US Still Can't Figure Out What Snowden Took; What Happened To Those Perfect 'Audits'?

from the total-failure dept

Remember how the NSA's biggest defenders keep insisting that the NSA's perfect "audits" prevent abuse? Here's Keith Alexander insisting that such audits are perfect:

"The assumption is our people are just out there wheeling and dealing. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have tremendous oversight over these programmes. We can audit the actions of our people 100%, and we do that," he said.

Addressing the Black Hat convention in Las Vegas, an annual gathering for the information security industry, he gave a personal example: "I have four daughters. Can I go and intercept their emails? No. The technical limitations are in there." Should anyone in the NSA try to circumvent that, in defiance of policy, they would be held accountable, he said: "There is 100% audibility." Only 35 NSA analysts had the authority to query a database of US phone records, he said.

Yet, many months after the initial leaks, it's being reported that the US government still doesn't know what Snowden took:

More than two months after documents leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden first began appearing in the news media, the National Security Agency still doesn’t know the full extent of what he took, according to intelligence community sources, and is “overwhelmed” trying to assess the damage.

First off, this shows that the claims of 100% auditability are complete crap. If they can't tell what Snowden took so many months later, they don't have very good auditability at all. Furthermore, this raises serious questions about the NSA's data management capabilities. For all the claims that there are no "willful" or "intentional" violations by the NSA of people's privacy, it seems difficult to believe they can know that. Here's a case where they flat out know that someone got access to all sorts of documents, and over many months they still can't figure out what he got. And, yet, they expect us to believe that they can tell with perfect accuracy what their staffers are doing with the data they have access to? Seriously?

Yes, there have been thousands of "accidental" violations that were caught in audits, but it seems highly likely that there are intentional violations that the NSA just doesn't know about. If they can't track what an outside contractor is downloading, how can they even pretend that they have control over their data and information?

Filed Under: abuses, audits, ed snowden, keith alexander, leaks, nsa, nsa surveillance, violations

Rep. Dennis Kucinich: Abolish The NSA And Give Snowden A Parade

from the taking-a-stand dept

There was a showing of the new documentary, Terms and Conditions May Apply late last week in Washington DC, and Rep. Dennis Kucinich stopped by and made some very pointed remarks while discussing the NSA's surveillance activities. The (well-timed) documentary, of course, looks at how companies and the government use and abuse everyone's digital data. Kucinich's remarks are well worth listening to, as he suggests that Congress should abolish the NSA, while also saying that Ed Snowden deserves a ticker-tape parade. The key quotes come in response to the film's director, Cullen Hoback, asking what would it take for Congress to hold James Clapper accountable for lying to Congress:

Well, you know it's illegal to lie to Congress, but everyone lies to Congress. As soon as they raise their right hand, watch out! Clapper should be held responsible, but he won't be, because that's the condition we're in right now. In a just world, Snowden, we'd be having ticker tape parades for him. But that's not what's going to happen.

[....] We have the CIA, the FBI, a dozen other intelligence infrastructures. Frankly -- and I'm saying this with a lifetime's experience in government here -- it's time to punch the NSA's ticket here. They've ruined the brand. They've destroyed the idea of privacy. We need some kind of symbolic and profound approach here, that says, 'look, you've violated something that's very dear to the American people -- you don't get to do that.' We talk about the death penalty for individuals, which I oppose, but I think there needs to be for government agencies that so broadly betray the public interest, there needs to be a measure of responsibility. And if they go beyond the pale, which the NSA has, they just ought to be abolished. We don't need the spying.

There have been a lot of strong words about all of this coming from some members of Congress, but these may be the strongest yet.

Filed Under: dennis kucinich, ed snowden, james clapper, nsa, nsa surveillance, terms and conditions may apply

Okay, Now Will People Admit That Ed Snowden Is A Whistleblower?

from the he-clearly-disclosed-abuse dept

Nearly two weeks ago, Michael German, at the ACLU, posted a somewhat prescient article detailing why Ed Snowden was clearly a "whistleblower" under the current definitions in US law:

It is actually not a hard question to answer. The Whistleblower Protection Act protects "any disclosure" that a covered employee reasonably believes evidences "any violation of any law, rule, or regulation," or "gross mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, and abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety."

