The Republican and Democratic parties have achieved a bipartisan purpose in uniting against the public’s need to know about massive surveillance programs and the need to redefine privacy in a more surveillance friendly image. They have also united in attacking Snowden as a traitor and seeking his prosecution for telling the public about the program. In the midst of this full-court press to lull the public back into sleep over civil liberties, the members will face a slightly inconvenient problem: possible perjury. These members have repeatedly called for perjury and contempt prosecutions of officials who have given false or misleading testimony like Eric Holder. However, they have a little problem with Obama officials who seem to have given false or intentionally misleading testimony over the surveillance of citizens. The problem is that these members want the scandal (and the public) to go away. Many of them knew at the time that the public was being told untrue things in these hearings. It will only be embarrassing to now address the falsehoods fed to the public in their presence and with their knowledge. In other words, they were all lying to the public and, under our new relativistic world, a lie told by everyone is treated as the truth.
Consider the testimony of James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, to the Senate in March. Clapper said unequivocally that the N.S.A. was not gathering data on millions of Americans. That is obviously false and Senators hearing the testimony knew that the public was being lied to.
How about this exchange?
Senator Wyden: “Does the N.S.A. collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”
Clapper: “No, sir. Not wittingly.”
However, it was done “wittingly” when you demand all of the calls for all citizens, right? Clapper will argue that he simply defines collecting data differently from the vast majority of humanity. However, courts regularly reject such subjective views of the truth. The point of the answer was to assure the public that they have nothing to worry about — the same message being given by members now that the truth has come out. Clapper’s testimony was for the public to hear and believe — even though Senators knew it to be untrue. Keep in mind that we have two surveillance programs now being reported — one collecting all call information and one involving email data.
Clapper has recently said that his testimony was “the least untrue” statement that he could make. Yet, of course that would still make it an untrue statement — which most people call a lie and lawyers call perjury. Indeed, when Roger Clemens was prosecuted for untrue statements before Congress, he was not told of the option to tell the least untrue statement on steroid use.
What is remarkable is that, while such hearings are presented as spontaneous, senators routinely send their questions in advance to officials. That is what Wyden did with Clapper so he knew this question was coming. Afterward, Wyden gave him a chance to correct his statement and he did not.
Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the N.S.A. director, has reportedly also given such false statements. N.S.A.’s general counsel, Rajesh De, called rumors of such spying merely “false myths” and that the suggestion that the “N.S.A. is spying on Americans at home and abroad with questionable or no legal basis.”
There is clearly an effort by Feinstein and others to ignore this testimony to avoid having to deal with their own culpability. The same was true with torture. Congressional members knew of the program while feigning outrage in public. They then worked with the White House to quash any hearings or investigations that would implicate their own involvement.
The result is that the Justice Department will continue to prosecute ordinary citizens for relatively small inconsistencies in testimony or statements to investigators. However, high-ranking officials in both branches will have a license to lie because it is not a lie when no one is willing to acknowledge the truth.
Our leaders have embraced that core view of Lenin that “A Lie told often enough becomes the truth.”
Source: NY Times
Those song lyrics which BarkinDog recited at the end there (excepting the “Better dead than Red” statement) were the lyrics of a song by Don McClean. The Day The Music Died.
Thirty years from now we will look back (if we are alive or reincarnated) and see June 11th as the day the music died. Why today? Because the impact of the Snowden revelations are now here for us to absorb and no one is taking to the streets and all the politicos are calling him a clown and a traitor.
Bye bye Miss American pie…..
As we now judge the Germans who elected Hitler and as citizens consented to and participated in the genocide and Holocaust, so too, folks in sixty years will judge America the Exceptional nation. This moment in time– the revelations of the police state and the public non reaction will be seen as grossly similar to the conduct of the German citizenry from 1933 onward.
The Germans had the arson attack on their legislature which is known as the Reichstag Fire. Their fearless leader, President von Hindenburg issued on his own, without the consent of his Parliament, The Reichstag Fire Decree. That Decree revoked the German laws and constitutional tidbits which stood in the way of the Holocaust. In France, the Vichy government after the fall of the Frog amry in 1940 followed suit.
