Mike Rogers Says NSA Told Congress About Spying On Foreign Leaders; Cuts Off Rep. Who Say That's Not True

from the incredible dept

The House Intelligence Committee, led by chief NSA apologist Rep. Mike Rogers, held yet another hearing about the NSA scandal on Tuesday, with an official focus on "potential changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act," but that was barely discussed at all. Instead, the panel, made up of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, NSA boss Keith Alexander, Deputy Attorney General James Cole and number 2 guy at NSA Chris Inglis, mostly focused on defending the NSA, especially in light of the recent headlines concerning spying on foreign leaders. Rogers focused on tossing out a bunch of softball questions to the panel to get them to say that they had clearly informed the House Intelligence Committee about spying on foreign leaders. After the softballs were hit back, Rogers would add a stage-whispered "Hmm," followed by an angry attack on reporters for buying into the story that the NSA hadn't informed Congress.

Of course, given that Rogers' counterpart in the Senate, Dianne Feinstein, claims that she wasn't informed, this seems a bit strange. But it got even stranger when various other committee members, including Rep. Jan Schakowsky and Rep. Adam Schiff made it clear that they had no idea this was going, despite being on the committee.

That resulted in an incredible exchange, in which Rogers attacked others on the Committee, suggesting that they should just shut up if they're going to say they weren't informed -- hinting that some Committee members "do more work than others." Schiff, quite reasonably, appeared to take offense to this, and challenged Rogers, asking for more details as to when and how the Committee was told about spying on foreign leaders. Rogers without actually answering the question kept "warning" other members not to say something about this. Schiff broke in again (with Rogers trying to stop him from talking) to ask if the Committee was directly informed about this or if it was just a giant data dump of information that he would have had to go through carefully to find out who they were spying on. Rogers again refused to answer the question, and again hinted that those who put in the "effort" would have known about this -- and then flat out cut off Schiff and handed the floor to Rep. Michele Bachmann, who went back to tossing softballs (sample question: "Do you think Snowden is a traitor?").

In the end, Rogers weak attempt to continue to defend the NSA here made it pretty clear, once again, that the claims that he has not adequately informed others in Congress of what's going on are quite accurate.

Filed Under: adam schiff, chris inglis, dianne feinstein, house intelligence committee, james clapper, james cole, keith alexander, mike rogers, nsa, nsa surveillance

Rep. Alan Grayson: I Learn Much More About The NSA From The Press Than From Intelligence Briefings

from the and-that's-important dept

Rep. Alan Grayson has been among the most outspoken members of Congress about the NSA's surveillance efforts, and his latest is an op-ed in the Guardian, in which he notes that Congressional "oversight" is really Congressional "overlook," and that he learns much more about the NSA from the press than from the House intelligence briefings:

Despite being a member of Congress possessing security clearance, I've learned far more about government spying on me and my fellow citizens from reading media reports than I have from "intelligence" briefings. If the vote on the Amash-Conyers amendment is any indication, my colleagues feel the same way. In fact, one long-serving conservative Republican told me that he doesn't attend such briefings anymore, because, "they always lie".

Many of us worry that Congressional Intelligence Committees are more loyal to the "intelligence community" that they are tasked with policing, than to the Constitution. And the House Intelligence Committee isn't doing anything to assuage our concerns.

We've covered in detail how House Intelligence chair Mike Rogers had blocked other Reps. from learning information about the spying program, refusing to answer questions or provide more access to certain Congressional Reps, as well as generally making sure that curious Reps can't find out the answers to their questions. Grayson goes into more detail:

I've requested classified information, and further meetings with NSA officials. The House Intelligence Committee has refused to provide either. Supporters of the NSA's vast ubiquitous domestic spying operation assure the public that members of Congress can be briefed on these activities whenever they want. Senator Saxby Chambliss says all a member of Congress needs to do is ask for information, and he'll get it. Well I did ask, and the House Intelligence Committee said "no", repeatedly. And virtually every other member not on the Intelligence Committee gets the same treatment.