It goes on to give some evidence of how Snowden's leaks fit into those categories:

In the two months since Snowden's alleged disclosures, no fewer than five lawsuits have been filed challenging the legality of the surveillance programs he exposed. The author of the Patriot Act, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), called the scope of data collection revealed in one of the leaked Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court orders "incredibly troubling," and "an overbroad interpretation of the Act" that "raise[s] questions about whether our constitutional rights are secure."

It doesn't end there. Over a dozen bills have been introduced in Congress to narrow these now public surveillance authorities and increase transparency regarding continuing programs. No one can know what was in Edward Snowden's mind, but clearly he could have had a reasonable belief the documents he leaked to the news media revealed government illegality and abuse of authority.

The disclosures also revealed that U.S. military officers and intelligence community officials have been less than truthful in their public comments and congressional testimony about the government's domestic surveillance practices, both in the scope of the programs and their effectiveness. Such false and misleading testimony threatens more than just Americans' privacy; it threatens democratic control of government.

Of course, even then, some argued that since the revelations did not, in fact, reveal direct "abuses," he still wasn't a "whistleblower." But that's no longer true. As we've been detailing, his leaks have led to the clear evidence of not just a few random abuses, but rather thousands of abuses by the NSA every year.

So can we drop whatever name calling game people are playing and agree that he meets the definition of a whistleblower?

Filed Under: abuse, ed snowden, nsa, nsa surveillance, whistleblower

Simple Question: How Could President Obama Not Know That Ed Snowden Had The IG Report That Showed Widespread NSA Abuse?

from the absolutely-incredible dept

Among the many stunning things in the report from Barton Gellman and the Washington Post last night was the fact that it totally debunked President Obama's statements from less than a week ago, arguing (1) that these programs were not abused and (2) that no one was "listening in on people's phone calls (see update below). Both of those appear to be untrue. Here were President Obama's direct comments at last week's press conference:

If you look at the reports, even the disclosures that Mr. Snowden’s put forward, all the stories that have been written, what you’re not reading about is the government actually abusing these programs and, you know, listening in on people’s phone calls or inappropriately reading people’s e-mails.

What you’re hearing about is the prospect that these could be abused. Now part of the reason they’re not abused is because they’re — these checks are in place, and those abuses would be against the law and would be against the orders of the FISC

And yet, the Inspector General's report shows that just in the DC area alone there were thousands of violations and abuses, and some included intercepting the content of tons of phone calls in the DC area. Update: In an update, the Washington Post admits that the report was about metadata, not actual content, and they had misreported this initially.

Now, I know that some will take the cynical stance that politicians will just lie with abandon and not care about it. But the fact is that while many (perhaps all) are less than truthful at times, they very, very rarely will bumble into making a major statement like this that can be shown to be flat out false in black and white like this in a setting where the remarks were carefully scripted. So here's the thing I don't understand: by this point, the government must at least have some idea of what documents Snowden got, even if they haven't quantified all of them. They had to know that this Inspector's General report was out there and there was a high likelihood that Snowden had leaked it as well.

So I honestly can't figure out what the White House was thinking in having Obama make such a statement. You can argue that he offered a lie for convenience, and hoped that the truth wouldn't come out, but the White House had to know that there was a very high probability of him being proven a liar very soon after making those statements, which then would undermine the entire purpose of the press conference. Yes, politicians lie, but they lie for strategic reasons, and here it seems like the White House can't even think one step ahead in this chess game. Without last week's press conferences, the disclosures from last night would still be stunning and damaging, but coming so soon after the press conference, they're devastating.

Filed Under: abuse, barack obama, ed snowden, lies, nsa, nsa surveillance, surveillance

ACLU Coordinating Ed Snowden's Defense

from the good-news dept

While much in the press is focusing on the supposed squabble between Ed Snowden, his father and his father's lawyer, Glenn Greenwald points out the actual important news hidden as a random aside in some of the news reports: the ACLU is now coordinating Ed Snowden's legal defense in the US. The Huffington Post article, notes:

The Wall Street Journal reported that the ACLU is helping coordinate Snowden’s legal defense in the U.S.

