The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Thursday that the man who leaked information about National Security Agency surveillance programs is lying about his access to that information as well as the programs' scope.
"He was lying," Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) said after a closed briefing with NSA Director Keith Alexander, as quoted by The Hill. "He clearly has over-inflated his position, he has over-inflated his access and he's even over-inflated what the actually technology of the programs would allow one to do. It's impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do."
Of course this response could simply be categorized as an example of CYA, however there are others who have raised doubts about a number of the "facts" provided by Snowden.
To be honest this is starting to look like about as much of a "scandal" as the one concerning the IRS that is currently blowing up in Darrell Issa's face.
I STILL think we should have more transparency about what our government is doing when it comes to our privacy, but it looks like this is going to be yet another whiff and a miss for those who want to find something with which to smear the President.
In other words I might have been wr....There is a chance I was wro......I might not have been completely correct.
I'm withholding judgment until I have more information, but Snowden is suspicious to me. He didn't graduate from high school, much less college, he started as a security guard and now has a top secret clearance and access to all the computer systems? All before the age of 30? Doesn't pass the smell test with me.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that he has already talked to the Chinese about what our intel has on them is reason enough to call him a traitor.
DeleteIs Snowden just crazy or is he being paid big time money to leave his girl, family and all? Are they part of a hoax?
ReplyDeleteCalled bullshit on it from day one.
DeleteIts a koch manufactured "scandal" duh! Patriot act! NSA.
This little twerp not even a GED?
Follow the money.
Yeah, Snowden is about as credible as the 12 yr old punk who copped a feel of his girlfriend's peanut-sized little titty as she fell while skating, and then bragged to all his snot-nosed pals, "Man, I was all over that shit, man. She was begging me for some of this Red Bull in my tightie whities, right up until my mom picked us up at the skating rink because it was almost 10 o'clock."
DeleteBig Talk, No Walk. Things are a wee bit more compartmentalized in the "real Nat'l security apparatus". Those who cast the net don't even listen to what they collect. It has to be transcribed first, regardless of the language it's spoken, typed or written in. Then it goes to the analysts, who often comment. The SnowBlow kid is blowing wind up his own mama's skirt. Most of the intelligence gathered is brought in on one end of a call, and not even listened to in real time, anyway. This kid is likely a hacker who knows a few tricks backdooring insecure passwords. Not that it's not useful for tapping unsecure email accounts from 2nd and 3rd tier "associates" of a subject of interest. Go to 4chan and take notes for a few months, and you can do the same for the short-term disposable-type positions for contractors in a call-center type setting. I'm calling Bullshit, because I've seen more than a few diversions in the past 30 years. And people don't even notice what got dropped below the fold while yakkin' about Trailer Trash version of James Bond. Come on folks... we spy, out allies spy, the bad guys spy--- everybody spies on one another, and our agencies spy on one another. And don't think that we don't put disinfo into the pipeline whenever we detect someone sniffing on our classified shit. Them we put out propaganda through the usual sources to make the leaders of those dear "friends" of ours a little antsy. See, we know what makes them nervous, too, right Bibi?
Seriously, if you hear about it, there's a 99% chance that it was "leaked" for a reason. And the press won't engage in speculating on any of the real reasons, unless it's to discount something plausible.
But SnowBlow made the news. Now Sarah Palin hates his ass for diluting her press release. Bless her heart.
While some initially championed Edward Snowden, the 21st century mole holed up in Hong Kong, as a martyr, there also appears to be a growing backlash against the former NSA contractor. And as the story slowly unfolds, one key question stands out: is Snowden the heroic whistleblower he claims to be or something more sinister?
ReplyDeleteDuring one of his first newspaper interviews, when he spilled national security secrets, Snowden called himself “just another guy who sits there day to day in the office.” But now some are questioning his motives and wondering whether claims that he wanted to right a perceived wrong are true -- or whether he could be a modern-day double agent, cleverly hiding his actions and painting himself as a victim of the U.S. government while working as an agent for the Chinese.
Gordon Chang, author of “The Coming Collapse of China,” thinks there’s a strong possibility Snowden could be playing for both sides.
“The first clue is that he goes to Hong Kong and they have an extradition agreement with the U.S. and a tradition of close cooperation of law enforcement,” Chang told Fox. “That means, the only thing that stands between him and a lifetime in a super-max prison is Beijing.”
Chang also says the timing of Snowden’s disclosures are suspect.