Recently, a member of the House Intelligence Committee was asked at a town hall meeting, by his constituents, why my requests for more information about these programs were being denied. This member argued that I don't have the necessary level of clearance to obtain access for classified information. That doesn't make any sense; every member is given the same level of clearance. There is no legal justification for imparting secret knowledge about the NSA's domestic surveillance activities only to the 20 members of the House Intelligence Committee. Moreover, how can the remaining 415 of us do our job properly, when we're kept in the dark – or worse, misinformed?

This is even more important than just a few concerned Congressional Reps. Just recently, we wrote about the FISA Court's defense of its latest renewal on the bulk metadata collection of phone records under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. A very key piece of that decision had to do with the FISA Court's belief that Congress was well-informed about the programs when it voted to renew Section 215 -- thus, arguing that Congress approves of such things. Grayson's comments (along with those of many other House Representatives -- not to mention the 207 Reps who voted for the Amash Amendment against such bulk collection) suggest that the FISA Court is simply wrong on this, but doesn't seem to care enough to find out the truth.

Filed Under: alan grayson, congress, house intelligence committee, mike rogers, nsa, nsa surveillance, oversight

More Examples Of How The House Intelligence Committee Limits Oversight, Rather Than Does Oversight

from the you're-supposed-to-BE-the-oversight,-not-PREVENT-it dept

More evidence keeps surfacing showing Intelligence Committee members are simply jerking around their fellow Senate and Congress members when it comes to providing the documents needed to provide oversight for the NSA. Tony Romm's engrossing article for Politico refers to this deliberate obfuscation (tactfully) as "some limits," but adding what's been newly discovered to what we already know shows that the heads of the Intelligence Committees aren't really interested in collaborating with their colleagues to provide credible oversight.

The White House is its own problem, continually insisting (along with national intelligence officials) that everyone, both in the Congress and Senate, has had access to all pertinent briefings, rulings and other needed info -- even when it knows for a fact this information has not been disseminated. This helps the administration maintain its narrative of a well-oiled intelligence machine operating with the explicit permission of its oversight and allows the blame to be shifted elsewhere. If the American public is angry about the NSA's programs, the White House wants to aim that at legislators, rather than the NSA and administration.

If it's not Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger stashing documents or scheduling briefings at inconvenient times, it's the administration itself handing out "information" that glosses over details that should rightfully concern those charged with oversight.

One Obama administration report provided to lawmakers last year, for example, only opaquely referenced the NSA’s unlawful collection of thousands of Americans’ emails. The document, declassified this fall, didn’t mention that a secret court had rebuked the agency for its misleading statements.

These omissions add up. The picture being presented by the administration isn't complete and points fingers at Congress for lapses in oversight.

The scathing rebuke issued in 2011 by Judge Walton concerning the NSA's repeated abuse of its domestic surveillance capabilities over the previous three years was never seen by most legislators in its entirety until its declassification in August of this year. James Clapper has insisted lawmakers have already seen all pertinent information regarding the NSA's bulk collections, but Politico points out that this statement simply can't be true.

The Obama administration’s communication with the Hill, however, didn’t tell the story of an agency rebuked by the FISA court in 2011 for “a substantial misrepresentation regarding the scope of a major collection program.”

Instead, lawmakers got only one paragraph about the mishap, which had been obscured with technical details about “multi-communication transactions.” Meanwhile, the administration touted the incident as a case study defending the NSA’s existing oversight mechanisms.

Making matters worse is the limitations surrounding any revelations being brought to the attention of legislators. In addition to the obfuscation and stonewalling shown by the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee, legislators are hamstrung by the secrecy surrounding the documents themselves.

[M]any Hill staff sources interviewed by POLITICO noted it may not have been easy for their bosses to digest that report: Lawmakers in many cases weren’t able to bring their own legal advisers or take notes, and they had to view the document in a special part of the Capitol reserved for classified material.

Speaking of Rogers, we already know he withheld documents from House members shortly before voting on the Amash Amendment began and, in his latest move, sent invitations to attend an intelligence briefing to the Congressional junk mail inbox -- a briefing which was held on a Friday afternoon, long after most reps had returned to their districts. As to whether a "critical" document made its way to other members of Congress in 2012, Rogers simply isn't saying.

The chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Rogers, and the panel’s ranking Democrat, Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, declined to say whether they even had sent a letter in 2012 informing members there had been a critical document to view. Hill sources say they don’t recall anything of the sort.

The House Republicans held off on holding briefings until two days before the 2012 vote on reauthorizing the FISA Amendments Act. The invitation obtained by Politico makes no mention of the administration white paper detailing the NSA's "erroneous" collection of Americans' data.

On the plus side, the Senate Committee has done a better job (by comparison) at informing other senators, despite Dianne Feinstein's and Saxby Chambliss' unwavering support of the intelligence agency. But even their June 19th briefing invitation glossed over Judge Walton's 2011 rebuke of the agency's three-year run of privacy violations.

In the push for further transparency and (actual) oversight, legislators are finding themselves working against both intelligence committees -- committees that were set up to provide oversight, not run interference for intelligence agencies. Mike Rogers, in particular, has been completely hostile to other members of Congress, turning their attempts to gain knowledge and provide competent oversight into a "sick game of 20 questions," requiring reps to grasp about blindly until they stumble across a relevant question intelligence officials can't dodge.

Unfortunately, the many legislative efforts in the works aimed at reining in the NSA's collection capabilities will suffer from the same opacity, as concerns (mostly exaggerated) about national security will push these markup sessions behind closed doors. And once they're out of the public eye, the defenders of the surveillance state will find it much easier to pitch unsupported claims as justification for continuing "business as usual."

Filed Under: house intelligence committee, justin amash, mike rogers, nsa, nsa surveillance

The NSA Is Dianne Feinstein's And Mike Rogers' Abusive, Cheating Spouse

from the you'd-think-the-head-of-an-intelligence-committee-would-know-how-to-quit-som dept

The leak-and-response cycle of the past couple months has been highly entertaining and the pattern is nearly always the same.

1. Leak reveals evidence of NSA overreach or wrongdoing.
2. NSA issues statement explaining how leak is being misinterpreted or is an aberration.
3. NSA attends hearings and issues statements declaring it doesn't abuse its power. (Frequently qualified with "not under this program.")
4. New leak reveals evidence of NSA overreach or wrongdoing, proving NSA's most recent statements were pretty much "incomplete lies" or "least untruthful" answers.
5. Repeat.

The most remarkable aspect of this cycle is the unwavering support Mike Rogers and Dianne Feinstein continue to provide the agency. No matter how damaging the leak or how egregious the lies, Rogers and Feinstein stand by their beloved NSA like severely co-dependent spouses, firmly believing against all available evidence that the most recently disclosed act of malfeasance will be the NSA's last.

If it weren't so sad, it would be almost comical. (Granted, it is a little comical, in part because it's so sad.)

It all began back with the first leak -- the order demanding Verizon cough up metadata on millions of customers. The response from Dianne Feinstein?

"I knew -- hell, EVERYONE knew -- about the NSA's shady past when I hooked up with it. Why's everyone so outraged?"

A few days later, Feinstein (and others) attempted to justify PRISM's collection efforts by claiming it had prevented the NYC subway bombing, when actual, non-defensively-deployed evidence suggested otherwise.

"Look, the NSA has had an 'interesting' life, but it's also theoretically done good things."

It all came to a head a little over a week ago. Feinstein, standing by her man agency, boldly declared there was no evidence the NSA had abused its powers. This was followed almost immediately by the release of information indicating the NSA had abused its power. Repeatedly.

Even this failed to diminish Feinstein's devotion. Her response?

"Sure, the agency cheated, but it was, like, once a year."

NSA: "Um, don't be mad, but it was slightly more than that. But these thousands of violations meant nothing to us, baby! You gotta believe that!"

Actually, it was way more than "slightly more," and even Feinstein seems to be a bit nonplussed (or at least quieter), glaring as the agency explained further:

"Cheating over 2,000 times may LOOK bad, but you're not taking into account those millions of times we didn't! Perspective. That's the key."

Mike Rogers' relationship with the agency seems just as needy, but his reactions are uglier. Rogers doesn't rely on swiftly debunked denials. Instead, Rogers believes the real problem is everyone else -- all these jealous haters who have it in for the agency.