The full WSJ article is behind a paywall, but it states:

The elder Mr. Snowden participated in the chat from the Washington, D.C., office of his attorney, Bruce Fein, and was connected to his son with the help of Ben Wizner, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, who is involved in coordinating Mr. Snowden's legal defense in the U.S.

As Greenwald notes, that's very good news. It also suggests that the claims that Snowden's legal efforts are somehow in the hands of Julian Assange are also not true.

Filed Under: aclu, ed snowden

Latest Leak: NSA Abused Rules To Spy On Americans 'Thousands Of Times Each Year'

from the boom dept

Throughout the whole ordeal with the NSA leaks, the one line that we kept hearing from defenders of the program was that not only were these programs legal, no one had showed any abuse by the NSA. That is, even if this program was collecting data on everyone, the NSA had those important tools in place to block it from being abused. At last week's press conference, this was a key point made by President Obama. NSA boss Keith Alexander insisted that there was no abuse, while Rep. Mike Rogers, the NSA's prime defender and head of the House Intelligence Committee, similarly insisted that there was no abuse by the NSA. As we noted, that seemed hard to believe, given past revelations of clear abuse.

And... the latest report from the Washington Post based on leaked documents shows that an audit of the NSA's activities shows it broke privacy rules, mostly to spy on Americans, thousands of times per year:

The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.

Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by law and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls.

The audit info comes from Ed Snowden's leaks, so it seems rather incredible that President Obama, Keith Alexander and Mike Rogers didn't seem to realize that this audit would eventually come to light, showing that they were flat out 100% lying to the American public.

The NSA audit obtained by The Post, dated May 2012, counted 2,776 incidents in the preceding 12 months of unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications. Most were unintended. Many involved failures of due diligence or violations of standard operating procedure. The most serious incidents included a violation of a court order and unauthorized use of data about more than 3,000 Americans and green-card holders.

The NSA's response to all of this is almost comical:

“We’re a human-run agency operating in a complex environment with a number of different regulatory regimes, so at times we find ourselves on the wrong side of the line,” a senior NSA official said in an interview, speaking with White House permission on the condition of anonymity.

Well, of course! That's the point that we've made over and over and over again here in response to these claims of "no abuse." The NSA is made up of humans. And when you give humans the power to spy on just about anyone there will always be some abuse. This is why it's important to limit the collection of information, not promise to stop the abuses. You need to make such abuses much more difficult in the first place.

Even worse, this report only covers the NSA's activities in the DC area. Other NSA locations are not covered.

Three government officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified matters, said the number would be substantially higher if it included other NSA operating units and regional collection centers.

Even a long-term defender of the NSA's programs, Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein, sounded a bit taken aback by the report, noting that the Intelligence Committee "can and should do more to independently verify that NSA’s operations are appropriate." Coming from Feinstein, that's a startling admission showing that she's finally realizing just how bad this program is -- a program that she's been defending very strongly for years.

The story also reveals the details of the now infamous, but secret, FISC order that had said certain collection practices were deemed unconstitutional by the FISC. Apparently, the NSA "diverted large volumes of international data passing through fiber-optic cables in the United States into a repository where the material could be stored temporarily for processing and selection," and then later admitted that there was a ton of US emails in there and that it was impossible to filter out the Americans. It was only months later that the FISC was fully informed of this and said the practice had to stop.

Perhaps the most ridiculous of the abuses was accidental, but reveals how easy it is to have these surveillance programs abused:

In one instance, the NSA decided that it need not report the unintended surveillance of Americans. A notable example in 2008 was the interception of a “large number” of calls placed from Washington when a programming error confused U.S. area code 202 for 20, the international dialing code for Egypt, according to a “quality assurance” review that was not distributed to the NSA’s oversight staff.

And, boom, just like that, a ton of calls from Washington DC were intercepted "by accident" and no one was told about it. No biggie.

