Posted on 06/14/2013 8:33:23 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
That bipartisan verdict came yesterday afternoon after a briefing from NSA Director Keith Alexander, whose own veracity has come under fire after the revelations from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Both the Republican chair and the Democratic ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee told The Hill that Snowden was “lying” about both his access to the NSA surveillance programs and their capabilities, although neither could say just how much documentation Snowden might have in his possession:
Emerging from a hearing with NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander, Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and Dutch Ruppersberger (Md.), the senior Democrat on the panel, said Edward Snowden simply wasn’t in the position to access the content of the communications gathered under National Security Agency programs, as he’s claimed.
“He was lying,” Rogers said. “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.”
“He’s done tremendous damage to the country where he was born and raised and educated,” Ruppersberger said.
Asked how much additional information — including other Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act verdicts — Snowden has in his possession, Rogers said, “No one really knows the answer to that today. I think we will know the answer to that shortly.”
“It was clear that he attempted to go places that he was not authorized to go, which should raise questions for everyone,” Rogers added.
There are three possibilities here:
Let’s game each one out. If Snowden is lying, then we’re still left with the problem that no one in Congress seems to know what the NSA is doing with its massive abilities to surveil phone records and the Internet. Rogers and Ruppersberger are supposed to be the most well-informed members in the House on intelligence activities, with supervisory duties over the NSA. It took them a full week to reach this conclusion. As Glenn Reynolds asks, “Shouldn’t they have known this within an hour or two?” On another tack, if Snowden can be demonstrably shown to be lying — and some elements of his story don’t appear to add up, as many have noted — then the “whistleblower” starts looking like someone with an axe to grind for other reasons.
The issues are close to identical for the other two possibilities. If Alexander is lying or is being duped, then Congress also isn’t exercising its oversight role effectively, but also it puts pressure on Snowden to produce more evidence to support his allegations. Apparently, he took off with significant amounts of data, and even the two House Intel leaders aren’t quite sure what he has. There could be a lot more shoes to drop in this matter. However, Alexander and his team would have to know that — and that would make offering even more false testimony that much more risky, right?
Again, we’ll have to see more evidence to know which of these is true. In the meantime, Kirsten Powers offers a good perspective on jumping to conclusions either way — and reinforces that the real issue is still transparency and oversight, not Edward Snowden:
Snowden has been called a “traitor” by House Majority Leader John Boehner. Sen. Dianne Feinstein called the leaks “an act of treason.” The fury among the protectors of the status quo is so great that you have longtimeWashington Post columnist Richard Cohen smearing Snowden as a “cross-dressing Little Red Riding Hood.” The New York Times’s David Brooks lamented that Snowden, who put himself in peril for the greater good, was too “individualistic.” It seems that he wasn’t sufficiently indoctrinated to blindly worship the establishment institutions that have routinely failed us. Brooks argued that “for society to function well, there have to be basic levels of trust and cooperation, a respect for institutions and deference to common procedures.”
This is backward. It’s the institutions that need to demonstrate respect for the public they allegedly serve. If Snowden or any other American is skeptical of institutional power, it is not due to any personal failing on their part. The lack of respect is a direct outgrowth of the bad behavior of the nation’s institutions, behavior that has undermined Americans’ trust in them. According to Gallup’s “confidence in institutions” poll, trust is at an historic low, with Congress clocking in at a 13 percent approval rating in 2012. Yes, this is the same Congress that has “oversight” of the government spying programs.
When one major institution (the Washington media establishment) so seamlessly partners with another (the U.S. government) in trashing a whistleblower, it’s not hard to understand why Americans might be jaded. The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobinwrote that Snowden is “a grandiose narcissist who deserves to be in prison.” MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell complained about Snowden’s naiveté and “maturity level,” as if only a child would believe the government should be transparent about its activity. Politico’s Roger Simon called Snowden “the slacker who came in from the cold,” with “all the qualifications to become a grocery bagger.” That people feel comfortable sneering about grocery workers—a respectable job—and writing off Snowden’s years working as a security guard as sloth tells you a bit about the culture of the nation’s capital, doesn’t it?
But he didn’t finish high school! Actually, Snowden earned a general equivalency diploma (GED), but that hasn’t stopped his detractors from spitting this accusation like an epithet. On Wednesday’s Late Show With David Letterman, Tom Brokaw dismissed Snowden as “a high school dropout who is a military washout.” On Tuesday, Sen. Susan Collins, mocked the 29-year-old man as “a high school drop-out who had little maturity [and] had not successfully completed anything he had undertaken.” Yes, if only he had gone to Harvard or Yale like our last four presidents, who have done such a bang-up job running the country. By the way, according to Glenn Greenwald, Snowden actually worked as a contractor for four years at the NSA, which suggests some level of specialized skill.
