Okay, maybe the phrasing in the title was a tad more colorfully phrased thanthe original wording in the story but nonetheless the facts of the story appear to be:
Issa has issued a subpoena to MITRE, a government contractor, to turn over unredacted copies of security-testing documents it drafted for the HHS regarding the healthcare.gov website.
HHS told Issa that while he can see (and indeed has seen) the documents in camera, they won’t give him hard copies because they don’t trust him to keep them secure.
Now, on the one hand I wouldn’t trust Issa with my dinner order, let alone the security details for a website containing the personal details of hundreds of thousands of private citizens, a website he has a vested interest in seeing fail. Issa has a track record of being rather cavalier with classified information including, according to that article, “the names of Libyans who were assisting the United States during operations in that nation, the details of secret wiretaps in the ‘Fast and Furious’ investigation, and TSA documents that included security information.”
On the other hand, you know…“subpoena”. Is there a genuine legal case for withholding sensitive documents from the Chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee just because he happens to be a partisan dipshit? And if so, is there a precedent for this or would it set a new one?
I’m unaware of any precedent - other than claims of ‘executive privilege’ - for denying a congressional subpeona. But it would be interesting to see how this goes. If Issa really has a provable track record of not holding secure information properly - or even intentionally leaking it - a judge might just buy into the argument.
He won’t have the slightest idea what he is looking at. He will then turn it over to an “expert” who is reliable and thoroughly vetted, and already knows what the “Hon”. Mr. Issa wants to hear. He will then release that smoking gub and thereby step on his dick, once again.
Of course, you must be very reluctant to comply, force him to tear it from your grasp, so that he is totally sure he’s got The Shit that will bring Obamacare down with a crash and gotchaya!
There is a legal procedure to use when you believe you should not be legally compelled to provide information pursuant to a subpoena. You appear before a cognizant court and move to quash the subpoena, or to modify it to avoid the aspects that you claim make it illegal.
So far as I am aware, there is no legal basis for simply refusing to comply.
On a non-legal level, Gyrate, do you believe that the ACA website’s security testing was done correctly and completely?
He did, although as I recall, he was continuing to assert President Bush’s executive privilege when he did so. (Whether a court would uphold that assertion is of course questionable.)
In this case, so far as I can tell, no one is asserting executive privilege.
Well, that should make things interesting. Presumably that means that HHS would have to either instigate such a procedure or stonewall a la Rove until such time as the issue becomes less of a political hot potato if they genuinely believe that Issa is acting in bad faith here.
I have no particularly firm beliefs on the matter. I do have particular beliefs about Issa, which I have already expressed.
Why does Darrell Issa have subpoena power? I thought that Senators did, but Representatives did not. Am I mistaken, or is this a property of his chairmanship?
None of which has anything to do with the issue in the OP.
The question raised concerns the ability of congress to subpoena information when there exists the possibility that such information will not be held securely.
As a corollary, what sanctions are available against a congressman who leaks classified data? Back when I held the clearance it was made clear in each years security briefing that leaking such could result in jail time.
Both of which are the questions I’m interested in. The first seems to be largely answered although I doubt it will play out so simply in practice. The second is…more complex.
Even if we leave Issa out of the equation and make it a generic Representative, Senator, Cabinet Member or even the President who is considered a high risk of leaking classified information, what can legally be done about them? What should legally be done about them if they do leak? For example, I don’t like the idea of the intelligence services withholding information from their oversight committees but on the other hand I fully expect the oversight committees to act in a responsible manner. And there ought to be genuine consequences for misconduct (beyond the “just don’t vote for the guy next time” option). Removal from the committees seems proportionate but that opens up a whole other can of worms as to who gets to decide when a breach has occurred and that such a penalty should be imposed.
Not really. Both houses of Congress have methods of sanctioning members who break the rules or who act unethically. However, it’s not up to someone in HHS to determine that-- it’s up to Congress (the House, in Issa’s case).
If this were truly classified data then I’d say the executive had some strength in saying that Issa didn’t need to know the information, and that providing it would be a breach of security.
But anything below Confidential is hard to use that argument for, and the committee Issa sits on probably has a reasonable oversight justification in seeing it. I’m not sure what it will accomplish, since he’s already seen the data in question in camera, but whatever. Show ponies will show.
That’s the crux of the matter. Rep. Elijah Cummings chimed in, with cites supporting HHS’s position that, from a security standpoint, providing information to Darrell Issa is equivalent to printing it on a banner and dragging it behind the Goodyear Blimp at the Super Bowl.
I’m not entirely certain that’s true, Mace. Yes, the House leadership can sanction Issa if he releases classified information, but I’m not sure what that would accomplish. Perhaps they could take away his committee chair position or even expel him, but those are extreme.
In terms of ‘national security’ issues the executive has very wide lattitude in controlling the release of information. Normally, as I said upthread, access to the Intelligence committee is expected to have access to that info. However, I’m unclear whether the House Oversight committee can command the same respect.
And, as I also said upthread, if the executive branch has suspicions that classified information will be held insecurely or intentionally leaked, I think they’d be able to make a prima facie case against the release of such info. At that point, I think it’ll be up to a judge to make it happen or not.
Best guess is neither side wants it to come to that. The administration because the court might find against them and Presidents from now until the end of time will have to live with it. Issa won’t want it because it’ll become a field day for the executive branch’s lawyers to say how often he’s released classified ‘national security’ information to the press/his pals/whomever.
In the end, likely some sort of deal. But that’s still a guess.