At first, it was just other pesky Congress members looking for details on the NSA. None of their business. This isn't their battle. Rogers is the one in the relationship and if there's anyone who should be worried, it's Rogers. And he's not worried.

But we're worried, Mike, they'd say. Let us in. Let us know what's going on. No deal. Then, finally, something emerges.

"Leave it alone! It needs its freedom! If it doesn't have that, then it can't be the agency it wants to. You hurt not just me and the agency, but all of us when you question its actions. Stop driving us apart!"

But we don't think it should be acting this way, they say. This isn't how a helpful agency acts. This is how an abusive agency acts.

"Shut up. You're all jealous. Just a bunch of social media know-nothings and internet freaks. You have no idea how complex the situation really is."

And as the evidence of wrongdoing continues to pile up, Rogers not only covers his own ears and shouts nonsensical syllables over the concerned crowd, but covers the ears of the crowd as well.

The deep-seated denial continues despite thousands of violations being uncovered. Rogers may be hurt but he's not willing to kick his faithless agency to the curb. He's almost vanished completely, off composing justifications that restore the agency's trustworthiness.

If nothing else, he rationalizes, the agency has just maybe prevented a bad thing or two from happening. Surely that's enough to excuse its egregious abuse of the nation's trust? Besides, it's not as if you can trust the opinion of shut-ins and Facebook users. They don't know what it's like out there in the real world, where everything is a big gray area.

Relationships are never simple, especially for those on the inside. Feinstein and Rogers have both had their trust abused greatly by an agency they seem to worship, and that can't feel good. Unfortunately, they seem unable (or unwilling) to make a clean break, which makes one wonder exactly what it would take to separate them from the NSA, and how unfortunate that revelation would be for the citizens they're supposed to be representing.

Filed Under: co-dependency, dianne feinstein, house intelligence committee, mike rogers, nsa, nsa surveillance, senate intelligence committee

Key Loophole Allows NSA To Avoid Telling Congress About Thousands Of Abuses

from the oversight! dept

As we've noted, one of the key claims by NSA surveillance defenders was that the program had strong oversight from Congress. However, with the revelations last week about thousands of abuses, it's become quite clear that this isn't true. Late on Friday, Rep. Jim Himes, who is on the House Intelligence Committee, claimed that he was unaware of those violations, was told that there were "no abuses" and that these kinds of abuses are unacceptable:

Possibility of 1000s of NSA violations unacceptable. Many intel comm members unaware of this report. In fact, we have been told no abuses.

— Jim Himes (@jahimes) August 16, 2013

Remember, this isn't just a Congressional Rep, but a member of the Intelligence Committee, who is in charge of overseeing the NSA surveillance program. Hell, he's even on the oversight subcommittee, and no one told him about any abuses, despite thousands happening per year. That's astounding, and highlights how the claims of Congressional oversight are clearly bogus. Furthermore, it makes a mockery of the statement that House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Rogers put out on Friday, claiming that "The Committee has been apprised of previous incidents." Himes says that's completely untrue.

How is this happening? Marc Ambinder explains the "loophole" that the NSA has used to avoid telling Congress about these abuses. It's a bit convoluted, but basically, the NSA believes that Congressional oversight only covers spying done under FISA -- the law that covers any spying done on Americans, for which a court order is needed. FISA doesn't cover spying on non-US persons (i.e., foreigners who are outside the country at the time of surveillance). And that's where some of the abuses came in, and the NSA believes that since those aren't "FISA" related, and Congress is only overseeing "FISA," they don't have to report those mistakes.

Since the focus of oversight efforts has been on FISA compliance, NSA gives Congress detailed narratives of violations of the FISA-authorized data sets, like when metadata about American phone records was stored too long, when a wrong set of records was searched by an analyst or when names or “selectors” not previously cleared by FISA were used to acquire information from the databases. In these cases, the NSA’s compliance staff sends incident reports to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for each “significant” FISA violation, and those reports include “significant details,” the official said.