It says something about the lack of a positive case for keeping the NSA spying programs secret that the main line of defense is to attack Snowden for lacking the proper credentials to speak out against the government.
Yes, although it sounds a little familiar to those of us who have endured the snide remarks of some in the elite media towards those in New Media, and some of the suggestions that Freedom Of The Press really means Freedom Of The Approved Guild. Just another point to keep in mind ….
Hillery is drooling.
She did hit her head pretty hard...
I was hesitant to call it humor, because this is serious. You’re spot on target too.
I’d believe the dude living under the bridge before I’d believe any government official.
i’m trying to figure out his crime.........and the damage....the only damage I see is to Obama and the dems
They also want to make him less lucrative to other foreign intel services.
Beyond that his claims are a natural progression of things like carnivore, echelon, magic lantern and cyber knight.
Add the data collected by firms such as facebook, google and others combined with disregard for legal limits and a “no big deal” attitude.
This would be my question to ANY Congresscritter, Rogers included.
If and when they pass the gun control they keep pushing can you guarentee on your life they won’t use data gathered and stored to identify Firearm, ammo and supply purchasers and target them for Midnight raids?
If you can’t, it needs to be destroyed!
Of course it is. But the nature of classified information is that it is classified for a good reason- at least most of the time. So we are stuck. Either trust those who are the overseers of the Spy Guys or give up the surveillance. I don't see any other choice.
I do not remember all this furor over collecting FBI files by the Clintons. I mean by this the traitor and treason accusations by peoples in positions of power.
don’t let the focus be on Snowdon but on his information
There had to be a warrant, in secret of course, for this kind of work? The sheer volume of budget required to produce this amount of data could not have gone unnoticed by many?
here is one way to see if you are being tracked
set up a fake facebook page. dont use your last name..just use something else..maybe even something that is not a name..or random letters.
post a youtube video on your facebook page that has very little views and is basically dormant
then watch it to see if it gains traction
We need surveillance, I so agree. I want to be protected and for others to be... but shouldn’t that always be done under the law and within our constitutional boundaries versus opening up new boundaries that are not protected restrictions in the constitution. They are making the constitution a living document. The data they are collecting will/can be used against the citizenry. So, that should had never been allowed to go into affect. Imo. Until, the government has a cleaning/down sizing/reformed things will only become worse. I realize if Snowden is caught, he will either be prosecuted or silenced.
Well I have some experience in that domain as well.
And I seriously doubt that you could know exactly what Rogers knows, what programs he has been briefed into, the possibility that he has technical staff that is also briefed in to those programs. You might be right about knowing more than he does but I don't see that you could be certain you are without that knowledge.
And I'm not doubting that Snowden gave up some things that were suspected but are now confirmed. You are corect about that.
But if you really look hard at the mechanics of identifying a foreign terrorist communicating with a U.S. resident then you are led to the obvious fact that you need a Google like search of the phone records looking for that terrorist phone number. There is no other way. So you can remove the NSA authority to do so if you like (and maybe that's the right thing to do) but you will let most of those phone calls slip through your net if you do.
The thumb drive thing is interesting. An PC on a high risk system should lock up when a thumb drive (or any external drive for that matter) is inserted into a port.
Here is the applicable Constitutional Boundry - The 4th Amendment:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Has this been violated? I'm sure most Freepers would agree that it has. I'm sure that NSA thinks not. How do we decide what "unreasonable" means in this day and age?
I can't answer that question.
Stimulus.
I stand with Snowden, period.
The liars telling us who’s lying is almost funny.
We have a winner! Problem solved. Much ado about nothing. Are the GOPe spokespeople in the MSM and their FR lackeys going to apologize?
I can, If I am not under suspicion or surveillance of a crime ANY data captured on me should be destroyed.
Otherwise this is our future:
Example, a crime is committed involving a shooting. The Cal. of the Bullet is a .223 You bought on Gun Broker 5 years ago a AR-15 over the internet. You live 10 miles from the scene of the crime. Do you want the Feds showing up at your door step demanding you turn over your rifle for ballistic testing?
Or Gun Control legislation gets passed outlawing that rifle.
You really want someone showing up in the middle of the night breaking down your door, stomping your dog to death and shooting your spouse over a rifle you sold at a gun show 1 year earlier.
Those are two actions your goverment would consider “reasonable” to make you comply.
Don’t think so? California is already doing the later.
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