“He changed the global narrative of China hacking into the U.S. to the American government going after one of its own,” Chang said.
The first of Snowden’s disclosures came right before President Obama met with new Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“That really derailed Obama’s whole talk about cyber security,” he said, adding, “the most rrecent revelations have been about operational details of the NSA spying on Hong Kong and China. This only helps Beijing.”
Chang says it’s likely Snowden went public with his claims because he was tipped off that the NSA was on to him.
Snowden’s most recent claims to the South China Morning Post are that the NSA has more than 61,000 hacking operations globally, the NSA has been hacking computers in Hong Kong and China since 2009 and that the Chinese targets included universities, public officials, businesses and students.
Chang said that if Snowden flees to China "“basically that puts him in a place where U.S. authorities can’t get to him and that’s important because it lets him pretty much do what he wants. And perhaps the issue is that he wasn’t on his own. That he did this with the help of someone else.”
Chang believes that it would be very difficult for Snowden to get the amount of data he got in such a short period of time and from a position where most people didn’t think it would be possible.
Chang also says the time Snowden spent in Hawaii could provide clues as to his true intentions.
“There are a lot of federal agencies in Hawaii where he was and this is a very critical place because this is where we do our surveillance of China,” he said.
For now, what is clear is that there are many more questions that need to be asked and answered.
Here’s what we do know:
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/14/edward-snowden-whistleblower-or-double-agent/#ixzz2WEd8Gt49
In the game of cat and mouse at the lowest levels of intelligence, this fool is the cheese. He thinks he's in the catbird seat because the cat doesn't eat cheese. If he has any "secrets", they're from someone who benefits indirectly from possibly embarrassing NSA. It could be FBI, DIA, CIA, Centcom Intel, Neocons here or in Israel, just doing a little pushback. Everybody guards their little turf, and is so damn happy inside (or relieved) whenever someone else is on the 9 o'clock news. If Snowden wants to really make $200K, he needs to learn a few dialects of ME languages, and learn to spell "encryption".
DeletePRISM Isn’t Data Mining and Other Falsehoods in the N.S.A. “Scandal”
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vanityfair.com/online/eichenwald/2013/06/prism-isnt-data-mining-NSA-scandal?mbid=social_retweet
Snowden and Greenwald Beginning to Self-Destruct; ‘The Nation’ and ‘Mother Jones’ Raise Questions
http://thedailybanter.com/2013/06/snowden-and-greenwald-beginning-to-self-destruct-the-nation-and-mother-jones-raise-questions/
http://thedailybanter.com/2013/06/greenwald-sticks-with-his-story-in-spite-of-growing-questions/
http://thedailybanter.com/2013/06/nsa-story-falling-apart-under-scrutiny-key-facts-turning-out-to-be-inaccurate/
http://www.zdnet.com/how-did-mainstream-media-get-the-nsa-prism-story-so-hopelessly-wrong-7000016822/
I don't agree with Greenwald all the time, but we need him and Scahill and those guys keeping our good guys honest, and trying to flush out the moles. Remember what Rove did to Dan Rather with the "fake" Bush military papers? Even if the story is true, or partially true, there just has to be one piece of it that is proved to be fraudulent, and the story is tossed out. Rather was just a little too aggressive in questioning 41 about Desert Storm and the other issues of the day, and Junior, via Hamhock Rove, set a trap for Dan. Looks like Greenwald bit on a similar "too good not to report" story. This ain't beanbag.
DeleteThanks for sharing that link to the Vanity Fair article. Read it yesterday and was really impressed with it.
DeleteScorpie
It takes a big man to admit that he might not have been completely correct.
ReplyDeleteGood on ya, G!
I concur! It's what I love the most about our man Jesse, that he can get over himself in a pretty quick heartbeat and stay committed to getting the truth out there. Jesse, you are a mench!
DeleteG gets a little humility in him when he's had a couple, you know, but he'll be back to himself after he's had an alka-seltzer and an ice pack to keep his noggin from getting too bulbous. Be that as it may, if G is getting weak and wobbly in the knees, his drinking buddies are asleep or passed out already. He doesn't wilt just because someone asks him what he reads, if you know what I mean.
DeleteYeah, I'd be drinking a couple and doing cartwheels too if I had a site built on Sarah Palin making an ass out of herself every day. Thanks, Roger, G keeps saying over and over while he's dreaming of tiki drinks, hula dancers and Sarah's first word salad coming up.