But privacy violations of this sort comprise just one third of those analyzed by the inspector general. Of the 2,776 violations reported by the NSA from May 2011 to May 2012, more than two-thirds were counted as E.O. 12333 incidents. And the agency doesn’t provide Congress detailed reports on E.O. 12333 violations.

Now, you can argue these are very different circumstances, but Ambinder points out that's not really true in many cases:

In some ways, it’s a distinction without a difference: it does not matter to U.S. citizens whether their phone call was accidentally intercepted by an analyst focusing on U.S.-based activities or those involving a foreign country. But the difference is relevant as it keeps Congress uninformed and unable to perform its oversight duties because the NSA doesn’t provide the intelligence committees with a detailed narrative about the latter type of transgressions.

For example, if someone’s e-mails were inadvertently obtained by the NSA’s International Transit Switch Collection programs, it would count as 12333 error and not a FISA error, even though the data was taken from U.S. communication gateways, and NSA would not notify Congress.

So, basically, any "error" that involves spying on Americans doesn't "count" as an abuse, as far as the NSA tells Congress (who keep claiming they're in charge of oversight), because they "obtained" it outside the US, and the "error" is considered outside of FISA. That's a pretty massive loophole through which the NSA can hide its abuse of programs from Congress.

Filed Under: abuses, congress, foreign intelligence, house intelligence committee, jim himes, loopholes, nsa, nsa surveillance, oversight, violations

White House Knew That Mike Rogers Withheld Details Of NSA Surveillance From Others In Congress

from the it's-the-coverup-that-gets-you dept

In the last week or so it's come out that Rep. Mike Rogers, the head of the House Intelligence Committee has actively blocked requests from members of Congress to review details of the NSA's surveillance program -- showing that the claim that everyone in Congress was informed about these programs isn't just a lie but a duplicitous one. And then it got worse. Rep. Justin Amash pointed out that Rogers' committee actually withheld key information from all incoming Representatives in the class of 2010, who had to vote on the Patriot Act's reauthorization, which renewed the program to collect data on all Americans in bulk.

Amash highlighted a document showing that the White House had sent a letter to Rogers, telling him that he should make the document available to all members of Congress, and then noted that he had not actually done so in 2011 (though he had in 2009). Marcy Wheeler has pointed out that if you actually closely read the DOJ's paper that was released on Friday defending this program, you'd see that the White House was well aware that Rogers never made the document available to Congress.

Of course, you have to read the document very, very, very carefully to spot that. The paper first talks about the document that was provided to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees in 2009, and then notes that both committees made those documents available to all of their colleagues:

In December 2009, DOJ worked with the Intelligence Community to provide a classified briefing paper to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees that could be made available to all Members of Congress regarding the telephony metadata collection program. A letter accompanying the briefing paper sent to the House Intelligence Committee specifically stated that “it is important that all Members of Congress have access to information about this program” and that “making this document available to all members of Congress is an effective way to inform the legislative debate about reauthorization of Section 215.” See Letter from Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich to the Honorable Silvestre Reyes, Chairman, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (Dec. 14, 2009). Both Intelligence Committees made this document available to all Members of Congress prior to the February 2010 reauthorization of Section 215. See Letter from Sen. Diane Feinstein and Sen. Christopher S. Bond to Colleagues (Feb. 23, 2010); Letter from Rep. Silvestre Reyes to Colleagues (Feb. 24, 2010)

But, when it came to the similar document in 2011, the White House report only notes that the Senate Intelligence Committee made the document available, and never says anything about the House. And of course, the letter that Amash highlighted points out that the White House was clearly urging Rogers to make it available as well -- and he did not do that.

An updated version of the briefing paper, also recently released in redacted form to the public, was provided to the Senate and House Intelligence Committees again in February 2011 in connection with the reauthorization that occurred later that year. See Letter from Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich to the Honorable Dianne Feinstein and the Honorable Saxby Chambliss, Chairman and Vice Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Feb. 2, 2011); Letter from Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich to the Honorable Mike Rogers and the Honorable C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, Chairman and Ranking Minority Member, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (Feb. 2, 2011). The Senate Intelligence Committee made this updated paper available to all Senators later that month. See Letter from Sen. Diane Feinstein and Sen. Saxby Chambliss to Colleagues (Feb. 8, 2011).

