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Comment by brianpgordon | Hacker News Reader

I imagine this is just a courtesy; if they decline to answer, then the committee can issue a subpoena and compel them to.

Here's a nice white paper on Congress's subpoena power: http://www.mayerbrown.com/files/Publication/ec1203b2-a787-44...

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That was really interesting, thanks. In particular,

"The Enforcement Process. Congressional investigations often begin informally, with the interested committee or subcommittee first seeking information on a voluntary basis (i.e., by sending a letter request or asking for an informal interview), rather than by issuing compulsory subpoenas. Although there is no legal obligation that a party comply with such a request, it is typically in the responding party’s best interest to do so"

Franken will no longer be Chairman of this committee in January when the Democrats are no longer in control of the US Senate.

Even if this is a Democratic-only concern (which I don't think it is), this would be an easy one for a Senator in the minority to sell to the Chairman as a personal favor. It would just be a subpoena to answer some questions; the Chairman wouldn't be signing up to actually do anything like sponsoring legislation.

Fascinating! So the letter is probably a veiled threat. I hope the Senate has better things to do with its time, though a debate of much stronger privacy laws would be a healthy outcome of this mess.

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