he perfectly incompetent or are his ambitions so fierce he'd gladly harm the national interest if necessary? Either way, one can not make a coherent argument he's capable of governing in the national interest.
Posted by: Michael Heath | November 12, 2009 10:33 AM
Well since the GOP and al Qeada hate Obama about equally maybe he's playing the enemy of my enemy is my friend card with them.
Posted by: Ericb | November 12, 2009 10:43 AM
Michael Heath, is the 'or' in 'Is he perfectly incompetent or are his ambitions so fierce he'd gladly harm the national interest if necessary?' a xor or or?
Posted by: Katharine | November 12, 2009 10:50 AM
Was the cleric under surveillance or was Hasan? The cleric may very well have been, but what Hoekstra says in the video quote doesn't necessarily reveal that. All Hoekstra said was that Hasan sent and received emails. Of course now the cleric will at least suspect he is being spied on, whether he is or not, which has the same effect.
Posted by: jpf | November 12, 2009 11:10 AM
Hoekstra actually concedes that the e-mails' content was "innocent" or "probably innocent" (I'm not watching it again to confirm, unless I eat poison and need an emetic.)
This is probably out there as a sop to the surveillance 'limits'--that is, my starting assumption is that Hoekstra would be perfectly comfortable with full time intercepts of all Muslim US Citizens, or whatever, but he's not about to admit that in this situation. But it means he's characterizing the content of the e-mails as if he's read them, so JPF's question is answered, I think. This is a perfect chance for right-wing reptiles like Hoekstra to claim the 'ticking bomb' scenario--see what we get when we watch? and his route to blaming Obama and democrats directly for the Fort Hood events. It doesn't matter that that house of cards logic won't hold, because Hoekstra is running in Michigan and so we can expect him to kick Congress and all of Washington under the bus any minute now. Altogether a slimy and disgusting--that is to say, typical--bit of behavior. And if they do discipline him, well, more power to him. If Michigan wingnuts are anything like Minnesota ones, it won't take a lot of spin to make that monkey dance on the You Pee.
ice
Posted by: ice9 | November 12, 2009 12:12 PM
@jpf: I got the impression that, since Hoekstra said that Hasan had received "replies" from the cleric, it meant that he knew that from reading the cleric's mail, not Hasan's. But you're right, that isn't clear.
Posted by: JustaTech | November 12, 2009 2:48 PM
Sorry Michigan, you're going to have to take one for the team and elect him governor. We need his moron away from sensitive material, if he keeps this shit up people are going to wind up dead.
Posted by: dogmeatib | November 12, 2009 6:40 PM
The "You Pee" - ha! Never heard that one before. (In fact I had to think about it for a minute.)
Posted by: Dave M | November 12, 2009 7:16 PM
This is the congressman who violated security protocol by twittering in Iraq.
http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/02/08/ooops-congressman-leaks-secret-iraq-trip-on-twitter/
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003026945
Why is this twit still on the Intelligence Committee?
Posted by: Bruce | November 12, 2009 10:16 PM
Because he's a Republican, where what things are called is the opposite of what they are.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | November 12, 2009 10:42 PM
Posted by: dogmeatib | November 13, 2009 8:51 AM
Prosecute the bastard. Throw the book at him.
What he's just done is to cause that extremist cleric to start using strong crypto or stop using electronic communications altogether.
And what this reminds me of is Senator Orrin Hatch going onto the floor of the Senate and making a rhetorical point about "the waste of taxpayer money" by NSA under Clinton "wiretapping the satellite phone of some guy named Bin Laden who lives in a cave."
Immediately after that, Bin Laden threw out his sat phone and started communicating only by messenger. And we all know what happened a few years later.
Hatch escapes prosecution because he said it on the floor of the Senate. Everything said in that venue is protected by law. A Senator could have made a speech on the Senate floor in 1950, describing the workings of the atomic bomb in detail, in Russian to save the commies the expense of a translator, and never get prosecuted.
However, Hoekstra didn't say it in Congress, he said it on television.
That's prima-facie evidence that could convict him in minutes.
Enough is enough.
He's already put US soldiers at risk with his little twitter escapade. Now he's just sabotaged our intel, and the ripples from that are going to keep spreading for years.
He deserves to spend ten years at minimum in a small room with bars in the window.
Posted by: g347 | November 14, 2009 12:49 AM
"Sorry Michigan, you're going to have to take one for the team and elect him governor. "
Why do you hate us in Michigan?
Posted by: dean | November 14, 2009 10:26 AM