Surprise, Glenn Greenwald keeps changing his story on NSA leaker Edward Snowden and did it again last night on All In With Chris Hayes. Here's the transcript, from LGF contributor simoom:
ReplyDeleteHAYES: In terms of the revelations that we’ve gotten so far, and they fall into a number of different categories, but I do want to ask you, before I let you go, there’s been some push back on the reporting, particularly about the PRISM program, and there’s another program codenamed BLARNEY, that come from those power point slides that use the phrase directly from the servers, direct access, and there was push back by the tech companies who are listed in those slides saying we didn’t give any direct access.
And there’s some question, I think, about what exactly that phrase means or could mean. And I just want you to clarify your best understanding of what the reality is about the nexus between how the NSA is working with these private tech companies.
Now, to Hayes's credit, this is exactly the question to ask. Greenwald has changed his story on a number of occasions prior to last night's interview, and the factual component of his story doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Greenwald's response is telling:
GREENWALD: Sure. We’ve published four stories so far. The only one about which there has been any questions raised is the one that the Washington — the only one the Washington Post also published which is the PRISM story.
Again, that's not true. The first story, the Verizon carrier story, has also been disputed in the above link, and for good reason. Bob Cesca and Chez Pazienza have been all over Greenwald on this. It's a pattern of walk-backs.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2013/06/time-to-change-story-again-glenn.html
Snowden is an American hero and patriot
ReplyDeleteA nation of sheep will have a government of wolves
Welcome to Obama's surveillance state
Troll.
DeleteGo back a few years to who actually STARTED all this - WITHOUT ANY LEGAL JUSTIFICATION!
leland,
Deletehe's beyond a troll. He's a brainless twit.
prob hired by koch for .01 a comment.
He can go to HELL!!!!
So, Now That Edward Snowden May Blab US Secrets To China, Do You Still Think He's A Hero?
DeleteA few days later, however, Snowden's motives seem less pure. And his characterizations of U.S. intelligence activities seem less accurate, more personal, and more naive.
For example:
http://www.businessinsider.com/edward-snowden-giving-us-secrets-to-china-2013-6
Still a hero
DeleteJust typical response to blame the messenger
I suppose you believe everything NSA and Obama say.
Both are incapable of telling the truth
Secret laws and secret courts
Obama's surveillance state
BS
DeleteScorpie
After my first (slight) shock about the revelations, my second instinct was to check out the story and the guy. The more I read about him, the more I got convinced that he is just another Teabagger who was trying to see just WHAT shit will stick to the wall when you throw enough on it.
ReplyDeleteHe overinflated his salary, for one,
he said he left his girlfriend, when, in reality, he moved out of the rented house TOGETHER WITH her;
He said he rose in a stellar way both in the CIA as well as NSA and the other company (where he only worked for three months)
It turns out, he adolizes Rand Paul and Ayn Rand...
In the clandestine service, if anyone knows their name, they're a stooge. Interesting disinfo though.
DeleteThe PRISM Details Matter
ReplyDeleteOn “directly,” “unilaterally,” and the difference between a bombshell and a yawn of a story
Glenn Greenwald and Ewan MacAskill’s account of the NSA’s “PRISM” program in the Guardian is woefully short on technical details of how the program works. This lack of clarity should be troublesome to those attempting to decide whether they should be outraged. Does this program allow the government to look at private communications on a company’s central servers without a valid court order, or is it something more benign?
There shouldn’t have to be this lack of clarity. Greenwald and MacAskill’s followup article identifying Edward Snowden as the leaker specifically mentions his affinity for technical details:
A master on computers, he seemed happiest when talking about the technical side of surveillance, at a level of detail comprehensible probably only to fellow communication specialists.
Yet in both articles, the authors neglected to share these technical details. The closest we get
https://medium.com/prism-truth/82a1791c94d3
Epic botch of the PRISM story
Mark Jaquith’s post The PRISM Details Matter is spot-on. Glenn Greenwald has misunderstood a key technical fact, one that removes the most explosive charge in the whole scoop. And for some reason, Greenwald refuses to correct it.
The crucial question is:
Are online service companies giving the government fully automated access to their data, without any opportunity for review or intervention by company lawyers?
Greenwald essentially says yes, they are. Yet nothing leaked so far indicates that this is the case, and the companies all vehemently deny it. They say they have humans in the chain. The information leaked so far supports this claim or is at least consistent with it.
