The hearing this week on the massive surveillance programs targeting the communications of all citizens was the latest in the increasingly bizarre world of American politics. We have a Constitution that prohibits warrantless searches and seizures. We have a government — and a President — who previously misled us about the existence of such programs. We have Senators who knew of the prior deception and even perjury sitting in a hearing on the latest account from our leaders. Now, these same politicians are speaking openly about seizing every single telephone call. Rather than denying the program, they now refer to it as a harmless “lock box,” the way that Al Gore once referred to the social security accounts. What was particularly interesting is the statement of General Keith Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency, that disclosures by Edward Snowden “will change how we operate”. Indeed, in light of the Snowden disclosures, Alexander has stopped the prior denials of the Administration and is now speaking of “reforms.” That is precisely why most people view Snowden as a whistleblower despite the demands of the President and members of Congress that he be tracked down and put away for good. Even more interesting is the appearance of James Clapper, director of National Intelligence, who previously acknowledged perjury before the Senate. Rather than raise the perjury or demand his prosecution, Senators engaged in friendly exchanges with Clapper as if nothing had happened. This is clearly under the belief that the public has a remarkably short attention span and the media will follow the lead of the White House. Indeed, reporters for the most part did not even mention that Clapper is thought by many to be an unprosecuted felon due to his prior testimony or that his last major testimony on this very subject was to deny such programs. There was not even laughter when Clapper said that he was working to find ways to “counter the popular narrative” of any dangers in this surveillance. That “popular narrative” of course also includes his prior false testimony.
While Democratic senator Ron Wyden and Democrat Mark Udall continue to fight for civil liberties against such surveillance, their colleagues have continued to work with the White House to recast the scandal in a less threatening light — thus the adoption of such reassuring terms like “lock boxes.” Alexander told the Committee “I believe it is in the nation’s best interest to put all the phone records into a lockbox – yes.”
While acknowledging that Snowden forced reforms, both Clapper and Alexander denounced him to the obvious support of Senators like Dianne Feinstein who were embarrassed by the disclosures.
Clapper admitted (in contradiction to the President’s past comments) that violations have occurred in these programs and that “on occasion, we’ve made mistakes, some quite significant.” This appears to refer to the unlawful surveillance and not his admitted false testimony.
As expected, Feinstein and others are suggesting procedures as “reforms” that would still allow virtually limitless surveillance. It is part of the new spin from the White House of creating a facade of new procedures (largely under the control of the Administration) while continuing the programs and protecting people like Clapper.
Feinstein said her bill would indeed preserve the program of collecting and storing phone records of all Americans while joining in the criticism the media and Snowden. She did not of course vent any criticism for the man in front of her who lied under oath or the officials responsible for limitless seizures of telephone records. After hiding the programs and misleading the public, she now assures the public that they are entirely lawful and nothing to worry about.
It was a hearing completely detached from the public and from the constitutional questions raised by these programs. The problem is Snowden, the media, and even the public — not the governing elite in America’s Animal Farm.
Source: NSA
A bit long, that last “comment.” My apologies.
“When the FISA court allows government functionaries, however well-meaning, to make decisions that should be made by an independent judge about who is worthy of suspicion, who should be collected on, then you end up with a situation where those who surveil and detain are operating on their own hunches. They can easily end up with unchecked wild goose chases or witch hunts.” – Rush Holt
“Here’s what real reform of the NSA looks like”
by Timothy B. Lee
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/02/heres-what-real-reform-of-the-nsa-looks-like/
Rep. Rush Holt has long been one of the most outspoken critics of the surveillance state. First elected in 1998 to represent central New Jersey, the Democrat served on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which oversees U.S. intelligence agencies, from 2003 until 2011. He is currently seeking the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate from New Jersey, running against Newark mayor Cory Booker.
Last week, Holt introduced the Surveillance State Repeal Act. A number of members of Congress have offered proposals to rein in domestic surveillance, but Holt’s bill may be the most ambitious. It would repeal the 2001 Patriot Act, which the NSA has cited as the legal basis for its phone records surveillance program. It would also repeal the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, the legal foundation for the government’s PRISM program. And it would extend whistleblower protections to cover employees of intelligence agencies.
Holt spoke to us from the campaign trail on Thursday. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Timothy B. Lee: How would your legislation be different from other NSA reform proposals?
Rush Holt: This isn’t reform. This is repeal. I voted against both of those [the Patriot Act and the FAA] before. And actually against Patriot before multiple times. Those bills were misguided in their specifics, and now seeing what various agencies have done to stretch the language of those bills to cover things that were never intended to be covered makes clear that they’ve got to go. Even Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) [the author of the Patriot Act] has said it was never intended to be used that way.
Have you been surprised by the revelations that have come out in the last couple of months?
I sat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and chaired the Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, which was created at the recommendation of the 9/11 panel, and should be continuing except that Speaker [John] Boehner abolished it when he took office.
