Flashback - Sy Hersh on the "so secret" program

On the "so secret" CIA "assassinations program" supposedly shepherded by Dick Cheney, I had forgotten about this bit said by Seymour Hersh in a public appearance back in March. (In the link, go down to the indent which is Hersh's actual words.)

“Yuh. After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet. That does happen.

"Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command -- JSOC it’s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. ...

"Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named [William H.] McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths.

"Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us.

Always important to remember that Hersh works single source which is always a bit dubious and is somewhat known for getting the big story right, but some of the details and characterizations wrong. Plus, this was just loose talk after an appearance, not a true story....

However, that being said, I thought it might help inform the speculation on the "so secret" program.

Maybe the "so secret" part isn't in the assassinations (all other reporting says none were actually done,) but instead, the constitutional heresy of spec ops operations teams (up to assassinations) reporting only to the Vice President.

And, what is that bit, "the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it."?