So, now, can President Obama, Keith Alexander and Mike Rogers please explain why they lied about the lack of abuse?

Filed Under: abuse, ed snowden, leaks, nsa, nsa surveillance

Thomas Friedman Believes Snowden Should Get A 'Second Chance,' By Which He Means 'Come Back To The US And Stand Trial'

from the solitary-confinement:-the-ultimate-'second-chance!' dept

Thomas Friedman, who I'm sometimes convinced the New York Times keeps around solely to provide the internet with a chew toy, has written another column that strays from his areas of expertise. When Friedman fails, he does so spectacularly -- there's nothing half-assed about it.

Attacking the subject of the Obama/Putin/Snowden trinity, Friedman argues that "you only get one chance to make a second impression," and hands out some suggestions for Edward Snowden's "redemption" and stating Putin has already blown his. Unfortunately, his unsolicited advice is front-loaded with errors.

Considering the breadth of reforms that President Obama is now proposing to prevent privacy abuses in intelligence gathering, in the wake of Snowden’s disclosures, Snowden deserves a chance to make a second impression — that he truly is a whistle-blower, not a traitor.

First off, Obama's reforms may be "broad," but that's because they're only skin deep. This is what happens when you apply a few ineffectual efforts to a wide range of problems.

Second, whether or not you agree with Snowden's actions, he's not a "traitor," at least not in the legal definition of the word. Snowden has been charged with espionage, not treason, a charge whistleblowers often find applied to their actions as the exposed wrongdoers grasp in vain for an effective deterrent to further whistleblowing.

The fact is, he dumped his data and fled to countries that are hostile to us and to the very principles he espoused. To make a second impression, Snowden would need to come home, make his case and face his accusers. It would mean risking a lengthy jail term, but also trusting the fair-mindedness of the American people, who, I believe, will not allow an authentic whistle-blower to be unfairly punished.

Oddly enough, the administration of this country also appears to be "hostile" to Snowden and "against the principles he espoused." I'm not sure how this theory that whistleblowers must be punished in order to establish their "credentials" first developed, but that seems to be a common thread in articles by writers who seem to believe no good deed should go unpunished.

Also, that bit about "dumped his data and fled" -- that's not true and (as if this were possible) undermines Friedman's credibility even more than usual. As anyone who's been following this even slightly knows, Snowden very carefully vetted the information he was handing over to a trio of extremely experienced journalists, and then made it clear that he expected each of them to do further reporting in deciding what should and should not be published, noting that he did not want them to publish anything that might put people at risk. That's anything but a data dump.

And the claim about fleeing to countries hostile to us... there was an initial strategic choice to go to Hong Kong for legal reasons which made a ton of sense if you looked at the legal regime of Hong Kong (not China). As for Russia? That was supposed to be nothing more than a waypoint to somewhere else, and it would have been if the US hadn't pulled Snowden's passport and more or less forced him into Russia's hands. To suggest he "fled" to Russia without mentioning that it's mainly the US's own actions that left him stranded in Russia suggests Friedman is either uninformed or is being willfully misleading.

Unbelievably, Friedman somehow feels he's being generous by "granting" Snowden a right he already enjoys as an American citizen, as Barry Eisler points out in his thorough takedown of Friedman's article.

Wow. Snowden now "deserves a chance" to be afforded a trial as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment, but in the absence of Obama's proposed whitewash, he would have had to forfeit his Sixth Amendment rights? This is very generous of Friedman, suggesting that under proper conditions an American might deserve Constitutional protections. What does Friedman think Snowden "deserved" before Friedman decided he had earned his "chance" at being afforded his Sixth Amendment rights -- an imperial drone execution?

Friedman also somehow believes the "fair-mindedness of the American people" will have any bearing on Snowden's trial and sentencing. Even more incredibly, he somehow believes the American people are blessed with the power to prevent a vindictive government from harshly punishing the whistleblower. Because that worked out so well for Bradley Manning.