It looks like Greenwald & co simply misunderstood an NSA slide, most likely because they don’t have the technical background to know that “servers” is a generic word and doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing as “the main servers on which a company’s customer-facing services run”. The “servers” mentioned in the slide are just lockboxes used for secure data transfer. They have nothing to do with the process of deciding which requests to comply with — they’re just a means of securely & efficiently delivering information once a company has decided to do so.
As Jaquith emphasizes, this is not merely a pedantic point. This is central to the story, and as far as I can tell, Greenwald continues to misunderstand and thus misrepresent it. It’s an epic botch in an important story
http://www.rants.org/2013/06/11/epic_botch_of_prism_story/
All good points.
DeleteAnd soon we will have Obama's major speech about this topic, in which he will educate the public even further. I have had NSA clearance, and it is not something conferred lightly. IMO, for several reasons, Snowden does not pass the smell test.
No evidence of NSA's 'direct access' to tech companies
ReplyDeleteSources challenge reports alleging National Security Agency is "tapping directly into the central servers." Instead, they say, the spy agency is obtaining orders under process created by Congress.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57588337-38/no-evidence-of-nsas-direct-access-to-tech-companies/
Well, he's not alone.
ReplyDeleteExperts scoff at NSA leaker's claim that he could 'wiretap anyone... even the president' -
http://www.miaminewsday.com/national/10138-snowden-experts-scoff-at-nsa-leaker-s-claim-that-he-could-wiretap-anyone-even-the-president.html
Yeah, when I read that he could wiretap anyone including the Pres I thought the claim was bogus.
DeleteHere's alot more on the more we find out, the more it's no scandal and in fact is FULL of lies.
ReplyDeleteLater, reporter Marc Ambinder wrote that PRISM is not a secret eavesdropping program but rather a workflow management tool.
http://theweek.com/article/index/245360/solving-the-mystery-of-prism
Reams of public documents point to PRISM being used openly, not for spying on emails but for routine data management. In a 2006 document,
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/nga/doctrine.pdf
posted by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) and titled “Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) Basic Doctrine,” PRISM is defined as follows:
A web-based application that provides users, at the theater level and below, with the ability to conduct Integrated Collection Management (ICM). Integrates all intelligence discipline assets with all theater requirements.
The U.S. Army Field Manual FM-3-55
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-55.pdf
also describes PRISM as a management tool, not a system for accessing server data:
PRISM, a subsystem of collection management mission application, is a Web-based management and synchronization tool used to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of theater operations. PRISM creates a collaborative environment for resource managers, collection managers, exploitation managers, and customers.
How could two respected newspapers get such important details wrong? In his account of interacting with Snowden, freelance reporter Barton Gellman says the leaker was in a rush to publish his purloined documents without going through any fact-checking or verification.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/code-name-verax-snowden-in-exchanges-with-post-reporter-made-clear-he-knew-risks/2013/06/09/c9a25b54-d14c-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story_1.html
Hayden said that even when the terrorist surveillance program was not subject to court oversight, NSA officers sifting through the data at the agency’s Ft. Meade headquarters were constantly aware that they were not allowed to spy on Americans.
“At the height of the terrorist surveillance program,” said Hayden, when you walked into the office where this was being done, you saw these people work with headphones [and] there was a big sign hanging from the ceiling that said: ‘What Constitutes a U.S. Person?’” He called the sign a reminder that the snooping in that room could not extend to Americans unless they were involved in an active terrorist plot.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/12/former-nsa-director-michael-hayden-responds-to-edward-snowden-claim.html
All you have to do it notice how all of a sudden that media frenzy that was going on went silent. They know that they jumped the gun before all the facts were out, in their rabid need to get their 'scoop', at the cost of true journalism. But they won't walk it back, ever, with the fanfare they breathlessly reported it. They don't like to look like chumps.
ReplyDeleteThe next media orgasm is gonna be over Syria and all the ways that Obama failed.
It's like clockwork. One 'scandal' down, another one gets spun up. They feed on it until there's nothing left that they can sensationalize, and then they move on. They're making noise about the Obama's trip to S. Africa, but that's part for the course.
The Right Wing will land on their idea of the next 'scandal' and we'll be in for the same ride with the media...ad nauseum. And it will only grow more shrill as we move to the mid-terms and then 2016.
And you can bet that Baldy will be leading the pack!