So having dealt with the leaders of the intelligence committee, not much surprises me. They’re in the business of secrecy and deception. And unfortunately it carries over to their interaction with Congress. One of the things about your article that I particularly liked was that you pointed out that dogged questioning by reporters has shown that the role of these programs in preventing terrorism has been peripheral at best.
I have been off the [Intelligence] committee now for three years, and so I’m not completely up to date about what the intelligence community is saying behind closed doors about how this has kept us safe. But I actually believe that violating the Fourth Amendment keeps us less safe.
When the FISA court allows government functionaries, however well-meaning, to make decisions that should be made by an independent judge about who is worthy of suspicion, who should be collected on, then you end up with a situation where those who surveil and detain are operating on their own hunches. They can easily end up with unchecked wild goose chases or witch hunts.
The idea of the Fourth Amendment is not to get in the way of law enforcement and intelligence, but rather to see that they do a good job by having to prove at each step of the way that they know what they’re doing, that they’re not off running down hunches and going off on wild goose chases and witch hunts. So I’m not sure what the NSA folks and folks like Clapper have been saying behind closed doors about how effective this stuff is, but I watched it for years, and it is not effective at keeping Americans safer on balance.
Your proposal seems like it would be a pretty dramatic change in U.S. surveillance law.
What led up to the Patriot Act, in 2001, was a very dramatic change in American surveillance law and practice. The practice changed before the law changed. The FISA Amendments Act was brought forward under the law [to provide a legal basis for] activities that were already under way. To say repealing them is a dramatic change in U.S. intelligence law, I would say, well no, it is undoing the dramatic change that occurred in our moment of fear.
The changes made in 2001 were not right. There clearly was a reminder of what most of us already knew: that there are terrorists and would-be terrorists out there who would do Americans harm, and we have to protect against them. But the Patriot Act, with all of its provisions, Patriot and successor reauthorizations that allow sneak and peek searches and allow [the government] to issue administrative subpoenas that should come from a judge, and allow them to surveil people in all sorts of intrusive ways, they were passed because a majority of members of Congress suspected in the days after September 11, 2001, that there were terrorist cells in every city in America. We’d just heard there were hijackers in Florida and Maine and in Newark, and it made it sound as if they were everywhere. That they had infiltrated our society in every state and county. That turns out not to be true. But there was this rampant fear in Congress that that was happening. And there was a real over-reaction.
What can be done to make the intelligence community more transparent and accountable?
Part of the problem is that the NSA has been using these [laws] as excuses for doing a lot of things. And the FISA court has been insufficient in its review. That’s why I think they should be repealed. Can the NSA, can the CIA, can other intelligence agencies do things that are not in the national interest? You bet they can. They have from time to time over decades.
Congress has to do a better job of oversight. There’s no question that it’s made hard when the intelligence agencies obfuscate and cherry-pick what they tell Congress. No one likes to be criticized, and therefore no agency likes Congressional oversight. But many agencies understand that for this government with balance of powers to work, they have to cooperate in the oversight.
You’ve heard no doubt members of Congress who have served on the Intelligence Committees say they have to play a form of 20 questions with intelligence witnesses. For many of the witnesses, their idea of being straightforward and honest is giving the narrowest possible specific answer to a question, not really providing the information Congress actually needs. They play a little game to see if members of Congress will ask these specific questions, to which they’ll give an answer that’s relevant. If a member doesn’t ask that specific question, the intelligence officials will leave the meeting room smiling to themselves about protecting the secrecy of their agency. It’s a game that doesn’t serve the oversight process, it’s a game that doesn’t serve America well.
Your proposal also would extend whistleblower protections to national security cases, right?
Yes, the legislation provides whistleblower protection for people who work in the intelligence agencies. Right now, they have no whistleblower protection comparable to what exists in other agencies. Especially in the [intelligence] agencies we need that. In agencies that are dominated by secrecy and deception, Congress simply won’t know and surely the public won’t know either what is being done in their name.
If there had been whistleblower protection, I’m quite sure that Snowden would not have done what he did. Yet we could have, as the president has said, a national debate about what needs to be done in spying on Americans and others.
My bill essentially extends to employees of the intelligence community the kinds of protections that exist in other agencies. They would be able to go to Congress or to designated officials like inspectors general without having to fear workplace retribution. Think of the case of Thomas Drake. He uncovered what I think would have to be called waste and perhaps fraud [at the NSA], and he took that up the chain, and he was severely disciplined for it. It hurt him professionally, and as we know, the way the story played out, the court chastised the NSA for the treatment. It just shows that you can’t take this up the chain in the agency as a whistleblower and expect fair treatment.
But it wouldn’t apply to someone who released information to the public, right?
I think the way I’ve written it is only internally and to Congress. That does put some responsibility on Congress to see that action is taken if there’s illegal behavior, waste, fraud, abuse, or unconstitutional behavior.