Friedman obviously can't sincerely believe any of the above, which means he truly considers Snowden to be a traitor, not a true whistleblower. If Snowden does somehow end up back in the US and sentenced to lengthy stay in prison, it will just prove Friedman right: Snowden is not a true whistleblower. If he was, he wouldn't have been sentenced so harshly! At this point, Friedman should just lay all his cards on the table because by the end of his second paragraph, he's already holding his hand face-out.

From this point on, his piece becomes largely more tolerable and less enragingly stupid, with Friedman offering up suggestions on how Obama should have handled the Putin/Snowden situation. Of course, it doesn't take much to top Obama's decision to sulk away from his scheduled meeting with Putin like a child on the losing end of a playground argument.

Friedman makes the point that Obama should have attacked Putin for his xenophobic, homophobic policies, and how those policies are directly undermining his country's financial success, rather than made it about the only quality dissident Russia's hosted in years. He's absolutely right. In the larger scheme of things, Russia's human rights violations should be a much bigger concern than the continued freedom of an ex-NSA contractor who exposed disturbing information about domestic spying. Instead, Obama chose to make it about his administration's problems and came out looking much weaker for it.

As much as I want to give Friedman more credit for his stronger finish, I can't. His article basically revolves around the assumption that Snowden should be punished for his whistleblowing and any suggestions he's giving Obama on foreign affairs are subservient to that assumption. Even worse, his starry-eyed supposition that Snowden will be treated fairly and safeguarded from the administration's vindictive actions by a "fair-minded public" shows a woeful, or willful, ignorance of the tactics employed by our government against whistleblowers.

Filed Under: ed snowden, thomas friedman

CIA Veteran: Snowden Did Everything Wrong And The Government Respects Your Privacy

from the government-issue-rose-tinted-blinders dept

Another article has arrived defending the poor, misunderstood intelligence agencies from the hateful actions of a single contractor. Fortunately, it's all spelled out in the headline: "What did Edward Snowden get wrong? Everything"

Missing period notwithstanding, former CIA agent Andrew Liepman dives into his defense of intelligence agencies by attempting to cast these agencies as sympathetic entities. Not a simple task considering the recent developments, but Liepman tries.

First, he points out that these agencies couldn't care less about your trivial online activities.

[T]he U.S. government truly does make strenuous efforts not to violate privacy, not just because it respects privacy (which it does), but because it simply doesn't have the time to read irrelevant emails or listen in on conversations unconnected to possible plots against American civilians.

First: trying to find something the agency deems "irrelevant" is an exercise in futility. Seemingly unconnected web detritus is swept up along with the actually relevant (as in the OED definition, not the NSA's definition) data. The NSA may not have any interest in 99.9% of it, but it stores it anyway. Just. In. Case. Liepman even offers his admiration for the agencies' ability to stack hay, but honestly, that talking point has been exhausted.

Second: while agents may be mainly interested in "possible plots," evidence exists that they take time out of their busy schedules to listen to irrelevant phone calls and read irrelevant emails.

That's why I find the Snowden controversy so frustrating. I realize many Americans don't trust their government. I wish I could change that. I wish I could tell people the amazing things I witnessed during my 30 years in the CIA, that I've never seen people work harder or more selflessly, that for little money and long hours, people took it for granted that their flaws would be scrutinized and their successes ignored. But I've been around long enough to know that deep-rooted distrust of government is immune to stories from people like me. The conspiracy buffs are too busy howling in protest at the thought that their government could uncover how long they spent on the phone with their dear aunt.

Realizing people don't trust the government is great, I suppose, but the problem remains that the government has rarely shown interest in rebuilding this trust. I'm sure the CIA has its share of hardworking, trustworthy employees just like any other corporation. (Former NSA director Michael Hayden made the same sort of claim in his interview with CNN -- "The people working at the NSA have the same concerns as the American people.") But like any other corporation, it's also going to have its share of less-than-stellar employees, only these under-performers have access to a hell of a lot of data. Telling the public that some people do a damn good job won't change anything, as Liepman notes. But he's still going to try.