In other words: in 2009, this information was made available to everyone in Congress. In 2011, Rogers chose not to make it available to House members, meaning that (in particular) the 65 new members of Congress who voted for the reauthorization that year had no idea about this program, completely contrary to the later claims of Rogers and the White House that every member of Congress was fully aware of this program. (Updated to clarify that the 65 members were new, not briefed on this and voted for reauthorization).

Given all of this, the calls are getting louder and louder both inside and outside of Congress to get Mike Rogers to explain why he actively withheld critical information on NSA surveillance from Members of Congress who were tasked with reviewing and voting on the continuation of the program. And, it's now becoming quite obvious that Mike Rogers is not representing the interests of the American public, but rather his friends and former colleagues within the intelligence community:

"The congressional committees charged with oversight of the intelligence community have long been captive to, and protective of, the intelligence agencies," said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight.

"Many of the congressional staff, in fact, come from those agencies. This latest revelation demonstrates the harm caused by that conflict of interest. When the congressional oversight committee is more loyal to the agency it oversees than to the legislative chamber its members were elected to serve in, the public's interest is seriously compromised."

We've talked about regulatory capture for years, but this is an extreme form, and when it reaches the point that the head of the Committee charged with oversight appears to be proactively seeking to block critical information from other members of Congress, and the White House looks the other way (while claiming something entirely different in public) it should be obvious that there is no oversight at all. There is, instead, a government that is helping the intelligence community at the expense of the American public.

Filed Under: congress, house intelligence committee, justin amash, mike rogers, patriot act, section 215

Rep. Justin Amash: House Intelligence Committee Withheld NSA Documents From Incoming Congressmen

from the Mike-Rogers'-streak-of-'dick-moves'-continues-unabated dept

Defenders of the NSA's program always point to two things: it's all legal and it's all subject to oversight. Part of the "oversight" is the FISA "thumbs up" system that has approved every request for two years in a row. The other part of the "oversight" is Congress itself.

Unfortunately, members of Congress have been lied to directly about the extent of the collections occurring under Section 215 (and 702), so that's one strike against the "oversight." Now, it appears that members of Congress are being selectively provided with information about the programs.

Rep. Justin Amash, (attempted) NSA defunder, posted this to his Facebook wall last night. It's a recently declassified document addressed to Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger. This cover letter accompanied documents detailing the bulk collections authorized by Sections 215 and 402 (pen register/trap and trace). [Click through to enlarge.]

At the beginning of the second paragraph, the cover letter (dated Feb. 2, 2011) notes:

We believe that making this document available to all Members of Congress, as we did with a similar document in 2009, is an effective way to inform the legislative debate about the reauthorization of Section 215.

There's your "oversight" for you: the assistant attorney general calling for these documents to be shared with all Congress members in order to give them the oversight capabilities NSA spokesmen keep claiming is keeping the agency in check. Except, as Amash points out on his FB page, Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger never bothered sharing these documents.

Less than two weeks ago, the Obama administration released previously classified documents regarding ‪#‎NSA‬'s bulk collection programs and indicated that two of these documents had been made available to all Members of Congress prior to the vote on reauthorization of the Patriot Act. I can now confirm that the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence did NOT, in fact, make the 2011 document available to Representatives in Congress, meaning that the large class of Representatives elected in 2010 did not receive either of the now declassified documents detailing these programs.

It appears the Committee was extremely selective (hence its name?) about who it would share these documents with. Incoming Congress members need not apply.

So, when Feinstein and others greeted the leaks with a shrug and a blase "We've known about this for years," there was probably some truth to those claims. Certain Representatives and Senators knew. Some even tried to warn the public. Still others had no idea, not until the details began appearing, not in security briefings, but at The Guardian and Washington Post.

Maybe the NSA really thought every representative was on the same page. Maybe it knew there were "gaps" in the oversight but didn't care. Considering its position as the most secretive of intelligence agencies, it probably figured the smaller the loop, the better.

According to this document, it was left in the hands of Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger to disperse the information to the other members of Congress. And it appears they chose not to.

