Sen. Ron Wyden is a senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and while we don’t agree with virtually all of his positions, we’re arm-in-arm with him on the need for oversight of the NSA. He’s doing an excellent job and we congratulate him for it.
In the video snip below, he’s questioning James Clapper about warrantless searches. Please note that the last time these two crossed paths, Wyden asked him if the NSA was spying on Americans and Clapper said, unreservedly, NO. Then Edward Snowden’s document drop hit the fan and revealed that Clapper had committed perjury. Unfortunately, the Committee isn’t pursuing that, but as you’ll see, Clapper is walking a fine line with Wyden.
It’s obvious from this clip that every story we’ve heard about the NSA is a flat-out lie. Not only are they sweeping telephone metadata from every phone call in the country, they have an open warrant from the FISA court to conduct individual searches against unnamed Americans. Clapper refused to answer the question.
Note that Wyden says he asked, in writing, for that information over a year ago and has not received a response. As a matter of fact Wyden goes so far as to say he was stonewalled.
Clapper says he will respond in 30 days to the question. We’re not holding our breath.
We’re so old that we can actually remember referring the USA as “the land of the free”. Sadly, we don’t think that applies any more.
President Obama keeps saying that he’s going to somehow fix the NSA, of course he also said you could keep the health care plan you liked – and he knew that was a bald faced lie too.
Sen. Rand Paul is filing a civil suit against the NSA to stop the data collection. That suit is supposed to be filed within the next few days and we’ll see how that goes.
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