But once he's through trying to humanize the intelligence agencies, Liepman falls right back into the same rhetorical trap so many other defenders have: belittling the public for its concerns. Instead of making any attempt to portray American citizens' concerns about broad, non-targeted data harvesting as legitimate, Liepman downplays the opposition's credibility by referring to them as "howling conspiracy buffs" concerned about the government listening to "phone calls to their aunts."

Insulting the opposition will do very little to rebuild trust. This is how the intelligence agencies view those concerned about their privacy and constitutional rights: as social misfits prone to conspiracy theories and wild exaggerations about these agencies' capabilities. All this indicates is that those running these agencies have very little interest in addressing the public's concerns. In their minds, these people should be marginalized and mocked, rather than taken seriously.

Liepman repeatedly asserts that the CIA, NSA, etc. aren't interested in anything other than the activities of terrorists, not the activities of non-terrorist Americans, but evidence continues to mount that shows this assertion JUST ISN'T TRUE.

Two stories, just from this morning, show the CIA is surveilling Americans with no links to terrorism. A FOIA request managed to pry loose enough info to force the CIA to admit that it spied on MIT professor Noam Chomsky for several years [caution: registration wall; disable javascript to read], tracking his anti-war activities. Evidence has also surfaced via a hacked Stratfor email account that CIA Director John Brennan was the point man on the administration's "witch hunts" of American investigative journalists. That's just from this morning.

The history of the CIA is long and awful and includes many more instances of the agency deploying its tactics against American citizens, this despite the fact that it's supposed to limit itself entirely to foreign intelligence work. Two well-known domestic surveillance programs, Project Merrimac and Project Resistance, surveilled American citizens, keeping an eye on anti-war protestors and other "radicals." The CIA also ran a domestic mail opening program for two decades in four major American cities according to the Church Committee report.

For all of Liepman's claims that the government simply doesn't care about your aunt unless she talks to terrorists (or is one), the facts simply don't bear that out. These surveillance programs aren't strictly limited to countering terrorist activity. They're also being used to track American citizens that are either too noisy about their beliefs or are sticking their noses into places various administrations don't want them to.

After haranguing Snowden for his careless exposure of the NSA's internal workings, Liepman continues to believe the real issue is the government's inability to control the narrative, although he phrases it a bit differently.

[T]he intelligence community — always a less sympathetic protagonist than a self-styled whistle-blower — actually has a good story to tell about how seriously the government takes privacy issues. We should tell it.

Go ahead. Tell it. But stop leaving out all the parts that undercut your narrative of good, honest spies protecting the nation and respecting the privacy of Americans. Frankly, the government doesn't care about privacy issues until it's forced to, and even then, it can barely work up the energy to address the concerns, much less right the wrongs.

Filed Under: andrew liepman, cia, ed snowden, privacy, trust

Snowden Leaks Have Likely Killed CISPA Dead

from the about-time dept

The cybersecurity legislation pushed by Reps. Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger, CISPA, was already probably dead in the water because the Senate had shown no interest in supporting their privacy-destroying legislation for the past two years -- preferring instead to introduce bills that actually took privacy seriously. However, as we'd explained at the time, CISPA was always really about giving more power to the NSA as part of a turf war between the Defense Department (which the NSA is a part of) and Homeland Security. In fact, the biggest concerns that activists were raising about CISPA was the fact that it would give companies broad immunity from liability if they handed any information over to the NSA. Supporters of the bill kept bending over backwards insisting that this was entirely "voluntary" and that, of course, the NSA wouldn't do anything bad with the data -- rather it was all to "protect" us from evil hackers from China.

Of course, given the revelations over the last few months concerning the NSA's activities, it appears that they've driven the final nail in CISPA's coffin, as a growing number of people in Congress realize that handing even more power to the NSA is not such a good idea.

"The plan was always a little vague, at least as [NSA boss] Keith [Alexander] described it, but today it may be Snowden's biggest single victim," one senior intelligence official said recently, referring to Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor who released documents revealing details of many of the agency's surveillance programs.

"Whatever trust was there is now gone," the official added. "I mean, who would believe the N.S.A. when it insists it is blocking Chinese attacks but not using the same technology to read your e-mail?"