"Oversight" like this, based on selective inclusion, is a joke -- something that affects all Americans is guided into the hands of a chosen few, most of whom wholeheartedly support the NSA's programs. Mike Rogers continues to mold the "oversight" into his own image, withholding these documents in 2011 and, more recently, denying crucial information on the FISA court and the PRISM program to representatives who wished to use it to get up to speed before the vote on Amash's NSA-directed amendment.

This isn't "oversight." This is Mike Rogers abusing his position to control the narrative and keep the NSA running smoothly, safely hidden away from those tasked with overseeing these surveillance programs. The NSA and its defenders can talk all they want about "oversight," but this is nothing more than Rogers carving out a fiefdom at the expense of the American public.

Filed Under: congress, house intelligence committee, justin amash, mike rogers, nsa, nsa surveillance, oversight

House Intelligence Committee Threatens Rep. Grayson For Informing Other Reps About Leaked NSA Docs From The Guardian

from the congressional-failures dept

We already wrote about Glenn Greenwald's piece from this weekend concerning Rep. Mike Rogers and the House Intelligence Committee actively blocking access to information, documents and briefings for other members of Congress who have expressed interest in the details of the NSA surveillance program, but I wanted to focus in on a separate issue in that same article. In the original post, we noted how Rep. Alan Grayson was told directly by Rogers that the Intelligence Committee had taken a "voice vote" and decided to deny his request for some information (and when he asked for more details, he was told that it was "classified").

Grayson, of course, was one of the first members of Congress to speak out forcefully about the NSA surveillance program and why he found it to be unconstitutional. As we showed at the time, Grayson's speech, included a posterboard of some of the slides that were published in the Guardian from Snowden's leak. In fact, we pointed out that it seemed especially ridiculous for the government to block access to the Guardian or other websites that had published the same documents, in part because Grayson had shown those same documents on the House floor. To pretend that they were still classified is just the ultimate in sticking your head in the sand.

But, it gets worse. At the end of the Greenwald piece, we find out that the House Intelligence Committee threatened Grayson with sanctions for sharing the same slides that were published by the Guardian with fellow members of Congress:

In early July, Grayson had staffers distribute to House members several slides published by the Guardian about NSA programs as part of Grayson's efforts to trigger debate in Congress. But, according to one staff member, Grayson's office was quickly told by the House Intelligence Committee that those slides were still classified, despite having been published and discussed in the media, and directed Grayson to cease distribution or discussion of those materials in the House, warning that he could face sanctions if he continued.

Think about that for a second. Here were documents that were published in major newspapers, discussing issues of key importance for Congress -- and a member of Congress is actually being threatened with sanctions for daring to send this front page news around to other colleagues in order to have a discussion about the NSA's actions. At this point, it would appear that the House Intelligence Committee isn't just failing at its job of handling oversight for the intelligence agencies, but it's now actively obstructing the rest of Congress from living up to their oath as Congressional Representatives to protect the Constitution.

Filed Under: alan grayson, classified info, house intelligence committee, mike rogers, nsa, nsa surveillance, sanctions

Rep. Mike Rogers Blocking Other Congressional Reps From Access To Info On NSA Surveillance

from the look-at-that dept

When the Ed Snowden leaks first hit the Guardian and the Washington Post, many officials claimed that there was full oversight from Congress of these programs and that everyone was aware of them. In fact, President Obama himself declared:

"When it comes to telephone calls, every member of Congress has been briefed on this program," Obama said to reporters last Friday.

And other defenders insisted, at the very least, that anyone could get a full briefing -- if they just asked for it:

The director of national intelligence, James Clapper, chimed in later: "We provided detailed briefings and papers on this to explain the law, to explain the process it was governing," he said on NBC News last Saturday.

And then Monday on Fox News, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who's on the House Intelligence Committee, told his colleagues to stop whining: "You know, these members of Congress who said they didn't know about it — they could have gotten a briefing whenever they wanted to."