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-09-26/antocrony-scalia
Pat,
Thanks for the clip and one worth posting twice! (:
Are we to be rendered helpless by this blatant unconstitutional behavior? Are we to just shut up accept our fate like so many sheep? Do we have no way to affect our future? Are we to resign ourselves to hopelessness…?
From the piece about Hersh in The Guardian:
Hersh said, “The republic’s in trouble, we lie about everything, lying has become the staple.”
The republic is in much greater trouble than many realize. We’re in a whole world of trouble. But, as Wyden told Clapper yesterday, NSA “repeatedly deceived the American people” and “the truth always manages to come out.”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/27/ron-wyden-nsa-systematically-deceived
Fact: There’s more “truth” to come…
Oops, sorry about the double post.
Why aren’t business folks concerned about the thousands of spys like Snowden eavesdropping on their business ideas, bank accounts, research and development of patentable processes, and then selling that information to others?
The 1933 Parallels. German parliament known as The Reichstag is burned to the ground. Goebbels and other Nazis blame the Communists and start a program which became a pogram. The German parliament voted to do away with all civil liberties. Later at Nuremburg Goerring admitted that he went through an underground tunnel and set the fire himself.
On 9/11 we have some schmucks crash into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Congress passes the Patriot Act and other Nazi legislation. Now we have Clapper the shaved head liar back on Capitol Hill lying again. Sieg Heil.
While the President is “Commander and Chief”, Clapper seems above his pay grade.
Gene,
Thanks for the link to that Hersh article.
Here’s an excerpt from it:
Hersh returns to US president Barack Obama. He has said before that the confidence of the US press to challenge the US government collapsed post 9/11, but he is adamant that Obama is worse than Bush.
“Do you think Obama’s been judged by any rational standards? Has Guantanamo closed? Is a war over? Is anyone paying any attention to Iraq? Is he seriously talking about going into Syria? We are not doing so well in the 80 wars we are in right now, what the hell does he want to go into another one for. What’s going on [with journalists]?” he asks.
*****
My husband and I were watching a news program early this morning. Obama was speaking to some group or other. I looked at my husband and said I thought Obama might be a bigger liar than George W. Bush.
**********
Steve,
You got that right!
Reblogged this on Brittius.com.
Funny you should mention that Steve. The Guardian ran a very interesting entry to their Media Blog this morning on that very subject.
Seymour Hersh on Obama, NSA and the ‘pathetic’ American media
Pulitzer Prize winner explains how to fix journalism, saying press should ‘fire 90% of editors and promote ones you can’t control’
Elaine,
I read about that a couple of weeks ago and almost selected it as a topic for a column but settled on another topic instead.
Most disturbing.
Kinda puts that whole “you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide” argument into perspective.
Americans are being ill served by the MSM.
Just read the following article:
NSA Admits Workers Used Spying Tools To Snoop On Exes
By Alina Selyukh
Reuters
Posted: 09/27/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/27/nsa-spying-exes_n_4002834.html
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON, Sept 27 (Reuters) – At least a dozen U.S. National Security Agency employees have abused secret surveillance programs in the past decade, most often to spy on their significant others, according to the latest findings of the agency’s internal watchdog.
In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top Republican, Charles Grassley, NSA Inspector General George Ellard outlined 12 instances of “intentional misuse” of the agency’s intelligence gathering programs since Jan. 1, 2003.
Grassley had asked the NSA internal watchdog to report on “intentional and willful” abuse of the NSA surveillance authority as public concerns mount over the vast scope of the U.S. government’s spying program.
The agency’s operations have come under intense scrutiny since disclosures this spring by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that the U.S. government collects far more Internet and telephone data than previously publicly known.
Many members of Congress and administration officials staunchly defend the NSA surveillance programs as a critical defense tool against terrorist attacks, but privacy advocates say the spying agency’s authority has grown to be too sweeping.
Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the reported incidents of NSA employees’ violations of the law are likely “the tip of the iceberg” of lax data safeguards, but that the laws guiding the NSA’s spying authority in the first place are a bigger issue.
“If you only focus on instances in which the NSA violated those laws, you’re missing the forest for the trees,” he said. “The bigger concern is not with willful violations of the law but rather with what the law itself allows.”
The NSA inspector general, in the letter dated Sept. 11, detailed 12 investigations that found the NSA’s civilian and military employees used the agency’s spying tools to search for email addresses or try to snoop on phone calls of current or former lovers, spouses and relatives, both foreign and American.
Herr Goebbels would be proud of you, Jimmy.
You said all that bullshit with a straight face.
“Rather than raise the perjury or demand his prosecution, Senators engaged in friendly exchanges with Clapper as if nothing had happened. This is clearly under the belief that the public has a remarkably short attention span and the media will follow the lead of the White House.” – JT
And/or they know what information the military NSA has on them, thus, have no other option.
You know, blackmail.