Much of President Obama’s defense of the NSA surveillance program yesterday came down to it being under the oversight of all three branches of the federal government, himself, the Congress, and the secret judges that signed off on the warrants.
In theory this is the case, but the practical matter is something very different according to Congressmen, and even the ones on the intelligence committees, who supposedly would have full access to everything the NSA is doing, often felt in the dark about the big picture.
Instead of straightforward briefings, the committee members usually were given incomplete information, and had to only rely on the world of committee staff who were themselves ex-spies, for any details.
“In terms of the oversight function, I feel inadequate most of the time,” noted Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D – IL), a House committee member. Rep. Rush Holt (D – NJ), a former committee member, said the sense was always that the NSA was trying to confuse members rather than inform them.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D – OR) is a perfect example of this, pressing desperately in hearings for details on the surveillance program for years. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper not only lied to Wyden in open hearings, but went on to brag about that fact after the NSA programs were unveiled, saying he gave the “least untruthful” lie he could think of rather than answering a question he didn’t want to.
The committees are always stocked with enough “yes” votes that virtually anything can get past them, and when people like Sen. Wyden or Rep. Holt pushed, the administration would just lie to them. They won the votes, sure, but the claim of real Congressional oversight doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
Any and every surveillance is about a schemes, for that those who "surveillance" everyone needs to "schism" and by that it means that they need to lie as their main idea to be able to deceit people, senators are included, after all the "surveillance", in this case NSA reports to who that ordered the establishment "surveillance" to effectively spy on everyone.
As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn stated in his war novel, _August 1914_, "Untruth did not begin with us, and untruth will not end with us." Hey, Clapper, you Scheisskopf, how does it feel to have your insulting wisecrack reflected against the words of Solzhenitsyn? With that adage in mind, we must insist that oversight be oversight. The elected representatives of the nation by law, custom, and usage, should have access to everything they are supposed to oversee. If they're stonewalled, that should be a big red light telling them to choke off the funding for the agency involved. Furthermore, they should not rely on self-interested agency heads coming to them and confessing their sins. Instead, the Senators and representatives should make visits and talk with the rank and file. This used to happen, believe it or not! Otherwise, the word "oversight" is just blather, and abuses of power are allowed to grow and compound. And then there is the matter of keeping the representatives of the nation honest. If the American people want to wallow in the Gulag, well, there's not much that can done to prevent it. But, if they have any pretensions to be being a "free people," they'd better get their heads out of their rear-ends and start doing their own critical thinking.
“Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle.”
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Sounds like old Alexander met a lot of apparatchiks like Clapper in the Soviet Union– but then as Europeans used to say at the height of the Cold War, "Russians are just Americans in Baggy clothes."
I wonder how much of this "I wasn't fully informed so I couldn't do my job" bemoaning is in fact only CYA? Whenever it's revealed that the Congresscritters we elected are found to be lacking they always turn to the tried-and-true pleading that they were not in the loop. Of course, it's very hard to diligently pursue the things they know they're not being told when their primary job is to get re-elected – which means fundraising.
Now that government folks may be listening in to our phone conversations, proper phone etiquette in an age of surveillance is more important than ever. Some helpful tips http://envisioningtheamericandream.com/2013/06/26…