Oh really? Even back then, many in Congress said that was hogwash, and that it was incredibly difficult to get the details of these programs out of those who knew about them. While there were these "briefings" that Clapper and King mention above, they're anything but clear. As some noted, the "briefings" don't really brief you on anything -- unless you already know exactly what questions to ask:

“Sometimes these briefings are a game of 20 questions. If you don’t ask exactly the right question, you don’t get the answer,” said Harman.

Either way, Glenn Greenwald's latest shows that the claims that any member of Congress can simply find out what's going on is flat out false -- so we can add that to the list of "lies" from those defending the NSA surveillance programs. Greenwald highlights how two Congressional Representatives -- Morgan Griffith and Alan Grayson -- shared with him their attempts to get access to certain details about the NSA surveillance program. Griffith sent over a bunch of requests to the House Intelligence Committee... and got back nothing, even as he asked that his request be expedited so he could vote knowledgeably on the Amash amendment. Instead... silence.

Even worse, however, is the completely obnoxious response that Grayson received from (you guessed it!) Rep. Mike Rogers, saying that his request had been denied:

On June 19, Grayson wrote to the House Intelligence Committee requesting several documents relating to media accounts about the NSA. Included among them were FISA court opinions directing the collection of telephone records for Americans, as well as documents relating to the PRISM program.

But just over four weeks later, the Chairman of the Committee, GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, wrote to Grayson informing him that his requests had been denied by a Committee "voice vote".

Oh, and it gets worse. Grayson spoke to Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (basically the number two guy on the Intelligence Committee after Rogers) and was told that "he was unaware of any committee action on this matter." A staff member for Grayson asked the Intelligence Committee for the details of the voice vote, including the member-by-member voting. The response?

Thanks for your inquiry. The full Committee attends Business Meetings. At our July 18, 2013 Business Meeting, there were seven Democrat Members and nine Republican Members in attendance. The transcript is classified."

Say what? Here is a Congressional Representative -- who we are told over and over again can have full access to this information -- being told by the NSA's staunchest defenders, Rep. Mike Rogers, that his request is denied "by a voice vote" and then told that the details of that vote are now classified? At some point, you have to recognize that Rogers and the House Intelligence Committee are out of control. I realize they're trying to do damage control, but denying such direct requests from a Congressional Representative is really quite stunning.

And that's not all. Looking through the email exchange, it notes that Grayson had spoken to NSA Deputy Director Chris Inglis to find out more about the program, and was requesting a follow up meeting. There are then a whole series of follow up emails with Grayson's office repeatedly trying to schedule a meeting. Finally, they are told that someone from the House Intelligence Committee would be calling to "close the loop," and there's a note that "closing the loop" meant merely calling to tell Grayson that he could not have a follow up meeting with the NSA.

It's no secret that Grayson has been one of the vocal critics of the surveillance program, but now the House Intelligence Committee, led by Mike Rogers, is looking to actively block him from doing his job, denying him access to the very documents, individuals and briefings that all the defenders of the program have said repeatedly are open to all Congressional reps. It really makes you wonder: what are they so afraid of?

Filed Under: alan grayson, barack obama, congress, house intelligence committee, james clapper, mike rogers, morgan griffith, nsa, nsa surveillance, oversight, peter king

CISPA Passes Markup Phase, But It Doesn't Look Like Much Was Fixed

from the still-a-bad-bill dept

As expected, CISPA passed the House Intelligence Committee today after a closed markup session. The vote was 18-2, and according to Tony Romm at Politico, all of the amendments that were backed by the original authors of the bill were adopted. If that's the case, we're talking about a bunch of changes that sound nice but don't accomplish much, such as dropping the "national security" provisions while broadening the definition of cybersecurity to encompass almost anything, requiring the government to remove personal information from shared data (once it's already in the hands of the government), and explicitly preventing companies from using data they receive for marketing purposes (which seems to go against previous insistence that the information shared would only be highly technical threat data).

CISPA is expected to go to the full house for a vote next week. As we get a closer look at the bill in its latest state, we'll do a more detailed analysis — but as it stands there's little reason to believe that any of the core problems have been fixed (and we're still waiting for someone to explain in clear, specific terms why this bill is needed at all).

Filed Under: cispa, cybersecurity, house intelligence committee