Naomi Wolf also has a very good article about how he could be a plant. She raises several good questions with very good points and facts. http://www.sott.net/article/262774-My-creeping-concern-that-the-NSA-leaker-is-not-who-he-purports-to-be
ReplyDeleteThere might be an unscrupulous contractor trying to smear a competitor so they get a larger share of contract work farmed out by the new Utah facility. Hell, if it happens among the leading GC's bidding for contracts in GM plants, don't you know that it pays to throw a little poop at someone who you compete with for every contract bid? It's called unnamed sources. Beat writers eat that stuff up, especially within the beltway.
DeleteNaomi Wolf also has a very good article about how he could be a plant. She raises several good questions with very good points and facts. http://www.sott.net/article/262774-My-creeping-concern-that-the-NSA-leaker-is-not-who-he-purports-to-be
ReplyDeleteIt's all starting to come apart now, a crackup at breakneck speeds and of epic proportions. Greenwald's ego and Snowden's delusions of being a master spy are blowing up in their respective faces, and if this keeps up, they're going to take down a lot of people who should have known better with them.
Deletehttp://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2013/06/heavy-snowden-fall.html
In case you hadn’t heard, the National Security Agency is Red-Wedding-ing Americans’ freedom by backing up phone records and collecting internet data from overseas (some of which involves communications with Americans), all with warrants, and all of which they need to get extra warrants if they want to look at Americans’ stuff. The horror. While the white media completely freaks out from every possible angle, they’ve been all but ignoring a true abuse of the Fourth Amendment, and saying every stupid thing possible in the process.
ReplyDeleteGlenn Greenwald and his source, whistle-and-country-blower Edward Snowden, have completely taken over the political media with revelations that hype well, but don’t amount to much upon closer examination. Now, Greenwald promises more (and more devastating) revelations to come, but what has been revealed so far is about as alarming as an epidemic of Pac Man Fever, which is a far more recent threat than that presented by these revelations.
The phone records that the NSA has been gathering consist of numbers (not names) and times, information that, before last week, I always assumed was readily available to the government whenever they wanted it, as long as they had a warrant. As it turns out, they did have a warrant, and collected the information (without looking at it) because otherwise, the phone companies destroy it over time. They still need a warrant to look at the data on individual Americans. Ditto the Prism program, which collects internet data via legal means (not by unilaterally plugging into all of the servers of internet companies), and requires another warrant to look at the information on individual Americans.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/this-nsa-scandal-is-a-white-people-problem/
Heavy Snowden Fall
ReplyDeleteThe fragmentation of NSA leaker Edward Snowden's story is now picking up substantial speed. As he has been since the story started, The Daily Banter's Bob Cesca has continued to document the downfall of Snowden and Glenn Greenwald's account of "facts" coming apart.
It’s now been more than a week since Glenn Greenwald reported that the National Security Agency attained “direct access” to servers owned by the various tech giants, Google, Facebook, Apple and so forth. And it’s been almost a week since other sites, now including Mother Jones, The Nation and Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish, began to notice significant issues with his reporting about PRISM.
I should underscore once again how consequential the “direct access” line happens to be. The implication of “direct access” is clearly that, unbeknownst to the public, the NSA and, apparently, low level IT subcontractors, enjoyed back door access to proprietary server data, horked it at will and, according to Greenwald, did so potentially without a warrant. Rick Perlstein, in a post for The Nation, quoted Mark Jaquith of WordPress who observed that the “direct access” line is “the difference between a bombshell and a yawn of a story.” (I’m sure Perlstein and Jaquith have been inundated with “Obamabot apologist!” accusations for daring to aim an incredulous post in Greenwald’s direction.)
And as I've said before, the "direct access" issue is where the largest discrepancy is...but it's far from the only one. There may be a much bigger problem with Snowden handing over top secret information to the Chinese and the scramble by Greenwald and company to justify that.
He handed over documents about American cyber warfare against China — to China. Specifically, Snowden gave the documents to a Hong Kong publication. Perhaps he was emboldened by all of the attention, hero worship and deification he received here. Who knows. Whatever drove him to do it, it was phenomenally irresponsible on a couple of fronts. Not only could he have exacerbated an already dubious international relationship, considering how there appears to be an escalating hacking war between the United States and China, but he also managed to turn numerous Americans against him — Americans who believe he crossed the line from whistleblower to traitor.
