Peter Hoekstra, wishing to appear slightly interested in this whole "oversight" business, made a big point of demanding that the White House fill him in on an intelligence program they'd been hiding from the Intelligence Committee, so that the Intelligence Committee could hide it from the American public. We're so very proud.
All the coverage provides tantalizing hints as the nature of this new and exciting program, but some of us can't wait for Eric Lichtblau and James Risen to expose it next month, in a Style Section piece that also details where Donald Rumsfeld keeps his spare house keys (hallowed-out tree in Rock Creek Park) and Dick Cheney's one vulnerable spot (shin). We asked a couple sources in the intelligence community just what this new program could be. Their answers may shock you, unless you've read a newspaper at any point in the last year.
- FBI has authority to demand that movie theaters turn over ticket-stubs of suspicious individuals, secret arrests could be made of people giggling at United 93, not giggling at An Inconvenient Truth.
- Vast data-gathering program targeting iTunes store, which, to date, has failed to explain High School Musical.
- Vast bank of computers deep in the bowels of the NSA devoted to figuring out what the hell Michael Kinsley is talking about.
- Plan to just buy databases of direct-marketers and credit companies, put all the information on one Excel spreadsheet, save to laptop, lose laptop somewhere PG County.
