Clapper, NSAs Designated Liar, Condemns Truth-Revealer Snowden - and Journalists Beware! Testifying before a rare and unusually raucous public session of the Senate intelligence committee that saw yet another evolution in the Obama administration’s defense of bulk domestic phone records collection, Clapper called on “Snowden and his accomplices” to return the documents the former National Security Agency contractor took, in order to minimize what he called the “profound damage that his disclosures have caused and continued to cause”. Snowden has repeatedly said he acted alone in assembling and leaking a vast trove of information on the scope of US surveillance efforts, a conclusion also reportedly reached by the NSA’s official investigation into the Snowden leaks. Asked if the journalists who possess leaked surveillance information counted in Clapper’s definition of an “accomplice”, Clapper spokesman Shawn Turner clarified: “Director Clapper was referring to anyone who is assisting Edward Snowden to further threaten our national security through the unauthorized disclosure of stolen documents related to lawful foreign intelligence collection programs.” Turner declined to be more specific. At the hearing, senator Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat whose questioning last March ended with Clapper lying to the panel about the deliberate collection of Americans’ data, pressed Clapper to give public answers on surveillance activities on American information “sent over the web or stored in the cloud” – references to NSA’s so-called “upstream” collection capabilities, which allow the agency to harvest data in transit. He also questioned Clapper on whether the NSA had conducted “warrantless searches” for “specific” Americans’ identifying information in its vast databases of foreigners’ internet content, an authority first reported by the Guardian. FireBrennan3“Can you tell us today whether any such searches have ever been conducted?” Wyden asked. “Senator Wyden, I think, at a threat hearing, this would … I would prefer not to discuss this and have this as a separate subject. There are very complex legal issues here, I just don’t think this is the appropriate time or place,” Clapper said. linkedin/groups/Clapper-NSAs-Designated-Liar-Condemns-4122540.S.5835390470087278596?trk=groups%2Finclude%2Fitem_snippet-0-b-ttl
Posted on: Sat, 01 Feb 2014 15:04:35 +0000
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