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
Gene H:
he said he was a spread the wealth kind of guy, I take him at his word.
Although he seems to be spreading the wealth to the unions, acorn, wall st. instead of the little guy.
I meant to say forcing the secret legal interpretation into the open!
I would think congress would be interested in forcing the secret legal interpretation of the Patriot act by the Obama administration. I would also think congress might be interested in investigating someone who clearly lied to them.
Then again…
Walter Jones is a member of the RepubliCon Party but he does not always vote with the Koch Brothers. It will be interesting to learn who the other 19 members of Congress joined in this “Demand”.
You folks who live in California ought to be ashamed of yourselves for voting that senile old Feinstein into office. She thinks that “metadata” is something like Milnot. She says to the effect: Don’t worry, the government does not care what you think, just what you say.
Meanwhile, Jeffrey the Cheater Toobin was on CNN again today ranting about the traitor Snowden. Remember folks when you are watching CNN : Watch Out For The Cheater, Make Way For the Two Hearted Clown. I may be making fun here but this issue is quite serious. When this is all over they may be calling me BittngDog.
I note that Walter Jones’s district includes Oriental NC which is The Sailing Capital of North Carolina and also the town which expressly has no leash laws regarding dogs.
BarkinDog,
That was me. I clicked the “not spam” icon for each so Akismet would learn that you’re OK. Then I didn’t feel like going through each one and approved them en masse.
This is from Congressman Walter Jones’s website:
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, Congressman Walter B. Jones (NC-3) joined 19 of his colleagues in demanding answers from the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) regarding a leaked Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order which instructed a Verizon subsidiary to allow the NSA access to its telephone records. In a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller and NSA Director General Keith Alexander, the bipartisan coalition expressed concern that the two agencies exploited a statute in the USA PATRIOT Act that targets foreign intelligence information to collect a vast amount of data on potentially tens of millions of Americans. A recent MIT study has shown that individuals can be easily identified with the type of information collected – telephone numbers, time and duration of calls, and geolocation data.
“The federal government has a troubling history of infringing on the civil liberties of Americans,” said Jones. “The existence of such a broad database of information associated with individual citizens is absolutely unacceptable. With this blatant misuse of power, our right to privacy has been further eroded.”
Among other items, the letter requested details on the frequency, duration, and extent of the secret surveillance activities. Congressman Jones is a staunch defender of American constitutional rights and liberties. He has consistently voted against the reauthorization and extension of the USA PATRIOT Act.
Earlier today this WordPress device for the blog kept refusing to post my comments. Then later in the day it posted several of my attempts. I did not put them up there repeatedly on purpose. Maybe it was not WordPress. Perhaps the NSA is involved. I wouldn’t doubt it. They are the ones who invented our Dogalogue Machine which interprets dog growl and bark into English text. They also taught the dolphins how to spy and talk into a similar machine. They probably invented the Megadata devices which do not bother our Congressmen and women one bit. I guess when I am as old as Feinstein I wont give a rats arse about little things like privacy. Except, if I count my years in prior incarnations as a human, then I am much older than 80 years old. But, I am just a dog– what do I know.
Bron,
Are you suggesting Richard B Cheney is a Liberal?
“Ah but Jonathan, they’re doing it just to save us and keep us safe from harm and anxiety.”
And to think I was under the impression they were lying to save themselves from prison and/or angry mobs with pitchforks.
Who knew?
“And to think I was under the impression they were lying to save themselves from prison and/or angry mobs with pitchforks.
Who knew?”
Cynic!
The lawsuit filed by the ACLU is of great importance to those of us who think that we are tumbling down the slippery slope toward Stalinism in America. One of the unique aspects is that the ACLU itself is the plaintiff. The ACLU is a customer of Verizon and the government admits now that they are seizing Verizon records. “Metadata” and other such words are thrown out there by Jeffery Toobin and other spokesmen for the privacy invaders. If I call the New York ACLU from one block away on my cell phone, from a pay phone, from a home phone, the government takes note that I called them.
We are all potential plaintiffs in such a lawsuit. We need lawsuits filed in the very best judicial districts. We don’t need one filed in the District of Columbia because if it gets to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals it will have a host of judges who keenly desire to get picked as Supreme Court Justices when the next vacancy opens up. New York is in the Second Circuit and that would not be the worst. If you have an opinion as to other Circuit Courts of Appeals which might act favorably to such a lawsuit please chimin in on the blog and let us know.
“Our leaders have embraced that core view of Lenin that “A Lie told often enough becomes the truth.”
Ah but Jonathan, they’re doing it just to save us and keep us safe from harm and anxiety. At least perhaps ten with the lowest awareness level believe that. The rest are to scared of the elite, or part of the elite themselves.
Bron,
Obama is a DINO, certainly not a liberal nor a progressive. He sold himself as such, sure, but in action on most topics he’s proven to be a centrist Republican and on select topics like civil rights he’s a far right fascist. He’s also not a socialist. A socialist wouldn’t have propped up the health care insurance industry that has failed this country on almost every level as a private enterprise with the corporate welfare that is the ACA. That’s pure fascism. A socialist would have implemented universal health care insurance paid for by tax dollars with profit caps (even if it was privately administered).
I don’t know why you bother with such transparent and ineffective propaganda tactics when there is plenty of real relevant criticism than can be brought to bear on Obama – from his administration’s refusal to prosecute Wall St. criminals to his aiding and abetting of treason by the previous administration after the fact to his perpetuation of the police state power grab in pursuit of a unitary executive.
But you keep on making shit up – preferably about groups who find Objectivism inherently abhorrent – instead of focusing on the real issues.
It looks good on you.
Dizzy is right! That can happen when you have to use Tilt-A-Whirl reasoning. It is fun to think that Mr.De was sending a message that he hoped some might catch. He knew the wobble heads in DC would miss it. But then again, maybe he was just being redundant… . 🙁
“Excuse me but I think I am beginning to feel a little dizzy.” -bigfatmike
That makes two of us.
(Thanks for a smile in this midst of this lunacy.)
“Rajesh De, called rumors of such spying merely “false myths””
Clearly the only reasonable way to interpret this clumsy formulation is to read the double negative.
It has been a while since I did this but doesn’t it work something like this:
Myth = Not(True)
false( Myth) = not (Myth) = Not(Not(True)) = True
Obviously, the patriotic Mr. De was trying to warn us that rumors of spying were completely true and by implication a threat to our open democratic society.
I suppose that means that Mr. De is a traitor for revealing information helpful to the enemy, which means giving the congress information necessary to protect the constitution, which makes him a true patriot and hero of the people.
Unless nobody understood what Mr. De was trying to say, which means nobody accessed the information, which means Mr. De never said what we thought he said.
I think that interpretation is the correct one but let me check my NSA glossary just to be sure.
Excuse me but I think I am beginning to feel a little dizzy.
can’t get my info to post. See Greenwald’s twitter for latest info update.