What follows for America is something more akin to the Stalin law and order of East Germany after the war or the repression in the Soviet Union and satellite nations. I do not foresee that America will institute a Holocaust. But we are way down the slippery slope here on June the 12th 2013. All we have to speak up for human rights are old curmudgeons who apologize to no one for their sleep at the wheel term of office in the Senate like the 80 year old Feinstein, or the dumb as toast guy named Boner. The media gives us legal experts who, like Jeffrey Toobin, are experts in betraying their wives and fast and loose on behalf of the Koch Brothers in defaming guys like Snowden or Daniel Ellsberg.
Sixty years from now historians will judge us harshly. America had everything going for it and gave it away to the Koch Brothers. Bye Bye Miss American Pie, I took my Chevy to the levee and the levee was dry. Good ol boys drinkin whisky and rye, singing this could be the day that they die, This could be the day that they die.
Better dead than Red.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.”
“All Cretans lie.” — Epimenides of Knossos (himself a Cretan)
Truthful Cretan Liars
I lied when I said that I spoke the truth,
And I speak the truth when I say that I lied.
I come from a land where they think it uncouth
To utilize language that hasn’t yet died
Because they prefer to sell War to their youth
While shedding fake tears at the Peace they’ve decried.
I tell you for sure that I mean what I say,
And you must believe me ’cause you’ve got no way
To know if from paths straight and narrow I’ll stray
Whenever I want what you’ve got on your tray.
I merely speak noises which I have observed
Make people do just about any damn thing;
While, still, for my own inner self I’ve reserved
What I really mean by the sounds that I sing,
Leaving up to my listeners what they have deserved
For thinking they know why the words soothe or sting.
My lies I support with true evidence scant;
But since I regard you as one potted plant,
I’m sure that you’ll swallow my self-serving rant
Even though it consists of discredited cant
I truthfully lie, and as falsely speak true
While reason and ethics I ceaselessly flout.
I’m Jabberwock captain of one hopeless crew
Who followed me in where no one can get out.
So breathe in the smoke that I’ve exhaled at you
And lie down, saluting, the true lies I spout.
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright © 2010
EFF explains how Clapper can lie to congress and not burst out laughing. You can read all about it here:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/director-national-intelligences-word-games-explained-how-government-deceived
Here is one interesting part:
“Under Department of Defense regulations, information is considered to be “collected” only after it has been “received for use by an employee of a DoD intelligence component,” and “data acquired by electronic means is ‘collected’ only when it has been processed into intelligible form.”
In other words, the NSA can intercept and store communications in its database, then have an algorithm search them for key words and analyze the metadata without ever considering the communications “collected.”
Apparently words mean exactly what NSA says they mean.
Thank you for these clarifications.
we are controlled by unelected government bureaucracrats who will stop at nothing to protect their turf and their jobs. Most are liberal/progressives.
One wonders how these people get into office… I mean other than the fact that no one bothers to show up to vote in midterms and when they do they vote against their own best interests… que sera sera I suppose.
The NSA is a military spy agency.
The government is made up of people WE put there. THEY WORK FOR US, but too many seem to think it’s the other way around. Not bothering to think things through just because they’re said by one side or the other is lazy and downright unpatriotic. — Our government can run like a well-oiled machine if WE deepen our knowledge and active involvement in the way it’s allowed to function. It’s time for us to GROW UP as a nation and stop believing things based on whether or not they “tickle our ears.” It’s reckless and immature to quickly cement our conclusions before we’ve been given connective facts. This latest bone we’ve been tossed is going to take a great deal of chewing to get to the marrow.
WordPress Censorship is at work today.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2013/06/aclu-vs-clapper-alexander-hagel-holder.html
Clapper et al. have been sued by the ACLU.
