Rep. Morgan Griffith: If Latest Leaks On NSA Had Come Out Earlier, NSA-Defunding Amendment Would Have Passed

from the time-to-focus-on-the-future dept

Hindsight being 217-205 and all that, but one of the reps voting for Justin Amash's NSA-defunding amendment has noted that had last Thursday's revelation of widespread domestic spying broken a little earlier, the amendment would have sailed through easily.

"We only needed seven votes to switch and I think there were at least seven, probably more like 20-30, who had their concerns about the program but were prepared to give the intelligence agencies the benefit of the doubt," Rep. Morgan Griffith, Virginia Republican, told The Washington Times after the NSA rules violations came to light.

That would have been nice and would have sent another message that everyone's a bit tired of the NSA's "inadvertent but completely lawful and relevant' schtick. What would have been even better is if some of this information had been discovered by those charged with overseeing the NSA. It's rather troubling that our legislators are discovering more about the NSA from journalists than from the oversight committees.

Instead, the oversight committees have taken an almost-antagonistic approach to disseminating information. Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger have, on multiple occasions, withheld information from other members of Congress. And what's not being withheld is being actively lied about by intelligence officials.

Mr. Griffith says that the intelligence community, which defended the program and worked to preserve it against the legislation onslaught, misled Congress.

"We were being told there were 'some' errors, like a few," Mr. Griffith said, referring to sworn congressional testimony about the domestic programs from senior intelligence, FBI and Justice Department officials. "They gave everyone the impression these [errors] were very rare. If [my colleagues] had realized how many [violations of privacy protection or legal rules] there were, I think more than seven of them would have switched."

At this point, it would seem any further debriefings or inquiries would be pointless. Those questioned have lied in the past and have refused to stop lying even when faced with the possibility that new evidence will be revealed that exposes their lies. A more forward-thinking agency might start offering up other problematic tactics in hopes of controlling the narrative when the next leak hits. Instead, it seems content to send out rehashed rhetoric as "statements" in response to each new leak, hammering the meaning of its favorite buzzwords: relevant, collecting, legal, oversight.

On the plus side, the revelations may generate more support for Rush Holt's attempt to kill off the PATRIOT Act and wind back the overreach of the FISA Amendments Act. In addition, Justin Amash is looking to introduce another bill to pick up where his narrowly defeated amendment left off. Every little bit helps and last week's bombshell pretty much destroyed the NSA's claims of internal controls and "no evidence of abuse."

Filed Under: justin amash, morgan griffith, nsa, nsa surveillance, violations

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