But this cuts more deeply than any healthy skepticism some of us might possess. Greenwald’s stubbornness and Snowden’s foolishness are actually self-destructive to what they’re attempting to achieve. As I’ve written from day one, credibility will make or break not only this story, but anyone who chooses to blindly latch their own credibility to it. If Greenwald was truly interested in the endurance of this story, he would’ve stowed his ego and done whatever was necessary to preserve its integrity as well as his own reputation; because as long as “direct access” continues to disintegrate, so goes the believability of everything else he’s reported. Instead, the widening holes in this story could indicate Peak Greenwald.
That credibility is rapidly disappearing. Now we find out from Reuters
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2013/06/heavy-snowden-fall.html
Neither Greenwald nor Snowden have proven that they can be trusted and the claims they’re making are massive ones. Greenwald has a history of innuendo, personal smears, hypocrisy, and outright lying in the advancement of a stridently anti-Obama and anti-left-right paradigm agenda, which means that I need his story to be airtight before I believe it because as he’s selling it now it just too perfectly proves his entire worldview. I said it earlier this week but I’ll repeat myself: Despite Greenwald’s smug self-aggrandizing belief that he’s journalistic integrity’s last man standing, he’s actually a terrible journalist. If he were a good journalist he’d be something like a scientist: constantly trying to prove himself wrong as often as he’s trying to prove himself right to guard against confirmation bias or his agenda getting the better of his commitment to the truth. Yes, he and Snowden obviously exposed a program that’s worthy of drawing controversy, but so far it doesn’t live up to the exaggerations they’ve touted it with, and that could very well mean they’re taking everyone for a ride. The story has already been walked back quite a bit, but Greenwald and I bet Snowden as well know full well that it doesn’t matter; all that matters is that first GOTCHA that creates a million headlines. The facts can be sorted out later. Greenwald’s been trying to drop a bomb into the middle of American politics and the Obama administration for years and he just did it — that needs to be eyed with all kinds of suspicion. Also, Snowden gave away information on U.S. cyberwarfare to an enemy of the U.S. In my eyes that turns him from a conscientious objector into an out-and-out traitor. So fuck him.
ReplyDeleteAt this point, Greenwald’s credibility is rapidly shrinking, so there’s very little in his reporting I can actually believe. Beyond that, were you this outraged the numerous other times this story has made news going all the way back to 2006? It’s old news. The NSA gathers data from phone calls and emails. Did you know the Obama administration policed NSA abuses back in April of 2009? Did you know that PRISM was unclassified and generally known among anyone who follows NSA operations? I think you’re outraged because Glenn Greenwald told you this is outrageous.
This story stank to high heaven the first time I heard it. And I was incredibly annoyed to start receiving email pleas to sign petitions supporting this squirrel. I felt the same way about Monica L. I think she was a set up, and while the acts actually happened, how convenient it was to find the only way to smear Clinton was with his weakness, sex.
ReplyDeleteTrue Facts of History: Eric Holder Uncovered & Corrected NSA Eavesdropping Overreach. In 2009.
ReplyDeleteThe Justice Department said officials notified the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of the problems with the NSA program and took "comprehensive steps" to correct the matter.
"The Justice Department takes its national security oversight responsibilities seriously and works diligently to ensure that surveillance under established legal authorities complies with the nation's laws, regulations and policies, including those designed to protect privacy interests and civil liberties," the department said.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123985123667923961.html
Here's how you know that this whole NSA scandal uproar was purely political in an effort to smear the administration:
ReplyDeleteOnly 47 senators attended a closed-door briefing on the National Security Agency's surveillance programs Thursday.
More than half of the 100 United States senators opted out of a meeting with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, NSA Director Keith Alexander and other officials. A Senate aide confirmed the number of senators in attendance at the briefing to The Huffington Post.
This was the third classified briefing in a week on the NSA surveillance programs, according to Politico.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, was frustrated by the lack of attendance, according to The Hill:
The exodus of colleagues exasperated Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who spent a grueling week answering colleagues’ and media questions about the program.
“It’s hard to get this story out. Even now we have this big briefing — we’ve got Alexander, we’ve got the FBI, we’ve got the Justice Department, we have the FISA Court there, we have Clapper there — and people are leaving,” she said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) made a point of recessing the Senate for an hour on Thursday, saying it was so no one would have an excuse for missing the briefing. On Tuesday, Reid criticized lawmakers who claim they had not been briefed on the NSA's surveillance programs, saying it's their own fault if they didn't know.
"For senators to complain that, 'I didn't know this was happening,' we've had many, many meetings that have been both classified and unclassified that members have been invited to," Reid told reporters.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/15/senators-skip-nsa-briefing_n_3446446.html