When the authorities say that they welcome debate, or that Congress was notified...

[BlueCheese]

Remember that they did everything they could to prevent the public from finding out about this. The program was top secret, and you know that if the executive branch had its way, we the people would never have found about it, at least until 2038. They had no intention of letting us know about this.

Remember also that when Congress did ask questions, they flatly lied about it. Three months ago, the Director of National Intelligence went before the Senate, and when asked point-blank by Senator Ron Wyden, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?", said "No, sir ... not wittingly."

When people tell you this is old news, realize that if you had believed the government in March, you would have believed that no such program was happening.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/06/wyden-clapper-nsa-video-congress-spying.html

Do they really think they answer to us? Or to Congress? Or is all that just words with no credibility?

[JaneyVee]

1. This article states 22 meetings were held. Don't know how true it is.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/10/prism-program-obama_n_3416973.html?

[BlueCheese]

2. That may or may not have been about PRISM, not the phone records issue.

That's Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

[DreamGypsy]

3. Maybe Clapper's response is just a confesssion...

...that the NSA is witless.



"not wittingly..." sheeez.

[BlueCheese]

4. The thing is...

... I don't even want to pin everything on Clapper, despite his answer. It's clear that the intelligence community as a whole had decided not to tell the public, so he wasn't going to be the one to spill the beans right there. It was the policy to keep it secret before he came, and it would have been the policy after he left. This culture and this program are much bigger than one person, unfortunately.

I don't know what will eventually end this program, if anything. If we go another 12 years without a major terrorist attack, will we as a people decide that we should reclaim our privacy? When will this so-called war ever end?