Speaker Pelosi's Controversial Marxist Connections<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
By Cliff Kincaid
 
Like the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does not have to go through a background investigation in order to get a security clearance. This loophole in the law enables the president and members of Congress to automatically qualify for security clearances, even if they have controversial backgrounds and associations, by virtue of the fact that they get elected to high office in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Washington, D.C.
 
In the case of Speaker Pelosi, who is second in the line of succession to the presidency after the vice president, there is increasing concern about whether she can be trusted with national security secrets. But the concern not only involves her unsubstantiated charges against the CIA over what officials told her about the treatment of terrorists, but her close personal relationship with pro-Castro Rep. Barbara Lee and the "progressive" Hallinan family of San Francisco, once under scrutiny by the California Senate Fact-finding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities for their pro-Soviet propaganda efforts.  
 
Pelosi used a Friday news conference to offer up other members of the House Democratic leadership as "human shields" to deflect questions from the press about the CIA controversy. They droned on about the liberal legislative agenda.  
 
At the very end of the news conference,