No Real Changes Will Happen With NSA Surveillance Until Clapper And Alexander Are Fired
from the there-needs-to-be-punishment-for-lying dept
We've been arguing for months now that with James Clapper having admitted to blatantly lying to Congress (after trying to lie about the lie) that it's insane that the man still has a job. If there is to be any accountability or trust going forward, he should lose his job (and potentially face charges). Instead, nothing is happening and no one seems to have any interest in doing anything. We've raised the question as to how anyone could possibly ever trust statements coming from the Intelligence Community again.Once again: the director of the intelligence community flat out lied to Congress about it, admitted it, and there have been no consequences at all. What that teaches Clapper and others is that they can continue to lie, and, in fact, that they are effectively encouraged to lie, because there's no downside risk in doing so.
It's good to see we're not the only ones who think so. James Goodale, a prominent First Amendment lawyer, and former General Counsel for the NY Times has written a stinging critique in the Guardian about all of the lies (noting that they go way beyond Clapper to Congress, but also include Clapper and Alexander both to the public and to the FISA court which is in charge of oversight):
Then he notes that there's been no punishment at all for these guys, which is absolutely true. He further calls out the Justice Department for refusing to investigate the lies to the FISA court, and notes that if President Obama actually wants to rebuild trust in the government and the intelligence community it must include punishing those who lied to Congress and to the FISA court. Otherwise, it is guaranteed that they will do so again.The Director of National Intelligence James R Clapper admitted he lied to Congress about the NSA metadata collection program. He said the NSA had no such program – and then added that that was the least "untruthful" remark he could make. General Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency, lied in 2012 that the NSA does not hold data on US citizens, and repeated similar misstatements, under oath, to Congress about the program:
We're not authorized to do it [data collection on US citizens], nor do we do it.
NSA lawyers lied to secret Fisa court Judges John D Bates and Reggie B Walton. In recently released opinions, Bates said he had been lied to on three separate occasions and Walton said he had been lied to several times also.
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Filed Under: james clapper, keith alexander, lying, nsa, nsa surveillance, trust
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http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/62560
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Re: Re: Liars
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Ah, the dreaded parenthetical: "(and potentially face charges)"!
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Re: Ah, the dreaded parenthetical: "(and potentially face charges)"!
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Re: Ah, the dreaded parenthetical: "(and potentially face charges)"!
You sound like you are disagreeing with Mike, but you actually agree with him.
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Re: Re: Ah, the dreaded parenthetical: "(and potentially face charges)"!
With such a nasty misanthrope
Except perhaps to take a rope
And tie him to a chair
Then drag him to a shopping mall
And put him in a little stall
Charge a dime to throw a ball at
Citizen Contraire
CITIZEN! (CONTRAIRE!)
Citizen Contraire!
CITIZEN! (CONTRAIRE!)
Citizen Contraire!
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But lying to congress about using steroids in baseball games? Oh no, you're going to jail! Well... more like be brought to court twice only to be acquitted.
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(parody)
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Re: (parody)
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Not okay
EVERY other kind of lying is for the good of the American public.
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A man fleeing a burglary was seen ON VIDEO firing a shot at an officer. The cop did not return fire until after he ordered him to put the gun down and the man turned and raised it toward him again.
Another man who was already wanted for murdering his girlfriend held up a pharmacy firing off several shots in the crowded store. He barricaded himself in a nearby apartment building and fired at police several times in a 30 hour standoff. The police chief was strongly criticized for finally giving the order to "take him out".
In both cases the whining in the press about police brutality was enough to make me sick.
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The only way he's going to be arrested if he tells the truth about the intelligence community. Lying is fine. Whistleblowing is criminal.
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FTFY. They are traitors to America, and the worst kind - those that believe that they are patriots.
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Not yet
After Udall and Co. have had their chance, somebody needs to get omto whitehouse.gov and start a petition. It'll be over 100k in about 3 hours.
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Above someone makes mention about 9/11. Under most circumstances I am not much of a conspiracy tin foil hat wearer but on this one I very much believe it to be a false flag operation as there are too many unanswered questions, not to mention circumstances, added to the fact of how convenient it was for Bush who was chomping at the bit for war.
In recent court news from the UK I bring this little tidbit.
http://topinfopost.com/2013/04/28/uk-man-wins-court-case-against-bbc-for-911-cover-up
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2284337/TV-licence-evader-refused-pay-BBC-covered-facts -9-11.html
Long story short, the judge refused to accept the evidence because it meant him ruling that the BBC is guilty of terrorism, a crime, something he cannot do in that case (TV licence evasion).
It would sorta be like me saying to a judge "I don't deserve to go to jail even though I have this pot, this pot came from the guy next door". For the judge to accept my defence in that case would mean unilaterally ruling that the guy next door is a criminal, without letting the guy next door have a trial of his own.
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No...
No, no real changes will happen with NSA surveillance until the majority of the general public starts to give a damn about it. The most shocking thing to come out of this entire affair (for me at least) is that most people in this country seem perfectly OK with what's going on. Honestly, I find that far more frightening than anything the government is doing at the moment.
The real reason most of this was kept so tightly guarded wasn't to prevent tipping off the bad guys (the smart ones already figured we were doing what it turns out we were doing, and the dumb ones will get caught no matter what they know). The reason was that they feared a public backlash. They didn't get one, not really. Sure a minority of us are up in arms about it, but most people either don't seem that upset, or actually support it! Which brings up the question: If they were afraid they wouldn't be able to get away with this but it turns out they can, WTF are they going to do next?
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Who's minding the store, anyway?
I think that you overestimate the intelligence of the American public, or the level of interest in this subject. According to one survey, 15% of Americans do not have access to the Internet, and I doubt that they care. What about the other 85 % that do?
I bet that nearly 50% of anyone who's on-line now does not give a damn about this, and that's because they're too busy chatting on yahoo, or posting on FB. They're not affected, so they can't care, or they don't want to. They just don't see the problem.
They're convinced the government can do no wrong.
So it's up to the small percentage that do know about it and care about it to make the change; however, that does not include Congress, because we all know what they think about it-not much, and even then, they're thinking of ways to curtail privacy as we speak or write (CISPA).
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Re: Who's minding the store, anyway?
Everyone is affected by this, regardless of whether or not they use the internet or even just plain telephones for that matter. So, step one is to counter the false perception that it doesn't affect them.
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