One interesting paragraph in the complaint points out that the NSA is a military spy organization:
(ACLU vs. Clapper, Alexander, Hagel, Holder, and Mueller). Will the military become the police, or have they already?
These are the most clear cut amazing, and obvious violations of law.
The PRISM’s defenders keep shouting that nothing illegal is going on, nothing to see here, move along.
Like most high officials’ crimes and misdemeanors, the most egregious violations are the attempts at a coverup.
But they want to character assassinate Snowden instead.
It is a felony to lie to Congress. And here we have several explicit instances of it.
They are in full CYA misdirect the public mode, and much of the media punditry is going along.
I hope the public doesn’t get hypnotized by lying officials with the sheen of legitimacy, and agree with them, ‘these are not the droids you are looking for’.
Clapper Couldn’t Even Do Better Than “Least Untruthful” with a Day’s Notice
Posted on June 11, 2013 by emptywheel
http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/06/11/clapper-couldnt-even-do-better-than-least-untruthful-with-a-days-notice/
Clapper Couldn’t Even Do Better Than “Least Untruthful” with a Day’s Notice
Posted on June 11, 2013 by emptywheel
As I noted yesterday, when Andrea Mitchell asked James Clapper about his lie to Ron Wyden earlier this year, Clapper offered a baloney answer, admitting both that he gave the “least untruthful” answer and that he had been “too cute by half.”
“First– as I said, I have great respect for Senator Wyden. I thought, though in retrospect, I was asked– “When are you going to start– stop beating your wife” kind of question, which is meaning not– answerable necessarily by a simple yes or no. So I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful manner by saying no.
[snip]
And this has to do with of course somewhat of a semantic, perhaps some would say too– too cute by half. But it is– there are honest differences on the semantics of what– when someone says “collection” to me, that has a specific meaning, which may have a different meaning to him.” (Clapper)
It was such a terrible response to Mitchell’s question, for ten whole minutes I wished Rahm Emanuel were back in the White House to rip Clapper to shreds for such a media fail.
But what makes Clapper’s answer — and his retroactive explanations for it — far, far worse is that Ron Wyden gave him a day to figure out how to answer.
One of the most important responsibilities a Senator has is oversight of the intelligence community. This job cannot be done responsibly if Senators aren’t getting straight answers to direct questions. When NSA Director Alexander failed to clarify previous public statements about domestic surveillance, it was necessary to put the question to the Director of National Intelligence. So that he would be prepared to answer, I sent the question to Director Clapper’s office a day in advance. (Wyden)
And after Clapper lied to Wyden’s face, Wyden gave him a chance to amend it, which he did not take.
After the hearing was over my staff and I gave his office a chance to amend his answer. Now public hearings are needed to address the recent disclosures and the American people have the right to expect straight answers from the intelligence leadership to the questions asked by their representatives. [my emphasis]
Wyden is making it clear: this was a deliberate, knowing lie to Congress. And no one wants to talk about it.
Which, as Wyden further notes, undermines any pretense that Congress exercise adequate oversight over the Executive Branch.
AY,
NSA is building massive sites across the nation thus uniting all kinds of “pork” politicians.
Obama and some Members of Congress (well, most of the Members of Congress) seem to be taking the position that they are taking away our Constitutionally-guaranteed rights and lying about it FOR OUR OWN GOOD!
If we give up on this struggle to retain our rights without a fight or even a whimper — as too many Americans seem willing to do (although not most here) — we are finished … kaput … dead in the water.
There’s liars, damn liars, and government
How do we not go back to sleep? How do we take back our power? How do we vote our dollars? How do we express our outrage in a way that rises above their lowness?
Embrace….. For more lies to come…. I think it’s ironc that this single issue unites both parties…. Nixon is probably rolling in his grave giggling…. And the Reagan/Bush defense of I do not recall….. Hopefully is history….
Wait a minute Mr. Turley, are you saying there’s a double standard and hypocrisy between our pols, who have become royalty, and we mere people. That’s in violation of the upcoming Blasphemy Laws