Congress must assert its right to oversee the intelligence community

START with the basics. The nation's intelligence community is subject to oversight by Congress. Any breakdown of that relationship demands investigation and accountability.

This is no time to be timid. In recent days, Capitol Hill has started to acknowledge the need to act. Even the Obama administration, which has been reluctant to second-guess its predecessor in the White House, is recognizing that serious questions about past anti-terror policies cannot be ignored.

Until now, all the generic excuses and talking points have been employed by Democrats and Republicans alike. Formal inquiries will be too divisive. Hearings will be a distraction from other important business of the new administration. Finally, the classic and desperate: "This is all old news."

Two inquiries are in play. The Washington Post reported Attorney General Eric Holder wants to use a criminal prosecutor to examine whether U.S. interrogators tortured terrorism suspects.

Only targeting the technicians in the room without understanding the nature and source of their orders and instructions represents a willful avoidance of the truth. The concentric circles of policy and directives put the behavior of the interrogators in context.

Revelations of unauthorized surveillance activities and a still-secret covert program are of particular urgency for Congress, which by language of the National Security Act of 1947 is to be "fully and currently" informed of all intelligence activities.

In recent days, lawmakers learned the Central Intelligence Agency kept Congress in the dark eight years by order of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Washington Rep. Adam Smith, who sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, favors moving ahead with hearings to find out what happened. The Tacoma Democrat said Monday his biggest concern is to make sure the CIA gets in the habit of full, accurate and timely briefings of intelligence committees.

In June, as the House committee authorized 2010 funds for the intelligence community, chairman Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas announced legislation to circumvent a so-called Gang of Eight briefing procedure: optional CIA notification of senior, bipartisan leaders. Reyes wants the full committee always kept in the loop.

Reyes also wants to create a statutory and independent intelligence communitywide inspector general. Smith said the new role would contribute to a robust accountability system.

U.S. intelligence operations require secrecy and operational flexibility, but the programs do not operate outside or above the law. All Americans need to know whose authority was invoked by Vice President Cheney when he ordered Congress be denied information the law says it must receive.

Congress and the White House can stay focused on the issues before them. These are not political hunting expeditions, but specific grievances grounded in a legal system others actively chose to ignore.