Exactly. So kudos to Snowden for stopping another really bad bill that was always really about giving the NSA that much more power to spy on people.

Filed Under: cispa, congress, cybersecurity, dhs, dutch ruppersberger, ed snowden, mike rogers, nsa, privacy

Rep. Peter King Says Referring To NSA Activity As 'Spying' Or 'Snooping' Is Slander

from the oh-really? dept

Rep. Peter King -- whose past "hits" have included demanding that the Treasury Department add Wikileaks to its terrorist list, that the Boston bombings showed that we needed even more surveillance, and that reporters who report on leaks like the Ed Snowden leak should be prosecuted -- is apparently upset with President Obama's comments last week concerning how the administration is looking to deal with NSA surveillance.

Now, we were disappointed in those comments as well, but mainly because they were mostly meaningless trifles, designed to appease the public with promises of more transparency, rather than an actual promise to cut back on spying on every single person in the US. Apparently King is upset on the other side of things, believing that even the tiniest amount of increased transparency means that Al Qaeda will win:

The President’s announcement today that he will pursue “reforms” to National Security Agency counterterrorism programs is a monumental failure in presidential wartime leadership and responsibility. These programs are legal, transparent and contain the appropriate checks and balances among the executive, legislative and judicial branches of our government. These intelligence tools keep Americans safe every single day.

America is at war with Islamist terror groups that kill and maim innocent civilians. The current threat to the Homeland is just as high as it was before 9/11. It is difficult to imagine past war leaders such as Franklin Roosevelt or Winston Churchill willingly surrendering signals intelligence tools that are needed to fight our enemies. We need a president who defends our intelligence programs, explains them appropriately to the American people, and uses every legal capability in his arsenal to defeat al Qaeda.

It's difficult to know where to start with this, since it's almost all ridiculous. The programs are not at all transparent, don't appear to contain any significant checks and balances and are of questionable legality. Furthermore, multiple Senators have pointed out that there is no evidence that the hoovering up of all phone records has done anything to "keep Americans safe every day."

The second paragraph is just pure fearmongering based on nothing -- especially the claims about the threats being just as high today as they were before 9/11. Of course, what's even more ridiculous here is that King was a long time supporter of foreign terrorist organization, the IRA, including supposedly endorsing an attack on a police station that killed nine people. I wonder if he felt that the UK government should have used the same secret surveillance techniques against the IRA?

King wasn't done there, apparently. Following that statement, he went on Face the Nation and apparently said with a straight face that the public referring to the NSA's activity as "spying" or "snooping" was slandering the NSA and somehow diminishes their patriotism. Really. The man is apparently serious.

“These people in the NSA are patriots,” King said. “Probably what’s annoyed me the most over the last several months is people casually using words like ‘spying,’ ‘snooping,’ ‘what is the NSA up to now?’ Does anybody think General Alexander wants to snoop on America? I think that demeans the whole political dialogue, and that’s why I wish the president would be more outgoing and defend the NSA lot more than he did.”

“This has really been a slander on the thousand of good men and women who every day dedicate their lives to our country, and particularly General Alexander, who is as patriotic as anyone I have ever met in government or anywhere,” King said. “There is too much loose talk here. Every time i hear ‘snooping’ and ‘spying’, it just drives me crazy. We know what these men and women are doing, and they’re absolutely dedicated patriots.”

Meanwhile, King is not the only one in Congress who is upset that the President even hinted at reforms and transparency. House Speaker John Boehner issued a slightly less inflammatory statement arguing that the President must not back down on keeping the program intact, despite the fact that (again) there is no evidence that it has been necessary in stopping a single terrorist attack.

Transparency is important, but we expect the White House to insist that no reform will compromise the operational integrity of the program. That must be the president’s red line, and he must enforce it. Our priority should continue to be saving American lives, not saving face.”

Actually, I thought our priority should be protecting the Constitution -- including the 4th Amendment -- but it appears that many members of Congress have forgotten that little requirement.

Filed Under: barack obama, ed snowden, john boehner, keith alexander, nsa, nsa surveillance, peter king, snooping, spying