Senator Wyden Calls For Hearings Over Intelligence Officials Lying To Congress
from the about-time dept
We've discussed in great detail how the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, lied to Congress concerning NSA surveillance and why he should face the consequences of such lies. What hasn't been noted as much is that NSA boss Keith Alexander more or less told the same lies to Congress a few months earlier, in a letter responding to some of Senator Wyden's questions.Now Wyden is pointing out that this is unacceptable and calling for hearings on the claims of the intelligence community to Congress:
“One of the most important responsibilities a Senator has is oversight of the intelligence community. This job cannot be done responsibly if Senators aren’t getting straight answers to direct questions. When NSA Director Alexander failed to clarify previous public statements about domestic surveillance, it was necessary to put the question to the Director of National Intelligence. So that he would be prepared to answer, I sent the question to Director Clapper’s office a day in advance. After the hearing was over my staff and I gave his office a chance to amend his answer. Now public hearings are needed to address the recent disclosures and the American people have the right to expect straight answers from the intelligence leadership to the questions asked by their representatives.”The specifics here are important, because last week, Clapper suggested that his answer was about whether or not the NSA collected emails from millions of Americans, even though Wyden's direct question concerned "any type of data." Now we know that (1) Clapper had this question ahead of time and (2) was later given a chance to clarify his answer. And he still stood by his "no" answer -- which he now calls "the least untruthful" answer. But we can drop the "least" part of that. It was untruthful. Extremely untruthful in light of the evidence that the NSA is collecting all phone records from at least Verizon and AT&T, but likely from others as well.
Update: For clarification purposes, it appears that the hearings Wyden is requesting are about the data collection program, not specifically Clapper and Alexander's statements. Though, I would imagine that those hearings may turn up more evidence that the earlier statements were, in fact, false.
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Filed Under: james clapper, keith alexander, lying to congress, nsa, nsa surveillance, ron wyden
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More milk! More milk! More milk!
More milk! More milk! More milk!
More milk! More milk! More milk!
More milk! More milk! More milk!
More milk! More milk! More milk!
There is no single other human being on the planet who will publish more words about this than Mike. Seriously. Think about that. He's milking this just like he milked Swartz and SOPA. Anything to get the clicks. Truth be damned. Honesty be damned. Mike sold his soul years ago. Nothing else could explain his inability to discuss even the simplest thing honestly. Nothing.
Day after day. Post after post. I'm going nowhere, Mikey. You started this, and you know it.
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My advice, either go somewhere that doesn't eat noobs like you for breakfast or plan on a long wait before anyone cares what you have to say.
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Yeah right, because everyone else can clearly see you're right.... Oh wait, you're not.
Love to see how your temper tantrums are growing more desperate every time you post something.
I'm starting to believe you have OCD, but the funninest part is that your temper tantrums just show that you are the one who gets angry when writting your incoherente rants while every sane person around here just laugh at you or feel sorry for you.
You are not getting people angry, you are just showing how pathetic, retarded and dishonest you really are.
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https://lh3.ggpht.com/-6xOnEDKRi_8/TjZq0U732SI/AAAAAAAAATI/bXgdK2eOtD0/s1600/Funny+chicken +photos+image+pic+cat+chicken.jpg
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Oh noes, we're gonna run out of report button.
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Anytime we can explain to a douchenozzle why ignoring him is not censorship, we have made the Internet that much smarter for one day.
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on Jun 11th, 2013 @ 2:30pm
On topic; this has been getting quite a bit of press time here in England as well as over the pond in the US. Our government has also been issuing reassurance after reassurance that our data isn't being hoovered up by GCHQ (equivalent to NSA in the UK). The problem is that very few people believe them.
Covert, possibly illegal and massive government intrusion ==> less trust of government. Why do politicians fail to grasp this?
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This whole NSA thing is really about the failure of the media and its unwillingness to cover hard news. Bloggers have been on top of it for at least a decade. No doubt that is why there are efforts to deny first amendment press benefits to bloggers.
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Re: Anonymous Coward, Jun 11th, 2013 @2:36pm
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Beyond that, let the shitstorm of lies commence, in earnest!
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So says the sexually repressed shut in...
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Youtube: Buttermilk Fried Chicken
either that or chicken dancing, while typing.
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I'd say we're pretty much fucked right about now unless A LOT of people can do A LOT of moving and shaking.
Now about those mass bullet purchases and assault arms and capacity magazine restrictions. Talk about a nutter.
I think the folks in charge, you know, dumb asses, the people, you and me, do not demand we right this ship right now we risk a much more difficult confrontation, one with rocks that bite.
Step 1. Issue subpoenas and commence the hearings.
Step 2. Draft, immediately, a digital bill of rights
Step 3. Fix that into law
Step 4. Address Mr. Snowden and the breakdown of security protocol.
(personal step 5. Forever hope that there will always be a Mr. Snowden, dedicated from a people's perspective, to the founding documents, he too swore to protect it and from my view at 100k feet, I'll be damned if he didn't keep it)
And then address health, military, and corporate vacuums and multiple wars that bleed the well being of the people.
Well, it's a good plan anyway, so I'm sticking to it, Congress should too.
Pro Tips:
Heave ho on those reigns you've got there Congress. Them're big horses you've got under those straps. I reckon that there are handful of barred rooms that should have new occupants. Maybe swap places with some non-violent drug offenders and such.
Oh and the Judicial can now feel free to stop throwing down on secrecy. It appears they now have a bit of reality to deal with. Fantastic. Every little bit helps.\r
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And yeah, with this kind of shit being pulled, I say milk it, bleed the cow dry. It's about time the abuse of power had some light put on it, and we all know cockroaches flee when the lights come on.
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Nothing to see here.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PVvvN7n0c_w/Tr1E7zhdWRI/AAAAAAAAAT0/rO-GGzR0GoI/s1600/its+good+ 4.jpg
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James Clapper releases clarifying statement
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Wyden knew they were lying at the time
So part of his offence at the situation is that he knew they were sucking up telephony metatdata for tens of millions of calls -- and that the NSA lied about it, to his face. And they knew he knew they were lying -- but they didn't give a shit, because they also knew he couldn't call them on it -- Top Secret and all. And he knew all this.
Yeah, it's a Rumsfeldian ("known knowns and known unknowns etc) spaghetti -- but I think it's plausible. Everyone playing knew Wyden would lose his security clearance if and his seat on the committee if he called them on their lies.
And that's what passes for Congressional oversight these days.
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Re: Wyden knew they were lying at the time
A key question is whether Senator Wyden knew how DNI Clapper might have been defining "collect".
According to Wikipedia, Ron Wyden “received a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Oregon School of Law in 1974”. So, considering not just his position as a lawmaker, but also based on his education, we expect Senator Wyden to know the lawyer games that get played with definitions.
Here again is the exact question he posed to DNI Clapper:
Did Senator Wyden expect the DNI to read that question as saying, "Look, we know you gathered the data on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans, but did you look at that data?"
Or was Senator Wyden attempting to convey, "Look, you can play Humpty-Dumpty games with definitions all day long, but the American public is not going to buy your stupid definition of 'collect' ".
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Power of the purse
Cut funding for NSA and the new building in Utah is just a building with no people to do the work. No funding, no contractors, no contracts and they will lose interest.
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Re: Power of the purse
That whole "starve the beast" trope has already been debunked too many times to mention.
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no digital privacy upkeep since the mid '80's
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Director of Intelligence Lying to Friendly Fire
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